They should have sent a Poet (Worm SI)
By: Brellin
Greetings all. This is my first published attempt at any sort of fanfiction beyond a one shot or…
Status: ongoing
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-23
Words: 98528
Chapters: 99
Original source: https/forums./threads/326362
Exported with the assistance of
They should have sent a Poet (Worm SI)
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 1
Greetings all. This is my first published attempt at any sort of fanfiction beyond a one shot or omake. To start with this story is an SI one, based off of the Worm CYOA write up that's been floating around. For those that aren't aware of it, it's horribly broken. This is my attempt at writing a somewhat serious take on a story featuring a character that could, in all honesty, break the entire setting over their knee and the decisions and choices such a character would make while trying to hold on to their humanity and their perspective. Made more complicated by the SI's incomplete knowledge of the Worm setting, thanks to him "having stopped reading about halfway through".
For those that are looking for stories with a more action oriented focus, with narrative tension based upon threats and tangible dangers, don't bother looking here. The Worm CYOA Powers are quite broken, and I don't intend to play them as anything other than what they are. This story will be based mostly around character interaction and development, and the natural butterflies that spiral out from the introduction of the SI. I can not promise I'll do a good job, since this is my first serious attempt at writing, so feel free to point out any valid criticism you might have with the story, characterizations, or plotting.
1.1 - Prologue
I awake to the sudden realization that something is different. Like the power has gone out and the comforting background hum of my fan has suddenly gone missing. I groan, knowing I'll probably freeze without power for the heater and briefly wondering if I'll have to worry about my pipes freezing. Stupid winter time. I grope about for my blanket to pull over my head, only for my hands to come up empty. Groggily I open my eyes to look about for it, wondering how I managed to kick it so far that I couldn't just reach for it with my hands, only to feel ice trickle down my spine as I begin to notice that I'm not looking at my ceiling, and I'm not in my bed.
The result is nearly instantaneous. A uncoordinated mess of limbs resulting in me flailing about as I attempt to roll to my side and stand up, reaching for the side arm I keep in my nightstand. It takes me a moment, as my head darts back and forth trying to take in details, to realize my nightstand isn't there either. In fact, nothing is.
The bed I was just in, the room I was sleeping in, everything is gone and all that remains is a pitch darkness, as far as I can see. My heart beats thunderously in my chest as I attempt to make out any details, anything I might have overlooked after my sudden and rude awakening. Moments pass, and then minutes. Slowly my heartbeat comes under control and I feel myself calming down. I don't know where I am and I don't know how I got here, but I don't appear to be in immediate danger and that gives me time to account for myself and my options. I begin patting myself down, wondering if I might end up finding myself missing a kidney, only to realize that I'm actually wearing clothing. My clothing, that I know I didn't go to sleep in. A simple pair of jeans, a grey short sleeved Tee, and a non-descript blue winter jacket. On my feet I'm wearing my running shoes and some simple white socks. I marvel at the fact that I somehow didn't notice any of this over the last several panic filled minutes, and make another mental effort to calm myself down.
First thing is first. What do I have? A quick search of my pockets reveals my wallet. I have my old military ID and my drivers license, as well as a few index cards with my friends phone numbers written on them in the event my phone dies. It also has a hundred dollars in it, though I'm certain it only held about forty in it the last time I checked. It confuses me, I mean why would someone kidnap me only to put money in my wallet? I shake my head and make a note to revisit the thought later, right now it's more important to make an accounting of all my resources. Which, as it turns out, is nothing else. My phone isn't on me and neither are the keys to my car or my apartment. Annoying, but with the list of phone numbers and a hundred bucks I should be able to make contact with someone. Assuming I'm anywhere near civilization at least.
Having finished with my consolidation of resources I begin looking around in earnest. It turns out what I had initially mistaken for a very dark room was anything but. I can't find any walls, the "floor" I'm standing on is equally dark and is neither hot or cool to the touch. Looking up simply leaves me looking at nothing but more darkness. There is no apparent light, and yet somehow I have no problems seeing myself or my clothing. Or reading the numbers on those index cards now that I think about it.
It's slowly starting to sink in that wherever I am, it probably isn't Kansas. Still if there's one thing I learned after years in the military and months of suffering through incredibly tedious survival courses it was that if I wanted to be saved I'd probably have to do it myself. So, lacking any better options, I pick a random direction and start walking. I'm not sure how long I've been going, lacking my phone or even a watch, but it doesn't feel like too long before I see what looks like a light in the distance. Picking up my pace a bit I make for the light.
A few minutes, I think, later I'm standing in front of what looks like a giant touch-screen device that is displaying, of all things, what appears to be a Chose Your Own Adventure guide for the setting known as Worm. My mind .. boggles. What the hell is this doing here? Taking a few moments to walk around it I find that there is nothing on the other side, a simple blank surface with no ports, connections, or wires being all that I find. So, lacking anything better to do, I go to stand in front of it again.
I stand in front of it for a few minutes, reading over the introductory screen. I have nothing better to do and this is the only thing I've found other than myself in this empty blank void. I have no idea how long I can last without water or food but I know it will be terrible no matter how long it is. So, with little other choice, I start seriously considering the screen in front of me and what it might mean.
Now I've been a member of the Spacebattles forum for some time so the idea of ROB, or BROB, or whatever it's called is nothing entirely new to me. But for the life of me I can't imagine such a weird scenario actually happening, and certainly not to me. But I have nothing to lose and, in this empty place with me as the only witness, it's not like anyone is around to laugh at me for putting my hopes on this thing being legit. So with a brief sigh I run a hand through my hair and start giving this screen some serious consideration.
The first page gives me a brief intro to the basic backstory of Worm. Two Entities, one dicks things up massively and dies, you get powers and sent to fix things, yadda yadda. Getting down to the meat of the page reveals three basic "methods" for my arrival. The first and easiest to explain is Self-Insert. If I chose this I would appear exactly as I was, with a single set of clothing and 100 dollars, in an alley somewhere in Brockton Bay on April 8th 2011, a few days before Taylor confronts Lung. Simple, sweet, and also a sudden explanation for why I was wearing a set of clothing I had that I didn't go to sleep in and with a 100 dollars in my wallet that I'm pretty certain I hadn't put in it. The evidence for this CYOA being the real deal suddenly starts gaining some serious traction in my mind.
The next option is more complex. "Reincarnation". Effectively I chose or create a backstory for some random person and then determine when and how that person "triggers", the term for an individual gaining superpowers in Worm, at which point I effectively show up and take over their entire life. To include getting all the superpowers. I don't bother considering this one very hard, I have no inclination to have a lifetime of memories that aren't mine and the idea of "taking over" the life of someone else strikes me as getting into some pretty deep "unfortunate implications" territory.
The last option is Endbringer. The name given to the unstoppable murder-beasts that roam the world of Earth-Bet, Worm, with incredible powers and resistances. They are global threats, alien things that appear every three months or so to cause untold levels of havoc and destruction, entire cities and even countries having been lost their rampages. I consider it, briefly, before discarding it. The power boost is considerable, or at least I presume it is since I don't know what kind of powers this CYOA offers, but being viewed as an unholy monster by the entire planet and hunted by literally everyone isn't appealing to me. Aside from that there is the simple fact I'd have to give up my humanity, and I've no intention of that.
So, choice made obvious, I pick "Self Insert" and continue on. The next part determines difficulty. Easy gives 9 points and danger and conflict will avoid me unless I go looking for it. Standard gives 6 points and danger and conflict depend on my own actions and simple chance. Hard gives 3 points and conflict and danger will actively seek me out. There are two additional choices to this. Skitter Mode gives no points without first taking Complications, whatever those are since I haven't seen them explained yet, and actively decreases both the strength and the scope of any powers taken. World Breaker is the other option. It gives 12 points and all powers start out at least twice as strong as normal, it gives no particular avoidance ability for danger or conflict but that's no more than what Standard difficulty gets me.
I take note of the final bit of the page that mentions that my own version of Earth is considered to be "outside" the reach of Worm. This both eases my worry and depresses me. On the one hand I don't have to worry about my home, friends, and family being killed by the eventual rampage of Scion. On the flip side it also strongly implies I might never see any of those things again. I take a breath, focus, and push those thoughts to the side. I can worry about that sort of thing after I'm done with this.
On consideration the choice is obvious. If I'm taking this seriously, and I am, I will not purposely sabotage myself. While Easy mode gives a general ability to avoid conflict and danger the powers don't start as strong and I'd have less points. I don't know how important "points" are but I've got a feeling even a small difference can be considerable. Aside from that is the simple fact that if I'm showing up in Worm of all places then conflict is going to be unavoidable regardless. I know myself well enough to realize that if I had the chance to change things for the better in the shit-sack world of Worm then, given the option, I would. With that thought I pressed World Breaker and moved to the next page.
The next page is, to put it mildly, Jackpot. The Powers page opens in front of me and I read the description at the top of the page. The basic run down is that the powers are not based on Entity Shards, unlike all the other powers in Worm, that they can grow stronger over time given stress and conflict, that they are generally stronger than other Worm powers, and that they can be toggled on and off. Also each choice will cost 2 points. With that done I begin looking down the list of powers.
My jaw .. drops. These things are not balanced. At all. I've played my fair share of games on the console, the PC, and even the tabletop. And I can say without even the slightest doubt that none of these abilities would ever be allowed in any game I've taken part in. The first I read is "Alexandria". It's your basic flying-brick power set except taken all the way up to 11. Massive "near limitless" super-strength and super leverage, which most people forget is important, tactile telekinesis, hypersonic flight, incredible super-intelligence, and complete and total invulnerability to anything that might do any physical harm. It reminds me of the ridiculous feats of Silver-Age Superman, or maybe Superboy Prime, and I can't help but boggle at how this could be considered balanced.
My jaw drops steadily further as I progress to the other options, and I quickly realize that by comparison the Alexandria choice is actually pretty tame. Still, I've told myself I would treat this seriously, and I make sure to read each description fully, taking a few minutes to re-read everything to make sure I understand it all. In the end I pick Eidolon, Power Manipulation, Inspired Inventor, and Kaleidoscope. The Eidolon and Power Manipulation choices were, to be blunt, no brainers. I'd have needed to be crazy to pass them up. Inspired Inventor was the next most obvious. The ability to effectively learn and be able to implement the equivalent of comic book super-science via choosing certain different "specialties", all of which built off of each other? Too easy. That such abstract things as "political science" and "martial arts" could be picked as specialties just sealed the deal. It was basically like being Reed Richards and Iron Man all rolled into one, without the dickishness or alcoholism.
The last choice, Kaleidoscope, was the hardest choice. On one hand it was basically all the other powers combined, in addition to being what I could only describe to myself as a "Planeswalker Plus". On the flip side it also said that you would be constantly aware of those other dimensions you could see, and those alternative timelines. I had no idea what that would feel like, but I strongly suspected I didn't want to find out. I had seen the Watchmen movie. I saw what could happen when someone lost themselves in their powers, when they lost their humanity and their ability to relate to the people around them. I had only to think of Dr. Manhattan, and how he couldn't understand why waving a giant glowing blue penis in peoples faces was considered bad manners, to look at as an example of what not to do. In the end I'd have picked something else before I realized that, at the top of the page, it explicitly mentioned powers could be turned on or off at the discretion of the user.
With that in mind, I decided to chose the Kaleidoscope ability for my "get out of jail free" card. My ace-in-the-hole that I could fall back on in the event that everything else went to shit and Golden Morning went down with Scion as the victor. Until that time though, until that absolute need for it, I would keep the ability turned off. I had no intention of waving giant blue penises at people, thank you very much.
With that I finalized my choices and moved to the next page. Companions. I made sure to read through every description completely, the same as I had done with the Powers section. They each cost only one point but, to be honest, compared to the previous section I couldn't help but feel let down. Each of these people would be considered as a fairly powerful or useful cape on their own, but that was only in the context of regular capes. By comparison to the top-tier however, of which the Powers I had already chosen most certainly were, they were nothing special. The only one of any real worth, in my mind, was the "Friends" option. But I discarded that one almost immediately. I had no intention of subjecting my friends or family to what I was strongly suspecting might be a real-life rendition of "most awful superhero world ever". Remembering that I had yet to see a "complications" page, despite Complications having been mentioned earlier under the Skitter Difficulty description, I move to the next page without picking up any companions.
Paydirt. Perks and Complications. And from the bottom of the page where it discussed in big letters "Victory?" and the various conditions to it I could only assume this was the last page. Time to see what I can buy with those last 4 points I had. Reading through the descriptions of the Perks I immediately come upon the Blank Perk. I finish reading it and immediately purchase it with one of my remaining points. Immunity to precog/postcog and, from the description, the Simurgh in particular? Sign me up.
After that is Shattered Limiter. It's the 2nd no-brainer of the Perk page, an ability that doubles my slots on the Eidolon power as well as the number of charges gained from both Inspired Inventor and Power Manipulation. It also came with, almost as an after thought, an immunity to trump powers which might shut mine down as well. I pick it up, and I have 2 points remaining.
The next Perk is Invictus. Man, it's three for three so far on no-brainers. Immunity to mind-control and emotional-control effects and I never need to be concerned about fear or indecision causing me to hesitate at what might be a critical moment. I like to think I'm a brave man, but I'm also realistic. I'd probably be flinching all over the place, even with superpowers, simply from ingrained reaction. I pick this one up and move on down the list. The next few Perks are all pretty decent but nothing immediately jumps out at me as being worth my last point.
After reading all of them I come to a choice between Secret Lair and Manpower. The first gives me what basically amounts to a Bond Villain base, complete with resources and utilities, that I can live in and work from. The second basically ensures I can always make contacts everywhere I go and ensures that, if I decide to make an organization at some point, I'll have no problems finding recruits or providing the logistics for them.
After a few moments of consideration I choose Manpower. I can always build my own secret base if it really comes down to it with the abilities I've already chosen and I've no doubt I can find or make shelter in the meantime, so the pressing need for immediate shelter is lessened. Well, that and the fact that nothing says people won't invade the base. I'd rather have something I can always keep than something that might eventually get taken from me or destroyed. That and it always paid to have contacts I could call on, and the options it gives me for making my own organization means I can eventually start delegating work once I've established myself.
Perk choices made I look to Complications. They each give or cause various different difficulties in exchange for a certain amount of extra points. I try to see if I can move back to previous page selections to look back to remember what my options are only to discover I can't. It appears this particular CYOA is one-way only. Well, that makes things significantly easier, and also makes me extremely glad I chose the option with the most points at the beginning. I looked at the perks on the page, and then the complications, and came to the conclusion I didn't want any of them.
Some of the Perks were nice, First Impressions and Cloak and Dagger being the ones I was looking at, but I didn't like the idea of having a guaranteed thrown-down with a serious Leviathan for them, and I didn't want to leave it up to chance that one of the "Marked" groups might end up being the PRT or Protectorate. Or, god forbid, Cauldron. The only other "easy points" options I could take was to start in Canberra in the quarantine zone or to get the Slaughterhouse 9 after me. Neither option particularly appealed, at least not when considering that they would "only" get me a couple of perks I thought were useful but not "critical".
So, all that done, I end up choosing no Complications at all. I don't get extra points but by the same token I don't really seem to need them either. I make sure to read through the Victory Conditions a few times, to make sure I remember the conditions that apply to me. Namely "live past the death of Scion" or "Survive 10 years". Or turn on Kaleidoscope and bail the hell out, I suppose, but I determine to stick to my guns and activate that particular power only if I absolutely have to. My humanity is important to me and I don't want to risk losing my perspective.
I press the "Finalize" button at the bottom of the last page only to experience a sudden sensation of falling, and the realization that I really wish I had actually finished my read through of Worm instead of tapering off somewhere in the middle.
I awake, sitting leaned against a wall in what appears to be an alleyway, the sky is overcast and the smell of rubbish that hasn't been collected or cleaned up in some time hits my nose. I wonder if everything I just experienced was a dream before, as if the Sun has crested over a horizon I didn't even know I was looking at, four .. "Sparks" come to the forefront of my mind.
I look into myself and see them for what they are, and as I do I lean my head back against the wall with my face to the sky and I laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Last edited: Feb 2, 2015
Chapter 2
Reserved.
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
Interlude: Actions and Reactions
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
Also, a cookie to the people that recognize the reference in the Thread Title.
Character Sheet
Self Insert- Appeared on April 8th, 2011, in an alleyway off of 5th Avenue, Brockton Bay.
Type- World Breaker (all powers start twice as strong). 12pts
Powers -
Kaleidoscope -2
Eidolon -2
Inspired Inventor -2
Power Manipulation -2
Perks -
Blank -1
Shattered Limiter -1
Invictus -1
Manpower -1
Complications -
None.
Powers/Specialties - All powers start off with double normal potency due to World Breaker.
Kaleidoscope - Turned off, emergency use only.
Eidolon - Powers as the Plot Demands, 12 Slots in Total. Each power uses one Slot and is no weaker than a '10' on the PRT scale, with an average of an 11-12. 20 Charges spent to increase number of slots from 10 to 12. - 20 charges
Inspired Inventor - Innate and intuitive understanding of super-science and other such things, to include abstract concepts like "martial arts" or even "political science". A single charge can create a specialization roughly rated at a 6-7 on the PRT scale in Tinker-technology (or equivalent super-science for more abstract concepts). All specialties integrate flawlessly with all other specialties, allowing for a much greater whole the broader the knowledge base and 'update' flawlessly when any new specialty is added or any old specialty is improved. Additional charges can be spent to improve singular specialties, increasing their scope or potency.
Miniaturization 10 (2 from Armsmaster)
Bomb Making 3 (2 from Bakuda)
Vehicles 1
Personal Equipment 1
Reverse Engineering 1
Frequencies 1
Modularity 2 (1 from Kid Winn)
Communications 1
Scanning 1
Stealth 1
Architecture 1
Teleporter Systems 1
Facilities 1
Power Generation 10
Environmental Systems 1
Personal Armor 1
Flight Systems 1
Force Fields 1
Personal Scale Weapons 1
Security Systems 1
Hollywood Hacking 7
Robotics 1
Cybernetics 1
Biotechnology 3 (2 from Bonesaw)
Medical Equipment 1
Self Repair 1
Programming 1
Money Laundering 1
Computer Systems 7
Economics 1
Exotic Materials 1
Lasers 1
Nanotechnology 1
Drones 1
Heavy Armor 1
Efficiency 10
Maritime Structures 1
Large Scale Construction 1
Dimensional Mechanics 6
Portals 1
Education 1
Identity Creation 1
Bureaucracy 1
Doomsday Weapons 10
Ragnarok Proofing 10
Biomes 2 (2 from Mannequin)
Power Regulation 10
Chemicals 1 (1 from unnamed New York tinker)
Potions 1 (1 from Unnamed New York tinker)
Planet Cracking 10
Power Projection 10
Gravimetics 10
Exotic Energies 12 (12 from Simurgh)
Power Manipulation - Ability to sense cape "powers" within a 100 meter radius of self. Any ability within this radius can be copied, stolen, suppressed, modified, or shared with any other applicable target in range. Modifying of any powers requires charges, and all powers copied or stolen default to the "off" state until the user decides to turn them "on". All powers copied or stolen can be turned on and off at will. "Sharing" a power, aka: giving a power to a valid target, does not require charges however it does require either giving up the power or, alternatively, spending sufficient charges in order to duplicate the power normally. 10 Charges are gained automatically every day at approximately Midnight, Brockton Bay local time. 1 Charge can be spent to make a power with a rough ranking of 6-7 on the PRT scale. Additional charges can increase the scope, potency, or range of powers and can also be used to remove limitations, if any, or to change the mechanics of how a power works. 20 charges spent to increase the range of sensing and manipulating powers by 400 additional meters, for a 500 meter radius total. - 20 Charges
Powers Created via Power Manipulation -
Perfect Self - A Brute ability that causes the body to transform to an ideal state of perfect health. Removes blemishes, calluses, and gives a general "air brushed" effect. Immunity to non-tinker poisons/diseases with a strong resistance to tinker versions. Powerful regenerative factor capable of restoring body to "perfect health" within moments, though missing or severely damaged limbs and extremities take longer in proportion to the damage sustained. Passive effect of increasing general strength and cardiovascular ability in addition to improved senses of vision and hearing, though all are within standard human limits. - 3 Charges
Justified Paranoia - Classical danger sense, ala "Spiderman". User gains an intuitive feeling for impending danger in addition to a brief idea as to the nature of it. Enhanced reflexes rounds out the power, allowing the properly paranoid to make use of the warning. Only works on self, and only triggers in reaction to actual danger that might result in physical harm. Can be "turned up" to give warnings to lesser degrees of danger, but results in excessive "false positives". How much paranoia is actually justified? - 2 Charges
Wall Flower - A Thinker ability which gives an instinctive knowledge of how best to avoid notice. How to dress, how to act, how to deflect attention, and how best to take advantage of distractions all come naturally to the user. Does not actually prevent the user from being noticed, but instead informs the user how best to be "unseen/unimportant" even to those aware of them. It is not fool-proof, sufficiently inquisitive observers or acting "out of character" will spoil the effect. - 1 Charge
Dress to Impress - A Shaker ability which allows the user to create clothing of all kinds and colors for any variety of situation. Can also be used to create costumes or armor and can even imitate the looks, though not the abilities, of Tinker Tech. The clothing created is quite durable and a simple reflexive reapplication of the ability will repair tears, cracks, and remove dirt and stains. A quirk of the power causes generated clothing to disappear if removed more than 50ft from the user. - 1 Charge
Needs? What Needs? - Removes the need for sleep and greatly reduces the need for eating and drinking. Further the user will not experience negative effects from extremes of heat or cold, allowing them to lay out under the sun and stars all day or night if they wish with no ill effect in even the most unforgiving environs. An additional charge has removed the need for Air/breathing, and has dramatically boosted the users resistance to sources of heat and cold - 2 Charges
Two steps Forward, One step Back - A Mover ability that allows the user to teleport to any place they can see within 500 feet in rapid succession, or to any location they've previously teleported to within the last minute. Momentum is conserved on "steps" forward, but on "steps" backwards (to a previous location) momentum is not conserved. - 1 Charge
Moveable Object - A Brute power that works by countering force with force, but it only works up to a certain amount. Small arms fire is stopped dead, dropping to the ground the moment it makes contact. Stronger blows however are merely blunted, not stopped, so sufficient force will overcome the protection. Most such things capable of hitting that hard will also knock back the user a considerable distance, hence the name. - 1 Charge
Nothing to see Here, Move Along - A Trump/Stranger ability specifically designed to counter Tattletale and others like her. This power encourages any Thinker powers targeting the user to come to the conclusion that there is nothing of interest or note about the user and that there are no further meaningful details to be had regardless of what the user may, or may not, be doing. Of note is that only the Thinker power itself is fooled, the individual using the power however is fully capable of coming to their own, un-aided by powers, conclusion. Another charge was spent such that the user can now change what message Thinker powers receive, being as varied as 'potato' to perhaps even nothing at all. This was done so that individuals would not be able to link the users projections to the user because of commonality of defense. - 3 Charges
All Seeing Eye - A Trump power whose name comes from Tattletales PHO Handle. This power allows the user to automatically notice and nullify, for themselves only, any Stranger effect that comes within their line of sight or, in the event line of sight is blocked, within a 50 meter radius. Further the nature of the Stranger ability will also be discerned. - 3 Charges
Sight Beyond Sight, and other Senses - A Thinker power that dramatically increases the natural senses of the user to superhuman levels. Vision is comparable to that of an Eagle, Hearing akin to an Owl or Bat, Smell comparable to a Bloodhound, and so on and so forth. Further no sense can ever be overwhelmed by raw sensory intake, and the user has no issues differentiating information that their senses provide them. - 2 Charges
More Uber - A Thinker power whose idea was shamelessly stolen from Uber. Allows the user to have any 3 skills at a master level of proficiency. Skills can be switched out on the fly, and further do not require concentration to maintain. - 2 Charges
Tobi's a Good Boy - A Breaker/Mover power inspired by Tobi's intangibility power from the Naruto series. Allows the user to become completely and totally intangible, and can selectively determine what does and does not interact with them. Certain parts of the user can be hit, theoretically, at the exact moment that those parts interact with surrounding objects or individuals. User has complete and total control over the intangible state at all times and across the whole body and can reflexively switch between states at incredibly rapid speeds, even causing some parts of the body to be intangible while others aren't. The power also affects worn or held equipment. - 5 Charges
Scale to Conflict - A power copied from Lung and modified via Power Manipulation. Instead of turning the user into a dragon in response to, or anticipation of, conflict this power instead now serves to boost the effectiveness of other powers that the user has. There is no physical change or 'tell', and the powers return to their default strength once the conflict/anticipation is over. The initial passive boost is minor, but quickly ramps up the longer the user continues to engage in whatever conflict they find themselves participating in. Unlike Lung's power which, theoretically, had no ceiling or limit this power can not boost other abilities by more than five times their initial strength, regardless of any other factors. Usually the boost will be substantially below that however, rarely exceeding triple normal strength. - 10 charges.
Punch Clock(blocker) - A power that allows the user to ignore areas of accelerated or decelerated time, allowing them to move freely in or out of such areas to no harmful effect to include areas of stopped time. Also renders user and worn/carried equipment immune to having their temporal state altered against their will. - 1 charge
Like Water off a Ducks Back - A shaker power specifically designed to counter the Leviathan. As a passive effect it renders the internals of the user and anything they are wearing or carrying completely immune to any form of liquid control. Mechanically this means Leviathan can not cause the blood or other liquids inside the user or their carried/worn equipment to explode out of them. As an active effect, which may be turned on or off independently of the rest of the power, it causes liquids of all types to harmlessly part around the users body, in addition to any worn or carried equipment. No matter the force behind the liquid, the speed at which it travels, or the pressure behind it liquids of all forms may be moved through without any concern for damage. Mechanically this means that if Leviathan were to speed at the user and then allow the water shadow to rush forward to cause damage it would, instead, harmlessly pass around the user to absolutely no effect at all. This effect extends to all liquids when turned on, not just water. - 5 Charges
Three Days? Try Three Minutes - A power designed to mimic the true strength of the Endbringers. It allows the user to create an immensely durable 'core', though not nearly as hard to damage as the things it is patterned after, that they may place anywhere. So long as the core survives intact the user will survive, even if their entire body is destroyed. They will reform at the location of the Core exactly three minutes after their death in perfect health. The user is instinctively aware of the location of their Core at all times, and may create a new core if for some reason they can not retrieve their previous one. Unlike the actual Endbringers destroying the Core does not kill its user, both the Core and the person that created it must be destroyed within a 3 minute timeframe if one wishes to cause true death. - 4 charges.
Glorious Aegis of Alexandria - The Brute power to end all Brute Powers, an attempt to recreate the CYOA Alexandria power. A combination of the copied powers of Glory Girl, Aegis, and Alexandria. Grants the user a redundant biology, allowing for different parts of the body to take over vital function in the event that the primary parts can't manage on their own. Also grants a skin tight shield, around both the body and worn equipment, capable of withstanding considerable directed force of all types. This shield will quickly reactivate in the event it is pierced or broken, and also slightly permeates carried objects allowing for the user to pick up massive objects that they normally would not have the correct leverage to wield or hold. It also reinforces the durability of those objects, such that they won't immediately fall apart from being held in such fashion. The user may also create an aura of inspiration/courage in allies or an intense aura of fear/terror in enemies, these auras may be enabled separately or together and the user may toggle them on or off entirely, if they so choose, while still retaining the benefits from the rest of GAoA.
The user is also granted immense superhuman strength, and also the leverage to properly use it, capable of lifting thousands of tons of weight with no strain or effort. In addition the user is also granted hypersonic flight, and the shield that permeates their body allows them to cut through the air even at tremendous speeds with no regard for friction, allowing them to travel at full speed without needing to be concerned about creating super-sonic shockwaves from their passing, additionally they have full control over their velocity and direction of travel at all times. This power also grants a truly provides increase in reaction times and reflexes, allowing them to make full use of such speed without concern for plowing into objects they don't want to. A massive increase in cognition speed and general enhanced intelligence is also granted to the user, to include an eidetic memory as well as perfect bodily control of their new strength and speed, ensuring they never use more force than they intend to. Finally a near invulnerable body is granted to the user requiring either tremendously excessive kinetic force, enough to potentially crack tectonic plates, or exotic effects to harm. - the three base powers and 10 additional charges were used to make this power.
Legacy of the Siberian - A power developed by taking the original ability used by Dr. Manton to create the Siberian projection and modifying it. It allows the user to create a projection of their own over which they have absolute control. The projection benefits from all passive abilities of the creator, and further can be the originating point for any other non-passive powers. The creator has full sensory input and control over the projection at all times, effectively allowing them to be in two places at once. The Projection itself must be created within 1000 meters of the originator, but otherwise has no limit or distance to how far it may go or be controlled. Only one projection can be created at a time however the creator can determine what the projection looks like reflexively, allowing for just about any form or appearance to be taken. Of note is that the projection does not 'create' copies of the powers of the original when it is formed, it merely benefits from the passive powers of the original and acts as a relay for non-passive powers. Finally the projection retains all the original abilities of the Siberian, and the user may dispel the projection at any time to give those abilities to themselves. 5 Additional charges were added to this power, allowing up to 10 projections to be maintained at a time. - 10 Charges original Siberian power.
Legendary Sting - A power created through the combination of The Sting and Legend's ability, the first serious attempt at creating a power specifically meant to kill Endbringers. Effectively a more powerful version of Legend's control over energy and creation of multi-function 'lasers' combined with The Sting's thinker ability which grants instinctive timing and aiming ability to ensure targets are hit. Can create a hundred lasers per second and includes the ability to coordinate and manage such barrages. Individual beams can be used to freeze, cut, cause kinetic impacts, superheat, disintegrate, and other various effects and can also be made invisible to regular human eyesight. These lasers may, solely at the users prerogative, also be imbued with The Sting's multi-dimensional attack ability allowing such imbued lasers to cut through virtually anything. As a precaution to avoid self-injury Sting imbued blasts can never be used to cause harm to the person with this ability. - 5 Charges The Sting Legend's power
Gargamel has a Plan - And it's to fuck over the Smurfs, or at least one Smurf in particular. A shaker ability designed specifically to counter the Simurgh. A field that extends 20 meters in all directions around the user, it automatically detects and 'erases' anything that could be determined as 'flying debris' that enters within it's radius. The field only erases parts of objects that actually enter its radius, so larger objects may not be completely destroyed if some of their volume is outside the radius of effect. Living beings are never considered to count as 'flying debris'. Further the field itself grows stronger the more matter it 'erases', increasing in radius in proportion to the amount of debris that is consumed by it. In theory there is no upper limit to the size it can grow to, but it will quickly begin reverting to it's original size and radius once flying debris is no longer being fed into it. Of note is that 'flying debris' does not have to be directed at the user for the power to work but instead needs merely be inside the radius of effect. - 10 Charges
Well Grounded - A Brute power specifically designed to counter the Behemoth. It renders the user completely and totally immune to any amount of electrical discharge, and also insulates the user against an incredibly diverse amount of exotic radiations, with immunities to new types of radiation being acquired when exposed to them. Finally it makes the body of the user, and their equipment they are wearing or carrying, invalid targets for the creation of energy effects. Mechanically this means that energy effects can not be caused to originate inside of the user or the things they are carrying or wearing. - 5 Charges
Many Hands for Many Tasks - A Thinker power taking inspiration from the Queen Administrator shard. It gives the user an unparalleled ability to multitask and, more importantly, direct as much focus as needed on any given individual task that overall efforts are not sabotaged from lack of attention. Functionally this means the user can focus on any given task they are undertaking as if they were giving it their entire attention, regardless of how many other tasks they might currently be engaging in. Has little direct offensive capability of its own but its synergy with other powers is immense, allowing for a truly dramatic increase in the effective use and implementation of other powers. - 4 Charges
Logistics is for other People - A Shaker power designed to emulate the CYOA Psychokinesis power in utility, if not in scope or strength. Allows for the creation of materials, energies, and other things from effectively nothing. So long as the user knows what they are trying to create effectively anything can be called into existence, and in any form the user desires. Creation of complex technologies requires knowledge of those technologies however but thanks to synergy with Inspired Inventor specialties this is hardly a concern. This general effect is actually something that Apex made great use of in the construction of his base, and basically everything else he's made, via a combination of abilities called forth with his Eidolon power. Effectively speaking this power was made for the sole purpose of ensuring that matter/energy creation would always be available without needing to 'waste' slots on the Eidolon power that could be used for something else. - 10 Charges
Strength of the Simurgh - While he could not destroy its powers, because it was little more than a physical manifestation of them, Apex was able to copy them. Effectively this grants Apex all the abilities of the Simurgh, though for his own peace of mind and out of concern for issues of perspective he keeps the precognitive portion of the power turned off.
The Costume
The armor that Apex wears to fool people into assuming he is "only" a Tinker. It's design aesthetics were shamelessly stolen, from the picture for Inspired Inventor, from the Worm CYOA that gave the SI his powers.
[img: data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7]
The same armor, from a different angle with the face plate "retracted". Note the face is not an exact likeness and his hair is cut short, akin to a high-fade.
[img: data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7]
Last edited: Feb 23, 2015
Chapter 3
Lalzparty said:
Huh, interesting.
Very interesting in its premise.
The description of each one of your choices were fine, but having no words spoken or personalized reaction with definitive emotion in your narrative made it seem a little flat. You showed yourself as a person with high practicality and logic, but when you react to a situation, for example…
It would be nice if we could read what kind of words and images flashed through your mind in this exact situation.
An internal thoughts, like: "Wha-what the hell?! The nightstand-where the fuck is-"
Makes the story more personal, and it doesn't seem like we are watching a silent video. The your internal consideration of your choices, told in your "voice" night be necessary.
Maybe.
Or you just did your first snippet this way on purpose for better comprehension for the reader.
All my words are, of course, my opinions, so think upon them however you will. I hope you finish this story, unlike many other worm fics that do not reach their end.
Good luck.
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I'll take that into consideration. I initially thought about including some dialogue in this prologue chapter, but I'm not generally the type to talk to myself during a dangerous situation.
backgroundnoise said:
Is it Contact?
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Hmm, I suppose the reference fits but the actual reference the title is making is to something from StarCraft.
Last edited: Feb 1, 2015
Chapter 4
Robotninja said:
You'll have 20 points per day, as well as 20 Eidolon Powers. Which are all going to be at ten ratings.
If I had any skill at writing, I would try for an Endbringer based Worldbreaker run. Just troll through the multiverse.
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Actually no, it's "just" 10 charges per and 10 slots for the Eidolon powers. World Breaker makes the powers stronger, but only the Shattered Limiter perk actually increases the number of charges/slots gained. Basically the powers that Eidolon calls up, and the powers/specialties created through Power Manipulation and Inspired Inventor, are all stronger than they otherwise would be. But the SI is still limited to "only" 10 charges per day for PM/II and 10 slots for Eidolon.
The specifics aren't likely to come up too often, since the Eidolon ability is basically "powers as the plot demands", but it can be assumed that at any given moment the SI will probably have the correct power on hand in order to carry out whatever he's doing. The question of course being, what does the SI choose to do? And therein lines the general thrust of the story. Not unlike a Solar Exalt from the Exalted setting you already know they're going to be awesome and have awesome powers. So it isn't really a question of "are they awesome" so much as "what do they do now that they are awesome?". I'm going to try to answer that question in this story, in as faithful a way as I can to how I think I might act, while also trying to make it entertaining.
Query said:
Surprised he didn't pick the Alexandria power though I mean it is blanket immunity to physical harm with a nice increase all across the board.
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Since it isn't likely to come up in the story, the Alexandria power is the one he would have picked if he hadn't chosen Kaleidoscope. And the only real reason he chose Kaleidoscope at all was because it could serve as a last-ditch fail safe in the event that Scion won Golden Morning. Just think of the time Nibbler, from Futurama, yelled out "everyone out of the universe!" and then collapsed into himself. That's the basic idea. Also from a more practical standpoint as an author I don't know how I would act with a massively superhuman intelligence, and thus it would be even more difficult to actually write.
Last edited: Feb 5, 2015
Chapter 5
I will say this much, trolling is not going to happen. The SI ended up choosing his powers and perks under the assumption that it was really happening and that his decisions actually mattered, thanks to the manner of his kidnapping and the fact that he was wearing a single set of clothing, that he knew he didn't go to sleep in, and had 100$ in his wallet which he also knew wasn't there previously. Just like in the description of the Self-Insert option.
Basically while I might tease people or something in real life in a joking manner, I tend to be a fairly serious person most of the time. Especially when matters of survival are a concern or when life or death situations are happening. And knowingly showing up in Worm of all places? That qualifies as both a survival and life or death situation. At the same time. He might ease up given a bit of time, but his initial concerns and plans are all going to be based around the idea that he has currently found himself in a serious Survival situation.
Chapter 6
1.2
A few minutes later and I had finally managed to get my laughter under control. A good thing too, considering once I had finally calmed down I realized I was still sitting in an alleyway filled with trash in a city I knew only the barest details about.
Okay, okay. Shit. Brockton Bay, what do I know about Brockton Bay? A moment passes as I think about it. Wait, fuck Brockton Bay. I need to buff up first before some ganger mugs me. Alright Eidolon, show me what you got!
Nothing.
"Eidolon, activate. Eidolon, turn on. Eidolon, stop fucking ignoring me!" My voice rises steadily in frustration as I continue running through whatever I think might activate the damn power.
Still nothing.
Okay, what the hell is with this? I know it's there, I just felt the damn thing. Hands up, palm face, start thinking. Alright John, you can do this. You know it's there so why isn't it turning on? Maybe .. maybe it doesn't require vocalization. The thought bounces around in my head for a few moments before I have my epiphany. Of course. When I saw the powers I didn't see them in the real world, I saw them in myself. Or maybe, an image I had of what something like that might seem like?
Deep breaths. Focus. I try to grasp for that feeling, that vista I saw as four Suns crested the horizon over a landscape I was sure couldn't have belonged on Earth.
Eureka. From one moment to the next I can feel myself standing there, gazing up at the Suns that I know to be representations of the Powers that I had chosen. The Powers that were not just mine, but were also me. An extension of my very being. I could barely understand it, but the closest feeling I could think of was suddenly gaining feeling in a leg or an arm that had gone to sleep, a sudden realization that a limb that had been previously ignored had woken up and was demanding I start moving it to get the blood flowing again. Well, far be it from me not to oblige the feeling.
Alright. Here we are. Or is that here I am? Whatever, lets see which one of you is the guy I'm looking for. I start by glancing to the upper most Sun on the right, a glaring Red Giant that seems to dominate that entire side of the horizon. I don't even need to guess on which one this is. Kaleidoscope. Without doubt the strongest of the Powers, and the one I was least inclined to ever use. I can feel it waiting, a simple mental 'switch' all that would be needed for that power to unfold.
Yeah, I don't think so. Sorry Big K but I don't plan on using you unless something goes very, very, wrong.
My gaze falls to the next Sun. It's substantially smaller, perhaps a tenth of the size, compared to the giant Red it shares that side of the sky with. It shines with an iridescent green, and what looks like 10 much smaller orbs of pure white rotating lazily about it. I'm pretty certain this one is the one I'm looking for. Eidolon.
Perfect. And while I'm pretty certain that Suns don't come in Green, I'll take what I can get. Lets turn you on. A mental switch is flipped, and I instinctively know that this Power was indeed the one I thought it was. Each of the ten orbs floating about it, previously dim, flare with light.
Power. Pure, overwhelming, Power.
I can feel it. Eidolon stretches out in a blinding corona of green fire and as it touches each of those surrounding orbs it fills them with it's own Green light. One by one each of the orbs fills itself with it's own unique power. Abilities that, I know as easy as breathing, are now a part of me. Some form of energy control, another that caused a perception filter to encourage onlookers to skip over me and my surroundings, a shaker power that warped space, and several more abilities with the general theme of either protecting me or preventing onlookers from bothering me while I worked through my abilities.
It was, in a word, overwhelming. I don't know how long I sat there in that mindscape simply trying to come to grips with what I could now do, but I managed to pull myself back after what could have been minutes or even hours. Time itself seeming to have paused for me here in this place while I brought myself under control.
Holy shit. That .. that was a rush. Wow. I mean .. Wow. I wonder if this is what Eidolon felt like all the time, back in his early days? Still, I've got time to figure out the rest of this now I guess. I don't think I need to be concerned about getting shanked at least.
Alright, on to the other powers. The next Sun is about the same size as Eidolon and glows a cool Blue in color. The one next to it, also about the same in size, a bright Yellow. I'm not sure which is which, but having already identified the one I don't plan on using, there's no point being concerned. I turn my gaze to the Yellow sun to get a feel for it, and a cool breeze seems to flow into my mind as I set it's switch to 'on'. The Inspired Inventor. It's empty now, but I can feel the 'charges' waiting to be used. I know that with but a simple bit of direction knowledge will flood into it, technical data and designs, schematics and blueprints for technology literally beyond this world. Well .. maybe not Earth-Bet. Definitely my world though.
Okay. What to pick? I could just dump all the charges into something and see how that works, but I've got a feeling that I'll get better results if I broaden the base I'm working from. Still ..how to know what to pick when I won't know what I will get until after I pick it?
I sit down, metaphorically at least since I'm pretty certain I'm currently in my own head, and give it a think.
Okay. I can always go with what I know works. Armsmaster has efficiency, Kid Winn has modularity. Bakuda! Yes, I definitely need a bomb specialty if I want to be prepared for her. After that .. I think I remember Hero had frequencies and Squealer had vehicles. Nothing else springs to mind, I don't think Leet or String Theory ever had their specialties defined outside of 'everything' and I'm pretty certain that won't work here.
I count off my fingers for a few moments to count up the ones I definitely want. Okay. Bombs, modularity, efficiency, frequencies, vehicles. Oh! Reverse engineering. Like Dragon has. What else? Hmm, I remember reading a fanfic a while back that had a tinker with personal equipment, so I'll pick that one too. And .. umm. Okay, I'll need the ability to actually find stuff, Bakuda's bombs especially, so scanning. Probably stealth too so that I don't have to worry about people doing the same thing to me. Last one should be .. communications I guess. I'll need a way to get in contact with people the traditional ways and I don't have my phone on me anymore.
With my considerations done, I make my choices and direct my Power to reach for those disciplines. Bombs, Modularity, Efficiency, Frequencies, Vehicles, Reverse Engineering, Personal Equipment, Scanning, Stealth, and Communications. As each choice is made knowledge unfolds in my mind. A hundred designs, a thousand, ten thousand and more all spring forth as more and more specialties are added, each one building off of the ones that came before and integrating flawlessly with the ones that come after.
So many ideas are spilling into my mind, so many different ways I could build and design so many different things. It's nearly overwhelming, much more so than the Eidolon power. Again I am forced to near the breaking point and again I manage to claw myself back, taking firm hold of the knowledge and shoving it down, wrestling it into submission until I know that it will come forth only when I request it, and never in the flood that so very nearly broke me.
Fuck. Just, fuck. That was close. I .. probably should have done those one at a time. I suppose that's lesson number one, don't reach for more than you can handle.
It occurs to me after I get that out of my system that it was probably Invictus, that perk I had taken that gave me an iron will, that saved me there from my rather glaring failure to take into consideration my own limits. I had a feeling it probably wouldn't be as bad in the future, now that the initial rush was over, but I would remember to be much more careful from now on with how I spent the charges for that ability. Never more than one at a time, and then go from there.
Alright, I've come this far, time get this over with so I can wake up and smell the roses. And hopefully not ashes. Power Manipulation here I come!
The Blue Sun comes to the forefront of my mind and, as expected, Power Manipulation is waiting patiently for me. Another 'switch' is flipped, and the last of my Powers comes to the fore. The feeling is .. underwhelming, to say the least. Compared to the others I don't really feel anything at all. It takes me a few moments as I feel out what the power does to understand that it's natural abilities are somewhat muted until another power, or shard I suppose, comes into it's range. I realized I could also turn it's attention onto my other powers, and even back onto itself, and that I could use those 'charges' I felt to empower them.
Which, of course, left me with something of a conundrum. What to do with it? I have 10 'charges' I can use, for now, and while I could spend them to strengthen my other abilities I could also use them to simply create abilities as well. Abilities that would then be independent of my initial Powers. Hmm.
Well, on the one hand, more power for Eidolon. Or maybe even more power on Power Manipulation itself. On the other hand .. independent abilities. Which I could then give to other people if I needed to for some reason. Well .. I can always empower the other stuff later on, but I think for now it will be more useful to have some 'minor' powers to use to free up my Eidolon ability to look for other things.
Alright, time to think. What do I need? Actually scratch that, what do I want? I can get just about anything I'll actually need via Eidolon, so this is more a question of what do I always want to have on hand? Hmm. Regeneration of some kind for sure. Good health. Some sort of brute power that does both? Mobility too, I'm thinking teleportation of some kind. Danger sense too, makes no sense to let myself be hit if I can avoid it entirely. I'll need clothes too since I've only got the single pair. So a power that lets me always have clothing on hand is a must, plus I'll need to be able to make a costume of some kind for when I eventually make my reveal as a hero. After that .. hmm. A stranger ability? No, that'll just cause unnecessary problems with the PRT and Protectorate. If I need one of those I'll just have Eidolon call one up on an as-needed basis.
A few moments go by as I consider my options, giving thought to the sort of things I'll always want to have to hand.
Well, I know Blank doesn't protect me from Tattletale's ability, and the last thing I want is for her to blab all my potential secrets to everyone she can find. But on the flip side I don't think I'm likely to run into her on the very first day before the 'charges' refresh. So .. maybe a Thinker ability? Something that lets me know how to go unnoticed. Like Batman. Perfect.
With those thoughts in mind, and the painful warning of what could happen if I made all these abilities at once instead of one at a time, I get to work. Several charges go towards my first 'good health/regen' power. Another pair towards danger sense. 1 'charge' each finds their ways towards the clothing power, the teleportation power, and the I'm Batman power. After which I find myself wondering what to use my final 'charges' on.
Wait a second .. I didn't take the Secret Base perk did I? That means .. fuck. I'm homeless. God I'm glad I remembered that before I finished using all my 'charges' for Power Manipulation. Okay, so .. I've camped out plenty of times in the military, so it's not like I'll die without a roof for a few days. Okay .. some sort of survival power. Like, no need for sleep, little need for food or water, definitely need some ability to ignore or deal with inclement weather as well.
Those thoughts in mind I mold the power. Surprisingly it only takes a single 'charge' to fulfill all the basic requirements I was looking for. I guess the power-boost from World Breaker is showing its head here, letting even single charges get stretched quite a ways. It still left me with a single charge though. Not sure what else to spend it on, but taking a page out of the book of 'more defense is better' I used it to create another Brute ability that would cancel out kinetic force up to a certain amount.
I could always come back and change it or upgrade it later if it didn't pan out.
"Alright, looks like I'm done here. Today at least. Now .. how do I get out of here?"
It took me another few minutes, or at least I think they were minutes, before I managed to 'remove' myself from my mindscape. It seems like if I want to enter or leave that place I need to have the frame of mind of 'I want to be there' or 'I want to leave here'. Not too hard, now that I had done it once.
My eyes open and I realize I'm still sitting in the alleyway I first found myself in.
Okay, okay. I'm back. I wonder how long that took. Just shy of 9 minutes, one of my Eidolon powers helpfully informs me. I sit there for a moment longer.
"Fuck, I'm going to have to get used to that."
Okay, time to get up. I need to get out of this dump before someone tries something they're going to end up regretting, then I need to find a hotel so I can plan things out.
And with that cheerful thought in mind I walk out of the alleyway and onto what a nearby street sign tells me is 5th Avenue. I have no idea where that is in relation to a cheap hotel '3 blocks down to the left, take a right, Holiday Inn in 200 feet' .. aaaand never mind. I guess the CYOA wasn't joking when it said the Eidolon powers would anticipate my needs, was it?
Authors Note
So, this chapter represents the character figuring out how to actually turn on his powers, and his first initial picks in regards to II and PM. I realize the chapter itself doesn't really push the plot forward but I felt it was needed to establish how the character understands their own powers, and also to help establish in the narrative that the SI is learning that the overwhelming nature of the powers applies to how they interact with others *and* how they interact with the SI himself. He dodged something of a bullet with Inspired Inventor, thanks to Invictus, and now he knows better, and will certainly be more careful if he ever decides to start sharing around powers.
For those that might be concerned, the SI won't be visiting the mind scape again in the story. Or at least the story itself won't go into such detail again. This chapter established how it works and in future chapters it will simply be assumed that the SI has "done his thing" off-screen in regards to interacting with his own powers. I'll be posting a short character sheet in a spoiler on the Reserved post on the first page of this thread, for anyone interested in seeing the specific specialties or the mechanics behind the powers he just made.
Last edited: Feb 2, 2015
Chapter 7
So having taken into consideration Enohthree's point about how the First Impressions Perk somewhat cheapens character interactions and such, I'll be making an edit to the first chapter and the character sheet. It will be replaced by Manpower, a Perk that has excellent benefits but doesn't end up railroading the interactions between the SI and the people he ends up coming into contact with. Thankfully it hasn't come up yet in story so nothing needs to be changed too much and, due to the nature of the Manpower perk, I can safely ignore what it does until and unless the SI feels like recruiting people.
Chapter 8
letmeon1234 said:
You might want to pick up some sort of immunity to the direct effects of powers, or some sort of area of effect power dampener or something to protect yourself from blasters and stuff.
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That's not really important honestly. Shattered Limiter prevents Trump abilities from affecting the SI and the Eidolon power, souped-up no less thanks to World Breaker, is more than sufficient for anything else. Right now the SI is easily the most powerful parahuman on the planet. He doesn't really have a handle on his abilities yet however, but that doesn't mean he can't use them. Basically while he lacks experience the sheer gulf between everyone else and him is so wide that he'd have to make some extremely foolish decisions to be put in any real danger.
This, ironically, will come up in the story in the future when the SI realizes that the danger sense power he gave himself is basically useless, because it only responds to actual danger that might cause him harm. He's so used to the idea of being a regular squishy human that he hasn't really internalized the fact that he isn't anymore.
Chapter 9
Sithmor said:
Fascinating.
I quite like the narrative so far, and Eidolon's power working as a GPS.
Just brainstorming here, but off the top of my head, some general buffs could be:
Siberian's Absolute Field.
A mover ability. Possibly a field that allows one to move anything in sight with him safely.
Teleportation.
A thinker 'speed up' ability - basically Alexandria's thinker ability.
Multitasking - to keep up with all those different Eidolon Powers and additional powers.
Constant effect to disable Strangers from one's perspective.
Multiple Projection ability at high range.
Spatial view at high range around user.
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Some of these ideas will occur to the SI, some won't. Something to keep in mind is that the Eidolon ability itself is precognitive and so unless he's actively directing it towards some purpose, and not letting it choose powers for him, he's almost certain to have the correct abilities on hand for any situation that might come up. When it comes to Power Manipulation it won't be about choosing powers that he needs so much as abilities that he wants to always have ready access to. The SI will be brain storming future uses for his power charges, but the focus won't be on specifically countering any particular thing so much as instead ensuring he has a solid base of abilities he can be certain will always be available to him.
Chapter 10
Arimai said:
A power to expand your mental capabilities to that of a Twelfth level intellect and further. While simultaneously preventing Librarian's Syndrome, allowing you to function, with Kaleidescope without loosing touch with reality.
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The SI is purposely steering away from abilities like that. He doesn't know how he'd act or behave with such a massively beyond-human intelligence, and he isn't inclined to find out on the off-hand chance that he likes it. Basically the further his intellect and ability to process information gets from 'human' the more likely he is to lose touch with not only what makes him human, but also his human perspective.
It's touched on a bit in the prologue chapter, but he's basically looking at people like Dr. Manhattan as an example for why that sort of thing should be avoided. It's also somewhat subconscious, and his Eidolon ability is reacting to that by avoiding powers that would induce that sort of thing. It'll also come up in future chapters why he won't be looking at actual "know the future" precog powers seriously, because his concern is that he might end up like Contessa, an individual that can no longer function on their own and relies on their power to do literally everything for him. He has no idea if that is what is *actually* happening with Contessa, but it's what he believes is happening, on a subconscious level at least, and so he'll be steering clear of that sort of thing as a rule. The closest he's likely to get is a general "danger sense", not unlike the one he already made, as far as precognitive stuff goes.
Also, as an author, this leaves me with a lot more options to explore. The story would be exceedingly boring, or at least beyond my ability to make interesting, if the SI literally knew everything that was going to happen before it happened. Also, again, Dr. Manhattan. Precognitive ability is basically the #1 thing that the SI can point at that completely ruined Dr. Manhattan's ability to relate to the human condition. The SI does not want to end up like that. At all.
Chapter 11
Arimai said:
Lex Luther is a Twelfth level intellect Contessa is a Fifth. Not all versions of Lex is a villain.
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That's easy to say, but without experiencing that sort of thing for oneself it's impossible to really comment on in practice. As the SI is, you know, an SI he shares my opinion. Or at least he will for the foreseeable future, until his life and experiences diverge sufficiently from my own in order to make him a different person.
Also, again, those sorts of things would make writing this story even more needlessly difficult than it already is. I don't know how I'd act or what I would do if I was super-duper smart and could see the future before it happened, so writing about that sort of thing would be beyond my ability to accurately detail and, of course, make interesting.
Chapter 12
CYOA means Chose Your Own Adventure. The idea is that, following the guidelines laid down in whatever CYOA you are using, you then decide on a number of options as detailed and then, from those decisions, determine what you would do in whatever setting you end up in. Some CYOA are more detailed and involve original settings. Some, like this one, take place in established settings. The basic idea is that after you have "chosen" your picks you then determine how "your adventure" plays out according to your choices.
In the case of this specific Worm CYOA, the answer to that particular question is "fucking hard to write". Because all of the Powers, without exception, are hilariously broken when taking into context the setting they're being unleashed in. As such if you want any sort of story that isn't immediately over in a blaze of Fuck Yeah curb-stomping you pretty much have to make it a character piece, focusing less on the powers and more on the choices made with them.
edit- As for the SI's concerns on Contessa, or rather her power and ones like it, it's a matter of agency. In the SI's opinion abilities like that result in positive-reinforcement conditioning that, as a rule, he will want to avoid. After all if he's got a power that will tell him exactly how to live his life, down to the very last detail, why wouldn't he use that power? But then comes the concern, if he's letting his power live his life for him, is he still really living? Or is he just being carried along for the ride?
It's an interesting philosophical question/debate, but more to the point it's one that the SI has no interest in experiencing, or determining, for himself.
Last edited: Feb 2, 2015
Chapter 13
So, if anyone happens to know offhand, is it established when exactly Noelle shows up in Coil's base? I'm aware the travelers themselves don't show up for some time, but I'm not entirely certain if it's ever stated that Noelle was sent to Coil ahead of the Travelers themselves showing up.
Chapter 14
I'm well aware that everything can be taken. However that wasn't how I wanted to write this story and, to be honest, writing the character that would result from having literally all of the powers and perks would be both extremely boring and extremely uninteresting. For the readers and the author.
That aside, I'm still wondering about Noelle, and if anyone knows when she showed up in Coil's base in the actual timeline. If anyone remembers where, or if, that is mentioned feel free to leave it here or PM me.
Chapter 15
1.3
Heh. I bet Eidolon would be rolling in his grave, if he was dead at least, over the idea that someone was using his power as a glorified GPS. The sheer absurdity of how I imagine his face would look brings a brief chuckle and smile to my face as I begin to follow the directions towards the Hotel my power has helpfully found for me.
Speaking of smiles, I imagine my face must be sporting the biggest smile I've had in years. It's hard to describe, but it's like a weight has been lifted off of me. The power I had created, 'perfect health', more than lived up to the name. I was breathing easier, I could see better, and I'm pretty certain that I was hearing better too. I felt like I was twenty again, like I had just come out of basic training and was in the best fitness of my entire life.
A brief prod at my nose reveals that even that is fixed, the slight crook it had from when it had been broken in my youth straitened out. Of course bringing up my hand to my face also revealed what looked like perfectly manicured fingernails.
That particular detail brought me to a stop almost immediately. I'm not particularly vain, and I can freely admit I don't really care what my nails look like so long as they're kept trimmed. What I was seeing now however looked like the sort of thing you'd see on the cover-ad for a women's healthcare magazine. In fact looking at the rest of my hand revealed that even my calluses, which I had developed over a long period of time of hard work and rough living, were gone as well. Even the skin on my hands looked smooth and even, as if I had just finished being pampered at some sort of beauty salon.
I needed a mirror. Or, apparently, I didn't need a mirror as suddenly my perspective shifted until my point of view seemed to have moved forward a few feet before turning around to look at myself, like I had activated third person perspective in a video game. I'd have thought it would be disorienting, experiencing something like that, but it felt completely natural.
Well, if my power is going to provide, I might as well make use. I step to the side, my posture shifting to take on a more relaxed tone, and lean against a nearby wall. All while in 3rd person. It was .. bizarre. I should have been tripping over myself, but I wasn't. If anything it felt just as easy and instinctual as normal.
I 'zoomed in' on myself as I leaned against the wall to a nearby building, taking care to give myself a good once over.
Hot damn I looked good.
I guess feeling like I was twenty again made sense, because that's also what I looked like. No grey in the hair and, hell, no facial hair either for that matter. Completely clean shaved, my hair perfectly in line with how I normally wore it, as if I had just finished going to the barber shop. In fact now that I could actually see myself I looked like someone had air-brushed the hell out of me.
..Oops. That might make blending into the surroundings a bit harder than I was planning. Looks like I got a little gung-ho on power creation without considering the natural consequences of 'look and feel like I'm in perfect health'.
Well, fuck it. I felt good. Better than I had in a long time in fact. I can deal with a little bit of attention for looking good, and it's not like it matters too much since I figure my eventual 'costume' will probably be fully covering. A brief spin as my point of view settles back onto where it should be and I shrug off of the wall and continue down the street, casually weaving between my fellow pedestrians on my way to the hotel.
Which brought me to my next few thoughts. And boy did it feel strange. I could tell I was moving with a grace I normally didn't possess. My eyes constantly moving and assessing the area around me, categorizing methods of approach, which angles had the best fields of view and how to avoid them, and just how to step and move without drawing particular attention to myself. It felt strange, but at the same time it felt .. alright. Like I was remembering how to do something I'd forgotten, but suddenly had remembered again.
It also made for interesting people watching. Without the need to direct any particular focus or attention to my surroundings, my 'wallflower' ability taking care of that for me, I was able to focus more on the actual people and buildings that filled my surroundings.
My smile dimmed a bit. The buildings didn't look particularly well kept, fading paint or cracked mortar in the brick work, some with graffiti and what I can only assume are gang signs sprayed along their sides facing away from the main street. The people however give me a different impression.
They're .. not different. They're just like I might expect to find in any city back in the States. An old couple waiting at a bus stop, a mother pushing a stroller, a few kids playing basketball on an ad-hoc court in what looks like an old parking lot that I can see down the street.
They're just .. people. No different from me or anyone else. I pause for a moment to take it all in. It's striking, how it suddenly hits home that for all the power I've just gained I'm still just one person in a city full of people that aren't all that different from me. One person among many. I may stand out for my uniqueness, separated from them in a way far beyond the norm, but I make a promise to myself to remember this moment. To remember that for all the power I have that I'm still human, and that as long as I'm careful, I'll always stay that way.
Heh, I guess I'll see if I can hold on to that promise. I've got a feeling it's going to be a lot harder in the coming days.
Ah, there's the hotel up ahead, just like my power had informed me. Good.
Wait, damn, not good. I've only got a hundred dollars on me and I'm pretty certain any half decent hotel will charge more than that. Fuck. Well, nothing for it, time to see what my power has got for me.
Eidolon reaches out, and instantly returns to me with an ability that can fake electronic transactions. Nope, no thanks. I discard it with the knowledge that Number Man has his hand on the pulse of the global economy. I doubt such a small transaction will register as being of any importance to him, or Dragon now that I think on it, but there's no need to risk it.
A second power comes forth. This one looks better. Using the money in my wallet it can make a template to create realistic copies of what I've already got. Not quite good enough, but a second power stretches forth and starts looking for numbers. Between the two of them I can fabricate as much money as I need with all of the serial numbers randomized while still conforming to already printed monies, and sufficiently 'aged' so as not to appear newly made.
Man. I don't really like the idea of doing this, since it's effectively counterfeit, but I don't have a lot of options right now. I fill my wallet with two thousand dollars worth of hundreds and make a note not to rely on this power. I'll need to secure more legitimate means of income, or at least actual money, if I want to stay under the radar of the people specifically looking for this sort of thing.
Hmm. Probably best to just take it from the gangs. I'll be going head to head against them eventually anyway and I think I remember something about there being a 'looting is okay as long as it's villains' rule.
With that thought in mind I actually step into the lobby of the hotel and walk up to the counter, behind which I notice is a rather cute young woman whose name tag reads Alice perking up as I walk in, and smile.
"Excuse me, Ma'am, I'd like to ask if you've got any rooms available."
She turns to her computer for a moment, before facing me again. "Ah, yes sir, what preferences would you like? We have single beds, double beds, and rooms available on all three floors."
"Second floor is fine Ma'am, single bed. Oh, and I'd like the room for two nights please." A few clicks as she enters the information.
"Yes sir, that will be fine. I'll need to see your ID card and the room itself will be two hundred and twenty dollars for two nights, cash or credit only."
Shit. ID Card? I've got my civilian ID on me but I'm pretty certain it's no good. With a thought I send Eidolon looking for a power to fool her computer into accepting it if I need to.
"ID and two-twenty? Sounds fair." I take the money and my ID out of my wallet "You sure you don't just want the ID so you can get my name?" big smile, wink. Ah, there's the blush.
"Ah, no, just procedure Sir. I'll just put your name in the system and have your change for you in a moment".
I tense slightly in anticipation. I don't expect the money to be detected as forgeries, and my power is ready to give her computer a false report if needed. To my relief however it appears it isn't. She doesn't swipe or scan the card, and merely enters my name on a keyboard as she prepares my change.
"Here you are Mr. Smith, your change as well as your rooms keycard. If you need anything you can call the main desk from the phone in the room, if you don't wish to be disturbed by the maids simply place this do-not-disturb placard on your door handle."
I pause slightly before catching myself. "Ah, yes. Thank you Ma'am, I appreciate it. I'll be sure to call down if I need anything".
"Of course Sir, I hope you enjoy your stay here at Holiday Inn!" a brief flush, and as I turn to head to the elevator and my room I can somehow tell she's staring at my ass. Huh.
I find my room with no issues, 203, swipe my card, and head in. It's .. a hotel room. Nothing fancy.
Well, first thing is first. Why the hell did she call me Mr. Smith? That's not my name. I take out my ID card to look at it. Nope, that doesn't say Smith either. I take a moment to look through my powers before I find the most likely culprit. One of the first powers I had 'turned on' when Eidolon first activated was a perception filter that encouraged people not to look too hard. Seems like it anticipated my desire not to give my real name in advance, handy that since I had completely forgotten about it until it was too late, and encouraged her to see a surname I didn't actually have.
Damn. I'm going to need to keep a handle on that. It's nice having options and letting my power work out the details for me, but the casual mind-fuck it just did kind of sours my mood. It was hardly a major thing, as far as Stranger powers go, but just the idea that I did it without even consciously realizing it served as yet another reminder that I needed to watch myself.
All the power, none of the experience. Still it was too late to do anything about it now, so I'll just have to remember to keep an eye on that sort of thing for the future. Along with all the other things I need to remember to keep an eye on in the future.
Fuck me.
Instant, ice cold, Coca-Cola. Fuck, Yes. What's the point of ultimate power if it doesn't have ultimate utility? Once again I've got the feeling that if the actual Eidolon was dead he'd be rolling in his grave at the knowledge of what I was using my Eidolon ability for. I mean seriously, who doesn't want the ability to just conjure chilled drinks out of thin air? Fucking awesome.
Speaking of conjuring things out of thin air, I look down at the note book I had made myself. Apparently I was filling it with doodles of various different tinker tech devices while I was busy enjoying my drink. Well. Chock up another thing I'll have to watch out for. Whatever. I was in too good a mood right now to spoil it thinking about things like that.
Which is exactly why I spoiled it by thinking about other things instead.
I lean back against the headboard of my bed as I give my most pressing concern some thought. Shelter. What was I going to do about it? I couldn't afford to stay in hotels all the time. Aside from the fact that I didn't want to just make more fake money the simple fact is that staying in a bunch of different hotels is the sort of thing that tends to get noticed when people start looking for capes that are 'new to town'. The immediate thought is 'take over an abandoned building' but that runs into the problem of drifters, vagrants, and gang members that thought the building was empty only to discover it isn't.
So, that's one avenue out. I could look into the classifieds I guess, maybe see if someone was looking for a roommate, wasn't inclined to ask questions, and was willing to accept cash.
..Hah, yeah right. In this town? Not a fucking chance. People would be justifiably worried about crazies or gang members being the ones to reply. So that's another one down. The next most obvious option is hiring on with a gang, or the Protectorate.
Nope. I don't even know why I bothered to write that option down, except to make sure I excluded it. I know who the PRT and Protectorate actually work for, and while I can understand Cauldron's reasons I have a much harder time accepting their methods. So the official 'hero' faction is out. No-go on New Wave as well. Aside from being a tight-knit group prone to suspicion of outsiders they're also filled with all sorts of problems, problems I'm not terribly inclined to include myself in.
That and I wasn't planning on rocking the boat by making my identity public. Aside from the problem of me not even existing on Earth-Bet prior to today there's the simple fact that I want to be able to interact with others without having to go to any great length to conceal myself. The simpler reason is that if no one knows who I am or what I look like then no one can find me to serve papers either.
Gangs .. no. I don't even need to bother with a reason. They're gangs. And in this city that means they're either drugged out junkies and thugs, Asian Nazis, or actual Nazi's. Thanks but no thanks.
As for the minor villain groups .. again, no. I'm planning on making big changes, and the only group I'd consider for even a moment would be the Undersiders. And entirely aside from the fact that they work for Coil there's the simple fact that they're strictly small time. And 'group I dislike least' still isn't a terribly good qualifier.
No, if I was going to be part of a group it would either be as a Blue Falcon, soaring alone, or as the leader of my own group of Parahumans. Between the Manpower perk and my ability to create and gift powers it probably wouldn't even be hard. I'll have to keep that option open for later.
Well, that's all the easy options. I guess that means the only one really left is just making my own shelter. I've got some ideas banging around in my head for that, but most of the things I'm thinking of are the equivalent of high-end tinker-tech mobile homes. Mostly due to the fact I picked up the Vehicle specialty with II. I could do it, certainly, but a mobile home also tends to be a visible one. I could address that issue too, thanks to the stealth specialty, but mobile homes also tend to be limited in space which is something I wanted plenty of.
Hmm. I've got two days here in the hotel. And making my own place sounds better and better. I think tomorrow, or whenever my II 'charges' refresh, I'll pick up some specialties in architecture and home building or something. Probably need a specialty in power generation too if I want to be off the grid.
Bringing my head down from where I had been staring at the ceiling, I see that my note book says 'Get II specialties to make house, build house'. How informative.
Ugh. Vast cosmic power and I find myself using it to do interior design.
Well.. I suppose there's nothing for it. With that decided I turn the TV on to the local news and then settle in for some preliminary design work.
A glance to the bedside clock tells me it's just after nine in the afternoon, and I've done about as well as I think I'm going to do on my designs until I pick up some more specialties. I sigh briefly before setting my third notebook to the side, on top of the first two I had already filled.
A long sip of my still chilled and still full, thank you Eidolon, soda and I bring forth another notebook alongside a grimace for what it's going to be about.
Coil. Slaughterhouse 9. The Gangs. The Endbringers. Scion. Oh, and Cauldron too I guess, but in the giant steaming mound of shit that all the major problems of Earth-Bet had at least Cauldron had the decency to put itself into a neat pile first.
There's other considerations too, once I think about it. Taylor. The Undersiders. The upcoming fight between both of those groups and Lung. Well, assuming I didn't butterfly that somehow.
In short, problems. Big fucking problems. Problems I couldn't bring myself to ignore, no matter how easy it would be for me to bail out and leave them all to sort out their own mess.
I roll my pen around in my hand while my thoughts begin to formulate. The first thing I consider is the issue of Coil. He'd come up a few times, as I stole a few pages out of his book when I was thinking about making my own secret club house, and he was also probably the most pressing of the issues I was thinking of.
..No. No. He wasn't. I .. had to admit, of the many problems I was going to have to address Coil actually wasn't the most pressing. That would probably be Lung vs Taylor in a few days, followed by Bakuda. Maybe a few other things might pop up as well.
But .. I hated Coil. I hated him. It's hard to imagine it, how a person can hate someone so much despite that 'someone' being nothing more than a fictional character, but I hated him with a passion I can honestly say I've rarely felt before. Seeing those people on the street as I had come here earlier in the day had reminded me that these weren't just characters on a screen anymore. Weren't just abstractions being talked about on an internet forum somewhere as a form of entertainment. They were real. Or, at least, they certainly seemed real to me. Even my short talk with that girl, Alice, at the reception desk reminded me that these people were people.
And Coil .. Coil wasn't 'people'. Coil was a monster, through and through. A sick and twisted individual that kidnapped a young girl just so he could abuse the ability she had never asked for. That he referred to as 'pet'. To dehumanize her. To crush her spirit. And the drugs. And the torture. Even the sheer arrogance, the gall to believe he could get away with everything because his power let him 'control destiny'. In his own mind, at least.
I hated Coil. Hated everything he represented. But .. I had time. Dinah wouldn't be kidnapped for a few weeks yet and, if it came down to it, I can use my abilities to find her and monitor her. Hard to kidnap someone that's got the next best thing to Scion watching out for her.
But better yet would be to prevent the kidnapping from ever happening. And that meant .. 'dealing', with Coil. I could kill him. It wouldn't be hard at all honestly as even with his power that let him save scum like a motherfucker it wouldn't be enough to save him. Once I got within a hundred meters of him, easy considering his bunker isn't that far underground, I can simply take his power away from him. Permanently. No more split timelines for him. After that would be just as easy. With my ability to move my perspective that I'd already discovered I could look at him from afar and crush him like a bug. Maybe give him a stroke, or a heart attack, or a brain aneurism. Or maybe just make him 'disappear' completely, a body never found.
I think I had to thank Invictus again. If it wasn't for the iron self control it had granted me I think I might have gone off and done that right now. But, no. I was better than that.
A rictus grin crosses my face as I pause to consider it.
Well .. maybe I wasn't better than that. But I was definitely smarter than that at least. I don't think, if I killed Coil, I would have any trouble sleeping. He was as much a monster in my mind as anything I could imagine. But he had an organization. Mercenaries. Plans within plans and, most importantly, contingencies.
Ideally whatever I decide to do about him will leave few, if any, the wiser that anything has happened at all. Or at the very least nothing that can connect it to me.
So, Coil, if I were an asshole like you, what would I set up in the event I died? Well, the E88 being outed sprung immediately to mind. I'll need to nix that. I plan on changing the status quo, but ideally it will be done quickly and decisively. I don't need the gang violence to move into an outright gang war before I'm ready to move on that front. So, infiltrate his systems, figure out what dead-man switches he has set up.
Next? Exploding base. Classic bond-villain bullshit, and something I've no doubt Coil has already set up 'just in case'. Next, that vault with Echidna in it. Or, what was her name .. Noelle. Yes, the vault with Noelle in it. She could be dangerous, even for me. I shudder to think what might happen if she somehow managed to start pumping out evil-clone copies of myself. I'll definitely need to deal with her, assuming she's even there yet, before I worry about moving on Coil directly. It'll probably require me ripping her power out of her, maybe an Eidolon ability or two to set her back to human-norm, before moving on to the rest.
Speaking of the rest, the mercenaries. I could justify, at least to myself, getting rid of Coil. He was a monster, and leaving him alive even powerless was a terrible idea. He was exactly the type to hold a grudge and believe he could get away with anything and, more importantly, there's nothing stopping him from just purchasing another power from Cauldron. Or, also possible, the sheer shock of losing his timelines might actually qualify him for a natural trigger of his own.
But regardless of Coil, the mercenaries weren't like that. Or at least I assumed they weren't. Certainly they weren't as dangerous as Coil was at any rate. I could simply knock them unconscious, spray some containment foam on them, and then call in an anonymous tip on Coil's base to the Protectorate. Maybe, depending on how I felt and depending on if I had already run into her or not, I might even give Tattletale a few hours head start to let her know to start taking what assets she could.
So, it looks like I've got my basic plan ready. For that problem at least. Investigate Coil. No, scratch that, find Coil and then investigate Coil's base. Determine what Fail-Safe's he's got. Deal with Noelle if she's present. Knock out mercenaries, foam, and then call it in. Maybe tip off Tattletale to start stealing shit depending on how I feel.
Oh. And kill Coil, of course. I won't be taking chances on that one, and his power makes him too dangerous to leave alive. I've .. never planned out what could only be called cold-blooded murder before. I wonder what that says about me that, at least in this one case, I don't feel bad about it?
I sigh as I lean my head back and start staring at the ceiling again. I'll .. need to be careful. It's a slippery slope 'justifying' things. I don't want to end up as Cauldron 2.0 if I can help it.
Another long sip from my drink. Thank you Coca-Cola for not being terrible like Pepsi. At least you can take my mind off of things. I sigh again before turning to a new page.
Lung vs Taylor.
Last edited: Feb 3, 2015
Chapter 16
Necoc Yaotl said:
Couldn't you just wait a day and make a power set entirely dedicated to base building? I mean, if you were already conjuring Coca Cola's from nothing, surely you could do something like conjuring materials out of thin air too right? Make a giant flying invisible - intangible UFO flying base that you can teleport into at will or something like that.
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This gets addressed in the next chapter.
Query said:
Wonder if Noelle could clone him?
Ah, the uses of those minor powers.
I'm not sure if Eidolon even has powers like: make soda.
They appear to be usually more combative or extensive then simple.
Does the Eidolon Power the SI have just pull incredibly specific minor powers or was that create Coke power actually a generate any type of chemical liquid power working alongside an aluminum shaping ability?
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There was nothing "minor" about the powers used to create that soda. Obviously the details are glossed over, since they aren't important, but "finding" and then copying some Coca-Cola was absolutely no challenge for the various powers brought to task for it. It was, in fact, really just a different application of the abilities he had previously used in the chapter to make himself more money.
Enohthree said:
So, your stranger power made you a literal John Smith?
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Effectively yes. Now that the SI is aware of the effect he'll make a note to avoid situations where he might be required to show his ID until he's manufactured a believable fake. Mostly so that he can avoid the unfortunate implications of casual-mind-fucking. He's not above using Stranger powers in the execution of a plan or when dealing with capes, but he'd like to avoid the habit of their casual use against 'normal' people.
NoisyMatchStar said:
Wut?
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2100, for those that aren't familiar with the term used in the chapter.
Chapter 17
Dimensionist said:
I'm just wondering why he can't just use Eidolon to just conjure up a building for him in an out of the way location, furnishings and all. 10 powers at a rating of 10 should be enough to craft cities (or even countries) in moments, let alone buildings.
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Who said he couldn't do that? More seriously he hasn't done it yet because he's still exploring his options and getting used to the idea that he's actually capable of these things. He *knows* he can do it, between the II specialties and the way the CYOA Eidolon power works, but he hasn't fully internalized it. If he'd made some different choices in his tinker specialties on the first day he'd probably have been able to build a base right then.
That's part of the reason he's been working through designs and such while brainstorming his short-term list of 'things that need to be addressed'. The next chapter will mostly focus on him finalizing his short term goals, designing his 'costume', and culminating in his first night out.
Abhoth said:
Brellin, you sexy bastard.
Also: With your Eidolon-granted ability to casually create/reorganize matter, and a few points of Inventor pumped into robotics, mass production, and Artificial Intelligence, what's to stop you from creating an army of killer robots (ala Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander/Planetary Annihilation) to solve all of your problems forever? Even in the Wormverse, there are vanishingly few problems that cannot be fixed via the application of unending hordes of unstoppable warmachines. If you program them to think like Bolos, you don't even have to direct them! Just set them loose, and watch the fun.
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While certainly doable it isn't the sort of thing the SI would be inclined towards. He's interested in fixing the world, or at least getting it to the point it can address it's own problems, and that generally means avoided doing anything that will lead to excessive future problems. Which a self-replicating doombot army kind of, you know, is.
Chapter 18
1.4
Lung vs Taylor. An event that, I'm fairly sure happens some time this weekend. I'm not sure on the exact moment but I've little doubt that, so long as I keep an eye on the docks the next few nights I should be able to find it. As I recall it happens sometime around 2300, which gave me a good ballpark figure.
My legs fold idly, having transitioned earlier to the rooms chair, as I consider the situation.
The event is a pivotal moment for Taylor. It's her first real taste of heroing and, more to the point, it's possibly the first time she's ever managed to feel good about herself for last two years. She was suicidal as I recalled, a fact Tattletale had picked up. As if it hadn't been made readily apparent by Taylor's willingness to go out with a costume that wasn't finished and get into a fight with possibly one of the strongest personally powerful villains in the United States.
So, emotionally fragile young girl. Monster dragon cape. I knew roughly how the fight went according to the story, but I didn't feel like leaving things to chance if I could help it. That meant interfering. But .. hmm. When to do it? I could do it early in the fight but I don't think that would be a good idea. Aside from stealing her thunder I, personally, felt that leaving the fight alone until Lung came over the roof for her might be the better choice. That fear she felt when she thought Lung was going to kill her was, I think, probably a good thing for her. A suicidal girl like Taylor .. she needs that sort of wake up call. That feeling that death is right there, and that she wants none of it. Stepping in earlier in the fight was possible, but it would also deprive her of that experience.
It might be a bit cruel but she needed that lesson, that harsh bit of reality, to jolt her out of the behavior she was unconsciously falling into. Of course I'd be doing her, and myself, a disservice if I just left it at that. Break them down to build them up and all that. It would involve 'breaking canon' but .. fuck canon. I had these powers and I was here for a reason. If I was just going to leave things to play out the same as the story I had once read then I might as well just activate Kaleidoscope and bail out now, and that wasn't something I was prepared to do.
I lean back and balance on the legs of my chair as the News drones on in the background. I take another sip from my drink before penciling in a general game plan now that I've made my decision.
Armsmaster had dropped the ball with her that night, but unlike him I'd be there to pick up the slack. I could explain the rules, give her some advice .. maybe even offer her a job or something. I had a feeling I could be at least as competitive as the Wards when it come to benefits, and it would also spare her the potential mess if she did decide on the Wards for some reason only to learn about Sophia. It also might serve as a good way to keep her from the Undersiders.
Huh. The Undersiders. They'd be there too, at the end of the fight. Actually they were the ones that saved her the first time around if I was remembering it right. Hmm. I don't think they'd be a issue. I'd have the fight well in hand, so it's entirely possible they might not even bother to assist. Aside from that the moment Armsmaster showed up they'd definitely bail out. Assuming they weren't scared away by my own presence of course.
Still, that might be for the best. The Undersiders ended up being good friends to Taylor, but they were still villains, and they'd get Taylor involved in a life I was almost certain she wouldn't be happy with. Plus considering I was probably going to be 'disappearing' Coil in the next few days there was the serious question of if the Undersiders would even remain as a coherent group beyond the next week. Tattletale might co-opt them as her own group, depending on how much she could steal from Coil's assets, but it was equally possible she might strike out on her own.
Regardless of all that though I'd definitely be interfering in the fight. Probably just after Lung crested the rooftop. I had no doubt I could hand him his ass, and from there I'd have a clear shot at putting Taylor onto a life-path that didn't involve the shitty domino-effect her life had turned into in the original story.
Another sip. The News is showing some footage of what I can only assume is Aegis flying around on patrol earlier in the day. I still find it surreal to look at, though I suppose it has been less than a day since I suddenly found myself in this comics-made-real bizarro world.
Hmm .. I'll need to pick up a few disposable cell phones. Preload them with some numbers, pick up a few other things as well…
It's a bit past 0600 in the morning now. I don't feel tired at all despite having pulled an all-nighter. Thank you, broken powers, I love you.
I make a quick stretch before putting down the most recent notebook full of tinker sketches I've filled. Around midnight my power 'charges' had refreshed themselves and I'd used them all to pick up some specialties and some powers I thought I'd need for the immediate future. Mostly some anti-Stranger and anti-Thinker, or rather anti-Tattletale in particular, stuff as well as some enhanced senses which I was still getting used to.
I had also suddenly discovered that I sympathized with Superman more than I ever had before, since I could clearly hear at least three different couples going at it just on this floor alone. Aside from that I'd also picked up the specialties with II that I thought I'd need to both construct my own base as well as 'sell' my identity that I was planning on.
A Tinker. The most bullshit of capes. They were already known to be able to assume the powers of any given category depending on time, equipment, and resources which fit my purposes quite well. So long as people were assuming I was a Tinker, which to be fair I was, they wouldn't bother to look any further and think I was anything else.
So, ideas in mind and designs already planned out I stepped out of my hotel room, put on the do-not-disturb placard, and headed out into town.
A shit-eating grin spreads across my face. Serious as today was to my plans I'd also made sure to pencil in some fun. Or at least some fun on the way to work. With a thought my Eidolon reaches out and several of my powers shift. A perception filter activates to ensure my bit of fun isn't noticed, followed by invisibility, before finally with a thought I am buoyed aloft into the air by a souped-up version of aerokinesis.
With a whoop I soar up into the sky and over the city of Brockton Bay, the air gently stirring around me as my power both enables and eases my passing and I cast my gaze out over the still waking metropolis.
It feels.. staggering. Like a dream has finally come true. I can flit about in the sky without a care in the world, moving in whatever direction I please. The next few minutes are spent performing an ever more complex series of aerial loops and twists, my laughter tumbling out at the sheer elation I feel.
With a twinge, and a sigh, I come to a stop in midair, nearly half a kilometer above the height of the tallest building in the city. It's 0620, and I'd spent all the time I'd allotted myself for fun this morning. I'll have plenty more time later tonight, once I've finished building the base I was planning, to fly about and enjoy myself. My gaze turns down towards the city as it seeks out Captain's Hill.
And didn't that throw me off for a moment? I had always thought it was called Capital Hill but, apparently, fanfiction has lead me astray. Still it had a Park on top of it, it was elevated, and more importantly is was fairly distant from the actual Bay itself. If I remember right Taylor's house is actually about halfway between the Hill and the Bay, not that that has any immediate importance to me.
As I move over the city towards the Hill I give it a solid once over with my senses. My vision had sharped akin to that of an eagle, and I could make out fine detail on the ground even from my current lofty height. Combined with a life-sensing power to cover for the areas where my line of sight was blocked I found that, aside from a few vagrants and early morning joggers, I couldn't see or sense anything that would prevent me from enacting my plan I had cleverly titled 'Dr. No would be proud'.
I drop lower towards the Hill, Eidolon switching out several powers as I land in order to align to my current goals. My senses expand in a way that is hard to describe, but result in me suddenly gaining an understanding of the immediate ground, stone, dirt, and other such things beneath my feet to a considerable distance.
Another power comes to the fore and materials begin converting, transforming from one state to another, excess and detritus being removed as needed as I begin hollowing out and fortifying the foundation of what will soon be my own Bond lair.
Thankfully I'd remember last night as I was planning this that the Protectorate, or really just Dragon, tended to use seismic sensors in order to detect possible movement from Behemoth. I had no idea if they had some in the area that could detect the sort of thing I was doing but I felt no need to risk it. As such another power, to prevent subsurface vibrations, was activate and working according both to my own knowledge of the power as well as using the information from my Stealth and Scanning tinker specialties, ensuring I had all the angles covered.
The process is surprisingly slow going, compared to the strength of the powers, due simply to the sheer magnitude of the effort and the need for keeping it hidden. It's approaching 0720 before the main hollow has been emptied out and the supports to hold it all up under the sheer weight and stress of the surrounding soil have been emplaced.
I breath out slowly. It wasn't taxing, but it did require a bit of focus I wasn't used to maintaining for such a length of time. I'd no doubt get the hang of it all with some practice and experience, which I was about to get in spades as I took a quick look to scan my surroundings before teleporting directly into the hollow itself.
It's .. dark. Duh. A brief thought and light illuminates the surrounding empty space. I focus on my tinker specialties, calling to mind the specific designs I'd already planned out for this. A brief thought also activates my 'More Uber' power that I'd created earlier in the morning giving me some *actual* skill at interior design. On a lark I pick up modern fashion and building construction with the remaining picks, to ensure that the base I'm about to make actually looks nice in addition to being functional.
With that I take a deep breath. In, out.
"Alright, time to get to work".
It's about 1723 in the evening by the time I finish to my satisfaction. Dr. No, THIS is how you do it.
I'm currently standing in the common area, or rather the largest common area, in my finished base. It's three stories tall, roughly at least considering it's all underground, and is a bit over 37,000 square feet. I had originally considered a much smaller area, namely for myself only, but I decided in the end to go with something much larger with the eventual thought towards starting my own organization. As such, I made sure not to skimp.
A master bedroom with private bath and kitchen for myself, several rooms that could be used as Tinker workshops or storage areas, the primary security room, and a large briefing/rec room take up the upper most floor. The second floor is dedicated mainly towards guest rooms, each of which have their own bathroom, a large community kitchen, several smaller recreational rooms, the common area I'm currently standing in, as well as a pair of locker areas that may eventually see use in the event I start recruiting. The bottom most floor holds the main power station, the environmental control station, several large training rooms and complete gyms, the armory that would eventually hold all of the tinker-tech armors and weapons, and last but not least the Teleporter Room.
I was particularly proud of that last one. It wasn't capable of free-standing teleportation, yet at any rate, but instead worked by homing in on teleport beacons. They were small enough that they could be carried without encumbering, and could also be placed in various key areas around the city. It wasn't of particular use for me of course but I had made it with an eventual eye towards my future organization. Anyone wearing a beacon, that was authorized for it's use, could use it to teleport directly back here and anyone that wanted to leave could pick any of the various destinations they wanted to teleport to from the command console in this room.
Well, they'd be able to do that once I actually distributed the beacons. I'd penciled that in for later tonight. Aside from all that though the base itself was a marvel. Top notch and intuitive appliances, automated recycling systems, stealth devices to prevent detection from any mundane technology and quite a few tinker types as well, and if I had to be honest the interior décor looked pretty damn nice too.
It was also, to put a word to it, empty. It was brand new, massive, and utterly and completely empty. I hadn't really given consideration to how large it would be once I was done but it really hit me as I walked through it, getting a good feel for it with my own eyes, just how much space there was. It would be .. better, with people. Laughing, talking, relaxing, just living. Right now though it was just me and, I have to admit, I was lonely.
I'd be driving through this entire series of events since yesterday pretty much on nothing but shock value and the elation of having these new powers, but having taken a seat back in that big, empty, common room on the second floor really brought it home to me. I was alone. No friends, no family, not even a passing acquaintance I could speak with out of concern it might reach the wrong ears.
Fuck. Just .. fuck. I didn't ask for any of this to happen to me. Didn't want these powers, this responsibility.
Well .. no. That was totally a lie. I definitely wanted these powers. But I also definitely didn't want the catch that went with them, the knowledge that in a few years quite possibly the only thing that could seriously threaten me even now would be going on a omnicidal rampage in it's attempt to end everything 'for the evulz' because it had nothing better to do.
No.
Stop. I don't need this, don't need to think about this. I may not have asked for this situation but I'm in it now and for better or worse I'll see it to the finish line. It certainly helped, as my mood brightens a bit, that the finish line is much easier to reach when I'm riding the equivalent of an armored train to everyone else's running shoes.
And you know what? If I'm in the equivalent of an armored train then Worm had better watch the fuck out, because this train wouldn't break for anything.
A bit past 2100 in the evening. I find myself flying out over the Docks area, my power shrouding me from the sight of anyone that might see me from below. After I'd collected myself from earlier I got up and got myself to work. I figured if I was going to pass myself off as a Tinker then it would probably be for the best to make the con as convincing as possible. With that in mind I began work on what would be my personal armor suit, and some weapons and equipment to go with it.
It was all strictly superfluous of course, none of it would provide me with any capability my power couldn't do on it's own but that wasn't really the point. I was aiming to fool everyone into thinking I was 'only' a powerful, talented, and resourceful Tinker. Whether or not my equipment was useful for me in a personal sense was secondary to it's use as a red herring to distract everyone away from the actual nature of my abilities.
With that in mind I had gotten to work, and in a bit of completely uninspired plagiarism, ironic considering both the nature of my Tinker power and where I had got the idea from, I stole the look of the actual powered armor worn by the dude from the Inspired Inventor power from the CYOA list. Futuristic, sleek, armored, and obviously the work of someone that wasn't forced to work with 'just' scrap and whatever junk they could find.
That aught to keep those clowns guessing.
After the armor was completed I designed and built a weapon to go with it. A 'basic' concussive rifle that fired packets of compressed force resulting in massive kinetic impacts. It also had a secondary fire mode akin to the stunning effect of a Zat from the Stargate series, and a final tertiary firing mode that would shoot darts tipped with a powerful tranquilizer. I figure if it worked for Armsmaster then I might as well benefit from his idea and use it myself.
Finalizing the load-out was a handful of containment foam grenades, a first aid kit, a number of teleport beacons I'd be distributing around the city in out of the way places, and a Tinker-tech smart phone that I'd managed to spoof the local telecommunications networks with. Oh, and a few disposable phones with preloaded numbers, just in case. And with the preparations made, I headed out.
Man, this felt good. I was flying, I had powers, and right now I felt like everything was going just right.
Surprisingly it stayed that way for nearly another two and half hours. I'd managed to plant several beacons throughout the town, mostly in the Docks area and some local parks, when I heard the unmistakable sound of a young woman screaming.
Within moments I've found the source and flown in close, looking over the side of the rooftop I'd just landed on at what appears to be a mugging in progress. There's a young woman that's been pushed to the ground and is screaming her lungs out, and another young man that appears to be receiving the bad end of quite a beating. It doesn't take more than a single glance to notice the shaved heads of the five young men involved in the attack, nor that the skin color of the woman is white while the young man they're beating appears to be black. Not a mugging then, but instead a racially motivated attack.
The E88. Also known as the Empire Eighty Eight. Neo-Nazi's lead by a cape called Kaiser that has the ability to sprout blades from anything he's looking at. I vaguely recall he's also the CEO of Medhall Pharmaceuticals. They're the dominate gang in the city rivaled only by the Asian Bad Boyz, and even then only because of Lung, thanks to their large number of Capes and, sadly, a fairly strong support base among the lower class and the disenfranchised.
I direct 'More Uber' towards the skills I want. Marksmanship, Martial Arts, and First Aid. It's taken a bare moment for all of these things to pass through my mind once I've landed and with no fan-fair or warning I lean over the roof, mark my targets, and open fire.
The results are instantaneous. Five shots result in five men twitching on the ground, my shots guided perfectly at my targets thanks to my power.
Somewhat annoyingly, the woman starts screaming even louder. Well .. no point waiting. I put a hand onto the lip of the roof and then leverage myself right over, my suit and powers ensuring that my landing is spot on, silent, and without even a hint to suggest the height I'd just fallen from.
The woman, whom I have decided to call Screamer, gets even louder. I look at her for a moment before turning my back to her and moving over to what I can only assume is her boyfriend. A quick tug results in my picking up and then moving to the side the two gang members that had fallen atop him.
He doesn't look too good.
My knowledge of first aid and trauma medicine is telling me he's got a severe concussion, broken ribs, severe contusions, and what looks like a punctured lung. The first few don't seem too immediately bad, but the lung is serious. Without immediate attention he'll definitely die.
I look over my shoulder in the direction of the woman who's finally started to get herself under control, now that she's seen I'm not attacking her and rendering aid to her friend.
"Ma'am."
No response, she's still in shock it seems from the violence of the attack. More forcefully then.
"Ma'am!" I yell. She finally starts and seems to focus in on me, and then on her boyfriend I'm standing over.
"Ma'am, I need you to call the police, your friend here needs medical attention and the police need to be notified of the attack. I will render first aid, but I need you to make that call for me. Can you do that for me?"
A hesitant nod. She's frightened but, like most people, once given direction by what is deemed 'an authority' she begins moving. Her phone comes out and she starts frantically dialing.
I turn my attention back to the young man. Under the guise of 'first aid' I reach for a power to heal him and begin mending his punctured lung. I can't afford to heal all of his injuries, as I don't want to tip off that I have that ability, but I can at the very least reduce his condition from critical to stable. A moment later and it's done, his lung is healed and the blood that had been clogging his airway is removed. I even take a few moments to reduce the cranial swelling on his brain, the source of the concussion, to levels that will not leave him in danger for his life.
After that I begin applying some bandages and a compress, as well as a split along his right arm where I have detected a minor hairline fracture. I hear the woman speaking into the phone asking for the police and the ambulance while I work. Moments later I'm done, and I turn and rise from to face her.
"Ma'am, have you contacted the police and the ambulance?"
She looks at me with a start, probably just now getting a good look at me when I'm standing. "Y-Yes! I have. They're on their way now, they said it would take about ten minutes to get here. Is.. is David going to be alright?"
She gives a frightened look to the man I just finished healing, whom I now know is named David. Clearly she wants to go to him but she's too afraid to step past me.
"Yes, he should be fine. He's got a mild concussion, some bruises and scrapes, and what looks like a hairline fracture in the Ulna of his right arm. I've applied a split, a compress, and some bandages. I'm afraid any further aid will need to be handled by the ambulance workers when they get here."
I take a step to the side, giving her clear space to walk to her friend and motion for her to do so. I'd almost think she had mover powers, if I didn't know any better, considering how fast she got to his side.
"Ma'am, you'll want to avoid jostling him right now. Concussions can be a serious issue and you don't want to risk aggravating it."
She looks back up at me from where she's kneeling on the ground next to David. "O-okay. Sorry. I'm .. I'm sorry, I'm just .."
I raise my hand. "I understand Ma'am. You don't need to explain yourself to me. It's a shocking situation and your friend is hurt. I assure you he'll be alright, and I'll wait here to make sure the two of you are safe until the police arrive".
A small crooked smile meets my statement.
A short while later sirens appear in the distance, and a trio of police cars pull up to the mouth of the alleyway alongside an ambulance. The police immediately flood into the alley.
Then they notice me. The change is instantaneous. Hands go to weapons and all of them slow and spread out as much as they can given the cramped quarters.
The lead officer takes charge. "I'm Officer Velez. We received a call about a gang assault." His statement is short and to the point, the caution in his voice as he visibly gauges his odds against what, to him, seems like an incredibly dangerous individual.
I make sure to make no sudden movements, or anything else that might give cause for alarm.
"You've come to the right place Officers. This is David and .. actually, I didn't get the young woman's name. Anyway both of them were being attacked by these young men to the side here. All of them have E88 tattoo's, so I imagine the assault was probably race related. I stepped in and stunned these men before rendering some simple first aid to the man they were attacking".
His shift in stance reveals his relief at dealing with what appears to be a Hero and not a Villain.
"Alright, I understand. You said you 'stunned' these gang members? What does that mean?" with his off hand he motions some of the other officers to move towards the gangers. A pair of ambulance workers bustle towards David and the young woman.
"Just that. Tinker-tech stun rifle. They'll be unconscious for a few hours at least. When they wake up they'll have a headache, but otherwise will be none the worse for wear. Well, not counting for any bruising they may have from when they fell to the ground".
He visibly relaxes, his hand no longer on his weapon. "Right. Okay, Ma'am, may I have your name please? I'll need to ask for your statement."
The young woman, whom was being looked at by an EMT, glances over at Officer Velez.
"O-oh, yes. Of course. Umm, my name is Vanessa. That's David over there" she points to her friend "We were coming back from a party at a friends place when these guys just came out of no where and attacked us. They started yelling at us, calling David a nigger and saying I was a nigger-lover, and they pulled us into the alley and started beating him. David tried fighting back but, there were four of them and, um, they um"
Officer Velez steps over and puts his hand on her shoulder. "It's alright Vanessa. Take your time."
"R-right. Um, anyway. That guy over there" she points at me "saved us. He just shot those guys, bang bang bang, and then jumped down from the roof! Oh, and he, um, helped David. With the split."
Velez looks back at me with an appraising eye before turning back to Vanessa. "Right, okay. I'll have one of the other officers get your contact information and we'll probably get your and David's statements again at the hospital."
"Okay. Um, thank you."
Officer Velez nods before excusing himself and then steps over to me.
"We weren't expecting a Cape. And I don't think I've heard of you before." It's a statement, not a question.
"Hmm, I asked Vanessa there to call it in while I was rendering first aid. I didn't realize she would forget to mention me, so I suppose I should apologize if I surprised you and your men".
"No, it's fine. It happens every now and then, though I'll be honest and admit that it's never fun running into a Cape situation without warning."
"Yes, I can imagine. Anyway I suppose you'll want a statement?"
He nods "Yes. I got the general gist of it from the girl but I wanted to hear your own version."
"Well, simple enough really. I was patrolling through the area when I heard her screaming her head off. I managed to figure out where the sound was coming from and ended up over looking the scene from that roof up there" I point to the roof I'd leaped from "Once I realized what was happening I charged up the stun rifle and shot the E88 members, once shot each. They were all down before they even realized I was there".
Another nod, as he writes down my statement in a notebook "Okay. We'll be getting a more detailed statement from Vanessa and David later but I don't expect there will be any issues."
I give an exaggerated nod since I'm wearing a helmet and he won't see it otherwise "That works for me. Well, if you've got nothing else you need from me I'll be heading off to finish the rest of my patrol".
I've begun to turn and leave when he raises his hand for me to stop. "Actually yes, there was one more thing. What name should we call you? For the record."
I turn fully to face him again and smile beneath my helmet.
"Apex".
Authors Note-
The SI makes his debut as a Cape! It's not nearly as exciting as he might have been suspecting, being against a mere group of mooks. His base however is finished, he's got his "costume" made, and he's ready to sell the con that he's a Tinker to everyone he meets. Also, he's introduced himself officially to law enforcement with his new Cape name, which someone earlier had managed to guess. As a note the SI has no idea if the name was already taken but, frankly, doesn't care because he justifiably feels he's better suited to it than anyone that might already be calling themselves that. Also the Character Sheet has been updated on the first page, in addition another Spoiler tag has been added which shows what Apex's "costume" looks like.
Last edited: Feb 3, 2015
Chapter 19
Weisser Ritter said:
You should beat Leviathan at his own game by using the greatest power in existence: Colakinesis. Imagine Leviathan getting flattened by a tidal wave of soda, that would be hilarious.
Damn, now I want to drink some too. This fic is bad for my health.
I think that's another power, actually. His Batman power has more to do with that, while the actual Stranger power that he was using right then actually comes from one of his Eidolon slots. It would be a pretty bad move if Brellin were to permanently give himself a power that made him hard to notice. It would cripple your ability to connect or interact with people at a social level of any important depth. In Brellin's case it wouldn't actually be permanent thanks to his ability to destroy powers, but still… Not a feeling that I'd wish on anyone.
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While certainly a funny idea, I suspect Leviathan would have no more problem drowning people in the sugary goodness of Coca-Cola than he would in regular water.
As to questions regarding the "Batman" power, the SI was referring to it like that because it was meant to emulate Batman's ability to go unnoticed, not because it actually made him Batman. The actual ability is called Wallflower, and is described in the Character Sheet spoiler on the first page. It's also not the same thing as Clark Kenting either. It's designed to inform the SI on how best to remain unnoticed or, if noticed, how best to seem unimportant. Clark Kenting is what it's called when you make a disguise to fool other people into not making the connection between your disguise and your heroic identity. Which is, if you'll ready the description of Wallflower, not the same thing.
Speaking of powers and such, I'll be posting an update to the Character Sheet on the first page shortly, in addition to a larger image of what his Tinker armor and official "costume" look like.
Last edited: Feb 3, 2015
Chapter 20
hance1986 said:
Personally I like the hero name 'Sabre'. It sounds distinctive, but still ambiguous. Calling yourself Apex? Even hero names give some insight into a guy's character. Apex… feels he's top of the food chain… better than everyone else… grumble grumble. The name could lead to an impression or expectation of arrogance from you. Could make things a bit annoying.
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Oh, certainly. But the SI is planning to make waves. Big waves. And while he's fine with selling the con of being "just" a Tinker he's also making a statement. People might grumble at it initially but once he starts the ball rolling it will very quickly become apparent that the name is quite apt. Also I, personally, have always been a fan of the quote "There comes a point where it stops being arrogance, and starts instead being a perfectly accurate self assessment".
Also, since the subtext for it is going to be very difficult to notice in the story itself (what with people having little if any comparison to make) the Invictus Perk is influencing him. It's already happened a couple of times in the story, and at least once in the last chapter. He's a lot more willful now, and more willing to take a stand or push an agenda. One of the downsides that comes with a will that is, to quote, "absolute, boundless, and unbreakable". It isn't necessarily a bad effect so long as he makes an effort to reign himself in, but it does result in him not being afraid to push boundaries or ruffle feathers if he thinks it serves a purpose.
And make no mistake, this serves a purpose. In a day or two "Apex" will be (at least partially) responsible for the take down of Lung. So the "new tinker" that the Protectorate/PRT hears about after this particular gang-attack will have their own conception of what this "Apex" is like. And then not even a day later suddenly the take down of the, hitherto, most powerful cape in the city basically gets laid at his feet. It's a powerful statement, one that the SI will be well aware of.
hance1986 said:
And as far as the Tinker powersuit you're wearing goes… the look of the Inspired Inventor doesn't do it for me. Personally I would rock something along the lines of a superhero Dead Space Issac Clark suit. Really sell that superhero Combat Engineer theme. Sleek doesn't always work. Could give people the impression of just an armored costume instead of a Tinker suit that means they don't have a chance.
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The picture, despite how nice it is, doesn't really do the suit justice. In person and seeing it move it is *extremely* obvious that it is Tinker tech. And, just in case anyone had doubts, his rifle is equally obviously Tinker tech. It doesn't get mentioned in the chapter but it can be assumed that at least one person took a cell phone pic of the "new cape" when the cops showed up, for their own reports if nothing else.
The main thrust behind the sleekness of the armor however is two fold. First it's obviously Tinker tech and second, and more importantly, it *looks* advanced. That's a big deal, to people familiar with Tinkers and how they work, because it implies a resource base and an established workshop. No one is going to see that gear and think "this is a new Tinker, we can press gang him". They'll be looking for connections, trying to see if exotic equipment or materials has been purchased, other sightings, and more. All of which don't exist, which just serves the SI's purposes further by encouraging people to look for information that isn't there.
Chapter 21
Query said:
Surprised Apex isn't a name already taken.
Then again it might be… well sucks for that person.
Do you have like second document detailing all the specialties and powers the SI has made and possesses?
Got to admire your restraint if it was me I'd probably spend days creating powers to ensure my invincibility before ignoring BB and wandering around the world creating ancient artifacts of power.
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Oh the name was almost certainly taken already. But, like you said, sucks for that person.
As for the question "do I keep a document detailing the specialties and powers the SI has made" the answer is yes. If you go to the first page of this thread, second post, there will be two "Spoilers". The first, called Character Sheet, is a character sheet that lists his various powers and details how they work. The second Spoiler, titled The Costume, has a pair of pictures showing what Apex's power armor costume looks like.
As for "restraint", he doesn't really need it. Unlike the other SI stories I've seen that feature people having Skittered themselves and chosen singular powers this SI chose 4 different powers *and* had World Breaker as his initial option. So not only are his powers not weakened or limited by artificial difficulty, they're actually twice as strong as they would normally be. With just Eidolon alone he could basically go around and curb-stomp the ever loving hell out of just about anything, with only the Endbringers or Scion posing any real danger. The Watsonian reason the SI *hasn't* done that however because he realizes that for all his strength he's had this abilities for only a day and some change, and isn't yet really familiar with his limits or what he can actually do. The Doylest reason however is that it would make for a boring, and incredibly short, story. One that would be both uninteresting to read and uninteresting for me, the author, to write.
Chapter 22
Ryune said:
You know, I am kind of disappointed that nobody ever things of combining the utility of Miss Militia's projection power and the Tinker power. As long as you don't have the limits of only one item at all times and weapons only, suddenly you have all the tinkertech you could ever want as soon as you want it. Including the best tools to make tech for others.
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I had considered that initially, by having one the Eidolon powers call up an effectively more powerful version of Miss Militia's normal power. But, in all honesty, I discarded the idea as not practical. The SI can actually physically make real, permanent, copies of tinker weapons and devices as easily as Miss Militia makes temporary copies of regular weapons. So all having a version of her power would do is take up a slot that could be used on something else, because he could just prepare ahead of time (or just make shit on the spot) that he doesn't have to worry about losing if he swaps a power out.
Chapter 23
1.5
It's just after 0100 in the morning the next day when I finish patrol and decide to return to base for some rest and relaxation.
Well, actually, I guess that's just relaxation at this point since I don't actually need to rest anymore. Thank you bullshit powers, I have a feeling I'll be thanking you for the foreseeable future.
Currently I'm sitting at the desk in my super-sized master bedroom I had made for myself. It's pretty damn awesome. I think this one room has about the same square footage as my entire house from before I ended up here in Worm. I make use of the private kitchen I included in the design before sitting down to a meal I'd just made.
It's good. Really good. I've got not problem admitting to myself that I was no master chef back home, hell I'd managed to set fire to ramen noodles twice back in the day, and the only two ingredients in that are noodles and water. So to say that there's been a significant upgrade in cooking ability, thanks to 'More Uber', is something of an understatement.
I tuck into the perfectly flavored and seasoned steak I'd made myself while watching the News, CNN apparently still existing here, thanks to the tinker-tech shenanigans that allowed me to spoof myself a lifetime, and untraceable, subscription to the local cable networks.
Aside from the Cape news, which apparently actually gets it's entire own section not unlike Sports, it's much the same as the CNN I grew up with. I don't recognize either of the anchors but it's still pretty informative, if somewhat depressing, and I settle in to watch as I finish eating.
It's airing a story about the take down of a fairly major drug trafficking ring thanks to the efforts of Alexandria and rest of the Los Angeles Protectorate team that she leads when I get done washing the dishes I'd used, my easier when you can just think at them to clean themselves and have it work, and settle back down at my desk to start prioritizing for the coming day.
It's a pretty substantial list. The gang attack I'd spoiled earlier in the night had reminded me that while the place I had built had most of the basics covered I'd actually completely forgotten about the need for a medical bay for potential injuries. It hadn't even occurred to me until I'd needed to render first aid earlier in the night, and I'd made my choices regarding my II 'charges' accordingly to make up for that oversight. I also needed to make some room for a robotics bay and some sort of 'resource generator' for the base as well. I realized it as I was making dinner that while I could just whip up food out of thin air no one living here would be guaranteed to be able to do the same. So, some form of matter replicators were in the pipeline as well.
The more I think on it, the more I realize it's all going to be a continual work in progress. Especially consider that as I add more specialties I'll discover new things to modify, new ways to upgrade, and so on and so forth. I mean I've already managed to fill 13 notebooks, and working on the 14th, and I'd only had these abilities for going on three days now!
I lean back and consider. Man, if I had 'first world problems' back in my old life, what the hell would my current problems be counted as?
All that side though I had also made another discovery last night. My Power Manipulation ability had finally 'pinged' that a Cape had entered my range. The feeling was.. hard to describe. I knew where the power was, and thus the person, and I also knew that with but a single thought I could reach out and 'grasp' that ability for my own. I ended up categorizing the different feelings the power gave me according to the way they felt. The first definitely felt like taking something, like I was reaching in a scooping it out. I knew, instinctively, that if I was to use a big enough 'scoop' I could even take the shard with it. The next was what I could only describe as feeling like I was standing in line a Kinko's trying to get copies made. The next feeling felt like .. well, it felt like exactly what I normally did when I made powers. A knowledge that if I spent some 'charges' on it I could modify or enhance how a power worked. The last feeling though, that one felt different. Very different.
It was like .. like reaching out and putting my hand around something, and then squeezing. I had a feeling that this was the part that let me suppress or, with a hard enough 'squeeze', outright remove or destroy a power.
Not unlike when I first activated my abilities the knowledge of how to use the ability to modify others powers came to me as if I had suddenly recalled a long forgotten memory. Like riding a bike again after half a lifetime of not doing so, the knowledge coming to me as if had been there all along.
As for the power itself, it was actually somewhat mediocre. As far as I would classify it it's a minor 'Shaker' power, one that would let its user raise or the lower the temperature around them in a 10m radius up or down by about 50 degrees. Situational in its usefulness, I guess, as I'd already developed powers that prevented me from needing to worry about that sort of thing. Still, a power is a power is a power, so I made note of where I had found the individual with the power before copying it for myself.
Still, enough time for reminiscing. I've got things I need to account for and a base I need to update. With a sigh I push myself out of my chair and begin my walk around the base, facilities, electronics, designs, and even the materials themselves changing as I began implementing my new ideas.
It's about 0600 by the time I'm both satisfied I've done what I wanted. Now comes the less fun, but no less important, bit of the morning. Finding Coil.Or, should I say, finding Thomas Calvert. I was aware of the 'Unwritten Rules' of course, but I figured if Coil was willing to ignore them than so would I.
Well, actually, that's not quite fair. I'd be ignoring them regardless. Kind of hard to when I already have a fair bit of foreknowledge thanks to being familiar with the Worm setting in general. That wasn't to say I'd planned on rocking the boat too much. It wouldn't be in my interests to ignore them entirely, especially if I was planning on setting up an organization. After all if I ignored the rules so would everyone else, and that could complicate things for my future team-mates and subordinates.
Besides that I wouldn't be attacking Calvert in his civilian persona anyway. I knew he'd be present in his base tonight in his guise as Coil, supporting the Undersiders against Lung's attack, so there was no need to press the issue early.
It's about fifteen minutes later and I'm flying over Coil's house, perception filters up and running to ensure no one notices my otherwise fairly blatant presence. I can feel him, Coil, down below getting ready for work. Well, I presume he's getting ready for work at least.
A thought and my power reaches out, takes hold of his own power, and pulls. In my mind a perfect copy of his ability appears, completely without Coil being any the wiser to what I've done. Save-scumming here I come!
A flick of a mental 'switch' and the power is turned on. I briefly feel a disorienting sense of vertigo before the ability turns itself off again.
What the hell was that?
A repeat ends up resulting in the same thing happening again. Just to make sure it's 'enemy action' and not just a coincidence I try a third time. The same result, a short feeling of dizziness and the power shuts itself off.
I sigh, and turn my power towards figuring out what is wrong. Slots shift and change, and the answer comes forward to my mind. Apparently Coil's power doesn't play nice with Eidolon.
Damn. I suppose that would have been too easy wouldn't it?
A bit of poking and prodding, and quite a bit of power provided insight, tells me what I'm looking for. Coil's power was precognitive and, while weird in application, was otherwise basically how Wildbow had once explained it. This caused a bit of a problem when combined with my Eidolon ability which was itself also precognitive, and to a much greater extent.
A simple rule, Thinker powers tend to cancel each other. Except in this case replace 'cancel out' with 'Eidolon completely stomps over the lesser Coil power'. By trying to enable Coil's ability it had caused a pre-cog 'fight off' where Eidolon and Coil had come into conflict, each ability trying to predict what the other one would do in an never ending loop of possibilities. Made worse because each action I took in either timeline would, by default, end up creating different possibilities and invalidating the predictions of earlier 'loops' as they competed against each other.
Eidolon won out, handedly at that, and would forcibly shut down the ability I had copied from Coil. Unfortunate, as save scumming would have been damn useful, but I suppose I should have seen that one coming. I had a feeling however that, if I really wanted to, I could still benefit from the Coil power but only by first 'turning off' my Eidolon.
By every single measurable aspect that I can examine or think of it would be a terrible decision, the equivalent of trading a nuclear ICBM for a firecracker, and so with sigh I resign that particular power to the back of my mind, switch flipped 'off'. Maybe I might be able to modify it to work later, or maybe I'd need to create an entirely new power if I wanted to do that sort of thing, but for now it was of no practical use to me.
Oh well, it's not like it would be of much practical use for Coil either, after tonight.
Still, time to get to business. A brief focusing of power causes dirt, stone, and base earth to shift and morph into Tinker-tech scanning devices placed in a rough area unground around Calvert's house. They'd scan the interior, top to bottom, and every bit of electronics in it in order to data-mine every single bit of information Coil had.
I'd come back later to pick up the information they'd gained, which would hopefully give me some insight into Coil's finances and, also hopefully, the location of his base.
I'd realized a bit earlier that while I could certainly let Tattletale know to start raiding what she could, nothing says I had to leave it all for her. Coil had to have, almost by default, a massive amount of cash and resources to call upon to operate and fund his organization. If I could co-opt it, even a portion of it, I'd have ready access to all the actually non-counterfeit money I'd need to finance whatever I wanted. Not to mention with some of the specialties I'd picked up with II at midnight last night I'd even know how to take that cash and turn it into even more, also real, money.
Just the thought of it brings a smile to my face. I'd actually chosen as my first specialty choice this morning, completely on a lark, 'Hollywood Hacking'. I wasn't even really sure it would work, but I had been holding out hope for it. And holy shit had it paid off. All I could think about as the information poured into my mind was that scene from the movie Swordfish. The one where the protag had been forced to 'hack' into the Pentagons servers while being held at gunpoint, while using a laptop he'd never seen before, while surrounded by strippers, while getting a blowjob, in under a minute. And how, in the movie at least, he'd actually done it.
That Swordfish guy? He didn't have shit on me.
Combine that little bit of bullshit with another specialty in 'money laundering' and some programming and I felt I could stand a reasonable chance at pulling my own Number Man impersonation when it came to manipulating global markets. Not that I was planning too of course.
Anyways with that done bit of Tinker-tech monitoring finished setting up I prepared for what would probably be a long and boring session of 'follow Coil around town like an invisible flying stalker'.
Damn.
Even I couldn't spin that in a way that didn't sound creepy. Well.. it was for a good cause I guess. Coil wasn't going to off himself after all.
It's nearly two hours later and I'm currently flying/hovering above the build that Coil, or rather Thomas Calvert, works at for his day job. He's been here ever since he left his house and as far as I can tell he won't be leaving anytime soon. Still it's an opportunity and I end up placing some more Tinker-tech scanning and hacking devices into the walls of the building around his office. Unlike the ones at the house these ones will also be scanning Coil himself, and send me an alert the moment it looks like he might be leaving the building. In the meantime they'll be data-mining the hell out of every single computer or electronic device that Coil comes even close to while he's here.
I'll need to remove them later of course since I won't want someone stumbling across them, however unlikely that may be, but for now I can focus on other things.
A thought and I'm up and away into the air, enjoying my flight as I turn in the air to head to my other major objective of the day. Medhall Pharmaceuticals. I'm absolutely positive that their CEO is Max Anders, aka Kaiser of the E88, and I'm also pretty certain that he'll both be there and with probably a handful of other parahuman members of his gang. Either as bodyguards or as regular 'office workers' I won't know, but it's not like it matters for what I'm planning.
A few moments later and I slow down and come to a hover above the building.
Bingo.
Exactly like I had thought, I can feel Kaiser down below in one of the corner offices. Directly outside the office are a pair of 'secretaries' that I can also tell are the size-changing twins of the E88, Fenja and Menja. More surprising however is the other pair of powers I can feel, further below on towards the middle of the building, that I can't attribute to anyone I'm familiar with.
I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. The E88 had around thirty or so Capes here in Brockton Bay alone, and not all of them had been mentioned in the narrative of the story I was familiar with. Still, it would hardly stop me from copying all of them.
A thought later and my power reaches out, perfect copies of each of the abilities of the parahumans in the building forming in my mind. And, just like with Coil's power from earlier, I find myself a surprise I wasn't expecting.
The first few powers were copied with no issue or problem. Kaisers ability to generate metals from flat surfaces was really just a watered down version of a different ability I'd been using to construct my base and Tinker tech, so I didn't really give it much thought. The two unknown powers were apparently the ability to spew a stream of flame from just in front of the hands, sort of like a Firebender, and the other one was the ability to do much the same thing except with hot ash instead of fire. I got the feeling the two powers were probably buds of one another, though I wasn't sure which came from which.
The surprise though came when I copied Fenja and Menja. The first, Fenja, was copied with no issue at all. It was the moment I copied Menja that things got interesting however. Instead of two separate abilities, both which did the same thing, the ability of Menja ended up merging with the first one I had taken from Fenja. As far as I could tell it didn't really change the mechanics of what the power did, roughly speaking increasing size while decreasing relative damage taken, but instead ended up increasing the overall potency of the ability. Instead of 50ft tall as a maximum, this combined power was closer to a hundred feet, with a proportionate increase in it's damage negation ability.
That .. was good to know. I hadn't really given it consideration before because the situation hadn't really occurred to me but it seems that sufficiently similar powers, close enough that they could be said to do the same thing, would combine themselves into a single amalgam instead of remaining as independent abilities that did the same thing.
And didn't that bring some interesting possibilities? I couldn't be certain, because I didn't have anything else that might be close enough to match from the other abilities I'd copied, but it was possible the same thing might apply to the powers I'd made with my own ability. Or, possibly, even my Tinker specializations.
That would be damn useful. Especially since I'd chosen a number of specialties that I knew several heroes, and villains, here in Brockton Bay had. I guess I'd find out tonight, after my encounter with Armsmaster, but if it worked like I was thinking it would that could have big ramifications for my powers.
After all, I had the Eidolon power didn't I? What would happen if I were to copy the *actual* Eidolon? More slots? Stronger powers? Who knows, but even just thinking about it had me wondering about the possibilities.
I'm out on the Boardwalk now, about five hours later, and it's nearing 1300.
If I had to explain what the Boardwalk was like .. it's a tourist trap. Just like it was described in Worm. Dozens of stores catering to the well-to-do tourist line the street, expensive designer clothing, jewelry, expensive electronics, fancy restaurants, and distractions and temptations of all sorts. The presence of law enforcement is also much more visible here, and even the 'quality' of people is higher. No one down on their luck or looking for trouble in this area, no doubt thanks to the watchful eyes of multiple police that I observe walking up and down the area.
The difference between this 'high class' area and the 'low class' sections of the city is actually jarring. Almost like they're two entirely separate places, two entirely different cities. As I think about it some more I can only come to the conclusion that for the rich, and for the poor, they really are.
Right now though I'm leaning back in my deck chair in a nice little café with a decent view out onto the Bay. It's .. nice. Relaxing I guess. I've only been to the sea a few times in my life and I can't say it's a bad experience. Not even the infamous boat graveyard, which my supernaturally sharp eyes can easily make out thanks to the lack of obstructions, is enough to spoil the view.
I've got most of the afternoon free. My surveillance devices have been steadily recording and I've I don't have any plans until I swing back around to check them and see if they can tell me where Coil's actual base is. After that ..
Well, after that I'll play it by ear. I won't know what I need to account for until I've found it and seen what kind of set up Coil has but I've got a feeling it's going to be a pain in the ass either way.
I put down some cash to pay for the sundae I'd ordered and move out onto the street. I don't really have a need for anything the shops are selling but window shopping doesn't cost me a thing and, well, who knows? Maybe I'll get some ideas.
It's about 1420 by the time I swing around to Calverts house to check on the data my 'hackers' have found. I'm not disappointed. Turns out they'd finished everything they were meant to do nearly four hours ago, Coil's security not lasting long before being utterly compromised by them.
To be honest I'm not sure what I was expecting. I mean, 'hollywood hacking' was exactly what I'd been aiming for. I guess even knowing that's what the devices were meant to do I'd still thought they would take longer. Or maybe I had just overestimated what Coil's information security was like?
Either way I'd hit paydirt. Coil had kept a number of un-networked devices in his home with information relating to his more criminal activates. They were all extremely cleverly hidden and, I suspect, had my Tinker devices not been as bullshit as they were I'd have probably not gotten anything for the effort. But they were that bullshit, and I could now place Coil's base.
Oh, and also quite a lot of information relating to his businesses and investments. Silly Coil, thinking lead lined hidden compartments with non-networked laptops and phones would keep your information safe. It's almost like you've forgotten you live in a comic book world.
Still his failure to protect his information was my gain, and I'd be making good use of it. I'd roll around to his office in a few moments to pick up the data from the 'hackers' I'd put there and then head on over to what I was mentally dubbing 'Snakes Grave'.
A few minutes later and I'm done. The 'hackers' I'd set to snoop about his workplace having done everything they'd needed to. I left a few behind to monitor any changes he made between now and tonight when I confronted him for real, after which I'd pick them up.
That done, I fly off to start my reconnaissance on the most important part of tonight's plans.
I've got to admit, Coil clearly knew what he was doing. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised since the dude apparently works for a company whose entire purpose is to build underground bunkers but .. even then, this thing was definitely top notch.
I mean, it's not better than mine. Obviously. My base was basically 100% Tinker tech, but that consideration aside what Coil had managed to put together was still damn impressive. Made all the more so for how he'd somehow managed to keep the entire construction of a secret and somehow prevented anyone from figuring out it existed even after it was done.
I can only imagine the number of people he must have 'disappeared' to keep that secret, which just firms up my resolve for my plans concerning the man.
It's the work of a few moments to emplace even more of my 'hackers' in the ground around the base. However, I go one step further. Force field projectors get emplaced as well, each one designed and intended to shut down specific parts of the base when I begin my run through later tonight. I want all the rooms locked down, communications down, power down, everything down. And I'll have it.
After the emplacement of those considerations is done I create a few more, slightly more specialized, 'hackers' concentrated around what I've determined is Coil's office. These particular devices have been designed to completely infiltrate and subvert the systems and security devices here in the base. They'll ensure that everything going on remains strictly outside the realm of knowledge of anyone actually relying on the bases internal systems and, when the assault happens, they'll ensure there are no recordings made of anything that happens inside. They're also set to alert me the moment Calvert himself comes inside the base, using the earlier scans from my previous devices to ensure they identified the right person.
All of that done, I turn my attention to rendering inert all of the various explosives I've discovered situation around the complex. Or, at least, the ones intended to blow the place up in the self-destruct function that I somehow knew Coil would have included in it's design. The rest, in the grenades and bullets and such, I leave alone. No need to tip anyone off that something funny is going on until it's far too late, after all.
Finally I come to the most pressing issue I had found. There, in a vault surrounded by an absolutely absurd amount of explosives, is Echidna. Noelle. I was actually surprised to see her here. I had thought that the Travelers showed up after Leviathan and had brought Noelle with them at that time, but it looks like she was here much earlier than the rest. Which of course implied that the Travelers were already in Coil's pocket.
Even from the bus-stop bench I was sitting on, nearly 60 meters above where the vault itself was placed, I was wary. This particular cape, more than virtually any other, could spell absolute ruin for everything. A single touch and she could absorb people, creating 'evil clones' of them completely under her control. Clones that also shared the powers of the person they were based off of.
The sheer devastation that could potentially come about if she somehow managed to create even a single clone of myself .. it was a risk I couldn't take. Even at the current range, with all this material between me and her, I was still wary.
Thankfully I hadn't spent any of my 'charges' for Power Manipulation yet for today, just in case of this very thing. Leaving the bus stop I fly up towards the roof of a nearby building before sitting down and molding my power.
The first five 'charges' go towards improving the Power Manipulation power itself. It's .. surprisingly harder than I thought it would be. Or rather the effect I get from spending charges is less than what I was expecting. Even with five charges spent I was only able to double its effective range from a one hundred meter radius to a two hundred meter radius around myself. Unexpected, to say the least, but apparently it was because the ability to actually manipulate powers at range had to be increased separately from the ability to actually sense those powers at range.
It's a surprising discovery, but I suppose I should have seen it coming. All of the CYOA Powers were tremendously .. well, powerful. So the effort and expense needed to increase their strength was proportionate to match. I couldn't even really complain honestly, even just having an extra hundred meters range to my sensing and manipulation of powers was still an absolutely tremendous increase, especially compared to 'regular' Worm powers that would never increase in strength at all.
After that, the next power. I wasn't sure I'd make it, and hadn't planned on doing so this early, unless Noelle was present. But, she was. And so the remaining five charges all go towards what I'm going to refer to as my 'Tobi' power. I'd shamelessly stolen the idea from the Naruto character of the same name. Effectively it was an intangibility power that would allow me to selectively determine what, if anything, would be able to physically interact with me.
I figured, between that and my increased range for power manipulation even if the worst case occurred and Noelle somehow got loose there was no way she'd be able to actually touch me, and thus make evil clones of me, before I could depower her. My expanded awareness takes note of Noelle again, and I realize I hadn't copied her power yet. I do so, making a note to revisit it later on after modifying it so it could be used without the body horror.
With that thought in mind I disappear from the roof top, teleporting back to the base for a few hours of relaxation before the cluster fuck of the coming night.
I'm currently flying over the Docks, and it's just past 2000 in the evening. My 'hackers' reported to me a little less than an hour ago that Coil had entered his base. So far so good.
A brief dip in the sky and I bring myself lower to the ground. I've outfitted myself for the night and even made sure to bring a few disposable phones with preloaded numbers, at least one of which I'll be handing off to Taylor after all is said and done.
Well, once I find her at least. I'm flying a lot lower than normal but, thankfully, my increased range on power sensing means I can make the most of it. Right now I'm using it to look for the bug control I know belongs to Taylor, at which point I'll start following her around.
It takes nearly another eighty minutes before I find her, which I can only attribute to her not actually having started her patrol as early as I started mine.
Right now she's moving along back alleys and side streets and I can see her 'swarm' moving out ahead of her, scouting out each area for potential witnesses before she moves from place to place. It's actually pretty impressive to see in action. Given a, at first glance, rather lack-luster power she'd really managed to get some serious mileage out of it.
Still, as interesting as it is to look at in action the novelty of it wears off pretty quickly. Her encounter with Lung doesn't happen until, if I remember right, some time around 2300. Which is over an hour and a half away. Nothing for it I guess, I settle in for a wait as I glide through the air above her, idly copying her power as I begin casting my sight about for the inevitable target of tonight's hunt.
In what seems to be both the longest and shortest waiting period ever, thanks no doubt to my building anticipation of the event, it's time.
Taylor's moved onto the roof top of the building above where Lung has just come out, and I can clearly hear him as he speaks and, I know, Taylor hears him as well.
The Asian Bad Boyz, lead by their parahuman leader Lung, begin to move down the street. And as the bugs come swarming from every direction onto the utterly unprepared gang members I tense, waiting for my moment.
Show time.
Authors Note
An update to the character sheet will be posted shortly. This will be the last time I mention doing so in an authors note, and you may assume in the future that any significant changes will be noted and added to the character sheet spoiler on the first page shortly after each chapter is posted. On the issue of "copied" powers, assume he copies the power of everyone he meets. If you see a cape name get mentioned in the story as being near him or interacting with him, you may assume he copied their power unless specifically noted otherwise.
Last edited: Feb 4, 2015
Chapter 24
GorgonEyed said:
I'm a little surprised the SI hasn't considered Faultline as a source of income (or did you clump her in with the minor villains during your musings?). Even if you don't sign on to the crew, freelancing for her could give you some starting funds. Heck, if your only contribution is giving Gregor and Newter an off switch for their powers you could still make bank. Sure, she's in a legal grey area, but so is the SI until he starts paying taxes on his secret base.
Yeah, yeah, post-scarcity through powers. But the rest of the world still runs on money, so it remains useful as leverage.
Anyway, this is fun. Watched.
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The SI can get his hands on as much money as he wants with basically no effort. He doesn't need to rely on anyone else in order to do that. It's just that if he wants it to fit into the local economy without disrupting things or drawing undue attention he has to either acquire it from someone that already has it, or do some shenanigans. As the most recent chapter shows he chose to do a little of both. The most recent II specialties he took play a large factor into it as well, and between his own capabilities and the Manpower perk he's got money concerns covered. Or at least he will once he's got the things set up that he needs to set up.
For some Watsonian reasoning he made those particular choices because he knew he'd need a way of actually greasing palms and paying out checks when it came time to do so. From a Doylist standpoint it's a justification for the "easy logistics" portion of the Manpower perk.
edit- As to your actual question regarding Faultline and if he thought about her, no, he didn't. He's aware of her and her crew in a peripheral way but it's strictly as a 'not currently important' thing.
Sithmor said:
Welp. Stuff's going down. It's going to be a glorious curbstomp.
Just realised there isn't a index yet, so here's one…
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
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Nice. I don't suppose you'd mind explaining how you did that? I know how to insert links, but not how to make links to specific thread posts.
Last edited: Feb 4, 2015
Chapter 25
Weisser Ritter said:
It makes sense, honestly. "Money creation" is one of the most complicated powers to handle because every single ounce of income you add to the character further tips the economy towards inflation and destabilizes it, however lightly. With what the SI has made so far it only amounts to chump change, sure. But eventually he might have to start throwing around larger amounts, and simply conjuring bags of swag isn't quite going to cut it eventually- Somebody WILL notice, and things might become complicated then, which would indeed be counterproductive to the Manpower perk.
He has plenty of other options though. As his 'Tinker' persona and having a vast reservoire of abilities, the SI doesn't really have to loot anything to make a killer amount of money. Just magic up some mass-produced models in technology not directed towards conflict and he can make incredible amounts of money just selling their patents/individiual models, not to mention that at the same time he improves the quality of life of humanity at large. It's two birds with one stone, and I'm surprised he hasn't thought of that one yet.
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Oh certainly, he could definitely do that. But the problem is that no matter what sort of tech he were to make it's all Tinker-made and thus decades, minimum, ahead of the current cutting edge. And technology that advanced *always* has applications that can be used for violence in some way. There's also the more pressing concern that if he reveals that he can make tinker-tech which can then be mass produced .. well, a lot of people are going to become a lot more interested in him. And while he can handle any arbitrarily large amount of attention/heat it's still annoying and tedious to deal with.
By seizing some of what Coil's already got however, and then using his new specialties to launder the hell out of it, he can arrange for significant funding to be available whenever he needs it, all completely above-board and already part of the economy.
GorgonEyed said:
The post number next to the like/quote/reply buttons will give you the post-specific link.
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Thanks.
Chapter 26
Added an index to the first page with links to chapter posts.
Weisser Ritter said:
I can see your point, but I assume the SI would at least be interested in pursuing this venue once he's established a solid power base? I mean, there will be a point where his actions have impacted largely enough for him to become (in)famous, and it wouldn't be hard for him to hardcode restrictions into his designs that would prevent them from being used for violence. In a story sense it might not be that big of a deal, but it's interesting enough if you ever need to write something to fill in for time in the story and it helps people at the same time, so there's an idea.
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Not really. I mean certainly he's interested in technology and discovering new things but he doesn't really care about spreading it around on Earth-Bet. His general thought process is that that sort of thing will happen completely without any sort of intervention on his part. Now he might release design schematics for certain specific devices, for example something like Medi-Gel from the Mass Effect series for instance, but by and large he's not concerned with uplifting the general tech level of Earth-Bet.
They've got their own Tinkers after all, and they'll push progress forward entirely without regard to anything he does or doesn't do. Now would he be interested in uplifting his home-Earth? Certainly. If he was there, and he'd be damn careful about how he went about doing it. But right now his focus is on the substantially more serious problems facing Earth-Bet, namely the Endbringers and Scions eventual rampage. Releasing technology for public consumption doesn't even register as a secondary concern for him at this point.
Last edited: Feb 4, 2015
Chapter 27
Shujin said:
OP, can you explain why PRT/Protectorate is turned down because Cauldron? Because you've already decided to make waves in canon, and Tinker cover or not, it isn't as if you won't be noticed. I'm not following the logic leap.
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I'll explain this one since it's not likely to be discussed to any length in the story. That and I honestly thought that the thought process behind it would be fairly self evident. The simple fact is that the PRT/Protectorate comes with mandatory oversight. Doubly so for Tinkers (or people passing themselves off as Tinkers). If he were to subject himself to that authority he would be 1) wasting a tremendous amount of time and effort playing up a masquerade to prevent them from realizing what he could actually do 2) everything he made would be under immense scrutiny by people that honestly don't know the tech even half as well as he does and 3) joining the Protectorate is entirely superfluous to the goals of defeating the Endbringers and eventually Scion. He doesn't *need* their help, specifically, to do those things.
So joining their organization results in oversight he doesn't want, massively slows down his ability to produce Tinker tech items (after all he'd have to actually assemble the shit by hand, in a workshop, using materials they provided, instead of what he's currently doing), and requires him to play down his abilities constantly.
In short, it's a terrible idea and it's completely nonconductive towards actually reaching the goals he's set for himself. Entirely aside from that he also knows that both the PRT and Protectorate are basically the sock-puppets of Cauldron and, as far as he is concerned, if he's going to have any sort of relationship with Cauldron at all then it will be as a partner or associate and *not* as one of their grunt workers for the organizations they run. While the SI has decided on making waves he plans on making those waves on his terms and not on Cauldron's or their puppet organizations. If they want to assist him with that they are free to do so but he isn't going to give them any leverage over him, officially or unofficially, that they can use to try to twist his arm into doing things he isn't inclined to do. And becoming a member of the Protectorate? That's basically giving Cauldron free reign to legally boss him around under the guise of "orders from the top" both on the Cape side and the Civilian side.
Chapter 28
Shujin said:
It's also a story set in 2011, where not having an identity is going to make doing stuff like having a bank account, driver's liscense, credit/debit card, etc that needs identification difficult. How are you going to buy you materials in the amount you need? You can loot from the gangs, but no bank account for you, for example.
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I'm going to ask a serious question. Have you actually read the story and looked at the character sheet? None of what you just described is an issue for the SI. In fact he's already picked up II specialties specifically meant to address the "how to get real money" issue. Getting himself a "real ID" is going to a, quite literally, trivial effort for him the moment he decides he needs one. Right now, he doesn't need one. Because he reports to no one and needs no outside support. He might decide to make himself an ID, later on, but he doesn't need one.
Shujin said:
PRT would probably help with that.
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Help with what, exactly? Those things he doesn't need or can provide for himself?
Shujin said:
From my recollection, correct me if I'm wrong, but Cauldron 'sock puppeting' the PRT sounds like fanon to me. IIRC, it's Rebecca's brainchild but as a way to funnel information. There's no money laundering, no backroom dealings with the directors, no forumla X being released into the ventilation, the PRT is effectively stand alone just with an CB pulling insider trading. Cauldron doesn't use PRT resources or vice verse.
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I'm not sure where I implied anything that you're talking about. It's canon that Alexandria, aka Rebecca Costa-Brown, is the leader of the PRT as well as a member of the Triumvirate *and* a member of Cauldron. Cauldron runs, as in literally runs, from the top down both the civilian side of the organization (the PRT) and the Cape side (the Protectorate). Joining their organization means *working* for Cauldron. It might be indirectly, but it's still the same thing. By joining those organizations and accepting their legal authority over his actions he is giving tacit permission for the members of Cauldron to boss him around, either from the PRT side of things or the Protectorate side of things.
Shujin said:
On that note: Why would he need a masquerade in the first place? Eidolon is a thing, that's an artificial limitation placed by the SI on the SI for reasons. If the goal is Endbringers and Scion, no one should give a damn what you can 'really' do so long as you're saving the world. Pretending to be second coming of Hero as opposed to second coming of Eidolon does what for that goal, exactly? (Ironically, good PR regardless of powerset is what the PRT does.)
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Have you ever heard of the term operational security? If everyone thinks he is a Tinker they will *plan* for him being a Tinker. And will be completely blindsided by the fact that his Tinker abilities are actually fairly secondary to his other powers. By presenting himself as the second coming of Hero he creates an image in the mind of everyone that hears about him that "I am a Tinker". An image that absolutely no one will question even if they happen to see him doing something strange, because it's known that Tinkers can "arbitrarily assume the classifications of other types of Capes".
Shujin said:
It's a voluntary job. He can quit, you know. Or, not do what they tell him to do? What are they going to do? Make him legally unexist? Arrest him? Dock his pay (oh noes!). Cauldron has Thinkers, and throwing down with the Endbringers ain't exactly subtle. What kind of information is dangerous?
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What? Okay, seriously, what is the point of your complaints here exactly? First you say he should join the Protectorate or whatever so he can get access to resources and an ID (neither of which he needs and can provide for himself if he does) and then you turn around and say if he doesn't like it he can just ignore them or quit? What? And what about the Thinkers? And? You mean those Thinkers that automatically fail any time they try to use their power on him because of the Blank perk and the always-on Anti-Intuition power he purposes gave himself to foil people like Tattletale?
What exactly is the benefit to joining then if he's just going to quit? Why would he need to join in the first place? Seriously, what is your reasoning here?
Chapter 29
Wabberjack said:
Personally I find the limit argument both pointless and pedantic, what are the limits? What ever the author says they are. No more, no less.
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Basically this. This story, and the II power in the CYOA in particular, is going the "comic book super science" route. Which is pretty much what Tinker technology is in the first place. High-end, after many many charges in many many different specialties, we're going to be talking about stuff like Cosmic Cubes, or Ultimate Nullifiers, or Power Rings, or Reach Scarabs, or any number of other type of totally ridiculous comic-book style super science you care to name or think of offhand.
Is that sort of thing going to happen any time soon? No, it isn't. But it's the end-goal, or at least it's a good idea of what the end goal might look like. As for the question of "why Tinker tech at all", there's a couple of reasons. First is that it comes with the pre-made excuse of "I'm a Tinker", which gives a convenient reason for how the SI can do everything he does without actually revealing how he does everything he does. Remember Jack Slash and how he survived for years because everyone thought he did one thing, but he actually did something else? Now you've got the right idea. The second reason is that stuff he makes with his Tinker specialties stick around and can be used as needed.
The third reason is that as powerful as the Eidolon abilities are they're also limited. They're strong, but there are only 10 of them at a time. So every slot being used on something that could have been addressed by Tinker tech, or a Power Manipulation granted power, is a slot that is being wasted. A slot that could have been filled with a different ability entirely. It's worth pointing out that while the Eidolon ability that the SI has is extremely powerful, more so than even the actual Eidolon, that it won't be enough for what the SI is planning to do. Eidolon has had nearly 30 years, with a try roughly every three months during that period, with the assistance of hundreds of different Capes to fight and defeat the Endbringers. And not once, not once, did he ever so much as manage to *wound* even a single one of them. Not once.
The SI is the most powerful parahuman in the world, bar none. But his ultimate enemies are not human and even with the sheer scope of his current abilities he's not ready to take on even a single one of them. And if that isn't enough for you? Then all you need to remember is that it was a Tinker-tech weapon that eventually killed Scion.
Last edited: Feb 5, 2015
Chapter 30
Shujin said:
The Blank perk only works on powers that are hostile to you and do not affect secondary and tertiary sources. So 'on' him? No. 'About' and 'around' him? Yes. Anti-Intuition means Tt in a conversation won't get anything from you. In her base over viewing information about your actions? Her powers work just fine.
Those Thinkers.
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You need to read the Blank perk again then, because I'm afraid you're mistaken. It explicitly says that it prevents people from seeing you even by observing the things happening around you, their powers acting as if you and your actions literally don't exist. As for TT reviewing information to find links? Sure .. but, so what? She can't read the SI personally and thus anything she might intuit is only going to be what he's presenting to the public anyway. More to the point as long as his power nullifies direct usage against him she, and individuals like her, will never actually know for sure if anything they're assuming is actually right.
Chapter 31
Shujin said:
Ah, so if I work for a Coca-Cola who has an Ocean Spray CEO on the Board of Directors, then I am working for Ocean Spray. *squints* Okay. It was a hyperbole, my apologies for using it. What it is meant to convey is the following: Cauldron does not micromanage.
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This is a rather gross misrepresentation of what you are discussing. Cauldron is literally in charge of the PRT and the Protectorate. Literally. All it takes is a word from any of them and they can basically arrange for anything regarding paperwork, transfers, etc etc from either side of the organization, civilian or Cape. And by legally accepting their authority over him, which is what joining the Protectorate means, he would have no option except to accept their decisions. Considering Cauldron is explicitly on the look out for powerful capes, which Apex is and will quickly prove himself to be, that is effectively the same thing as saying "hey you guys I don't really like or agree with, I'm going to sign this document that requires me to do whatever you tell me to do".
And I'm not using hyperbole on that. Check out the Alexandria interlude, where the oath she makes gets mentioned. That oath? It's suspiciously similar to the same oath a person takes upon enlistment into the military. Now I can't say for sure, because it's not expanded upon in canon, but I'm pretty positive that there are laws backing that oath up, and that you can't just "quit" if you feel like it, just like you can't just "quit" the military in real life until your agreed upon period of service is finished.
Chapter 32
Shujin said:
I assume you are going to be picking up a Thinker power to tailor your public appearance? Because otherwise, you are underestimating Tt's power. It's also bullshit and doesn't stick to 'wants to kill Endbringer.' It will go into 'Not working with the Protectorate in spite of X. Why? Problems with authority? Sees no need, can do it himself. Tinker specialization, unknown backer?' etc and so forth.
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He already created a power to counter TT. It's been in the character sheet for at least two days now. It explicitly causes any intuition type Thinkers to have their power come back with "nothing interesting to see here, move along" when they try to use their power on the SI. You'll note it *doesn't* say it has to be in person to work. That's both a benefit and a weakness, but it is what it is. It won't stop Tattletale, or people like her, from coming to their own conclusions but they'll have to make those conclusions without assistance from their power.
Shujin said:
There are no mention of any kind of law when Browbeat quit, or that he needed to go through a ton of red tape or anything of the sort. That never comes up with the Wards, the Protectorate member interludes, Chicago Wards, etc. That's pure unsupported speculation.
EDIT: You can make it true for your story, just saying that's not how canon portrays it.
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Weld was a Ward, and a minor. They couldn't make that sort of oath even they wanted to.
Chapter 33
Shujin said:
Oh ho. That makes sense then. Thank you.
EDIT: Wait, no it doesn't as Shattered Limits doesn't increase base magnitude, just number of slots and charges. The power growth is based on time. Year and half a year if in lots of conflict. Did he spend a charge on boosting Inspired? Going to reread.
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World Breaker, which the SI took, is an automatic "all powers start twice as strong" effect. All powers/specialties created through PM or II start at 6-7 and jump up to 8-9 with just a single charge to increase their potency. The 'nothing to see here' power has 2 charges.
Shujin said:
And the reason why none of the Protectorate or adult capes don't mention it? I'm reasonably sure 'requires me to make a legally binding oath like the military' would have been known to New Wave.
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It doesn't matter if it's actually like that or not. The SI assumes it is, and isn't interested in joining up regardless even if it wasn't like that. As far as he's concerned joining the Protectorate serves only to needlessly complicate things for him, so he won't do it. Simple as that.
Last edited: Feb 5, 2015
Chapter 34
1.6
The ambush that Taylor has started is brutal in it's effectiveness. It's hard to really get an idea of what 'swarms of bugs' look like or do when reading about it on a page, but seeing it in person? That's an entirely different matter.
Most of the gangers are screaming, running for dear life as far and as fast as they can. Others have dropped to the ground, trying to roll back and forth hoping that will somehow save them. In reality all it does is give the crawling bugs an easier time finding purchase. Some of them are simply blindly waving their arms around, trying to protect their faces while warding off the sudden swarming of the insects. In the middle of it all stands Lung.
He's blasting out streams of fire by this point, most of them are aimed up into the air, trying to clear all of the flying bugs out of the sky. Unfortunately for him the insects are being directed. Most of them seem to be attracted to the heat but it's pretty easy to tell that they aren't behaving like they normally would. As if the simple fact that dozens of different species of insect and arachnids suddenly deciding to work together and attack people wasn't clue enough.
Sadly for the normal members of the ABB still nearby Lung quickly stops trying to bother with that, and begins directing his flames towards ground level, trying to simply blast the insects off. He ends up lighting several of his own men on fire, who are thrashing even more wildly now in their attempts to leave the area and put the flames out at the same time.
Lung himself however is showing no signs of slowing down. Already his pants are burning from the flame he is throwing about and his visible skin, which is basically everything from the waist up since he's not wearing a shirt, is already starting to gleam silver in the orange light being cast about by his fires. Ah, seems like the poisonous insects have started their appearance. A scream, or more like a roar, rips from his throat. Looks like a hornet just stung him in the eye.
Ouch.
And as if that stinging was a signal his entire body seems to explode as a wave of flame rocks out from him. Most of the swarm that was on or near him is instantly killed. It does nothing to slow down the remaining insects from continuing the attack though. Not that it helps them at all, as a second explosion of flame ends up wiping out even more of them.
Almost immediately after the second 'explosion' Lung seems to hunker over for a moment before his back just kind of .. opens. His body ripples as a wave of scales shoots out from beneath his skin before immediately folding down, forming a thick layer of armor over him as their spade-like shapes create an interlocking suit of living armor all about him. His cloths are absolutely ruined by this point and when he stands back up he's clearly gained at least a foot and a half of height.
And, as Taylor just seems to have noticed, this time the flame surrounding him isn't going away. As I look below from my place in the air I can see Taylor glance back over her shoulder towards the fire escape she'd used to get on top of the building in the first place. Lung himself seems to be looking about on the street for the source of the attack, another roar echoing out of his now-inhuman throat into the night.
That seems to have done it for Taylor as she gets to a crouch and begins slowly backing from the edge of the roof overlooking Lung and onto the gravel that coats its top.
The barest of noise from the shifting rocks would be all but inaudible for the regular human ear but, for those with enhanced senses like myself and Lung, it rings out into the night like a gun-shot.
Lung's head whips around like it was spring fired and instantly fixates on the roof Taylor has been taking shelter on, the single uninjured eye he still has open locking onto Taylor's own. With a vicious roar, the sound of a beast having finally located its prey, Lung makes a standing leap directly from the street level and crashes into the side of the building. His fingers digging into the side to give him purchase as he begins nosily scrambling up the side to finally deal out violence against his attacker.
It's almost time. I prepare myself for the opportune moment, my perception seeming to slow down as I prepare to drop my invisibility and begin my own attack. Below, Taylor scrambles at a catch on the back of her costume. I know she's reaching for a small can of pepper-spray. A poor defense against an enraged Lung, but it's all she has and at this point she's desperate for anything.
It's a good thing for her then that she's got some unexpected backup.
Lung's hands are the first thing that comes over the lip of the building, the heat from the flames that still covers them actually causing the metal to warp under their grasp. A moment later and his head and torso follow them as he hauls himself up. He's at least eight and half feet tall at this point and there isn't a single bit of skin visible underneath the interlocking scales that his power has called forth. He's already beginning to swing his leg up over the side of the roof when Taylor sprays him with her canister, the spray slightly off target and igniting itself on his shoulder.
She adjusts her aim and sprays him again, this time she hits him right in the face and gets her target, his one uninjured eye. Immediately he roars out in pain and frustration, his hands lifting from the lip of the roof to reach for his face.
Bingo, motherfucker. Showtime.
The powers cloaking my presence fall away, the gentle humming of the flight systems of my suit drowned under the echoing reports of a pair of bolts from my concussion rifle. Both shots scream out from the projector, reaching out through the night in an instant to slam unerringly into Lung's face.
The result is as brutal as it is comical. With his hands raised in an attempt to shield his face he no longer has any ability to maintain his grip on the roof. In a moment I make sure to record he's flipped ass over tea kettle as another three shots ring out, the force of them continuing his spin before hammering him down into the asphalt of the street he'd leaped from not even a moment before.
Taylor seems to have fallen onto her ass onto the rooftop below me, the sheer shock of the sudden turn in her fortune having stolen her attention. A thought and the flight systems keeping me aloft cancel out and I plummet nearly fifteen feet onto the roof, my knees bending ever so slightly to absorb the energy of the fall.
"Stay low, Bugs" I call out, my intended target made clear with the words, as I step forward quickly and raise my rifle over the edge of the rooftop.
Lung is laying on his back in the road, the sheer force of the shots that have already struck seeming to have mildly dazed him.
Still, he's a tough one. Already he's attempting to roll to his feet, another roar telegraphing his intentions to continue the fight. Naturally, I don't oblige him. Before he can so much as get his balance I begin hammering him with continuous bolts of pure concussive force, the sheer impact of them causing cracks to form in the street below where he's laying.
A quick switch of fire mode and a single dart, filled with a Tinker-tech tranquilizer strikes him in the chest. As it does so, I reach out with my power and make contact with his own. A quick grab and I have copied his power, followed up by a 'squeeze' to encourage his power to stop strengthening him.
The effect is almost immediate. Between the beating he's received from the force of my rifle, the tranq, god knows how much poison from Taylor's bugs, and my own encouragement of his power to stop working his scales begin folding back into his body. His size visibly shrinks and the aura of flame which had previously protected him has gone out, after a moment he's reverted entirely back to his natural form, stark naked except for the metal mask on his face.
Idly I notice that four new powers have just entered my range. I was beginning to wonder how long it would take them to show up. I reach out and copy the powers, shunting them all to the back of my mind for later review.
Lung dealt with, I turn my head to look over my shoulder at Taylor. She's righted herself by this point and seems understandably cautious. She's still got her pepper spray out, though she's bound to realize how pointless that is, and has taken a wary stance. In the background I can hear the tell-tale sign of bugs coming to their master's call, though I suspect that she'll need to leave the area to find any more than a pittance.
"Good job on Lung. You injured?"
It seems whatever she was expecting it wasn't that. Seems she doesn't really know how to process a compliment, and her body language makes it pretty clear she's warring between answering me or just booking it and hoping for the best. After a moment she seems to collect herself enough to answer me.
"N-no. I'm al…"
And with a thud three massive beasts land onto the rooftop with us.
I've got to admit, those 'dogs' that Bitch has look more like something out of a Tyranid swarm than anything else. Seeing them up close, muscles bare and gleaming in the light cast by the fires Lung had set they seem like some sort of nightmarish hell beasts. Which, for the moment I guess, they might as well be.
One of them is rider-less, but the other two are both carrying a pair of passengers each. Its easy enough to identify them as they dismount. Bitch is wearing a ratty sleeveless shirt and plaid skirt along with what look like a pair of old tan-issue army boots topped off by a dollar-store Rottweiler mask. Regent has on his own costume, a frilly white shirt and tights, along with a mask that wouldn't look out of place at a renn-fair. He's also holding what looks like a scepter. Tattletale has a fairly form fitting outfit, a deep purple verging on black, and a simple domino mask.
The last of them, their 'official' leader Grue, is wearing what basically amounts to motorcycle leathers and a motorcycle helmet sculpted to look like a human skull, all of which are a dark non-reflective black.
The Undersiders and Taylor
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Grue approaches towards Taylor and myself, since we're actually fairly close to each other, while the other three go over to look at Lung over the side of the roof.
"You really saved us a lot of trouble," he says, extending his hand towards me for a handshake. I look down at it for a moment before reaching out and shaking it.
"It wasn't a problem".
He nods before offering his hand to Taylor as well. She kind of just .. looks at him. After a moment he shrugs and drops it back to his side.
"When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked. We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day. We eventually decided, fuck it, we'd meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah." He pauses to take a breath and look back over his shoulder at the other members of the Undersiders before continuing.
"Wouldn't you know, his flunky Lee is there with a half dozen guys, but Lung and the rest of his gang are nowhere to be found," he says with a chuckle before glancing between Taylor and I "Lee's no slouch in a fight, but there's a reason he's not leader of the ABB. He got spooked without his boss there and ran. I guess you're both responsible for that?" Grue says it more like a statement than a question.
"Like I said, it wasn't a problem. Though really all I did was pick up a spare," I shrug my shoulders before tilting my head in a nod towards Taylor "she'd already done a fair number on him by the time I stepped in."
Grue nods. "Yeah, I guess so," he takes a moment to walk over to his team mates at the edge of the rooftop and looks down at Lung "Still, what the fuck did you do to him?"
Before I can even think of answering Tattletale decides to answer for us. "Pepper spray, wasp and bee stings, fire ants and spider bites," a slight breath "Some sort of Tinker-tech force rifle? And a tranquilizer of some kind." I can see her as she gives a grin even as dark as it is, "Man, he's gonna feel a hell of a lot worse tomorrow."
Grue turns back around and makes a show of pointing out his team mates, "Introductions. That's Tattletale. I'm Grue. The girl with the dogs-" he pointed to the other girl I knew to be Rachel, "-We call her Bitch, her preference, but in the interests of being P.G., the good guys and media decided to call her Hellhound instead. Last and certainly least, we have Regent."
"Fuck you, Grue," Regent retorted, with a chuckle and a tone of voice that made it clear he wasn't really that offended.
Introductions apparently done, Grue looked between the two of us for several long moments. After a few seconds, he asks the same question I had just a few moments before, "Hey, you two okay? You aren't hurt?"
I was about to answer when, again, Tattletale decided to butt in. I sigh as she starts talking, that habit of hers really is kind of annoying now that I've experienced it.
"The reason she's not introducing herself isn't because she's hurt," she takes another final look down at Lung before turning around to continue her statement ""It's because she's shy."
Of course, that's right about when she looked at me and just stared, I suppose not even having realized that I wasn't showing up right to her power until she actually stopped to focus on it. Her mouth began moving up and down soundlessly, a grimace coming to her face. Grue looks back at her when she doesn't continue.
"You alright Tattletale?" there's concern in his voice and, I notice, he's suddenly not quite as carefree as he was a moment ago.
"He's .. he's.." she's clearly struggling to try to get something out.
"Uninteresting?" I reply, the smug grin apparent even in the tone of my voice. Looks like she doesn't like it when it's on the other foot.
"Yes. That. You.. you knew how to counter me didn't you?" she gives me an aggrieved look, and as she finishes her statement the rest of the Undersiders instantly tense, suddenly realizing that the two people they probably thought were fellow villains might not be what they thought.
"Tinkers are bullshit. Also you four haven't been as low-key as you thought you were. You weren't the only ones with an eye on that casino."
It's a complete lie of course, but there's no way Tattletale can tell otherwise and, well, Tinkers are bullshit. For all they knew it was true.
"We going to have trouble?" Grue's question is straightforward and blunt. He's already got his arms raised and ready to release his darkness, and Bitch has just whistled to get the attention of her dogs.
I shrug, "Not tonight. Not from me at least," I turn my head towards Taylor "How about you Bugs? You gonna start a fight?"
My question seems to have shaken her out of whatever thoughts she may have had, she's swiveling her head between me and the Undersiders as she replies.
"N-no. No fighting."
Once she's said it I nod before turning to the side to look back in the direction of where Lung is currently laying.
"Well, there you have it. No fighting," I turn my head back towards them "You still owe us though. But I guess you'll have to pay us back some other time. If my sensors aren't mistaken you've got less than a minute before someone else starts a fight with you anyway."
Tattletale immediately swings her head to the side.
"Shit. He's right. Someone from the Protectorate is gonna be here in less than a minute," she moves as she talks, immediately going to mount one of the dogs "come on, let's get out of here."
With that the four of them mount up on the dogs before all three of the massive beasts rear up and leap off of the building, loping off into the night with their passengers. In the background I can just hear the monstrous roar of Armsmaster's motorcycle coming up the street.
I look over to Taylor, "Well Bugs, ready to meet a celebrity?"
She just stares at me. Huh. Guess she's speechless?
It's not even a moment later when Armsmaster's tether sinks into the side of the building and is pulling him up at speed. It's like the guy took a page out of Batman's playbook with how quick it is.
The moment he's up and over the lip of the roof he's taken a fighting stance with his halberd out, ready to swing. He wore body armor, dark blue with silver highlights, and had a sharply angled v-shaped visor covering his eyes and nose. With only the lower half of his face exposed, I could see a beard trimmed to trace the edges of his jaw.
"You gonna fight me?"
I shake my head in a negative at the same time Taylor blurts out "I'm a good guy."
His response is immediate and clipped, "You don't look like one," he glances at me "And I don't know you". His tone is still wary, and he hasn't lowered his weapon even the slightest bit.
"That's… not intentional," Taylor rambled out, a defensive tone in her voice, "I was more than halfway done putting the costume together when I realized it was already looking more edgy than I'd intended, and I couldn't do anything about it by then."
He gives her a long look, and Taylor herself seems to be looking between the two of us as the moment drags out.
"You're telling the truth." it's a statement, not a question. Then he focuses his attention on me "And what about you?"
"I saw Lung blasting fire everywhere and stepped in when it looked like Bugs here could use a hand." a shrug follows my statement. I make a show of lowering my weapon as I turn to the side and look back down at Lung. Armsmaster apparently stapled the man to the street, somehow.
"I see". There's a detectable grimace in his voice, like he isn't sure but can't call me on it. I suspect my anti-Tattletale power might be giving his lie-detector some strange results. Still, my actions in lowering my guard and turning away from him have seemingly convinced him I won't be an immediate threat.
"Either of you need a hospital?" he asks, looking more towards Taylor than myself.
"No. Don't think so," Taylor waves her arms at herself "I'm as surprised as you are."
I shrug and shake my head in the negative "I'm fine."
"You're a new face. Both of you." Again, a statement and not a question.
"I haven't even come up with a name yet. You know how hard it is to come up with a bug-themed name that doesn't make me sound like a supervillain or a complete dork?" another wave of her arms as she indicates herself. She's more expressive than I thought she'd be.
He chuckled, "I wouldn't know. I got into the game early enough that I didn't have to worry about missing out on all of the good names," another look "How about you?"
"Apex. I had a run in with the E88 yesterday shortly before 2200, when I saved an interracial couple from a gang-beating," a pause "I'm surprised you didn't get a report on it. I was under the impression the police usually worked hand in hand with the PRT whenever a case involved a parahuman."
It seems my response has caught him out for a moment, but he quickly recovers, "I don't remember seeing a report filed about it, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one," he pauses for a few moments longer as he takes in my profile, "You're a Tinker. An established one." Another statement, my he certain likes to make a lot of them doesn't he? I shrug before turning to face him fully.
"Yes. I'm sure you know better than most that a Tinker is only as good as his tools. If I'd gone out before I was ready I'd have just ended up dead, or maybe press-ganged." a barely perceptible flinch from my side reveals that Taylor probably just caught the implications of her own lack of caution.
Another brief pause as he seems to grimace before nodding.
"I almost died."
Taylor's statement comes somewhat out of left field, but I guess that's the shock talking. Once I'd pointed it out and she had a moment to really think it must have hit her pretty hard. Armsmaster's pretty quick on the ball though.
"That's why we have the Ward program," he said. There was no judgment in his tone, no pressure. Just a statement, one I had no doubt he'd made to more than one troubled kid that had decided to put on a mask.
Taylor just nods at the comment before shuddering, her next statement an obvious deflection from her current thoughts, "What about Lung? Did you guys get him?"
He gives me a look before responding, "Lung was unconscious, beaten and battered when I arrived. I pumped him full of tranquilizers to be safe and temporarily restrained him under a steel cage I welded to the sidewalk. I'll pick him up on my way back."
"Good," Taylor says, "With him in jail, I'll feel like I accomplished something today. Only reason I started the fight was because I overheard him telling his men to shoot some kids. Only realized later that he was talking about some other villains," she gives me look, "Why did you let them go anyway? And what did you mean about eyes on a Casino?"
Armsmaster seems to give me his full attention again, "Villains? You let them go?"
"The Undersiders. I'd caught a recording of their heist on one of Lung's illegal casinos from a little while back," a shrug "Lung was down, it was four on one not counting those three monster dogs they had with them, and I wasn't certain which side Bugs here was going to fall on".
I gesture out to the street where Lung is knocked out, "I wasn't going to risk losing Lung for a chance to capture four small-timers. So when they asked if there was going to be trouble I said no. After that my suit picked up the noise from your incoming cycle, and so did the girl that called herself Tattletale, and they decided that discretion was the better part of valor."
Armsmaster seems to accept that, "Alright, I'll need the full story," he gestures towards Taylor "why don't you fill me in on the fight and what happened afterwards."
Huh, maybe he didn't accept it. Seems like he was looking for a verifiable story from the person that couldn't spoof his lie-detector. Taylor begins launching into her version of events as I look back down to Lung. It takes me a few minutes looking at him before I realize the importance of the second dart alongside my own, presumably from Armsmaster.
Shit. That could cause problems.
I reach into one of the pouches along my waist before creating a small thumb drive with my power, pre-loading it with the break down of my tranquilizer cocktail and it's counter-agent. It wouldn't do for Lung to die of an overdose, considering how dire his condition ended up being even without my additional dart added to the mix. I turn back around to jump into the conversation right as Taylor seems to be finishing her story of events.
"Armsmaster," he turns to give me a look and I hold out the thumb drive, and a small vial, in my hand, "I just remembered you'd shot him with a tranq dart as well. Well.." I shrug "I shot him with one too, my own formula."
I can actually make out the alarm that now seems to mark the lower half of his face, he takes the two items on offer before looking back over the lip of the roof down at Lung. Presumably to verify the dart he didn't notice earlier, "Damn. What's on the thumb drive?"
"The chemical make-up for the dose I gave him, as well as it's counter-agent. The vial is the counter-agent." He seems to give a relieved sigh before catching himself, turning to look at me.
"Wait, you just carry around a thumb-drive with that sort of information on it?"
"Lack of preparation gets people killed. I knew I'd need to have that information ready in the event I needed to use the darts. Good thing I did." I finish with a mental thank you to my lie-detector spoofing power.
He nods, a brief smile touching his face, "Yes, you're right. It's too bad most capes don't realize that," he gives me another look "You'd do well in the Protectorate".
Ah, there's the pitch. I make sure to look back at Taylor before facing him fully, "I'll have to pass on that for now. I'm not opposed to cooperation, maybe even some coordination on a Tinker project or two, but I'd probably go crazy from the oversight," I give out a small chuckle "I mean really, as if I don't know to test my stuff for unexpected side effects before using them in the field. What do they think I am, stupid?"
He gives a much more genuine smile this time, the shared pains of a Tinker definitely giving him a bit of humor, "Yes, well, I know what you mean," he reaches down into one of his pouches and pulls out two cards before handing one to Taylor and myself, "Here, contact information you can use to reach me at. If you need anything, change your mind, or just need some advice please give me a call."
He looks back towards the edge of the roof, "Still, there's one issue that needs to be addressed," he turns his head back to the two of us, "who gets the credit for Lung."
Taylor looks like she's about to say something before he raises his hand, "Hear me out. What you've done tonight is spectacular. You've both played a part in getting a major villain into custody. You two just need to consider the consequences." Taylor whispers 'consequences' under her breath, the mere of idea of it probably just now occurring to her.
"Lung has an extensive gang throughout Brockton Bay and neighboring cities. More than that, he has two superpowered flunkies. Oni Lee and Bakuda."
Taylor shakes her head, "I know about Oni Lee, and Grue mentioned fighting him. I've never heard of Bakuda."
I jump into the conversation as I direct my statement to Taylor, "She's a Tinker, you know what a Tinker is?"
"Covers anyone with powers that give them an advanced grasp of science. Lets them make technology years ahead of its time. Ray guns, ice blasters, mechanized suits of armor, advanced computers."
Armsmaster nods his head as I continue, "Basically yes. She's a recent addition to the ABB but damn dangerous. Her specialty, as far as I've heard, is either bombs or explosives in general," I shake my head, "she's totally nuts as well. Her debut involved holding all of Cornell University hostage with a bombing campaign."
Armsmaster smoothly steps in, "It's exactly as he said," he gestures towards the two of us "Now consider the danger involved in taking the credit for Lung's capture. Without a doubt, Oni Lee and Bakuda will be looking to accomplish two goals. Freeing their boss and getting vengeance on the ones responsible. I suspect you're now aware… these are scary people. Scarier in some ways than their boss."
Taylor seems somewhat shaken at the idea, "You're saying we shouldn't take the credit," her voice reflecting the uncertainty she had.
"I'm saying the two of you have two options. Option one is to join the Wards, or Protectorate in your case Apex, where you'll have support and protection in the event of an altercation. Option two is to keep your heads down. Don't take the credit. Fly under the radar."
I shake my head before pointing out the obvious flaw in his logic, "It makes sense, but it's a bit late for that here," he gives me a look, "You're going to need to use that information I gave you on my tranq mix and report it to the higher ups regardless of anything else, and there's the more serious issue of the poison."
Another alarmed look, "Poison? What poison?"
I point towards Taylor, "Don't know exactly, how bout you tell us what all Lung just got dosed with from those bugs of yours?"
Taylor freezes up like a deer caught in the headlights, "O-oh! Um, uh, well there was black widows, and um, some brown recluses, and some hornets, and" Armsmaster looks increasingly alarmed as she continues, "and some bees, and a few other things that I guess he might have had an allergic reaction to. Maybe."
I whistle, "Damn girl, that's pretty brutal. Good thing Lung's got a healing factor, anyone else'd probably be six feet under by now."
Taylor hangs her head, her posture indicating her shame, "I'm, uh, sorry. I didn't know what else I could do. He said he was going to kill some kids!" her tone gets steadily more defensive before I raise my hands to stop her.
"Whoa whoa, I'm not complaining. You did what you needed to. It's just something to keep in mind for the future," I look towards Armsmaster, "Still, sounds like you need to get him into confinement and maybe into a hospital as soon as you can."
Armsmaster nods, "Yes, you're right. I'll be heading out now, remember the cards." and with that he leaps off the side of the building and collects up Lung, flying away down the street at break-neck speeds moments later.
Well .. that was one potential disaster averted. That would save him a lot of problems later on, not needing to worry about having an accidental poisoning hanging over his head.
The sound of Armsmaster's motorcycle tapers off into the distance, and I look back and face Taylor.
"So, Bugs, how did you like your first night out?"
"It was, um, terrifying," she's takes a moment to look in the direction Armsmaster just left in, "I can't believe I nearly died."
"Uh huh, first time in a fight?" I make an effort not to come across as being judgmental.
"Yes. I've never been in anything like that before, and it all happened so fast."
"Well, that's how it normally goes," I turn before gesturing for her to follow, "Walk with me. If you're new then you need someone to explain to you the rules before something bad happens. Well, something bad in a permanent way that is."
A moment of hesitation on her part before she seems to come to a decision and follows me down the fire escape, "Rules? What rules?"
"Well they're called the 'unwritten rules' because they're, obviously, unwritten," we get down to the ground before I start leading her back in the general direction of Captain's Hill, coincidentally also in the general direction of her house, and out of the docks though I suspect our conversation will be over long before then, "But the basic gist of them is as follows."
I raise a hand and start counting off with my fingers, "One, no going after people in their civilian identities. Two, no trying to unmask a Cape, hero or villain. Three, no killing. Injuries are fine and expected, but the moment you start killing people is the moment everyone starts escalating, and you don't want that. Four, you don't go after family, or friends, or relatives." I stop to turn and look at her fully.
"Bugs, you need to remember those rules. You break them? People start getting serious. Heroes stop holding back as much, villains start thinking maybe they shouldn't pull their punches. You forget the rules with the wrong people? They' just kill you. Maybe target your family first, to make you suffer. Lung? He follows the rules. Mostly. But Bakuda, that bomb Tinker? She doesn't give a shit about any of it. She's crazy, literally crazy."
She doesn't say anything, but I can tell she's taking my words seriously, "So whatever you do, don't ever break the rules unless you want shit to start flying at you so hard and so fast you'll wonder where the sun went under the sheer amount of it all". I turn back around and continue walking, "If you doubt me, look up on the net what happened to the guy that killed that New Wave member out of costume, Fleur. The guy's own gang ended up killing him for it, that's how seriously people take the rules."
"Next, your power, and your tactics."
"What about my power?" again, a defensive tone.
"Simple. You're a Master. That's a Cape classification if you're not aware. I don't know what your range is like, but I've got a feeling it's a lot further than 'the rooftop directly over the person I'm attacking'," a glance in her direction sees the flinch she makes "Anyway, whatever that range might be you should be using it to the fullest. Ideally as a Master no one will ever know you're there. You can go a long way with bug control, but you've got to be smart about how you approach a dangerous situation. Never be afraid to fall back and call for help if it seems like you might be in over your head, and never start a fight you aren't certain you can finish."
"I don't have a cellphone."
I turn around, I'm aware of that fact already but I need to play the game and make it seem like it surprises me, " What? You don't have a cellphone? How were you expecting to call in the police if you'd caught someone, or needed some help? Or an ambulance?"
Each of my questions seems to cause her to wilt into herself a little further and she responds with a quiet voice, "I, um, I didn't think about it. I didn't realize I'd need a way to contact someone until I overheard Lung, and I didn't have change on me for a payphone."
I sigh audibly enough for her to hear it before reaching into my back pouch for what I'd already prepared for the night, "Okay. Here, take this," I hold the phone out to her "it's a disposable cellphone. It's preloaded with numbers for the police, PRT, and emergency services."
She just looks at my hand, "What? You're just going to give it to me?" her tone is obviously bewildered.
"Yes, I'm just giving it to you. I always carry a few spares and you obviously need one. If you're concerned about its cost then don't be, it's called disposable for a reason," a gesture as I continue "and if you're worried about there being a tracking device on it then, again, don't be. I just explained the 'unwritten rules' to you didn't I? I'm not going to go looking for you."
From the way she looked at the phone after I mentioned 'tracking device' I can tell she hadn't even considered that. She's definitely got a long way to go, though I suppose to be fair she's had a lot of this dropped onto her head with basically no warning.
"Oh. Um, thanks then. I appreciate it."
I nod before continuing, "Next is the Wards. You've clearly got reasons for not wanting to join them," she interrupts me before I can continue "How do you know that?"
"Because if you didn't have reasons you'd have said 'yes' the moment Armsmaster brought it up," a breath "Anyway I won't bother to speculate on your reasoning, but I just want to point out that even if you do want to join you'll need the permission either of your parents or guardians" it's thanks to the fact that I'm looking at her, and 'More Uber' making me an expert on reading body language, that I notice how that statement hits her.
"If the reason you don't want to join them is because your parents are abusive, and you're afraid they'll hurt you, the Wards do have access to.."
"My dad would never hit me!"
Her yell was actually pretty loud, but a reflexive use of power ensures that it doesn't travel to any ears that might be able to hear it outside of the two of us.
I stop again to look at her, "I never said your parents would. I was simply going to say that if that was the case then there are options you could take advantage of."
She seems contrite, but I continue on anyway, "So .. bullies at school?"
Her reaction is immediate, freezing before staring strait at me, "How did you know?!" she's stopped now, and she's definitely starting to panic, I can hear the barest sounds of the insects in the area she's no doubt been collecting 'just in case'.
Before she can do anything we'll both regret I raise up my hands in a gesture of surrender, "Relax Bugs. It was just a guess. You're pretty young, so it's not hard to imagine that if it isn't abusive parents then it's probably bullies, either in the neighborhood or at school. Those two things, as far as I know, make up nearly 90% of all trigger event causes for people under the age of majority."
She seems to relax a little, though she still seems a bit upset, "Trigger events?"
"Wow. You really must be new if you're not familiar with them. A trigger event is what it's called when a parahuman gets their powers. The media doesn't tend to talk about it, probably thanks to the PRT asking them not to since it would be the same thing as saying 'all heroes are damaged goods', but it's a fairly well researched subject. It's when a person suffers such a severe trauma or personal tragedy that, in that moment, they 'trigger' and gain their powers," I gesture at her, "basically it's the absolute worst day in a persons life, when they're at the lowest point they've ever been. If you think about it I'm pretty sure you'll know what caused your own trigger".
She seems to think for a moment before the buzzing in the air fades away, "Yeah, I can." It's a statement, she doesn't need anyone to reminder her of the locker.
"I won't guess at what yours must have been like but if it was, hypothetically speaking, bullies and not abusive parents then I think you should probably talk to them. Tell them about what happened, let them know you're a Cape and all that. You know, hypothetically speaking."
"Why are you saying this? How do you know all that?"
"You think I wasn't a teen myself? I know what it's like being young and in school and people taking things too far. Just like I know how I never bothered to tell my own parents about it, thinking I could handle it on my own. It took me getting into a serious fight and getting myself and another kid injured before my own parents even knew anything was happening at all."
I look at her, and while I don't know if she's really getting the message here I'm kind of hoping she will, "Let me tell you, after I'd explained everything I'd never felt better. It was like getting a weight off my chest. And I also never realized just how much my parents were willing to go to bat for me once they knew what was going on," I make another gesture, this time out to the city at large, "So, you know, if your hypothetical situation sounds anything like mine.. well, you never know. It might help to get that sort of thing out there to someone willing to listen."
I'm not sure whether she's still listening to me or thinking about her own home life, so I give her a few moments to collect herself before continuing, "Anyway, last thing before we go our separate ways," I reach into a pouch and pull out a card with a number printed on it, one that leads through quite a bit of Tinkering to my own phone, "This is my number. Call it if you need anything. Help, advice, etc. Oh, also, one other thing." she takes it before pocketing it and looking back at me.
I turn to face her fully, making sure I've got her full attention, "If you don't want to join the Wards for some reason, give me a call. I could use a partner, and you'll definitely need some backup if you plan to continue going out. And you could do a lot worse than a guy that can build you some Tinker-tech power armor. Hell, you'd even get paid."
That seems to rock her back on her feet, "What? Paid?"
"Yeah. You think I'm rocking out with gear like this on minimum wage?," a chuckle, "You sign on with me and I wouldn't mind paying you for it. Hell I can even provide medical coverage, my skillset is pretty diverse after all. Anyway if it means keeping you from getting press-ganged or killed because you got in over your head going solo then I would consider it money well spent. Brockton Bay has enough villains and dead heroes, after all."
I turn and begin walking away, waving my hand in a casual farewell, "Give it some thought and give me a call if you're interested. You don't want to go Wards, you can always join up with me. Nothing stopping you from joining the Wards later either, if you feel like it isn't working out."
As I walk away a brief shift in vision to move my perspective shows Taylor looking at the card and phone in her hands, her body language speculative. Now comes the part of the night I'm not looking forward to very much.
Coil.
Once I'm certain I'm out of Taylor's range I bring up my perception filters and go intangible, appearing in the air about a hundred meters directly over where I know Coil's base to be. My 'hackers' have confirmed that he hasn't left, and it's time I get this done.
With a thought I descend, first to street level and then below into the ground itself. I stop myself about ten meters above the vault that Noelle is in before triggering the commands to my 'hackers' to begin spoofing internal security, ensuring that no one will see what I am about to do.
My power reaches out to that poor girl, locked in her own flesh, and squeezes. Gently at first and then slowly increasing in strength. The power she has resists for a moment before, like a popped balloon, it is destroyed. Immediately she begins wailing and crying. She has no idea what is going on but she knows that something has just been done to her. Thankfully the vault is fully sound proof, and the security system that would normally be monitoring her has been completely subverted to my command.
Another thought and my powers shift and slots change out, swapping for the powers I'll need for the next bit. My perspective is currently within the room with Noelle, and a trio of other powers have begun the process to remove all of the extra .. flesh, from her. The bits that make her look more like a shoggoth than a woman. As it is removed a small amount is instead changed, shaped and warped until her lower half has been converted back into the proper shape, form, and function that it was before she made that fateful mistake of drinking only half a Cauldron formula so long ago. Another thought and clothing drapes her naked body as food, water, and blankets materialize near her prone form to tide her over until the Protectorate have been notified to come and rescue her.
With that the largest threat in the area, and possibly this part of the world, is neutralized. She won't have a power anymore, but she won't be an inhuman monster either. I've no idea what kind of therapy she'll need to get through her ordeal but I imagine it will be extensive.
My attention shifts, perspective moving through the base as I focus on him. Coil. Thomas Calvert, a monster in human form.
I reach out a second time with my power and this time I am not gentle at all. Sheer crushing force is brought against Coil and his power, and it is utterly unmade. He rocks back in his office, whether from surprise of the suddenness of it or from shock I don't know, but I give him no time at all to react.
A split second later, and Coil has been telefragged. His constituent parts spread in thousands of different locations at various different depths in the Earth, completely and totally beyond any hope of anyone ever finding.
It's .. almost anticlimactic in how simple it was. Having known how his power worked, having the ability to shut it down completely and utterly, and attacking in a method and from a direction he could never have possibly planned for. It shouldn't be surprising, but I almost expected him to somehow survive, to somehow have 'suddenly always been somewhere else' like some sort of Sidereal fate-ninja. But, no. He couldn't be. After all he had split at least a few times just recently, and I'd made my plans to get rid of him nearly two days ago, the finalized plan to have it immediately happen after dealing with Lung and Taylor only slightly less than that. I'd have found him no matter where he went or what he did.
I close my eyes for a moment, breath in and out, and continue with the rest of my plan. The Tinker devices I had planted before come fully to life and the base is locked down completely and utterly. Powers come to the fore and within less than three minutes every single person in Coil's base, aside from Noelle, has been knocked unconscious and sprayed down with containment foam.
Once it is done I finally sink down through the earth and take my first proper steps in what was formerly Coil's lair, seeing his office with my own eyes for the first time.
It's the work of about ten minutes for my various Tinker devices to have found and seized control of all the various files and data relating to what I, myself, would be taking. Normally it would have taken much longer but the devices I had planted earlier in the day had been extremely thorough in their searches. There wasn't a single system that hadn't been infiltrated, networked or not, and not a single bit of data that they weren't aware of. With this information I'd have access to all the funds I'd need for the foreseeable future, and with a bit of work I'd be able to turn it around into even larger amounts of money with no one wiser as to who it was going to.
I make sure the security system is thoroughly scrubbed of any footage of the last few hours before unsealing the entrance door to the facility. Before I leave I pick up Coil's phone, which had been on his desk at the time of my attack, and send a simple text message to a number my power informs me is the one Tattletale uses to stay in contact with her 'boss'.
'Coil has taken a .. permanent vacation. You have three hours to grab whatever of his assets you can manage before the Protectorate storms his base of operations. Oh, and this is the second time you owe me.'
Done. I destroy the phone and purge his systems of any information that might lead to or suggest the existence of the resources I have taken control of for myself. As I lift up and fly through the Earth and back into the sky above the city I make sure to remove any trace of the Tinker-devices I had planted there. I fly for Calvert's office next before doing the same, and then finally Calvert's house to finish up. At every location I make sure to check for and scrub any information that might compromise the existence or nature of the resources I've just hijacked.
As I finish up and teleport back to my base it occurs to me how big of a hypocrite I have been, considering how I had told Taylor not even an hour ago about the importance of the unwritten rules.
Still .. maybe if Coil had ever bothered to care about them when it came to other people, I'd have cared about them when it came to him.
Maybe.
It's about 0800 the next day when the morning news breaks the story that the Protectorate had stormed the base of the villain Coil last night after an anonymous tip had led to the discovery of an immense underground complex, filled with mercenaries, munitions, tinker-tech laser rifles, and the additional discovery of a young girl that Coil was 'holding hostage' in a sealed vault with 'nothing more than a bit of food and some blankets'. The media goes into an immediate frenzy, and there's already talks of a press conference to be held by the local PRT Director to discuss what had been found and how Coil had managed to make such a massive facility under the noses, literally, of the entire city.
As a side note, mentioned only briefly thanks to the much larger 'scandal' of the revelation about Coil, it was noted that Lung had also been taken into custody last night by Armsmaster in conjunction with the independent Tinker-hero 'Apex' and a third as yet unnamed hero.
And as the news continues to report on the developing situation I lean back into the comforting embrace of my bedrooms sofa, and smile.
Authors Note
Another chapter! I actually had to re-read the earlier bits of Worm to make sure the dialogue was right. Some parts of this chapters dialogue was lifted directly from Worm canon, and all credit for those passages goes to Wildbow, the creator of Worm.
Last edited: Feb 6, 2015
Chapter 35
Lalzparty said:
I wonder what type of relationship you will have with PRT, Protectorate, New Wave, and maybe Travelers. You started out smoothly, but Tattletale is the only one who knows it was you who made Coil "disappear". That's a potential source of the leak.
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An unfortunate side effect of feeling bad for Tattletale and the other Undersiders and letting her know to start grabbing assets. The nature of his anti-Tattletale power meant that even if he didn't leave any hints in the message that it was him she'd have figured it out, because the moment she'd start trying to piece things together her power would have started going "man, this sure is uninteresting, there's definitely nothing to see here". Like I said before the power is both a weakness and a strength, and the SI is aware of both sides of it. Unfortunately he couldn't imagine a way to provide what he wanted without also making it obvious (for anyone that had previously encountered him) what was going on. Well, other than Aisha's "forget about me" power, but he doesn't want people to forget who he is for a variety of fairly obvious reasons.
Also Tattletale isn't nearly stupid enough to go blabbing about who just offed Coil. Aside from the fact that the SI did her a favor he also made it implicitly clear that he knew she was working for Coil and that she owed him for taking care of him. Which implies he also knew about the conditions behind her forcible recruitment. The implication is also there that Coil is dead, and that the one guy that Tattletale has ever encountered that can flat-out no sell her ability is also willing to kill people and be subtle about it. Oh, and that same guy punked the hell out of Lung basically right in front of her.
Basically, enlightened self interest, the fact that she legitimately does owe him, and a healthy bit of fear/caution will prevent her from speaking out about it. Besides with the money she managed to get away with she can basically run the Undersiders on her own now, at least for a little while.
enderverse said:
So was that Noelle there already?
Thats an interesting change. Going for the old Panacea tries to cure her thing?
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Ah, there was no try about it. He did fix her. The canny reader will however note that there *was* something that he forgot to do. Or rather, something he didn't take into consideration regarding Noelle. Also as a fun fact even though Noelle was basically a Smurf plan the Simurgh currently has no idea that she's been changed/cured, thanks to the way Blank prevents the Smurf from seeing the actions of the SI, treating him and his actions as if they never even happened and didn't exist. Which means that unless Ziz turns her gaze onto Noelle specifically she'll have no clue that that particular plan has gone bust until the moment it's supposed to activate only for her to discover nothing is happening. Right now as far as the Ziz knows the events in Brockton Bay are proceeding exactly according to canon.
Trivia Freak said:
Poor Armsy must be seething over how "his" subduing and capture of Lung rated only a brief mention in a newspaper's page 4 article.
No props for Halbeard!
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Nah, who do you think lead the 'raid' on Coil's base?
Angurvddel said:
Heh, this is probably going to drive her nuts in terms of the 'hows'. Tat's powers can be mislead, but it's probably one of the hardest powers to just flat out shut down. I'm curious though, if she thinks in terms of 'what can flat out shut my powers down' without focusing on the MC would she be able to glean any information from her power?
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Unfortunately for her, no. Because the SI *is* the source of the thing that is shutting her down any attempt to determine what is causing it will lead back to the source, aka the SI, which will instantly result in the no-sell happening. It's actually a tremendously obvious effect, for the rare few people the power actually works on. She can still make her own guess of course, just not with her power helping her. The first thing that will jump to mind will be some sort of trump/stranger effect which will be absolutely correct but she'll be assuming it's Tinker-tech based, which it isn't.
Angurvddel said:
Hrm, wouldn't the fact that the MC is wearing full-fit power armor be a simpler answer? Since Armsy's detector works off of micro-expressions, voice, and body language, all of which can be concealed by armor. Well… unless the answer is the thing's feeding him is 'potato' or something. But I figure it'd probably just be giving him a 'not enough data' error. Though I could see where the MC would assume it's his power instead.
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That could be it, but the SI actually *has* Armsmaster's Tinker specialty, and thus already knows exactly how the lie-detector itself is built and how it works. In fact he actually knows how to make a better one than the one Armsmaster has. The reason he could be so certain about it being spoofed by his power is because he actually knows how that particular piece of tech works better than the dude that made it.
Angurvddel said:
Hrm. Isn't Coil's power basically precognitive? Since he's already there (Because his timelines can't account for the MC) there isn't really a need to counter the power itself is there? Just the telefrag and he's dead. IE: From MC's perspective if Coil's there then he's dead. If Coil's power had somehow worked, from MC's perspective he simply wouldn't have been around.
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Yes, basically. But the SI didn't feel like leaving anything at all to chance. While he could have simply telefragged Coil to start with he couldn't be *absolutely certain* it would work until the moment the power itself was removed from Coil.
Also thank you for pointing out the typo's, I've been re-reading the chapter and I'm still finding more of them.
Last edited: Feb 5, 2015
Chapter 36
Angurvddel said:
Hrm. Would you mind giving a bit more in detail as to how the power works? I sort of assumed it was a direct shard interaction power that disables thinker powers like Tattletale's. But tinkertech's is still just…. tech. Having both fall under the same umbrella does seem to be stretching things a little. (And thus I'm curious as to the actual mechanics). And if it's a handwave, that's fine too, it's not like it matters all that much considering the scope of the powers in the story anyways.
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The basic explanation is that the CYOA powers, all of them, are not based on Entity shards. They're based on ROB power. Rather than being something that interacts with shards and powers using established in-universe mechanics in order to do their thing, they just do their thing regardless of whether or not it would make sense. Effectively, it's magic. In this specific case it's a conceptual effect that says that anytime someone uses an intuition based, like Tattletale, Thinker power to Think about the SI the power comes back with 'this dude is completely uninteresting'. As for why it works on tech as well it is, again, basically doing the equivalent of a magical hand-wave and thumbing it's nose at the intuition based effect.
Chapter 37
EVA-Saiyajin said:
The details are good, but a lot of the dialogue feels way too close to the original canon-it's like a self insert or extra OC story where the character is essentially side by side, not a part of the story. Address regular story, then address new character like he isn't even part of it. Really awkward.
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I'll be honest. 1.6 was immensely difficult for me to write because I was having to constantly reread the first couple of chapters of Worm to make sure I was getting the fight right, and then getting the characterization of Armsmaster/Taylor/Undersiders right, etc etc.
This generally meant lifting dialogue. I couldn't imagine why some things would change, as an example Armsmaster saying "you gonna fight me" or his pitch about the Wards or who gets credit. Other things, like Grue doing introductions and such, I also couldn't reason away as not happening, because the SI while he *is* present hasn't actually done anything to dissuade Grue from making small talk, especially since the SI was actually more friendly than Taylor was in canon (the SI actually shook Grue's hand when offered).
Still it's over and done with. A tremendous amount of the early parts of Worm has now been butterflied away. Armsmaster did not mention the "elusive boss" of the Undersiders because the SI had already mentioned them by name, and so Taylor didn't ask who they were and thus doesn't have the idea to infiltrate the Undersiders to find out. He also won't be blamed for Lung's poisoning, because the credit was properly shared this time. Noelle is gone as a threat, basically removing that entire arc. Coil is also gone and, again, so is his arc. The Undersiders never offered to give Taylor a ride and it's entirely possible that Tattletale might not reach out to Taylor because events played out so differently. Even Taylor herself is different here, having gotten a basic run down of the 'unwritten rules' by what appears to her to be a heroic Tinker, instead of the slightly ambiguous minor-villain in canon. And that's not even mentioning the recruitment pitch, or the SI's manipulation of Taylor to try to convince her to come clean with her father by comparing her own situation with one he had, himself, experienced.
This last chapter has created major *major* divergences in canon and to be frankly honest I'm having to re-read Worm again in order to see what, exactly, has changed and how I need to plan around it. The bank heist, for example, is definitely not going to happen anymore and that's basically the next big "thing" in canon.
Last edited: Feb 5, 2015
Chapter 38
RoyalTwinFangs said:
So you are going to make your own arcs? As time goes by the changes are more noticeable and derail from canon.
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I pretty much have to. This might result in the current update speed slowing down, as I both no longer have a frame work to go off of and also because I'll need to make a detailed read of Worm to make sure I'm not getting details wrong, but at this point canon has been derailed so freaking hard that the President of Fanfiction is trying to determine if it should be named as an official day of mourning.
Chapter 39
Leingod said:
Did the SI take the Manpower perk? If so, he is essentially the world's best teacher/trainer, since the "get competent and loyal minions easily" extends to you being able to train your own, with "even minor effort showing extreme gains." So he could probably give Taylor a college-level education by the time of the Leviathan fight (at the latest) if he felt like it.
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He did. In fact a lot of the ground work and actions that Apex has been doing was specifically to justify with in-story reasons how the Manpower perk is manifesting. Him having a base with top-notch tinker-tech training facilities, getting a good rep as someone people can respect for his ability and power, seizing some of Coil's assets in order to turn them to his own use, etc etc. It's actually been somewhat challenging trying to fit into the story how that sort of thing would look without just being forced to railroad it in in a ham-fisted manner.
Serran said:
One thing that Taylor might ask you about is, how someone can be pressganged without the one doing the "recruiting" pretty much ignoring the rules. I was wondering the entire time during the explanation of the rules for the moment when Apex would basicly say: "These rules are there to avoid undue escalation and keep the country reasonably healthy. Still, don't rely on them to protect you. Villians are villians for a reason. The main one being that they ignore the written rules of our society. If they get a chance to pressgang you into joining and you don't have someone to get your back, they will take it."
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I was wondering if someone would catch that. If you'll re-read the bit where Apex is talking about the unwritten rules with Taylor you'll note that technically speaking, the best kind of speaking, he did mention that some criminals just don't care at all about them. In fact he specifically mentions Bakuda by name. So while he hinted to that in an oblique way it wasn't something he harped about, because he wasn't trying to put undue pressure on Taylor to make an immediate, and probably bad, decision.
Almost his entire conversation he had with her was him trying to play up the Wards in a way that makes them sound like a good option, without making them sound like an good option for Taylor herself, using his specific knowledge of her backstory to hit specific key notes to steer her in the direction he wanted. He had briefly considered mentioning the Wards would probably require her to stick with 'just butterflies' for PR reasons, and that she wouldn't get a choice in the matter, but deemed it as too overt for what he was aiming for. It's horribly manipulative but Apex views it as taking preventative action and helping Taylor to avoid some of the tremendous pitfalls she stumbled into in canon.
Last edited: Feb 5, 2015
Chapter 40
The picture used was the one that actually showed what the costumes looked like. Which is what was being described. Showing a pic with them out of costume would have been counter to why it was put there in the first place.
Chapter 41
Interlude: Actions and Reactions
0845, Director Piggots office, ENE Protectorate HQ.
I liked to think I am a stern but fair woman. I am wearing a well tailored women's business suit, as I do every day, and I am as methodical as I can be in how I approach any situation I might find myself in. Somewhat ironic, considering the poor health I'm in, a consequence of a disastrous mission nearly ten years previously, when I could easily have access to one of the worlds best healers. That too, I think, is a result of that mission. A entirely justified, though some would call it irrational, distrust of Capes of all types. I couldn't even deny it really, not in private at least, and I'm well aware of some of the names people call me when they thought I couldn't hear them.
And right now, I find myself dealing with yet another pair of Capes. These two belong to the organization I nominally am in charge of here in Brockton Bay, Armsmaster and Miss Militia.
Raised hands massage my temples as I begin what is promising to be a record day of frustration and ass covering, "Alright, I want some explanations," already the crispness in my tone is frigid, "How the hell did Coil, a man our best information analysts have assured us was little more than a minor villain at best, manage to construct a gods damned super bunker underneath not just Brockton Bay, but under the watchful eyes of literally everyone in this damn city! Including the PRT and the Protectorate!"
Armsmaster is sitting at attention, back rigid as he answers me, "We aren't entirely certain but some preliminary findings may have given us a lead," he takes a moment to bring out an electronic pad before calling up some specific high-lights of the investigation, "Dragon has been going over the electronic files that we managed to seize from the site, specifically from the computer systems we believe were for the personal use of Coil himself, that reveals Coil might have had some sort of connection to Fortress Industries via a man known as Thomas Calvert. We've.."
I raise my hand to interrupt, "Thomas Calvert? You're certain?"
There's a slight frown on his face at being cut off, "Yes Ma'am. You know him?"
"Unfortunately. He's a snake in the grass that did some time after an incident that resulted in him being kicked out of the PRT about ten years ago."
Armsmaster makes a note of the information, "I see. I'll be sure to include that in the report," he looks back up, "Anyway, PRT agents have already been dispatched to Calvert's home and place of work with warrants to seize computers, documents, and communications devices. However he hasn't been seen, by anyone, since he left his place of work around 1830 last night."
Miss Militia takes this moment to interject with her own thoughts, "Perhaps he was blackmailed by Coil? Maybe he was kidnapped? Or maybe the anonymous tip might have come from someone Calvert had arranged to release the information in the event of his disappearance?"
Armsmaster turns his head to look at her, "Maybe. Like I said the information is still being gone over. Currently nothing has come up to conclusively link the two together, either as the same person or accomplice's, so we won't be sure about the exact circumstances between them for some time, if ever," he turns back to face the director, "Especially since we currently aren't aware of where, exactly, Coil himself is at."
I nod, "Make sure it's made clear that we need to put our best foot forward on this. The media is already going wild just on the little information that is known. We don't want people to start having doubts about our cities Endbringer shelters," I pause to take a breath, my constitution not what it used to be, "By letting it be known that the person responsible for designing and constructing them might be a Villain, or with ties to one."
Privately however I almost hope that there is something incriminating found. I detest the man known as Thomas Calvert. If I can admit to myself that I dislike Capes for looking down on normal people because of their powers, then I can also admit that I dislike people like Calvert just as much, if not more. The kind of people that look down on others without even the slim justification of parahuman powers to back them, however foolish and empty that justification is, but instead do so because of their massive and over-inflated ego. The kind of people, like Calvert, that act like the worst sort of scum not because they are lording a power over others but instead because they genuinely believe that their own concerns take precedence over literally everyone else.
I still remember how casual he was when he admitted to what he had done. How he had shot a superior officer, in the mess of evacuating from the disaster of Ellisburg, because the man 'wasn't climbing up the ladder fast enough'. How blasé he had been about the whole affair as if he couldn't understand, or perhaps simply didn't care, about how it was wrong. So, yes. I find myself almost hoping there's a connection between Calvert and Coil, even though I know I really shouldn't be. The man was bad enough even without powers after all, and I shudder to think what he might have been like had he ever gained some of his own.
Still, I could think on that sort of thing later, it was time for other matters, "Alright, we'll revisit that particular problem later once our people have had a chance to review everything. I've already set the press conference to discuss it for tomorrow afternoon, 1400, so I'll expect at least the cliff-notes answers by then," a nod as both Armsmaster and Miss Militia acknowledge the statement, "Now onto the other matter. Armsmaster, you took Lung into custody last night after his altercation with a pair of what I'm to understand are two complete unknowns. I want your opinion on it."
Armsmaster purses his lips for a moment, "Everything is in the report Ma'am, was there something specific you wanted elaboration on? I still need to get back to the lab to continue studying that tranquilizer formula I was given."
I nod, "I'm aware of that. But I still want to hear it from the horses mouth. You said there were two capes, a 'bug' controller and another Tinker. I'd like to hear you thoughts on them."
He pauses to bring up a few different files on his pad before he continues, "Very well. First I'll discuss the younger one, the bug controller. She was referred to briefly as 'Bugs' during the conversation I had with the two of them, but by her own admission she hadn't actually decided on a cape name yet. As such until different information comes to light I'll refer to her as 'Bugs'," a pause as he flips to a different screen, "Estimated age, between 14 and 18. Brunette. About 5'8, fairly tall for her estimated age bracket, definitely new. She admitted it was her first night out and that she attacked Lung only because she was lead into believing he would be going to shoot children, which were later revealed to actually be a reference to the Undersiders."
I take a sip from a glass of water and motion for him to continue, "My personal opinion is that she's going to get herself killed. Or maybe end up killing someone else by accident. Her obvious lack of consideration for personal safety in attacking Lung without backup, her use of venomous insects, her apparent inexperience .." he pauses a moment before nodding, "I suggested the Wards to her. Offered her my contact information. I didn't have time to do further after it was pointed out how Lung had been poisoned, but she seemed amenable to the idea."
He flips to a different screen as he makes more notes, "Personally I think she'd be good for the Wards. The power isn't terribly PR friendly, but she's definitely got guts taking on Lung on her own."
Miss Militia speaks up, "If I may, I'd like to suggest having the Wards themselves engage her where possible. Get her used to the idea of interacting with them. Vista and Aegis probably being the best two for doing that, people she can relate to in age."
Armsmaster makes even more notes, "Yes. That's probably the best idea. I'll be sure to pass it along to them to keep an eye out for her on their patrols."
I make a few notes of my own before leading the conversation to the next topic, "And the Tinker? I believe he identified himself as Apex?"
Armsmaster seems a bit more animated with his answers this time, "He's established. Just from what I could see I could tell that he wasn't like most starting Tinkers, relying on scrap and salvage. The armor was streamlined, as was the weapon he was using. That implies money, resources, maybe a backer. It's also possible he's a hero, or maybe a villain, that's decided to 'rebrand' themselves," he stops for a moment to think, "He's probably from out of town. Dragon's already having a look over the information we were given regarding the chemicals he designed, and I'll be looking at that later as well, and we'll see if we can determine from that any connections to known Tinkers."
He looks a bit more serious before continuing, "More importantly is the fact that he had the information at all. As you know for the vast majority of Tinkers building things, and explaining things, is a gap that isn't easily crossed. But the information we got was exact. Perfectly exact," he leans in to convey the seriousness of his words, "Including the science behind it. Exact chemical compositions, how to mix them, how to create them, why they interact the way they do, their applications, and more. It's .. huge. The information is inclusive enough that I'd be confident in saying that we could, ourselves, replicate that substance exactly as is."
I'm not sure I'm understanding the significance of the what I'm hearing, "What exactly are you getting at here?"
He leans back in his chair, "I'm saying we could be looking at a Tinker that not just understands the tech, but knows how to explain it too. Knows how to break it down far enough that it's possible that non-Tinkers could replicate the designs. I'm not sure if it's like that for everything he's got, but the implication is there," a pause as he considers, "If he could provide that sort of information for a relatively minor part of kit, it's entirely possible he can do the same for the other, more important, parts as well."
I can't help but be momentarily impressed. The idea of a Tinker that could make things that could be produced by non-Tinkers .. "You're saying he might be like Dragon?"
A shrug, "I don't think so. My guess is that his particular understanding is probably limited only to his specialty, whatever it might be, as opposed to Dragons ability to understand the work of other Tinkers. It's still significant however," a slight smile forms on his face, "He seemed open to the possibility of collaborative work as well, which is a plus," now a slight frown, "But his response when I mentioned he'd be a good fit in the Protectorate is concerning. He might have an issue with authority, or possibly with people questioning the quality of his work or competence."
He follows up with another shrug, "It's hard to tell without more information, but right now I'd suggest not trying to press the issue with him. It's pretty obvious he doesn't need the resources the Protectorate can provide, at least in regards to constructing his equipment, so we'll need a bit more information on him before we can really decide on how to move forward."
A gesture from Miss Militia proceeds her own thoughts, "I'm concerned he might be press-ganged. Or just targeted in general for that matter. The ABB will definitely be on the lookout for him, and the E88 would love to have a Tinker of their own, assuming he's white, to say nothing at all of any number of other groups that would like to have access to an established Tinker" she gives a considering look, "there's also the issue of Coil's base. Are we certain it wasn't Apex that cleared it out?"
Armsmaster fields this one, "I considered it briefly, but ultimately I don't think so. The mercenaries found inside, twenty six in number, were all taken by surprise without a single shot being fired. Knocked unconscious via unknown method and foamed. We know Apex has that ability, thanks to the report provided by the police regarding his first known appearance, but I don't think it was him," he brings up a timeline chart, "As you can see here the estimated time for the assault on Coil's base, based on measuring how long the containment foam had been exposed to air, is approximately the same time that Apex was known to have engaged with Lung on the other side of the city. There's about a fifteen minute gap between the two, but accounting for travel time, then infiltrating the base and actually carrying out the assault..," a shake of his head, "I just don't think it was him. I'll concede it's possible that he might have provided the equipment to whomever actually did it though. But my current guess is someone from out of town."
He gives a considering look, "The girl found in the base, Noelle, admitted to links with the group known as the Travelers during one of her lucid moments. I'd almost think it was them, maybe trying to rescue the girl, but I can't imagine why they would have left the base without taking her with them."
Miss Militia steps in, "Maybe they couldn't get into the vault? Cleared it out only to realize they didn't have the means to actually get to her, and so they called in an anonymous tip to us to spring her out for them?," she frowns, "Maybe Coil was blackmailing them? Holding the girl hostage to secure their loyalty?"
I give that thought a moment to go through the room before I ask my own question, "Even if that is the case, which we can't be certain, why would Apex provide the Travelers with Tinker equipment? How would he have even come into contact with them?"
Armsmaster taps his fingers on his chair before speaking up, "We don't know. It's possible he might have done it because he felt sympathy for them and their member being held hostage. It's also entirely possible he had nothing to do with them at all. Either way I don't think we should try forcing connections to things that might not have them. Claiming an independent hero is having dealings with Villains is a major accusation, especially since it can't be proved."
I nod my head, agreeing with the statement, "Yes, I agree. Apex already seems to have some sort of issue with the PRT, or maybe the Protectorate, so lets not go making any statements or implications that might aggravate the issue. Especially if we can't prove any of it. I want this man either on the team or at least amenable to working with us, and that isn't going to happen if accusations start flying around."
A glance at the clock to the side reveals it's almost time for a different meeting, "Alright. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, continue with the investigations. If something serious is discovered let me know but, if not, I'll see you both for the usual end of day meeting."
As the two of them excuse themselves and leave the room I turn my attention to my computer, and begin writing up the report for the Head Director.
1120, Office of Rebecca Costa-Brown, PRT Headquarters North America.
I sigh as I lean back in my chair. I'd read through the report on the 'Coil issue' twice, even though I had no need to, to make sure I hadn't missed any detail. So much for the plan to see what a modern day parahuman feudal state would look like.
The second report however, was much more interesting. The girl found inside the vault of Coil's base had been identified as Noelle, of the Travelers. That in and of itself was nothing particularly noteworthy if not for the video files that had also been found in Coil's base. Videos that clearly showed that the girl, prior to whatever happened in the assault on the base, had been a case53.
A Cape, mutated by one of the power formulas developed by Cauldron, an organization I belonged to. Alongside the report was also the mention that the girl, during a moment of hysterics when the PRT first released her from the vault, had been constantly saying 'it's gone, it's gone, I can't feel it anymore'.
It didn't take someone with enhanced intelligence like myself to understand the reference. Which is why when the PRT had gotten her into a medical facility they had performed an MRI to check. A Corona Gemma and Pollentia. The girl was a parahuman, but without a power.
Combined together .. it painted an interesting picture. Somehow a case53 had been rendered powerless and, at the same time, had been reverted back to her human state. If Cauldron could make use of that capability .. well, we wouldn't need to do nearly as much kidnapping. We'd be able to just use the same people over and over until something finally stuck that wasn't a huge mess. It could be the key we needed to finding the next Eidolon, the ability to have effectively unlimited re-tries until a power manifested that we wanted.
I'll need to talk with the others. With that I enter a command into my computer to lock down the office before standing up from my desk.
"Door Me."
0314, Previous Night.
I'm bone tired as I approach the street my house is on. It's been a long, long night. And I was still trying to internalize it all. Even now hours after the fact it still seemed like some sort of dream.
I'd kept my promise to myself. I'd gone out and I'd made my debut as a hero. And what a fiasco that had turned into. I'd gone out thinking I'd maybe stop a mugging, or some petty theft, or something like that. Something nice and 'easy', to ease myself into the lifestyle. I had been so giddy about the mere thought of it that when it turned out that I wasn't finding anything at all like that, I had actually felt let down. I mean I hear about these sorts of things all the time in news right? Where the hell was it when I was actually looking for it?
Of course, that thought didn't end up lasting long. Because I had found 'it'. Oh boy had I found it. Lung, the parahuman gang leader of the Asian Bad Boyz. I'd studied online about all the various villains I could find here in Brockton Bay so I'd been aware of who he was, and I'd known that he had some sort of control over fire and could get bigger and stronger over the course of a fight.
It hadn't prepared me for the reality of it at all. It had seemed to be going so easy at first. I'd scattered all the normal ABB members and Lung had looked like he was swatting about helplessly, firing blasts of fire around while I was hidden safely on a rooftop where he couldn't see me.
Then things had started going so very, very, wrong. He had seemed to literally explode with fire, killing off a huge number of the bugs I had already sent it. A second explosion not even moments later killing even more. And the whole time he'd been getting bigger and bigger, more armor and scales appearing on his body. By the time I'd finally decided to send in the poisonous insects and started directing the bugs at his weak spots manually it had already been far too late. He'd escalated to a point I couldn't match any more.
It wasn't until after his back seemed to .. open up, I guess, and he'd gained even more height that it occurred to me that I was in over my head. And when he had stood back up, nearly eight feet tall and shrouded in a flame that wasn't going out .. yeah, I knew when to cut my losses. Especially since whatever plan he might have had for the night had already been foiled, there being no way he could have continued the attack with his men scattered as they were.
So, with a slight crouch I had gotten up from my perch and had slowly stepped backwards onto the gravel of the roof. Which is right about the time I had discovered that apparently what no one had failed to mention on all those message boards was that Lung had superhuman hearing as well as his head whipped around and his one good eye stared strait into my own.
I'm ashamed to admit, even just in my own head, that the roar that followed that eye contact had nearly made me piss myself. Of course that just made the next part even worse.
You never really get an idea for what 'super strength' is really like until you see it in person. I mean it's one thing to know about it intellectually, but it's an entirely different thing to see a man leap from the ground and up to the second story of a building, from the far side of the street no less, in a single bound.
I still had had options though, not that they were good ones. Some chalk for climbing and a single can of pepper spray meant to hang from a keychain that my father had given me. So I had taken that pepper spray and squared myself up, and when Lung had come over the side of the rooftop and raised himself up I had sprayed for all I was worth.
I had missed the first time, spraying his shoulder instead of his eyes, but the second spray after I had adjusted myself had hit true. It was at that point just as I was getting ready to run and look for some sort of cover that a pair of extremely loud bangs had echoed out from directly over my head, striking Lung right in the face and sending him spilling over the side of the building.
The sheer force of the sound, and probably being so close to the guy that got hit I guess, had literally knocked me on my ass. I had no idea what had happened until a Cape I had never heard of before dropped out of the air right in front of me onto the roof. I think he had said something too, but my ears were still ringing.
And they kept ringing, because he had kept shooting at what I guessed was Lung over the side of the building for what must have been half a minute before he finally stopped.
After that .. well, things got even more strange. Meeting the supposed 'kids' that Lung had been after, apparently a villain group by the name of the Undersiders, my introduction to Armsmaster and the guy that had saved my ass named Apex, the realization that I had nearly died just then .. I was still trying to come to terms with it all.
Especially the important bits. And there were a lot of them. A lot more than what I had realized myself, even with months of searching online message boards, studying the cape scene in the city, and trying to plan this out for myself. I had never even considered the idea of retaliation from villains. I mean, it didn't even occur to me that they might try to come after me, much less that they might try to come after Dad. Hell I hadn't even considered the idea that I might need a phone just to call in whatever theoretical 'bad guys' I might have ended up capturing.
The more I thought on what I had learned and what I had been told the more I realized how completely unprepared I had been, and how absurdly lucky I was that someone had been there to take out Lung before he had killed me.
Hell, the guy had even given me a phone after I had admitted I didn't have one. And I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea that phones could be disposable. There'd also been talk about the Wards. About my powers and how I should be using them smarter, about those 'unwritten rules' I hadn't even known about .. It was a lot to take in. Hell, he'd even offered me what sounded like a paying job.
There had also been the other parts though. The parts I didn't really like thinking about. Trigger Events he'd called them. I still remember how he said it, about how the media didn't like to talk about it because the PRT didn't want people knowing that 'heroes were damaged goods'. About how it represented the lowest points in a persons life.
That he had managed to guess so easily the cause behind my own trigger had shaken me. That I guy I didn't even know could tell, with just a single conversation, what had happened. That a complete stranger could peg the nature of my own event so easily. I didn't want to think about it, but I couldn't help but remember his other words too. About how he had experienced the same thing. Being bullied, keeping it to himself, not talking about it until it had all spiraled out of control. And wasn't that exactly what had happened to me? Was still happening?
The thought that a real hero like him, since that's definitely what he was in my mind, knew what it was like for me .. I don't know how I felt about it. I'd built up this image in my head about heroes being larger than life, being infallible. And, I mean, they kind of still were. Armsmaster had done nothing to dissuade me of the image, even his talk about credit having made sense when looked at logically, and Apex had literally saved my life. So, they were definitely heroes. But I'd also learned that they weren't the perfect people I'd thought they were. 'Damaged goods' he'd said. 'Well researched subject' he'd mentioned. The words still echoed around in my head and I couldn't help but wonder if all the heroes out there had gone through their own version of the Locker.
It was a sobering thought, that everyone with powers might have lived through something as bad as what I had, what I still was. It also made me think about the other thing he'd said. About talking to Dad. About how, for him at least, it had been the right decision.
I've come up to my own house now, and carefully I slip inside. It's the work of a few minutes to hide away my costume down in the old chute in the basement, and I make my way up to the kitchen where I lay out some toast and jam for when Dad wakes up.
It's not until I make my way up the stairs and to the door of my room that I stop and think for a few moments. The words keep playing in my head, about what he had said from before. About how I shouldn't keep it to myself, how I should talk to Dad and let him know what was happening. I bite into my lip as I keep thinking about it.
A moment more and I turn away from my door before walking down the hall to my Dad's room. I must have stood in front of it for nearly five minutes before I finally worked up the courage. If a hero like him could do it.. well then, so could I. I knock on my Dad's door, and am almost surprised by how quickly it opens. He's standing there in his night robe and I can see the worry in his face as he looks at me, and I take a deep breath as I square myself up.
"Dad .. there's some things I'd like to talk to you about."
Authors Note
Dun dun dun. The butterflies are flapping so hard one can't help but wonder if even Taylor can direct them all. As a note to the readers, the next few chapters might take me longer to put out as I read through Worm again both for inspiration and ideas. And, of course, to make sure that the stuff I'm talking about actually matches up with what I remember of it.
Last edited: Jul 7, 2016
Chapter 42
Serran said:
Interesting, especially since we know about Danny being awake before Taylor got to him.
Just to point out, all Case 53 that have been released were peopel given formulas when their only alternative was dying of body failure in a matter of minutes and no actual chance of surviviing. From Battlefields, and bombings in alternate realities. There was never a shortage of people Cauldron could shove their formulas at. And from what I get the members of Cauldron seem to work with the moto: "If there is no new Eidolon then quantity has a qualtiy all of its own".
Not to say that Cauldron will not be incredible interested in aquiring this ability. But propably not for the reasons described here. The core members will be especially vexed when they discover that Contessas power is getting the blue screen. Having to rely on PRT ressources for this will be an interesting expierience for them.
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Oh Alexandria is aware that Noelle isn't an actual case53, even though Noelle did take a Cauldron formula, but the reports are saying she was because that's pretty obviously what it looks like to people that aren't aware of how case53's are made and it's those people that made the report.
As for the reasons, even Alexandria isn't a monster. She does what she does because she doesn't believe there's any other options if the human race wants to live through the next 20 years. But when faced with the possibility of being able fix people that have taken formulas, it's going to interest her. It's not necessarily going to be a major focus for them, after all there's nothing to suggest the 'fixing' can be done without also removing the power, but it's something they'll at least consider looking into. Once it's revealed that Contessa can't find the source because it's blocking precog .. well, that's when things start getting interesting.
thatavidreader said:
I hope Apex, with his previous history of being bullied, "takes care" of Sophia before Taylor ever finds out about her being a part of the wards and completely losing her faith in the heroes.
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To be fair 'being bullied' as a male is very different than it is for a girl. All I had to do to fix the bullying situation was beat the shit out of the guy, at which point suddenly everyone wanted to be my friend. Including the former bully. It's not nearly as easy as that for girls. As for Sophia .. she doesn't even really register to him. If Taylor brings it up with him he'll make motions towards investigating options for getting her either into a different school or some form of home tutoring, but Apex honestly doesn't care about Sophia at all.
Compared to the much more real and tangible dangers of bombing-spree Bakuda, Endbringers, Scion, etc etc Sophia ranks somewhere around the same level of concern as hoping a bird doesn't poop on his car. Considering he doesn't actually *have* a car in the Worm verse…
Last edited: Feb 6, 2015
Chapter 43
Dimensionist said:
Honestly? He's got friggin' Eidolon on World Breaker. Just pop in a Thinker power for a few moments designed for social fu and help Sophia out with her mindset, and/or fix things at her home. You want to be a hero? Be a hero.
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To be fair he doesn't need to do that. He's got 'More Uber'. He could be the worlds best therapist, child psychologist, and motivational speaker all at the same time if it occurred to him. And if I actually had the writing chops to make that sort of thing look even remotely realistic.
Chapter 44
God Tyrant said:
So Noelle is fine eh? That's a sudden butterfly.
That, and they think that he's like Dragon. If they ever find out what he can do, then comparing him to Dragon is like saying that a Desert has some sand in it.
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Not quite. They don't think he's like Dragon. They believe he simply knows how to explain whatever tech is within his own specialty. Dragon is about understanding how others stuff works, they think he's simply a guy that knows how to explain how his own stuff works sufficiently that non-tinkers can understand it. It's still very impressive though. Also yes if they had any idea what he could really do as a Tinker .. well, Armsmaster would probably have a brain aneurism from jealousy.
Zaralann said:
Questions for the Author:
Can Apex just make Taylor a Tinker-Tech suit with her incests being inserted into their own Tinker-Tech suits, or at least their brains so she would be able to control them, like that Villain in the Marvel Universe? How did he copied Noelle's Power? It's just a half so he should be aware of that little fact and search for the other part so he would have the whole thing.
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He could probably make suits for bugs, but that's kind of ridiculous and he'd never bother. There's so many bugs to be found just kind of around in any given area that there would be no point to it. As for Noelle her power works just fine. It just has horrible consequences. If he wanted to use it he'd need to spend a few charges to change the mechanics of it so that it didn't have so many massive draw backs. Right now it's kind of sitting the back of his head with it's switch turned off. To be entirely honest though it's kind of useless for him since he doesn't need to copy other people, since that has no practical use to him. The only person really worth copying is himself and Noelle's power can't do that which means if he wants to make copies of himself he'd be better off just making a new power from scratch.
Unelemental said:
I wonder just how many powers will be explained away as bullshit Tinkertech before people wise up. And what sort of specialization will they attribute to him, if any?
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He'd have to do something pretty blatant for people to assume it wasn't Tinker tech. As for what specialty people might eventually think he has, they'd probably assume something like String Theory but without the time limit part.
Chapter 45
Necoc Yaotl said:
You don't have to show it, you could write a scene afterwards where you realize how terrifyingly tempting the ability to social fu everyone's problems are. People stop being people and end up as objects to verbally program.
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While he could certainly do it, he wouldn't. I mean can you say Master/Stranger protocols if Shadow Stalker just shows up one day happy and dapper and really ready to go out and do good for the community? Taking her power is equally out, since he doesn't want to be connected to an 'attack' on a Ward in the crazy event that somehow it comes out he can modify peoples powers.
If was going to do anything in regards to Sophia it would probably be little more than sending an anonymous message to Director Piggot about how Sophia has been behaving at school, how she put someone in a hospital, how the school covered it up with the assistance of the PRT parole officer that was supposed to be watching out for that sort of behavior and reporting it, etc etc. Piggot would absolutely obliterate Sophia if it actually came to light what she was doing.
If Apex wanted to be really vicious about it he'd call up a mix of powers that let him view past events as they happened and then make a video showing in exact detail the moment that Shadow Stalker killed a dude by trying to dangle him over the edge of a building, with Emma in the background watching it, and then release the video onto the internet with some words along the lines of 'why is a murderer allowed in the Wards' or something similar. But that's only if he wanted to be particularly spiteful. Like I said Apex doesn't really care about Sophia, and won't unless she does something to absolutely force his hand. Which is fairly unlikely because Sophia isn't going to fuck around with a guy that is openly known for having tangled with Lung and come out on the winning side.
Chapter 46
Kythorian said:
WoG is that if piggot had known about the locker she would have started watching Sophia a lot closer to make sure she didn't do it again, but she wouldn't have been sent to juvie or even transferred her.
But while Sophia certainly isn't vital, she is still kind of important because of her importance to Taylor. It doesn't really seem like a good idea to just totally ignore the situation if he is serious about recruiting Taylor.
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Ah, but if Piggot were informed via 'anonymous tip' about Sophia, that's different. Because that means there is a person out there that no only knows who Shadow Stalker is but also knows enough to be aware that a PRT agent is covering shit up for her. At that point Piggot has very few options, because it is no longer an internal matter. She would know that someone out there knows the identity of a Ward and has got serious dirt on her and if they could send an email directly to Piggot about it there's nothing to stop them from sending the same message to the media. Or posting it online. Or sending it to one of the other Directors.
Basically if the SI were inclined to make such an anonymous 'tip off' Piggots hand would be forced to, at bare minimum, arrange for Sophia to be transferred out of town. Because the scandal that could result from the knowledge being released that a Ward was basically committing a terror campaign against an innocent 'powerless normal' under her watch would absolutely ruin her. This is especially true in the case of Sophia, because Sophia is black and Taylor is white. And what major gang happens to be based in Brockton Bay that might take issue with that sort of thing and stir up all sorts of problems and issues?
As for Sophia being important to Taylor well .. that's Taylor's issue. If she wants to bring it up or mention what's going on to Apex, for some reason, then he'd be inclined to look into it. But until and unless Taylor mentions it to him he "doesn't officially know that". And going behind her back to deal with the situation on his own could easily backfire, thanks to Taylor's trust problems. Plus to be frank about it recruiting Taylor and fixing Taylor's school problems are not things that necessarily have to go hand in hand. One could certainly lead to the other but even in canon we see that Taylor prefers to keep her escapist Cape life separate from her shit-sack real life.
Chapter 47
thatavidreader said:
If you are.. even a reasonably good person though, and you were in Apex's situation, once Taylor starts working for you, then you'd be looking out for your underling's well being. And dealing with Sophia is definitely the top priority if you want to keep Taylor sane.
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No, part of being a good person is knowing when to accept that sometimes people don't want help. He could certainly ask if she wants to discuss her problems at school and let her know he's willing to give her support if she needs it on that front but, ultimately, it is on Taylor whether or not she wants to accept such assistance. And if Taylor wants to handle it on her own then, in that case, the correct decision is letting her handle it on her own.
Honestly speaking simply letting Taylor know that he could arrange for home schooling or tutoring would probably be enough to fix the situation. In canon they did try to arrange for a transfer but couldn't because some 'school regulations' said that the only other school close enough for her to attend is Arcadia, which has a waiting list a mile long. But of course that's just horseshit, and almost certainly just some lazy school official saying shit because they don't want to go to the effort of doing actual work. I should know, I went to two different schools in my youth that were more than 70 miles from where I lived. Taylor was willing to keep going to school because she didn't want to 'let the bullies win' by driving her away but, by the same token, if she were given an out that meant she didn't have to go to school at all .. well, she'd probably take it.
Chapter 48
Massgamer45 said:
Brellin I never got an answer to my question so you might not have seen it so I will repost it.
Once your work is done in the Wormverse will you use the Kaleidoscope to travel to other universes and solve their problems too? Since this uber version allows you to travel not only anywhere in the infinite multiverse it also allows you to travel anywhen so you could go to anypoint in a time peroid in a certain universe.
You could always return home using this power at the same time you left so it's not like you would miss anything.
You could be lke the Doctor accept in addition to time travel you can travel the multiverse and use your bullshit powers to help those universes in need.
I would certainly like to see it.
Also love the story so far.
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I have no current plans on making a sequel to this story. Mostly because I'm still plotting out this one, and also because by the time this is finished Apex will almost certainly have reached 'sufficiently powerful' status.
Chapter 49
Kythorian said:
Oh, carving. Honestly that makes even less sense as a comparison.
And please actually post some support for this if you are getting it from canon, because I can't remember anything indicating any kind of limit like what you are suggesting.
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I'm pretty certain the word he is looking for is 'craving' and not 'carving', which are two very different things. As for canon one needs to remember that how a power expresses itself differs from person to person based on their needs, their personalities, and what they actually require at the exact moment of triggering. Wildbow explained it in a post awhile back but generally speaking the powers a person gets tend to reflect that person and their situation in some way.
As for my thoughts on Sophia, I believe Sophia's powers expressed themselves in the way they did because Sophia herself tends to associate that sort of thing with her concept of predator/prey. And having the power just enforced that image in her mind, because it served as a sort of vindication for her beliefs. Combine that with a shards natural inclination to steer their hosts towards conflict and you get a pretty volatile mix of different things. The end state resulting in what could best be described as a sociopathic murderer that only manages to control her actions and violence because she's just smart enough to know that there are people way more badass than her that will stop her if she does things, and gets caught, that are too far outside of the bounds of what society will accept.
That doesn't mean that shards can't change people in a fundamental way mentally of course. Burnscar is a prime example and what Panacea did in order to make Taylor into Khepri is another example. That's not even discussing things like Heartbreaker, or Valefor, or any number of other capes. Shards most certainly can cause incredible mental shifts in their hosts. But that doesn't mean all of them do.
Chapter 50
2.1
It's just after 0850 when I set the dishes back into their places on my shelves, from half way across the room, and contemplate my timetables for the day. The media is going nuts over the reveal on Coil, and to a lesser extent the capture of Lung, and I know I've got only a small window of time before things start going pear shaped in the city. I vaguely recall that Coil contested the E88 over downtown, and I suspect that with him out of the picture that they'll try to move in. On the flip side there's also the territory of the Docks to consider, currently ABB held, that they'll no doubt want a piece of as well. I'm not sure they'll actually have enough people to move on both areas at once, but I think it's a safe bet they'll focus on the Docks first if only to weaken the ABB further.
Speaking of which, the ABB need to be finished off now, while they're still reeling. Bakuda is set to go on her bombing spree fairly soon, and she and Lung's other flunky Oni-Lee will be staging a jail break for their leader. I wasn't sure on the exact time table for that, whether it was today or possible days from now, but I didn't go to the effort of making sure he got into custody just for his two lapdogs to bust him out. With that in mind, I pencil in 'take out Bakuda and Oni-Lee' for the morning portion of my schedule. I'm not entirely certain how long that will take, though I can't imagine long, so that still leaves me with most of the afternoon and the entirety of the evening.
I lean back in my chair as I consider my options. On the one hand, I'll be dealing a decisive blow to the ABB today, effectively decapitating the organization as a whole. On the other hand, it'll make the E88's position in the city effectively dominant. I don't really like the idea of a bunch of Nazi's running about and taking shit over but, by the same token, Kaiser ran a tight enough ship that as long as there wasn't major opposition they wouldn't cause too much damage. Since I was about to cut the rug right out from under the only group likely to give that opposition, Bakuda and Oni-Lee, that meant that I could probably afford to put off the White-Nazi's for at least a day or two while I dealt with the Asian-Nazi's.
Man, what the fuck was wrong with Brockton Bay that it could have two different groups of Nazi's running around in it?
I mean, intellectually, I figure the declining conditions in the city could probably be attributed to the decrease in international trade thanks to the Leviathan, and that the entire situation was probably only made even worse by the boat graveyard out there choking off the sea entrance into the bay itself. The combination of the two problems leading to a major decline in the shipping industry and the jobs that relied upon it.
And, as if a light bulb has gone off in my head, I've got it. The boat graveyard. I could remove the entire thing, clearing up the harbor entrance for probably the first time in .. well, however long it had been closed off. Probably years, maybe even a decade. With the bay opened up again trade could start coming back in. City projects to clean the docks back up for incoming or returning companies, more jobs for the people that relied on that sort of work, and so on and so forth. It was perfect.
Plus, I have to admit, I think I needed a bit of a break. I hadn't really been working myself ragged or anything considering I didn't need to sleep and felt absolutely incredible all the time, thank you powers, but at the same time I'd spent the majority of the last three days strait moving from one problem to another. But today I could stop that. Once Bakuda and Oni-Lee were dealt with I could move to the boat graveyard, clear that whole mess up, and then just relax for the rest of the day.
Also, now that I thought about it, it would be a good test for my powers. I knew I was strong, intellectually and because I was instinctively aware of every function and nuance of how my Eidolon abilities worked. But knowing it, intellectually and instinctively, wasn't enough. I needed to see it for myself, see with my own eyes just what the limits were when I really pushed myself. If I was going to be fighting try-hard Endbringers and eventually the Warrior I needed to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what I was actually capable of.
Also, when I thought about it, it would send a powerful message. The gangs were a lot more likely to keep their heads down, for the short term at least, once they got an eyeful of what I had planned. The thought that someone that strong might have moved into town .. yeah, they'd definitely keep things low key while they scrambled for information. Which was perfect for me, because that would give me all the time I needed to absolutely ruin each and every one of them.
With that in mind I gear up and head out to start my day, already looking forward to the next few days where everything will substantially be calmer and less in need of my urgent attention.
It's a bit after 1030 in the morning when I finally discover the location of Bakuda. Her workshop, such as it is, is in the basement of a four story building that looks like it used to be some sort of office building. The upper two floors are basically empty while the first two floors look like they've been converted into a mix of a dormitory and some sort of rec area. There's a Ping-Pong table, a pool table, and a decent sized flat screen with various bits of furniture laying about. There's five people total in the building as well as two directly outside the entrance standing watch and, wouldn't you know it, my luck has held out. Oni-Lee and Bakuda are both present down in her lab.
Thankfully I'd planned ahead for this, and I'd already made a power to render myself immune to areas of distorted or stopped time. I'd even gone a bit further and made what effectively constituted as a respawning power just in case. The 'core' that enabled the respawn, the idea having been based off of what the Endbringers did, I had left in my base. I wasn't expecting there to be any danger here, what with my preparations and me being the ambusher, but it paid to have insurance.
So with a brief shift in perspective it was suddenly like I was actually in the room with them, despite the fact that I was actually about a hundred and eighty meters above and to their side floating in the air.
Wow, Bakuda has a real set of lungs on her. And it looks like I might have been understating things when I had called her a crazy bitch yesterday. She's ranting out loud while standing over a table working on what looks like an ammo round for a 40mm grenade launcher, a device that if I wasn't mistaken was designed to release a large cloud of fluoroantimonic acid over an area. Which really just highlighted how incredibly fucking insane Bakuda was. As if her current ravings weren't clue enough.
"I'm telling you Lee! I'm going to fucking carve off their dicks and make them eat them! Those fucking hacks think they're Tinkers?! I'll show them, I'll show them what a real Tinker looks like! We'll break Lung out and then we'll show all those fucking fucks who's in charge here!
Oni-Lee .. just kind of sits there. He doesn't have his mask on, which reveals that he's actually fairly average looking. Dark hair, typical Asian features .. I can't really place him. Not that it really matters, I suppose. Anyway he doesn't really appear to be giving her much attention, instead he seems to be sharpening a few sets of knives as well as adjusting the rigging on what looks like some sort of custom tactical vest. No doubt he'll be porting about with copies of Bakuda's bombs later once they get around to springing Lung.
It's as Bakuda continues her ranting that she mentions how she's already sent out some 'boyz' to start bringing in people for her to 'work on'. It takes me a moment to connect the comment to what I remember from Worm before I realize that she must be talking about planting bombs in people to use them as hostages and suicide bombers.
Shit. I had completely forgotten about that. I remember the bombing rampage but the fact she'd been actually putting bombs into people had completely escaped my mind. Still, it looked like she hadn't actually started on that yet. Or, rather, if she had then it was probably only on the handful of people she'd sent out to bring in others.
Well, that made my decision much easier. I couldn't afford to wait here, and it occurred to me that a Bakuda without her Tinker ability would be a Bakuda that wouldn't be able to plant bombs in people. Hell, she probably wouldn't even be able to use the bombs she had. Not to mention with Oni-Lee right there I could knock out both of the other powered members of the ABB, ensuring Lung had his date with the Birdcage the first time around. Plus since I was currently beyond anyone's abilities to detect no one would be able to trace it to me.
That decision made I reached out and copied both of their powers before, with a mental twist, my Power squeezed down on their own in a brutal fashion. Instantly both of them rocked back at the shock of it, Oni-Lee quickly looking at and focusing on the stairwell, waiting for his power to kick in, before coming to the sudden realization something was wrong. He immediately begins bolting for the stairs. Bakuda however .. well, she tripped. Flailing with her arms as she made to grab the nearest surface her hands brush across the top of the table she'd been working on, knocking the bomb she'd been working on free.
Her eyes widen at the same time as my own as it hits the floor and, with a single bounce, comes to a stop. Bakuda is just staring at it even as I give a mental sigh of relief.
It explodes.
With a sudden twisting and grinding of the senses my perspective immediately shifts back to my actual position as I watch the entire bottom floor of the building mushroom outwards in an exotic display of energy with a muffled 'whump', the top two floors immediately beginning to collapse down into the lower floors as the supporting structure holding them gives way. Even now however I can detect it as a shifting bubble of slowed time is enveloping the area, the higher floors slowing as they fall until, less than 10 seconds after the initial explosion, the entire building and most of the dust cloud it had created have solidified into some sort of twisted real-life mockery of a still-life photo, bizarre loops and twists of exotic energies interspersed throughout.
"Fuck."
It's about fifteen minutes later, and I can just hear the emergency sirens in the distance closing in. Seven people. Seven people that should have been alive but are now dead, because I hadn't thought to consider that taking the power away from a tinker-tech bomb maker while she was making a bomb might be a bad idea. Even if I could rationalize that Bakuda and Oni-Lee were murderers of the worst sort, and to be fair I kind of could, the other five were just regular people. No powers, no special abilities, just five normal individuals that had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time as I made the wrong decision.
What the fuck, Me. What the hell do I even have these powers for if I can't even be fucking smart enough to use them without killing people. Seven people dead, all because the strongest man in the world was too fucking stupid to use his brain and think for a moment. I should have known better. Fuck I did know better, I'd gone through entire courses on demolitions and the potential problems of searching an HME lab while overseas, and that was before I'd gained all these powers and the knowledge of advanced Tinker science.
I mean .. fuck. I even had a damn Bomb specialty for crying out loud, And that was *before* I copied the one from Bakuda.
I begin flying away from what is certain to become Brockton Bay's newest tourist attraction and to the Boardwalk.
Man, what a way to ruin my fucking day. Problem solved and all that but, god, I could have done that so much better. It's just another lesson I know, that I'm still learning, that I'm still getting experience. But it doesn't help me not feel like shit knowing that I could have avoided that whole sorry mess if I'd shown just a bit more caution.
Was this what it was like, for Superman? Just running in and punching stuff because it always worked, because he had the power to do so, only to realize after the fact that maybe if he'd been a little bit more circumspect in his actions he could have avoided the fight entirely?
Fuck. I'm going to have to watch myself. I know I wouldn't have rushed into that if I didn't have these powers, that I would have planned it out a lot more thoroughly, been a lot more careful in what I did.. but, I didn't do those things. Because I did have these powers, and I'd felt confident I could handle anything coming my way.
God damn it all, it wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to feel good about stopping Bakuda as a threat, about making sure that Lung wouldn't be sprung from lockup, not feel like a damn heel. It's pretty obvious that I need to be more careful in the future. If those completely needless deaths have taught me anything it's that while I might have the power to resolve nearly any situation none of it is any damn good if I'm too stupid to use it right.
Fuck.
I really need to do something else right now. A mental switch and I've changed out of my armor and into some casual clothing as I touch down on the Boardwalk. I move into an area I've identified as having no active watchers or cameras before dropping my filters and walking out onto the sidewalk. It's just about lunch hour now and the pedestrian traffic is enough that I manage to blend into the crowd easily, my feet carrying me to the same café I'd visited the day before. I order another sundae before going to sit out on the patio in the back, looking over the bay.
It's still a pretty sight, and the Protectorate HQ out in the Bay itself with it's glimmering force-shield dome makes for an interesting contrast against the waters. Off in the distance I, once again, spot the boat graveyard.
Oh, right. I was going to do something about that today, after I had dealt with Bakuda. Shit. Even just thinking about it makes my mood sour, though I suppose to be fair it did literally just happen. Still, I wasn't going to let this ruin my day any more than it had. It was a learning experience, a shitty one I'll grant, but a learning experience none the less.
Deep breath in, deep breath out. In, out. Focus.
My mind.. it isn't clear. But it also isn't constantly hounding on how I could have done things differently anymore either. I make a promise to write out an after action review once I get back to base later on in the day on what I did, and what I could have done differently. In fact now that I think on it I'll make AAR's for the previous three days as well. I'm not sure how much they'll help me, in the short term at least, but it's a habit I know I should get back into. I just need to think of this Cape stuff like I'm back in the sandbox pulling missions again, get into that mindset, and I know I'll be able to work through this alright.
Those thoughts in mind I lean back in my seat as I finish off my sundae, and start thinking about how I'm going to address the boat graveyard issue.
I'm currently out and flying over the Bay, the novelty of it all still not having worn off, as I begin calling up the powers I'd need. For this, I'd determined I'd be flashy. I wanted to grab peoples attention in a big way. Not necessarily as myself as my perception filters were still up and running full blast after all, to include a second ability that rendered me invisible to electronic methods of recording as well not unlike Scion, but instead a show of force. A statement that something big had come to the Bay and that people had better take fucking notice.
My basic goals, as I'd outlined them, were four fold. First I would gather up the boats and then float them out to sea. Second I would build a massive Seawall just off the coastline of Brockton Bay itself. I'd make sure to leave room on either side for ships to enter but I figured if I made it long enough and big enough it would serve as an effective first line of defense against Leviathan. Assuming Leviathan still attacked the Bay of course. There were environmental concerns of course, I was well aware of them thanks to the specialties I'd taken in II, but I figured a bit of beach erosion was a small price to pay for blunting the potential tidal waves that Leviathan would bring against the city a little over a month from now. Idly I also realized that once I was done, and assuming Leviathan did attack, quite a lot of people would probably come to the conclusion that someone had known Leviathan was going to strike Brockton Bay nearly a month ahead of time.
Anyway, those thoughts aside, goal three was simple. Do it all in a spectacular way such that everybody was forced to take notice. Mainly this was to force the villains to rethink any immediate plans they might have. Without the knowledge of who or what might have been responsible for the event I imagine most of them would keep their heads down until they could figure out what was going on. Well .. the smarter ones at least. I was pretty certain Skidmark and the rest of the Merchants probably wouldn't care.
Goal four was the most important however. That was to see what I could actually do. To exercise my powers without really holding back on them, to go all out and see just what I was really capable of. I knew, in a way I couldn't even really describe, exactly what my Eidolon powers did. From their broadest application all the way down their most obscure and nuanced quirk, I knew them back to front. But knowing them, even in as instinctual a way as I did, wasn't the same as seeing it with my own eyes. Didn't give me that visceral feeling of actually experiencing it first hand.
That's why when I had decided to go spectacular, I had meant it.
Slots shift and change and powers come to the fore as I extend my will and, with a wrenching motion, the boats of the graveyard rise from the depths. First a small freighter, then a larger one. A half sunk ferry comes next, followed by a pair of tug boats, several fisherman vessels, a number of trawlers, and several larger freighters as well. More and more ships rise from the waters of the bay and into the air as water gushes forth from the rents in their hulls and, finally, the last and largest vessel still in the bay makes its own ascent into the sky. A massive super-tanker that had been taking up nearly a full third of the bay entrance all on it's own.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of metal, ceramics, and water have lifted up into the sky in plain view of the entire city and, I realize, also within plain view of the Protectorate HQ. Even as I look in that direction I can just see pop-up turrets coming online as larger missile tubes and anti-air emplacements swivel to begin acquiring targets.
Damn it. I should have realized they would have assumed it to be an attack of some sort. Well .. nothing for it now. The ships were already in the air, nearly a full 200 meters and rising, and putting them back where they were would have just defeated the whole purpose of the exercise.
Still .. All this material. All this weight. And while it was certainly not an amount I could simply dismiss, I could tell I hadn't really pressed myself yet.
With a shake of my head I refocus my thoughts and begin the task of moving the ships out of the bay and to the open sea. As they do so they begin to break apart, not from strain but instead from directed effort, the pieces folding and shifting into new forms even as they fly out to what will soon be their new homes. By the time I've got to where I plan on taking them the ships no longer resemble ships at all but instead massive slabs of metal, sheets nearly as thick as a man and many times taller, my powers providing more material where needed in order to achieve the effect I wanted.
They remain floating in the air as I turn my attention to the sea below or, rather, the earth beneath it. Another power, geokinetic in nature, pushes forth and with a monumental effort the seabed itself is forced to rise up, creating a new island about half a kilometer out at sea from the coast. Immediately slabs of metal begin pushing downwards, descending metal meeting rising earth, as the beginnings of a massive Seawall begin taking shape.
The process moves outwards while I, invisible to all observers, remain in the center. To the north and the south the wall begins to extend. It is a massive thing, nearly twelve meters higher than the sea and extending all the way down to the bedrock below. It's seaward facing side is both sloped and ridged, designed for maximum efficiency at dispersing the energy of incoming waves. The process is slow going, even for me, but it isn't hard. An effort more of focus and concentration than exertion, and I can't help but marvel at it.
It seems like barely any time has passed at all, the majority of my attention focused on my construction, but in just less than two hours I have finished. The Seawall stretches for nearly nineteen kilometers, just shy of twelve miles, along the coast. The entire city, from its most northern tip to its most southern, can count on it's protection. It occurs to me that what I have just done would have likely cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars and decades of construction in less time than it takes to watch an average movie. The feeling is .. surreal. To know that I was the one that did this, that I could do this. It was both exhilarating and, at the same time, immensely humbling. Especially when taking into consideration my earlier blunders in the day.
In fact, now that I gave it some thought, it was more humbling than I had thought. Not counting the two power slots I was using to keep myself hidden from detection I had needed only four powers to actually do all of this. Leaving me four entirely free slots for anything else I might have wanted or considered doing. The thought that the entire effort had taken less than half my available power slots, and even then not fully taxing the ones I was using, took a little while for me to really take in.
Idly I realize that there are a number of news helicopters, and what looks like they might be several PRT helicopters, flying over the massive construction I have just built.
In addition I also notice the presence of a number of flying capes. Glory Girl I recognize almost immediately, her bright white cheer leader outfit and half cape a clear give-away to her identity. Not too far from her I see what I believe to be Aegis and, further down below, Kid Winn as well. There's a few others I don't recognize out and about also and, and I really needed to double take for this one, what looked like Alexandria herself.
What the hell was she doing here?
After flying around and copying the powers of all the Capes flying around, including Alexandria's, I decided to head back to the Boardwalk to get a late lunch and hear what the word on the street was considering what had just happened.
Walking back into the café I had left not too long ago, again in casual wear, I order a meal before sitting down. As expected pretty much everyone is talking about what just happened but my real focus was on the TV that was playing the local news. They had helicopters flying over the 'scene of the event', obviously the ones I had just seen, and were currently talking and theorizing what had caused it and what it could possibly mean.
It doesn't take long before my mood sours once again as I hear them talking about how, initially, it was believed that the Simurgh might be attacking the city.
Fucking damn it. How the hell could I have forgotten that 'mass telekinesis' was basically the Simurgh's entire shtick? I'd sent the whole city into a panic with that stunt.
Thankfully enough it appeared that they hadn't sounded the Endbringer sirens because the group with control over those, the PRT, had been tracking where the actual Simurgh was at the time nearly half way around the world and still dormant. It had still ended up with a rather large contingent of Capes being called in, just in case, lead by Alexandria until it was determined whether or not there was a danger to the city.
Well, I guess that explains why she was here at least. Still .. fuck. I really screwed the pooch on that one. First Bakuda and now this. Fuck. Once again I was causing just as many problems as I fixed. Four days in and I've already made a giant fucking mess.
I lean back and breath deep. In, and out. In, and out.
I push back from my table and leave enough money to cover the cost and the tip. I suddenly find that I'm not really hungry anymore. I knew that I'd done the right thing, for the city at least, in my actions today. Lung was going to stay behind bars, Bakuda wouldn't go killing all those people, and the city's sea trading route was no longer strangled by a host of half-sunk wrecks. Not even mentioning the potential lives that could be saved if Leviathan still decided to come here for whatever reason.
It didn't really make me feel any better. I needed to blow off some steam, so, as I headed out of the café and into an area with no witnesses, I returned to my base for some Tinkering. At least that ought to get my mind off of things.
It's just past 1900 and I've just finished the final touches on several new expansions to the base. I'd realized once I'd gotten back that, once I started recruiting, I wouldn't really be able to justify new rooms or floors just showing up over-night and so I decided to make some fairly big additions to what was already there. Mostly it was just more of the same, though I did make sure to add laundry facilities, which I had completely forgotten about previously, a green house, as well as large indoor gymnasium. I'd also made sure to include a drone storage and maintenance hanger in addition to a manufactory that could actually make all the various gear I was planning up.
Again, once people started showing up I wouldn't be able to just pull shit out of thin air without some eyebrows being raised so I made sure to lay down the foundations for the stuff needed to keep up the charade. Well, keep it up for as long as I needed it at least. It occurred to me that it probably wouldn't be required by the end of the month, but I'd still try to stick with it as long as possible.
Really the entire thing was just a clever excuse to deflect attention away from myself until I could really 'power up' to a sufficient level that I wouldn't need to worry even against significant opposition. Even in just the four days I'd been here I'd made significant progress towards that and, I figured, by the time the next Endbringer fight rolled around I'd be more than ready for it.
It struck me that, if I were a less compassionate man, I wouldn't even need to do this much. I could have easily flown under the radar and done absolutely nothing to disturb the events of canon up until Leviathan attacked, consolidating power completely unknown to the entire world until I was good and ready.
But.. well, I was a compassionate man. The kind that wouldn't just sit aside when there was shit going on that I knew I could prevent. Events that I knew I could avert with just the slightest bit of effort, and people I could save with just a few well placed words. Just like I had decided a few days ago if I was here and with these powers then I would use them, even if it would be far smarter to bide my time until I was well and truly unstoppable.
It's right around the time I'm having these thoughts that I hear my phone, a Tinker creation of my own make, start ringing.
It's actually so unexpected that I pause for a few moments trying to figure out what was making the noise, before it occurs to me that I had even given out my number in the first place. Which then leads to the next thought, in that there was only one person I had given my number to.
So, with a smile, I pick up the phone to answer.
"May I ask who is calling?
There's a bit of hesitation on the other end of the line before the response comes through, "Yes, it's me. Bugs. We met last night?"
"Bugs? Yes I remember," a slight pause. "Tell me something only Bugs would know."
"What? Oh! Um, you told me about the unwritten rules. And also about," a pause on her end, "trigger events. Tell me something only Apex would know."
"Your first spray missed. So, Bugs, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?"
"I, ah, wanted to talk to you about what you had said. About a partnership."
"Oh? Well, I'm glad to hear it. You decided to give the Wards a pass for now?"
"Yes. I figured, I already have enough teenage drama, right? I don't want more of it. Plus, you know, I don't want to come in on the bottom floor."
"You mean reputation. Yes, I understand. Coming in with little to nothing to your name would see you at the bottom of any pecking order. So, you're interested in teaming up with me then?"
"Yes. I mean, maybe. I.. did what you said. You know, talked to my Dad. About things. I mentioned to him what you had said and about how I didn't want to join the Wards, not yet at least, and he said he'd support my decision."
"That's good to hear Bugs," I pause for a moment as I think on what to say, "So .. did it help? Talking it out I mean."
I don't need to see her to hear the slight smile in her tone, "Yeah. A little. We both got a bit angry for a little while, and we shouted and stuff but, you know .. it was okay."
"I'm glad to hear it. Taking that first step .. I know how hard that sort of thing is. You've got some real guts, laying it out on the line like that."
"Thanks. A lot, I mean. For everything."
"No need to thank me, it was just some friendly advice to someone that seemed like they could use it," I look at the clock to my side for a moment before turning back to the conversation, "So, Bugs, did you want to meet in person for this?"
"Uh, yes. That's fine with me. Where at?"
"Hmm, there's a café out on the Boardwalk that has decent food, and a pretty good hot fudge sundae. We can meet there if it sounds good to you."
"What? A café? Why there? I mean, wouldn't we stand out with masks and all?"
I take a moment to process my answer before I reply, "Bugs .. if we're talking about a partnership here, that kind of implies that masks aren't going to be involved. At least not all the time. Especially not if I'm going to have to design and fabricate some gear for you," I consider a moment, "to say nothing of what happens if one of us gets injured."
"Oh, I.. hadn't really considered that. I thought we'd just, you know, meet up somewhere or something for patrols."
I sigh into the phone, "Bugs, listen. I'm a Tinker, and if you're going to partner with a Tinker that means you're going to want to take advantage of what that Tinker can offer you. That means measurements, scans, blood samples, testing, etc. etc. in order to make sure that the correct gear can get made to as exacting a standard as possible. I don't mind supplying you if you're going to be helping me out. In fact I already said I'd be willing to pay you for your time, if you'll recall," I pause a moment, "Regardless, if you want to maximize both your benefits and your safety we're going to need to know each other outside of the masks. If you're not interested in that .. well, that's okay. I'm still willing to help you out or give you advice if you call me for it, so I'll leave that decision to you."
I think she's put her hand over the phone and I can just make out what sounds like talking, presumably between Taylor and her father, before she answers, "Okay. Yeah, no masks. But, uh, my Dad says he wants to come too. That he wants to meet you in person."
"Your Dad huh? That sounds fine by me. It'll be easier with him being kept in the loop anyway. You up for a meeting tonight? Say in an hour or so?"
More talking, "Yeah, that sounds good. What's the name of the café?"
"Bayside Café, it's just a little way down from Boardwalk Blvd and 2nd Avenue. I'll be waiting outside wearing a blue shirt with the words 'Why not Zoidberg?' on the back, that way you'll know who you're looking for."
"What? Why would your shirt say that?"
Oh Taylor, you make this too easy, "Well why not Zoidberg?"
A snort over the phone, "Okay, yeah, I walked into that one. Okay, we'll meet you there at say .. eight twenty?"
I smile as I reply, "Sure thing Bugs, eight twenty it is. I'll see the two of you there shortly."
We say our goodbyes and hang up. I lean back in my chair and can't help the grin that crosses my face.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Authors Note
Sorry about the delay on the chapter. I find myself having to reread more and more of Worm to take inspiration and guidance on where I want to go with the story, and there's so many little things and details that are easy to miss without rereading to remind myself of them. Like, for example, did you know Thomas Calvert was a fake identity? It gets mentioned in Coil's interlude that it only goes back 10 years, presumably to just prior to the Nilbog fiasco.
Anyways here's the new chapter. I've kind of got an idea on where I want to go but there's a lot of ground to cover and a lot of Worm to go back over, so again delays in updates are probably likely. Also, can anyone say 'paranoia intensifies' for Cauldron? That's two things that have caught their interest in BB now, and both of them show up as blanks on PtV.
Last edited: Feb 8, 2015
Chapter 51
Lalzparty said:
Yes, well, two of your plans had pretty big consequences, so I thought you would be updating that AAR as soon as you could?
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To be entirely fair, both of the plans he enacted on the 4th day still fulfilled all of the goals he set out for them. They just involved some problems he didn't account for. Killing Bakuda and Oni-Lee he doesn't really care about, they were mass murderers, and the other 5 .. well, they were gang members. It's not really an excuse, but Apex could definitely rationalize it. He doesn't like the idea that it happened, because he definitely could have avoided it, but he isn't going to lose any sleep over it either. Assuming he even needed to sleep, which he doesn't. As for panicking the city .. well, again, it's an unfortunate consequence and it kind of soured his mood but ultimately it served it's purpose. The boat graveyard is cleared, the entire city is now protected by an absolutely massive seawall, and he got to get a clearer idea of what he was actually capable of it he really tried.
He also ended up snagging both Glory Girl's power set and Alexandria, so it's not like there weren't some side benefits to it as well. Though, admittedly, neither of those powers have been turned on yet until he's had a chance to look at them.
thatavidreader said:
I wonder - can't the protagonist reverse the effects of Bakuda's time freeze bomb and save the people inside?
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While he could easily go in and out of the time field, he'd have to spend at least one more charge if he wanted to extend the effect to others, or shut down a field entirely. That said it doesn't really matter because they were all killed instantly. As for the question of "can't he just bring them back" .. well, sure. He probably could, if he spent some effort on it. But he's not going to bother doing that for a bunch of reasons, most of which boil down to the simple fact that once he starts bringing people back, where does he draw the line? There's also the question of, do they even deserve to come back. They're gang bangers that are very much part of the problem in Brockton Bay. Statistically speaking it's not very likely that one of them is going to turn out to be the next President of the US, or the next Einstein, or whatever.
Zo-Kel said:
I just had an idea… could you create Power Rings or something similar to them?
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I'll be honest, half the reason that Apex picked the Inspired Inventor power in the first place was with the eventual end goal of making things like power rings. So, theoretically, yes. Eventually something like that could be made. But it's likely to be far beyond the scope of this story, because that sort of thing would require many many different high level specialties across an incredibly broad series of themes. Also, in case it isn't obvious, in this story specializations such as "Oan Technology" or "Time Lord Technology" don't exist. The specialties are much more specific in application than that and while he could probably get to that level eventually he can't just short-cut his way there.
Intrepid said:
Interesting to see how even a guy with nigh-omnipotent powers can make mistakes. I was skeptical that you can maintain drama with this many powers, but so far, you're doing a great job. Also, will we ever find out more about the character's past? It's clear that's ex-military, but what exactly did he do? Combat Engineer? EOD?
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It's not going to come up in the story, so I'll just tell you. Apex is a former infantry soldier, one with an extensive list of schools and qualifications, including a fairly long stint as part of an AWG and FTF.
Chapter 52
Leingod said:
I understand not being willing to bring the gang-bangers back to life, but he should probably get a power to no-sell and cancel Gray Boy's power so he can fix people who've been affected by him. Because of all the fates in Worm, that still manages to be one of the absolute worst.
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He might get around to it. If he remembers, or has time. Greyboy isn't really a big thing in the day-to-day goings on of anyone that doesn't know someone trapped in one of the bubbles. Mostly because Greyboy is dead and has been for some time. It's possible he might recall that particular background bit of Worm, especially if he gets around to activating the Alexandria power, but it's not a guarantee. His concerns are a bit more focused at the moment so unless something calls his specific attention to it it's not likely to come up.
Chapter 53
The CYOA Alexandria package definitely would let you stop the Siberian. All you'd need to do is catch the hand or arm and it wouldn't be able to escape. I mean, Manton could just dismiss it and remake near himself but it wouldn't be able to break the super-Alexandria grip if that's what you're asking.
Chapter 54
Arimai said:
They were gangbangers. A waste of God given potential and a cancer on society your SI needs to cut that bullshit out. Save your compassion for the victims, past and averted futures, of the asshats that got killed. Seven dead gangbangers isn't that bad. I'd have killed off every gangbanger who'd raped and murdered and or abused people, especially children were I your SI.
As for the show of strength stop worrying about the panic. Civilians panic at everything. You wanted a show of strength. You wanted to make a splash and you did. Panicking people are the logical outcome of such a course.
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"Mercy is the Providence of the Strong". I have no idea where I heard that quote, but it's very true. And Apex easily holds the title as "Strongest Man on Earth Bet", not counting Scion and the Endbringers since they aren't human. Therefor, by simple dent of strength, he should also be capable of the greatest acts of mercy. Or, at the very least, the granting of mercy period. Holding on to a strong moral standard when effectively no one else in the world can tell you 'No' is paramount to preventing 'A God I Am' problems.
This isn't to say that Apex is willing to compromise beyond the scope of what is reasonable, or grant mercy to people that really don't deserve it, but given an option he will at least *try* to do so. His powers allow him a freedom of choice that few if any others will enjoy, and the ability to approach problems from angles that not only most wouldn't even consider, but that most wouldn't even be able to contemplate as well.
He's not necessarily upset that those people died, so much as the fact that he *has* all of these different options and yet people ended up getting killed when they really didn't have to. Yes they were gang members but gang members can still go to jail instead of a morgue, and yes Bakuda and Oni-Lee were murderers but it was really their powers that enabled that. It should have been easy for him to resolve that entire situation in an easier way that lead to no loss of life. In fact he knows he could have done it, quite easily, if he'd stopped to consider his own training and his own knowledge. He even *knew* that shock would be induced via power loss, since he saw the same thing with Coil and with Noelle. But, ultimately, he didn't consider those things. And 7 people that could have lived and been dealt with in an appropriate way according to the established law and justice of society instead are now dead.
As he said in the chapter, it's a learning experience. He'll make an effort to consider things better, and he'll definitely make sure that people he doesn't want dead aren't doing something potentially dangerous when he takes/destroys their powers in the future. Thankfully Invictus is there to pick up the slack and keep him moving.
Weisser Ritter said:
That's… I can understand that hatred, but I don't think it's right. I can accept the SI having bigger concerns than saving seven gang-bangers from death by time bubble, when he's so focused on the greater picture and on saving even more lives. At the same time though, if you have all these world-breaking powers, why do you have to limit yourself to making sacrifices like these?
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To clarify, all of the people in that building died instantly. And it was 5 gang members, Bakuda and Oni-Lee were the other two. As for the hatred thing, I agree, it's not right. I struggled with this same problem for many years myself, in trying to get over my hatred for people of middle eastern heritage. I lost a lot of very close friends, including a person I considered to be like a second father, in my years in the sandbox. And it took me a very long time to accept that not everyone of that ethnic/religious group shared in the blame for what happened to them. It's a major reason why Apex will always at least attempt to take a path that doesn't result in needless deaths, because he understands very well the kind of pain and hatred that can engender in a person. But by the same token it's also why he is willing to kill, if necessary, because he also understands that some people through their own actions don't deserve a second chance.
Roarian said:
I am somewhat amused that a hero this ridiculously overpowered (seriously) spends their time beating up some essentially powerless idiots and playing with stunrifles and such. Short of maybe Scion, Apex is god-tier on a level that the Triumvirate can't hope to touch, and he hangs out in Brockton Bay all day?
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It's referenced somewhat obliquely in the chapter, but he's only really out and about heroing right now because he knew that there was a LOT of bad shit that was happening in an immediate timeframe that he could, very easily, avert with just a few simple actions or words. While it might have been safer for him in the long run to simply stand aside and let events play out as in canon Apex knows himself well enough that he wouldn't be able to respect himself if he stood aside and did nothing. His powers enable him to do many things, good and bad, and if he can't even use them to help avert problems that he *knows* how to solve .. then what use are they at all?
Chapter 55
Volkogluk said:
The SI needs to realise that removing powers from people will NOT end well. Even killing, in a way, is less of an escalation for people operating there. Dieing is a risk people are ready for. Being effectivly castrated? Not so much.
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Apex doesn't actually care about what villains think, and views the current cops and robbers 'game' that is being played on Earth-bet as stupid. Which it is. It's also a system perpetuated both by design, thanks to Cauldron, and thanks to the Endbringers. But, of course, if the Endbringers are no longer around .. well, what's the point of the truce then? There's also the much simpler consideration that villains without powers are just regular people, and don't really present an insurmountable goal to the heroes that *do* still have their powers. I'll also say that Apex is not beyond what might be politely termed as 'poetic justice'.
That's not even bothering to consider that people are a lot less likely to consider turning to crime and villainy if they believe there is dude out there that will just show up and flat out take their powers away from them, permanently. Once a person gets powers, they will want to keep them. If that means they need to sign on with heroes, or at least not be openly villainous, that is what they will do.
Lalzparty said:
You could preemptively attack the endbringers and Kill them… Then you can take away Eidolon's power so that he won't activate anymore of the remaining 17 endbringers. You don't have to wait for Leviathan to visit Brockton Bay at all.
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Oh certainly. In fact he probably will, at least in the case of the Simurgh. It's the other two that cause problems. Lining up for a shot when your target is sitting in the molten core of the Earth, or the crushing depths of the oceans, is a bit harder than it is to line up a shot against something that's just kind of floating around in open air. You'll see as the story develops what Apex's eventual plans will end up shaping up like in regards to the Endbringers.
Qazplm said:
He might want to learn how to use his powers before going against the endbringers and he might not be able to take away Eidolon's powers either. If there is anyone capable of resisting or outright ignoring his attempts to mess with someone's powers it would be him or Scion.
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That's basically the entire point for why he created the seawall and got rid of the boat graveyard. He wanted to actually see what he could do. As for Scion, you've basically pegged it on the head for why Apex hasn't just flown up to the Warrior and attempted to just steal all the guys powers. He figures, quite correctly, that if anything in existence could potentially resist the effect, detect it, and then follow through on a successful counter attack then it will be Scion. He won't be going anywhere near that guy, if he can help it, until he's good and ready.
Chapter 56
Volkogluk said:
Here Brellin said nothing about SI avoiding revealing that ability. So far he didn't reveal it only due to luck, and, actually, Cauldron now knows of it because of Noelle.
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First if you're going to quote me please don't replace what I said with your own text. Second if you reread the chapter you will clearly see that Apex did in fact take into consideration that he doesn't want power stealing/destroying connected to his name. Hence why he explicitly mentions "Plus since I was currently beyond anyone's abilities to detect no one would be able to trace it to me." in the chapter itself. Even if Bakuda and Oni-Lee had survived, so what? And? Who are they going to admit to that they no longer have powers? No one, because they'd be rightly terrified that people would take advantage of the fact to get revenge. And, again, there would be absolutely no proof to connect the event to Apex.
Third, and finally, taking away powers from villains is not 'castrating' them. Taking away powers from villains is essentially the same thing as taking away a gun from a felon with a history of gun violence. It's not even *remotely* the same thing, and you're making yourself look extremely foolish by suggesting otherwise.
Last edited: Feb 8, 2015
Chapter 57
NoisyMatchStar said:
Depends on from whose viewpoint really. For example in Manager it is said how a cape's power is so integral for their identities that some would rather die.
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Well that's on them. As far as Apex is concerned they shouldn't have been using their powers to rape/steal/murder/etc people. How many lives have the capes of the ABB ruined by perpetuating their gang culture? The E88? Coil? How about the Merchants, whom we know forcibly addict people to drugs in order to 'get new customers'? Apex is a forgiving person, generally. Minor villains like the Undersiders, that generally stick to morally grey areas (robbing from other criminals basically, or just petty crime in general) he probably wouldn't do that to. But to the hard core villains? He would have absolutely no problem taking their powers from them in a heart beat.
Chapter 58
Volkogluk said:
I saw that, just that too many different things starting to happen in city at same time, and the only new cape, as far as PRT knows, is Apex… Won't it kinda make him first suspect? They already thought he was involved in the Coil base bust.
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And whomever just lifted hundreds of thousands of tons of metal, ceramics, and water into the air and then formed an artificial island nineteen kilometers long up and down the coast, completely without anyone able to figure out how or why they did it. That guy, whomever they might be, is a 'new cape in town' too. So is Bugs for that matter, no that anyone would seriously consider her to be the culprit.
Chapter 59
Volkogluk said:
Exactly my point. Never said the SI would be in the wrong to do so.
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Dude you were comparing taking away the powers of murderous criminals, that use them to victimize people, as being the same thing as castrating someone. In what world does that not qualify as you saying that you think the practice is wrong?
Chapter 60
sun tzu said:
Ehhhhh…
My grandmother is a holocaust survivor. One anecdote from the camp I've heard her bring up was how she got there shoeless, in the cold… and this other girl offered to give her one half of her pair of shoes, switching left and right every now and then to give their feet some relief.
Seems to me compassion is just as important to the weak.
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Apples and Oranges really. While your statement is certainly true compassion wasn't really being discussed in the context of that particular quote. It had more to do with the fact that the strong could afford to extend mercy to their enemies, not because they were compassionate but because the difference in strength was so vast that they lose nothing by doing so.
Last edited: Feb 8, 2015
Chapter 61
Volkogluk said:
Unlike Bugs, the person who made the Bay show, Apex, and the person who busted Coil's base DO have one common thread - they all are immune to Thinkers. No one will catch on to that? o_0
Just to remind, Thinkers include pre and post cogs. And Contessa, to which Alexandria has access.
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The PRT/Protectorate hasn't bothered using Thinkers to try to think about Apex. And if they did they'd be using people that could infer things, not precogs. And people that infer things? All they get back is that he's uninteresting. As for the guy that did the bay stuff? He's just a strait up blank. He was running massively powerful stranger abilities in addition to the Blank perk. There is nothing to infer, for anyone, whom may or may not have been responsible for that.
They can't even really 'catch him out' by trying to Think 'well what if Apex did it' because that would just return that he is uninteresting. Exactly like how the question 'well what if Apex is really the President of the United States' would also return that he's just uninteresting. You could infer any number of things about Apex via intuition based powers but, the moment you include him in them, it just gives you the answer that he is uninteresting. Because Thinking about him gives that answer regardless of whether or not the question being thought about is or isn't true.
There's also the simpler fact that Apex is a Tinker. A decent one, granted, but a Tinker none the less. No one is going to believe that a Tinker was responsible for the Bay incident when there was no evidence, at all, of any Tinker devices being used.
Chapter 62
Volkogluk said:
Hmmm… You didn't mention Contessa. After all, Alexandria was already seeing her about Coil problem. Makes sense to check her for Path to Find the mystery Shaker 12, while at it.
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Contessa was asked to look for whatever it was that did the thing with Noelle. Not Apex. Apex hasn't even come up in conversation with Cauldron, because as far as anyone knows he's nothing more than a tinker with a single claim to fame of being part of the group that took down Lung. Remember, Piggot had a big conversation with Armsmaster and Miss Militia were they decided they would *not* be making any sorts of accusations that Apex might have been involved in the Coil fiasco, explicitly because they had no proof. That includes sending reports up the chain of command that might imply Apex had something to do with it.
Chapter 63
Lalzparty said:
You know, out of all thinker power answers, Apex would be the only person who would produce the answer: uninteresting.
Wouldn't that clue in the people about how he is the only one to produce that kind of answer? I mean, Tinker bullshit, lol nope can only extend so far to cover up his trails, and I get that Tt would take it as that answer, but once Contessa starts running around, they should be able to triangulate the position of the cape that can avoid the thinker power to your position, especially with Number Man helping her out.
Or does Blank work in a different way than I was expecting it to?
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Blanks means PtV doesn't work on Apex at all. Contessa is, effectively, nothing more than a bog-standard human woman as far as Apex is concerned. And my point on Apex being 'uninteresting' is that he is uninteresting regards of whether or not an answer is true or not. For example a Thinker using intuition based powers could Think 'Is Apex actually the Sun?' and the answer would be that he is uninteresting. They could also Think 'Am I actually Apex in a split personality?' and, again, their power would tell them that he is uninteresting. His particular defense, while very blatant and probably unique, applies to all cases where you might be Thinking about him. If someone where to use an intuition based power to think "Did Apex do that thing with the Bay?" the answer would be that he is uninteresting. If they were to Think "what person is responsible for the Bay" they'd get nothing at all because, at the time, he was using a mix of extremely powerful stranger abilities to effectively erase his presence. Meaning anyone looking at recordings of the event would *get* nothing, because there is nothing there to see.
rkbinder said:
A thought that has popped into my head about the SI and the base that he has built and will not leave me alone, did he take a tinker specialization into HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning)?
Because I can tell you, putting minions in underground base without any would result in some really disgusting situations. I can buy that it could be covered by "base building" or "life support", but I just have this image in my head of the SI unknowingly using his powers to keep himself comfortable, then finding everyone else overheated/frozen and stinking.
Also imagine the market for tinker tech air conditioner drones that follow you around and keep you cool.
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He did consider that actually. It's covered under Facilities and Environmental Systems.
Volkogluk said:
Ah, I c. So, at least atm, Contessa's only link to him is Noelle and the Coil bunker? Alexandria didn't mention Bay's flying ships shenanigans to her? Cause that would have already been two "Blanks" in same city, in a short period of time, linking Coil's bunker thing to Bay's thing.
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No, Contessa doesn't have any links to Apex at all. No one knows anything about Apex's involvement in the thing with Coil except for TT, and she's not telling people.
Last edited: Feb 8, 2015
Chapter 64
Lalzparty said:
Lol, that's pretty sweet. So everyone else than Apex is running around blind right now.
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Only technically. The only one they can't actually get a read on is him, and no one knows that he's responsible for both the precog blocking and the being uninteresting thing. There is a reason he made sure that his anti-intuition power gave a reading of 'uninteresting' instead of just having it come back with nothing at all. After all a person aware of one of the effects won't be aware of the other effect unless someone else tells them.
Chapter 65
So, anyways, if anyone is curious the acid that was mentioned in the chapter is a real thing. It's something like x2000 times more acidic than sulfuric acid, and is the most acidic thing currently known to man, iirc. Also when it's exposed to air and starts melting stuff it creates a massive cloud of poisonous fumes, just in case melting people wasn't good enough.
Like Apex said, he may have been understating things when he said that Bakuda was crazy.
Chapter 66
PhantomSpartan said:
Hi this is my first post so I hope I do this right, um anyway I have a question for brellin,I understand that teaming up with Taylor is good for her both mentally and emotionally not to mention the boost to her survival chances by not being a individual parahuman,but what do you get from her joining you other than company?
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Honestly? Nothing at all. There's nothing Taylor can do that Apex can't do about a hundred times better. I mean, he even has her power over bugs. Him helping her had nothing to do with what he could get out of it. Instead it was based solely around the fact that he had world-breaking powers, knew about a bunch of terrible shit that was about to go down he could prevent, and wasn't interested in just sitting on his ass and letting it happen when he knew he could do something about it.
For Apex there was no real purpose to what he did other than whim and the fact that he didn't want to feel like an ass by not doing anything. For Taylor however? It was the second chance she never even knew she needed, from a source that honestly doesn't have any real ulterior motives.
For those wondering about when the next chapter is coming, I'm working on it. It takes a surprising amount of effort to come up with things to do after derailing like the first 3rd of Worm canon inside of 3 days.
Last edited: Feb 10, 2015
Chapter 67
2.2
I'm sitting down, currently, in one of the booths available in the Bayside Café across from the girl I knew to be Taylor Hebert and her father, Danny Hebert. The meeting outside had been .. awkward, to say the least. I suppose I should have expected it given the stereotype of Tinkers all being nerds that played with gadgets, a rep the local villain Tinker Leet had seemed to make a life goal of living up to, and the 'joke shirt' I'd told them to look for. Clearly the image they'd had in mind wasn't one that matched up to the person they found themselves meeting.
At 6'3 with the sculpted body of a professional swimmer, still rather obvious despite the clothing, and apparently looking like an actor fresh from a scene at the latest blockbuster I probably didn't fit with what they'd been imagining at all. A fact I had little doubt of, considering they'd taken nearly five minutes of looking at me before deciding that there really wasn't anyone else nearby wearing a 'Why not Zoidberg' shirt. Not for the first time I realized I had, perhaps, gone overboard with that whole 'perfect self' power I'd originally created.
The Heberts were both more and less than what I was expecting. For all the image I'd had built up in my head on what Taylor would look like out of costume, having made that image to fit my own perception of her description from Worm, I have to admit that I was rather surprised at the fact that she didn't really look particularly impressive or 'special' at all. Just a normal girl really. Brown hair that was obviously well cared for, glasses, dressed in rather subdued colors. I could have passed her a dozen times on the street and never realized who I was looking at. Well, if it wasn't for the fact that her power made her stand out to my senses from a rather considerable distance. Really that's the only way I'd managed to identify her and her father at all, prior to them coming up to me.
Danny Hebert was, not unlike his daughter, roughly the same. An unassuming presence. The stereotypical overworked middle aged office worker. Slightly balding, big glasses with rims that made me think he might have been better off wearing military-issue BCG's, a bit lanky with something of a paunch. It was pretty clear he wasn't a physically inclined man, though it was also pretty clear he was taking this whole thing quite seriously. I suspect just being finally a part of his daughters life again, being filled in on what was really going on, had probably lit quite a fire under him.
"So, now that we're here, I'll start off with a proper introduction. You can call me John, if you like, and in the interest of keeping things simple I'll let you know now that we're free to speak," I pat my leg in an obvious manner, "thanks to Tinker shenanigans. You won't need to worry about people overhearing what we're talking about."
Danny seems to be a bit put out by that comment but quickly regains himself before leaning over to offer his hand for a shake which I, of course, return, "Please, call me Danny, I wanted to thank you for what you did the other night. For Taylor," he makes sure to look me in the eye as he says it, the sincerity in his voice ringing loud and clear.
"Not a problem at all Danny," the shake ends as I offer my hand to Taylor, "And you must be Taylor. I must say it's a better name than Bugs," I say with a slight grin, making sure to take any potential sting out of the words.
A slight blush as she takes her own turn to shake my hand, "Yeah, uh, sorry about that. I couldn't really think of anything that didn't make me sound like a villain or a dork."
I chuckle a bit as I respond, "Yes, I understand how that goes. Good names are always taken it seems. I know mine was."
She actually seems a bit confused by that as she replies, "What? I mean, if the name was taken then how did you get it?"
"Simple, I just decided it was a good name and called myself that. My advice on naming is that as long as it's decent and there's no one else in the city you operate in calling themselves the same thing to just pick whatever tickles your fancy."
Taylor seems to give a thoughtful look before I turn back to get Danny into the conversation, "So, Danny, Taylor and I both seem to be independent heroes, so if you don't mind might I ask what you do? Banking perhaps?"
"Ah, not really. I handle human resources for the Dock Workers Association. Not that there's been terribly much to do other than tell people that there's no work available." Even with him obviously reigning himself in I can detect the slight hint of bitterness in his words. Understandable, given his position.
"Really? I suppose that would make you the man to ask about that whole event regarding the boat graveyard earlier today then? I imagine with that thing gone, things would be looking up for the DWA."
He gives a slight frown before waving his hand in a classic 'so-so' fashion, "Yes and no. I'm certainly grateful it's gone, even if it was in a rather spectacular way, but it's really too soon to tell. There will definitely be jobs coming in to inspect that seawall though, so that's something."
I raise an eyebrow, "Really? I'd have thought with the harbor entrance cleared out that Brockton Bay's trade industry would be able to get back on track."
He gestures a bit, clearly showing he's hit on a subject he's fairly passionate about as he responds, "Yes and no. A lot of the companies to support that sort of thing already moved out of the city or switched to land based routes. It'll take awhile before any serious renewed interest happens. Not to say it's not a good thing overall though, but it's definitely just one contributing factor," he takes a small sip of water before continuing, "Aside from that the other major problem is transportation. Without the Ferry running to keep the northern Docks connected to the rest of the city the transit times are just too much. It can take hours to drive from one side of the city to the other, especially with congestion, so without that Ferry to connect both sides of the city that part might as well be cut off entirely. Especially when you consider that it's mostly rundown at this point, meaning no one that isn't already there really wants to go there."
A disappointed sigh, "Still though, there'll definitely be a least a few new jobs with what happened today, for survey work if nothing else, so it's not like there isn't at least some good coming from it."
I nod, "I suppose so, something to look forward to then?," I glance over to Taylor to get her engaged again, "So, Taylor, now that you've had a bit of time to reflect on your first night of heroing, what do you think? Not too distracted from schoolwork thinking about it all I hope?"
Taylor had looked fairly cheerful at first before the second part of my comment registered, "Ah. It was scary, I guess. Looking back on it I'm still cringing on how many things I hadn't accounted for," the look Danny gives her makes it pretty clear that it's actually somewhat painful for him to listen to, "And the things you mentioned answered a lot of questions I hadn't even thought to ask, and made me wonder about a few more."
The deflection is pretty subtle, but I have no problem spotting it, "So no problems keeping focused at school then? I bet it must seem pretty boring by comparison."
She actually seems to flinch somewhat when I say it before Danny steps in, "She didn't go today. She won't go tomorrow either. I'm not going to send her back to that damn school until they actually do something about those girls, rules or regulations be damned!," his face gets steadily redder as he continues on, "I knew it was bad but, that they not only got away with all that but are still doing it? Hell no. It's bad enough the way Alan acted when I called him regarding his daughters behavior. I still can't believe he said he'd sue me for libel if I tried speaking out about it."
A word from Taylor, "It's okay dad. I can deal with it. Besides you know he's a Lawyer, we'd never be able to win a court case."
I take the moment to interject, "I'm sorry, court case? Libel? What exactly did this girl do?"
Taylor stays quiet as Danny answers, "There was an incident back in January where Taylor got hospitalized from something they did. No witnesses stepped forward to admit to seeing anything and the school basically swept the whole thing under the rug. Paid us enough money to handle the hospital bill and a little extra, gave their word it wouldn't happen again, and that was that. Then I find out yesterday they can't even manage that much."
I make a show off cleaning out my ear with my pinkie before replying, "I'm sorry, hospitalized? What? Where were the police? What did the investigation have to say?"
"The police just told us that there was no witnesses and no evidence, and the guy I know from work that deals in legal matters said that we'd never be able to afford to carry out a civil case without some sort of evidence."
"… What? The police told you that? What the hell kind of white-washing nonsense is that? If Taylor was hospitalized that's a criminal case for the state to take over. Investigations are made, statements taken, interviews done. If this happened at school that just means the police should be even more interested, since odds are good their kids go there too. What the hell kind of bullshit managed to sweep that all under the rug?"
Danny, and Taylor both now that I look at her, both seem a little stunned when Danny answers, "What? What do you mean white-washed?"
"Danny, a criminal case involving the hospitalization of a minor from a school-related incident is the sort of thing that gets the DA involved. The State pays for the costs of those kinds of trials. You might not have the cash or the evidence for a civil trial but it shouldn't be a civil trial. I don't know what went on with your case in particular but something seems suspicious as hell about it."
Danny just looks at me, "You're kidding? You're trying to tell me someone tried to cover up what happened? That someone pulled a fast one on us so that the people that should be punished get away with it?"
I lean back and shrug before answering, "Sounds less like 'tried' and more like 'did' to me. That said I'll admit I don't have all the information," I give the impression of thinking on it a moment before continuing, "Tell you what. I'll look into it. I've got some contacts I can ring up and find out what all went down with that. I can't promise anything but if there's a cover-up going on I'll make sure you're the first ones I let know about it and, depending on what I find, I should be able to give you any legal advice you might need as well."
A gesture, "That aside for the moment, have you considered transferring schools, or perhaps online courses?"
Taylor leans in as she responds, "The schools said the only other school I could go to within my district is Arcadia. And they've got a waiting list a mile long," a pause, "And what do you mean 'online courses'?"
I shrug, "Just that, taking courses online. You'd need a home internet connection obviously, and apply for an exception to the school board, but it shouldn't be too difficult. As for transferring, you can definitely go to schools outside of your district. I did it twice when I was growing up, though I'll admit I'm not as familiar with the particular rules of this state when it comes to that sort of thing," a gesture, "Still, online courses should definitely be doable. Failing that there's always home-schooling, private tutoring, testing out, or simply getting a GED."
Danny steps in at this point, "We've considered the home-schooling option, but I'm not qualified for home-teaching status and paying for someone that is a bit out of our budget."
I nod, "I see. Well, that rather nicely segues into the original point of us meeting up. Namely Taylor here partnering with me and me paying her for her time," I make sure to look at Taylor as I say it, "Assuming you're still interested of course."
"Y-yes. I mean, yes. I'm still interested. I remembered you mentioning talking about the partner thing and I talked about it with Dad. What exactly are you offering?"
I quirk an eyebrow as I lean back in my seat, "Offering? Well first and foremost would be Tinker gear. Personal armor, equipment, communications devices. In addition you'd have access to state of the art medical facilities in the event of injury. Or even just for regular check-ups if you want. Better than state of the art, actually, since it's all Tinker stuff as well," I list off those things on my fingers before continuing, "I can line up some training for you as well. How to fight, how to roll with the hits, how to plan, stuff like that."
I lean forward again, "As for pay. I'm thinking fifteen hundred every two weeks, three thousand total a month. Payable in cash or to an account of your choice. Aside from that I can also set you up with a private tutor for schooling, if you're interested, or see if I can arrange for a transfer to somewhere else of your choice if you're not."
Taylor and Danny both seem to have widened their eyes as I'd mentioned the pay. Finally Taylor responds, "Three thousand a month? That's thirty six grand a year isn't it?"
"Yes. Admittedly it's a bit less than what a Ward makes in a year but, on the flip side, you'd have immediate access to it instead of it being in an untouchable trust fund. Also Wards don't generally have access to top-notch Tinker-tech armor and equipment."
Danny seems to get his reaction under control enough to ask a slightly more serious question, "How exactly are you paying for that? It's not illegal is it? Also why do you even want to partner with Taylor anyway?"
Taylor actually seems to wilt at that last part but I make sure to treat it as a serious question, "The money is completely above board and perfectly legal, made through wise investment choices on my part. As for why I want to partner with Taylor here," I shrug, "I was impressed with the way she handled Lung. She's definitely rough around the edges but she could really go far with a bit of guidance and effort. Aside from that is the simple fact that it takes both a good character and quite a lot of guts to stand up to a guy like Lung when he says he's going to target kids, even if it did end up being a misunderstanding."
I make sure to look at Taylor for the next bit, "So, like I said, I was impressed. Taylor could go far as a hero, and if that means I need to spend some cash to see it happen .. well, a slightly lighter wallet on my part is no real sacrifice if it means she can grow up to see her potential."
Another slight blush from Taylor, I would guess hearing genuine praise is probably pretty rare for her these days, "How would you justify paying me anyway? I mean, that's a lot of cash."
I shrug, "Combination excuse of babysitter/secretary?"
She just gives me a look, "Who would believe a babysitter got paid that much?"
I just end up giving her a look of my own, "Who would even bother to ask?"
Looks like I've stumped her with that one, so I continue on, "As for equipment, you'd need to come in to the base in order to get fitted and then tested. I can start some preliminary design work now but until I've got exact details I won't really be able to start fabrication. I'll need to get some things ready anyway as well, so we'll probably need to have you come around tomorrow for fitting."
Danny leans forward, "That sounds alright. I assume there's no problem if I come along?" It's phrased as a question but I can easily tell that 'no' won't be an acceptable answer.
"That won't be a problem."
"Good. What's the address?"
"Address? Ah, it's not somewhere I can really describe by street signs. Just swing back here to the Bayside Café at, say, 1600 tomorrow afternoon and we'll head over."
Danny seems a bit hesitant but Taylor takes the initiative from him, "Sounds good. We'll see you here tomorrow." She extends her hand for another shake, which I return.
"Ah. Yes. We'll both be here at 1600 tomorrow." Danny extends his own hand for a shake as we 'finalize' the deal.
"I'll see you both then."
It's around 2310 and I'm back in the base. It had taken me a little bit to do some last minute touch-ups on the design and layout for tomorrow, and I'd also needed to go secure a location top-side where I could have them securely park their car for when they teleported down. A bit of effort on my part and a tiny garage, just big enough for two vehicles side by side, is now up and secured for my personal use, a teleport beacon hidden inside to ensure we could go to and from the location when needed.
I've been doing some preparatory design work on the suit I'll be making Taylor, though I've got a feeling it's going to be mostly wasted effort since I'll probably end up redesigning the whole thing the moment I choose my new II specialties at midnight. I even make a bit of effort at designing a suit for Danny, just in case, in the event he shows interest in maybe hitting the cape scene in a backup role for Taylor. Not that I really expect him to, without a Shard pushing him to do stupid shit like most capes.
I've also finished the design, and fabrication, of my teleporter anklets. They're multi-function in design and I intend to give one to both Taylor and Danny, and whomever else ends up joining me, with a few key points in mind. The first is that they act as beacons for the teleportation network I've set up. A quick activation by their designated users will see them returned to the teleporter room at the base where they can then decide on a different location from the main hub. They're also designed to monitor user vital signs and will, in the case of immediate life-threatening injury, teleport the user directly to the medical bay where the auto-doc will work to keep them alive until I've had a chance to get there and patch them up myself. They're also damn tough, thanks to my ragnarok proofing specialty, and I suspect that the people wearing them will break long before the anklets do.
I've also tinkered up some decent smart-phone analogues, though they really only function as standard phones. Their only real claim to fame is, again, the ragnarok proofing and the fact that they won't need a battery recharge for something like the next 70 years. Well that and the guaranteed satellite signal they'll always have in any but the heaviest jamming.
All that done, I return to my room for the next bit of planning for Operation 'Turn Brockton Bay into less of a shit hole'. The E88 immediately top my list. With Coil out of the way and the ABB effectively done for they're easily the next biggest problem for the city in general. Entirely aside from being literal white supremacist neo-Nazi's there's the simple fact that they've got weight of numbers in terms of capes and a fairly large amount of general support. Both of which pale in comparison to the fact that their leader Kaiser, aka Max Anders CEO of Medhal Pharmaceuticals, was both extremely intelligent and also capable of quite a bit of subtlety if called for.
Which really just made him priority target number one for me. Or, more accurately, punching bag target number one. I've already decided that I don't want this take down connected to Apex, as I plan on delivering a decisive blow to the entirety of their cape population in one go, unwritten rules be damned. And I even had exactly the kind of poetic justice in mind that I simply knew that if the wheel of karma were both real and sapient that it would probably be giving me a thumbs up when I did it.
For a moment I thought that what I had planned for them might be a bit too cruel, but I dismissed the thought quickly. No one that joined the E88 was unaware of what they were signing up for, and I was well aware that their capes were pretty much all die-hard purists for the 'cause'.
After that would be the Merchants. Those would be the ones that I'd go after as Apex, probably with Taylor in support, to give her both a sense of accomplishment but also to get her some field experience. I also had to admit it would be nice to finally go out after these scumbags with someone I could make witty quips with.
Of course it was the things that were after that that caused my mood to immediately turn sober. In the canon timeline they would still be a ways off, a month or more at least, but this wasn't canon. The Slaughterhouse 9. Even now they were probably out somewhere, murdering innocent people and ruining lives.
I sigh as I breath in and out a few times.
I'm not going to wait. A month is a month too long, and I have no plan on letting them continue their murderous rampage when I know for a fact I can stop them cold. Even just waiting as long as I had was, I knew, me trying to put it off. Trying to reason with myself that I wasn't ready or that it would be dangerous.
But it was just a lie. And I knew it, now at least. My demonstration earlier in the day with the boat graveyard and the seawall had proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was utterly beyond them. And the fear that, maybe, even they might somehow manage to evade me or perhaps even kill me had faded with that understanding. Tonight I would find the Slaughterhouse 9.
Tonight the Slaughterhouse 9 would die.
It's a little after 0024 in the morning. Just because I was going to hunt these bastards down didn't mean I wouldn't be smart about it, so I made sure to wait for my charges to refresh before using them. I figured there was no use taking chances, so I had done something that I had planned on doing previously but never really had the time or correct powers to attempt.
That was to say, I had combined a number of powers I had previously copied together, into one unified power, and then enhanced the potency of that ability by leagues beyond even it's original parameters. I called it the Glorious Aegis of Alexandria, a play on words to signify the original powers that had gone into making it, and it was my attempt at recreating the original CYOA Alexandria power.
It wasn't exact. In fact it fell far short of the thing it was imitating. But it was still strong. So very, very, strong. It's hard to describe really but, when I had finished making it and had finally activated it, it was as if a feeling of certainty had fallen upon me. A feeling that, with my own two hands, I could hold up all the burdens of the world if I needed to.
Not that I could of course. Aside from that being kind of insane the power itself wasn't actually that potent. But it was potent enough. My strength was sufficient that I could probably claim to be the physically strongest thing on the entire planet. An amplified protective shield, originally Glory Girl's, hugged my body and outfit like a second skin waiting to protect me from a considerable amount of harm. Below that, the body itself had been fortified. Force that could probably crack a State and cause fissures in the earth would be required to even begin thinking about hurting me with sheer kinetic force, though exotic effects could still probably find a way through I knew.
All of that paled however in comparison to the cognitive boost. When it had first come on it had felt like a light had been switched. As if I had been in a vast and empty dark room with only a tiny candle to light my way when suddenly, as if with the flick of a switch, massive overhead lights had come on to illuminate my surroundings. I couldn't even really describe it better than that, except to know that the difference between before and after was like the difference between the Wright brothers first airplane and a some sort of modern jet fighter. Even my memory had been dramatically enhanced, as I was able to remember with perfect detail anything and everything that I had done or experienced since turning it on less than half an hour ago. Previous memories weren't as clear unfortunately, but I had a feeling they were still easier to recall than before.
So, once I had completed the power and activated it, I called up a few Eidolon powers to direct me to my targets and made my way there, testing out the speed of my newly granted power. In bare minutes I had crossed nearly a four hundred mile expanse, my intangibility power that surrounded me allowing me to cut through the air without regard to friction, resistance, or interaction with the air allowing me to reach hypersonic speeds without actually creating continual sonic booms by my passing.
I come to a stop over a town in a neighboring state. It's a small town, a population of barely more than three hundred, and what I find when I get there is a charnel house.
Not a single person there is alive.
The Slaughterhouse 9 have clearly killed everyone here, making a giant macabre pile of the bodies while, to one side, Bonesaw works her powers to bring them back as sick and twisted puppets under her control. Siberian is off to one side, casually 'eating' the scraps that Riley tosses aside, and not far from her sits both Crawler and Shatterbird.
And, not to far from the group, Jack Slash is sitting on a chair on the deck of a porch, holding a conversation with a dead woman.
It's .. sickening. Even for me, a person used to seeing dead bodies in states of less than complete wholeness, and even with Invictus I find myself having to hold back on the feeling of nausea that spreads through me.
Instantly any feelings of hesitation I might have felt, for any of these monsters, is gone.
I copy the powers of those in range, all of them as far as I can tell other than Manton, before following the 'link' that my power tells me is connecting the Siberian to her creator. I locate him in a different section of the town, his van pulled inside of a garage, just a few moments later. I copy his power and make sure to turn on my recorder. I'll edit the footage later to include name tags for the S9 seen on screen and also to blur the bodies of the victims. After which I will distribute it onto the Net later, so that the families of victims can have some closure. With that done I take a series of deep breaths, calming myself.
I begin.
Dr. Manton dies instantly as his body, along with his van and most of the house of the garage he had parked it in, are atomized in a searing wave of heat and energy.
I transition.
Jack is already up and turning to look at the lightshow, clearly visible from their location, that marks Manton's grave.
Nuclear fire visits the town for a second time, touching down upon Bonesaw and the pile of corpses near to where she was working. A second ring of pure cleansing energy enveloping the rest of the S9 members in a giant circle from which there is no escape.
Shatterbird immediately leaps into the air as Crawler turns and attempts to charge through the flames.
It is pointless.
Shatterbird simply comes apart as pure destructive power blossoms from inside her own body and Crawler .. well, those were flames only in the sense that they looked like them. At the speed of his charge he had absolutely no chance to arrest his movement or turn aside. He went in one side, and absolutely nothing came out of the other.
Mannequin is next, the wave of roiling energy simply rolling over him and leaving nothing but ash behind. Cherish, and I'm actually somewhat surprised she's even here at this point, is next and is followed shortly by the animated remains of Hatchetface and then Burnscar whom, I note, seems to register a very brief surprise at the sudden knowledge that the 'fire' that has consumed her isn't fire at all.
Finally, alone, Jack Slash remains. He is ringed in on all sides and even he must know he has no means of escape. He appears to be flicking knives in every direction hoping for a hit on his unseen attacker, but I am intangible, invisible, and impervious besides. I make sure to focus in on him with my recorder, to ensure there is no mistaking his identity, and finish the job.
Jack Slash dies as a massive pillar of pure radiance burns him away.
The Slaughterhouse 9 are dead, but I've no time to rest. I quickly switch out a power for another that will let me detect airborne pathogens, and another power that will direct me to anything that Bonesaw may have worked on in the town that has not already been destroyed. It takes only a single sweep, requiring me to eradicate a surprisingly smaller amount of area than I had expected, and it is done.
The people of this town I had arrived simply too late to save. I could have done this earlier, maybe spared them from their fates, but in the end it simply hadn't worked out that way. I take solace in the fact that these people will be the last to suffer under the tender 'mercies' of the S9. I've no doubt that my lightshow will have attracted quite a bit of attention so, with one last look, I turn and fly back to Brockton Bay.
It's about 0300 in the morning by the time I've finished properly editing the video and tagging by name all of the S9 members, to include revealing Siberian as a projection of Dr. Manton, before I am ready to send it out. Hollywood hacking has thankfully enabled me to bypass the regular common sense laws of how the internet and cyber security should work and I begin uploading it, completely anonymous in it's uploading source, and equally anonymous in who was responsible for it.
Hundreds of major sites suddenly find themselves featuring links to the video, including major news networks as well as PHO and even the Protectorate's own webpage. At the end of the video a single message plays.
'To all whom have been affected or victimized by the Slaughterhouse Nine over the years, this one is for you.'
Authors Note
A new chapter arrives! Yet another station of canon is brutally bombed and thrown away! Originally Apex wasn't going to deal with the S9 so soon but, having thought on it, I couldn't come up with any reason for why he would dilly-dally on something like that, especially now that he's got a good idea of what he can do and also knows that the more time wasted the more victims pile up. As the canny reader will note the video, while providing closure to the victims and their families, also kind of blows a hole strait through the PRT's attempts at keeping the sheer scale and power of Capes from the public. As if the seawall from the previous day hadn't done a good job of that already.
Also for those curious, when Apex refers to 'BCG's' earlier in the chapter that is an acronym for "Birth Control Glasses", referencing the absolutely atrocious army-issue glasses they would give to their soldiers, that were joking referred to as being so ugly they doubled as a form of birth control.
Last edited: Feb 11, 2015
Chapter 68
melody-chii said:
I'm pretty sure her name is Cherish.
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Stupid auto-correct. Thanks for pointing it out.
Chapter 69
Dimensionist said:
Might want to edit that a bit, because a power that lets you cut through air without regard to friction or resistance will still have to take into account the particles of air being pushed out of the way at high speeds, which is responsible for sonic booms. Maybe it prevents your body from interacting with gaseous (or air) particles, thereby allowing you to bypass the occurrence of sonic booms…
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Good point. Edited chapter to reflect that it was a synergy with the intangibility power that allowed him to fly at speed without creating sonic booms.
Chapter 70
McPoopin said:
Since the SI "stopped reading about halfway through", he wouldn't know that Eidolon's power is responsible for them. He might not even have realised the significance of taking Jack Slash out.
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Nah, he was familiar with the Eidolon theory and the significance of Jack Slash just from osmosis from reading Worm fanfic. That said if you asked him who the Teeth, Ambassadors, or Fallen were he'd just give you a blank look. As far as 'big things' that need to be dealt with 'right now' his list is pretty much cleared as far as he knows. He's aware he'll need to roll up Saint at some point, and probably look into that 'Teacher' dude, but he doesn't really have any other immediate plans at the moment outside of 'power up and get ready for Endbringers'. Everything else he does is basically happening on a 'what do I feel like doing today' level.
edit- Also edited character sheet slightly, I had forgotten to take into account that Bonesaw was a biotinker. Or, at least, I'm pretty certain she is.
Chapter 71
Intrepid said:
They have them in other services too. And I doubt Danny would look better in BCGs. No one looks good in BCGs
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Given the description of what his glasses looked like in canon, I'd actually have to disagree. The way they were said to look like brought to mind those crazy glasses that the Professor wore from Futurama.
Chapter 72
dracklor said:
So, will you be saving the victims of Grey Boy next? Their state is fairly close to living hell after all.
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This was already explained a bit before, but Apex has no immediate plans to do anything about Greyboy's victims. Mostly because he's forgotten about Greyboy and the victims of the guy aren't really something that's talked about or even really well known outside of certain specific groups. If something actually brought his attention to it and he had some time, he'd probably go do something about it. But until then it won't even cross his mind.
Aside from that is that that sort of thing is really small potatoes compared to what he is trying to do. Aka: save Earth-Bet from getting destroyed. The people trapped in those time fields are certainly unfortunate but the truth of the matter is that they were all driven completely mad/catatonic years ago. All freeing them would do is let the meat die, so to speak.
Chapter 73
Query said:
His location changes as he flies around the world 24/7 and only stops to save people from disasters.
I believe he has a stranger effect that renders him untraceable by tech but I'm not sure if that is fanon.
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It isn't, it gets referenced in the "Most Powerful Man in the World" interlude. Scion can only be tracked via word of mouth/social media.
Chapter 74
2.3
It's a little after 0900 in the morning and I've just finished an interesting conversation with Officer Valez of the Brockton Bay Police Department. He'd been initially concerned with how I had gotten his number and why, exactly, I was calling but he had warmed up rather quickly when I had informed he I was investigating a potential 'abuse' case at the local Winslow High school from back in January.
Apparently his own son attended the school as a freshman, and Valez himself had actually been one of the officers involved in the investigation itself. I had wondered, briefly, if perhaps this might not be an expression of the Manpower perk I had taken, or if perhaps I really was just that lucky, but I suppose in the end it didn't really matter. Officer Valez himself seemed somewhat bitter about the case, citing that the BBPD had been told to hand over jurisdiction to the PRT thanks to the involvement of a parahuman.
Naturally, they didn't really have much choice in the matter. Despite what the media would have people believe the only cooperation between local PD's and the PRT appears to be deciding which cases belong to which group, and little else. The BBPD had been required to hand over all relevant files of the investigation to the PRT and informed that they were not to speak of the 'ongoing case' while the PRT conducted it's business. A classic cover-up scheme apparent to anyone that had the full context of the situation, such as myself.
Valez, however, seemed to be a busy little bee and had actually made copies of the files that had 'accidently' fallen to the bottom of one of his filing cabinets. Apparently the fact that his own son went to the school, combined with simple intuition, had tipped him off that something didn't sound right about it. Apparently when I had called asking about it he was actually relieved, since he hadn't been able to think of any way to use the information himself, and was only too happy to give me the details he had in addition to the name of the PRT agent that had contacted them. One Howard Miles, an officially recognized member of the PRT's local branch.
So, having thanked Officer Valez for his time and his insights, I had hung up with the intent to discover what I could about this supposed PRT agent. Thanks to Hollywood hacking, which I had bumped even higher in anticipation of my eventual go against Saint, I had all I needed to 'officially' piece together the puzzle. Howard Miles had worked for the PRT for just under three years, had no outstanding reprimands or marks on his record, and apparently was currently assigned as the PRT's official parole/watch officer for one Sophia Hess. Aka: Shadowstalker.
And, just like that, all the pieces fell into place. A quick search through his official reports on his duties as Sophia's watchdog revealed no mentions of misbehavior, unruly conduct, or actions outside the norm in Hess's civilian life at school. Further absolutely no mention appeared in the system regarding his acquisition of the BBPD files regarding the hospitalization of Taylor Hebert, or even that he had contacted the BBPD at all. A quick run through Winslow's own electronic files turned up only a very brief mention of the event, absolutely no mention of who may have been responsible for it, and nothing at all regarding how the school ended up paying off the Heberts for their silence.
A classic cover up in every sense of the word. Except from what I was seeing it actually looked like, on the PRT side of things at least, only a single person was involved or even aware of the event in the first place. The Winslow side .. well, I wasn't sure. I imagine they'd have to have kept some sort of record of the event but it was probably a written contract only, and if I wanted a copy of that I'd probably need to actually pay a visit to the school itself.
Something to think on later I suppose. With just what I had now I could easily pressure Director Piggot into firing Mr. Miles and forcing Sophia into, if not jail, then at the very least a relocation to a different city. It was one thing to be able to handle things in house, but if I were to send her an anonymous email with this evidence .. well, for one thing it would clearly demonstrate that it wasn't just 'in house'. For another though it would also quite quickly tell them that they had leaks into their systems.
So .. no. I wouldn't move forward with this. Not yet at least. It would need to be a slam dunk as far as evidence goes before I could really be satisfied with it, and it was only made more difficult by the concerns for keeping Taylor's identity as a cape secret. Drawing the kind of attention that a big court case would cause towards her and her father would only make things more complex than they needed to be. Still, I had the skills and I knew roughly where I needed to start looking. Given a few days, and a few words placed in the right ears, I'd be able to use this information in whatever way it was needed. Pending the decisions of Danny and Taylor, of course, since ultimately it would be up to them what to do and I'd be absolutely certain to lay down all the particulars for them so they understood what their options were and what those options meant for them.
With a slight sigh I finish typing out the report I'd made on that particular situation. I'd need to do some legwork to get what I needed anyway, and I'd need to wait a few days to tell Danny and Taylor what I had discovered completely regardless of everything else if I wanted to avoid any questions on how I had gotten the information so quickly. 'Tinkers are bullshit' only extends so far after all, and I was planning on using that excuse quite a lot in the future. Best not to wear it out too quickly.
A few short mental loops and my breakfast, which I'd been cooking entirely via the use of remote powers, plants itself down in front of me at my desk. Omelet, buttered toast, jam, hash-browns, some fruit .. a classic American breakfast. Probably one that wouldn't have been too good for my health either, prior to me getting my powers. Thankfully things like 'cholesterol' and 'calorie intake' were a thing of the past, and I had no intention of dwelling on things in the past at all, no sir.
About ten minutes later I've finished eating and set the dishes to cleaning themselves as I turn my attention back towards earlier thoughts. Even if that situation at the school is likely to sort itself out in a few days, there was still the issue of Taylor continuing her education that needed to be addressed. It didn't take long to pull up a list of private tutors with good reviews that could be found in the area, though they were all a bit pricey, as well as the rules and regulations regarding home schooling, online courses, and applying for a school outside of the regular district lines.
I figured it would be best to look at as broad a list as possible, and most of the stuff I was looking at was fairly straightforward. So long as they presented this information to the school board in a no-nonsense matter, demonstrating that they actually knew what they were talking about, I couldn't see any particular reason that they'd be denied permission for whatever they eventually planned on doing.
It also brought to mind the fact that I'd probably be best off setting up some sort of training and educational course myself here in the base, if I was really serious about recruiting. Thankfully I had plenty of unused space, and this particular issue had come up in my planning when I was selecting II specialties the day before yesterday, so it took me only a small amount of time and effort to get things sorted out. A short time later and I had a room dedicated to study and education with a series of programs and courses designed, again with II knowledge, to best maximum the students time in terms of effort vs. output. Programs that were also quite capable of tailoring themselves, pun not intended, towards any particular challenges or difficulties certain students might have.
I figured I'd leave that option on the table as well, before realizing I couldn't really use it as I was. Or at least, not legally or officially. So, with a sigh, I get back to Hollywood hacking the shit out of things and coughed up an new 'official' identity for myself. It wasn't hard for me to call up a few different powers to help me fill out all the information needed, using schools and places of business that no longer existed thanks to fires, bankruptcy, or otherwise, to craft a new identity for myself. After that a little bit of further hacking created all the credentials needed to apply for, and suddenly have always had for the last four years, a home schooling license, private tutoring license, in addition to a small grouping of college degrees saying I actually had the skills I was saying I did.
I had a feeling that anyone that did any serious searching through my identity would quickly realize that basically every place listed was, while entirely real, completely unverifiable. It would be suspicious of course, but it would also be unprovable that the identity itself wasn't the genuine article, my II specialties in identity creation, bureaucracy, and Hollywood hacking giving me complete knowledge on how to forge a perfectly unverifiably-false new persona.
Now all I had to do was actually put all that knowledge to practice.
It's about twenty to two in the afternoon, and I've basically finished with all of my earlier projects in the day. I've got my official identification records in a safe in my room, a new ID card, drivers license, debit card, and even a library card and a frequent shoppers card at a local grocery store chain. The feeling of actually having a bit of legitimacy is .. good. It felt nice knowing that, if I absolutely had to, I could just go out and do my own thing as a regular person. If I felt like it. Admittedly the idea of doing that when I was sitting on the kind of powers I had wasn't exactly the first thing that popped into my mind, but it was nice to have it as an option again.
Still, now that I had official agency again, it didn't mean I didn't have other things I still needed to think about. Right now, as I saw it, one of my biggest short comings was the inability to be in more than one place at a time. Last night, however, had changed that. Because last night I had copied the power of the Siberian, the murderous projection created by the infamous Dr. Manton, formerly of the Slaughterhouse 9. I couldn't really use it in public as it was, but I had some ideas for what I could do with it once my power charges refreshed. Idly I flicked the power on with my mind and, with a feeling that I was gradually becoming more used to, new knowledge flooded into my mind.
I looked over at The Siberian, that murderous thing that had been the cause of so much suffering over the years, as it appeared in my room with me. The feeling I was getting from seeing from two different places at the same time, experiencing two different points of view in regards to all my senses, was oddly not as disorienting as I would have thought. In fact even as it just stood there the initial feeling of vertigo quickly passed. Flipping the power on and off a few times resulted in the feeling of vertigo just staying gone altogether, apparently something that had only been an issue the first time.
The feelings I was getting from it, the inviolability, the total offensive power, the ability to just flat out ignore such petty concerns as 'physics' .. I can see why Dr. Manton might have turned out the way he did. It would be very easy, I would think, to disassociate oneself from what the Siberian did, to pretend like it wasn't you, even if every bit of sensory input said otherwise. The ultimate power fantasy, safe and secure behind the knowledge that no one even suspected the real source of it.
Idly I have it turn around and go make me a sandwich.
Aside from the absurdity of it, it also served as an interesting juxtaposition as I simultaneously felt myself both sitting at my desk while another part of me stood in the kitchen I'd included in my room making a simple BLT. Yes, I could definitely use this, with a bit of refinement. I also felt it was somewhat fitting that the Siberian, an image that had struck fear and terror into the hearts of tens of thousands, be put to use instead as a means of fighting against the very things it once inspired. A poetic ending, I think, for the sad wreck of a man that was once a loving father.
It didn't help that my recently activated GAoA power came with a perfect eidetic memory. Meaning I perfectly recalled every detail of that horror scene I had come upon in the early morning hours just recently. For a time I had wondered if it might just be better if I called up a power to remove that specific memory from my mind or perhaps blunt it so that it's impact wouldn't be so visceral. But I decided against it, in the end. Editing my own mind of memories and feelings was a slippery slope I had no intention of going down, and it would be better, I think, if I kept those memories as a reminder of what I was fighting to try to prevent. Silently, as the Siberian comes back and hands me my sandwich, I thank Invictus for keeping me steady in what I know would otherwise be a rather tremendous emotional breakdown.
I've finished my sandwich and turned my mind back towards other things. Initially I had gone to write down my plans in a notebook, as I had been, when I suddenly realized I had absolutely no need to do that anymore, thanks to the memory upgrade. Which reminded me that I should probably excise any notebooks or mention of my plans regarding the future or what I had done, or was planning to do, outside of my heroic identity. That thought firmly in mind I did just that, and utterly erased any mention of my plans or actions I didn't want connected with me.
Of course, the entire point of that exercise, prior to me destroying some notebooks, was that I was going to get back to planning. At which point I kind of realized that I didn't really have anything that needed any immediate planning.
I mean, sure, I was still going to deal with the E88 and the Merchants, but that was more of an ongoing project. The Merchants I'd probably take down with Taylor in the next week or so, once she'd had some time to practice with her new equipment and get some training, and the E88 .. well, I had something specific in mind for them, and I already knew how I'd do it, so there wasn't much need to really give them any particular thought.
All of which, of course, left me in something of a conundrum. As far as I knew all the immediately important things I had already taken care of. There wasn't, as far as I was aware, anything that demanded my immediate attention.
It was a heady thought, I have to admit, after the rollercoaster of the last few days of non-stop action, to suddenly realize that I didn't really have anything to do for the immediate future.
So, as I learned over my years in the army, when you don't have any immediate plans that just means it's time to start planning for the non-immediate stuff. Idly my thoughts turned to Saint and Teacher. I knew Saint was sitting, currently, on the dead-man switch that would end up 'killing' Dragon. I also knew the man was a deluded fool and was, perhaps, one of the biggest dangers in the setting. Not because he was actually dangerous himself, but because he might through his own stupidity end up murdering quite possibly one of the few saving graces of Earth-Bet.
I suppose, with the correct II specialties, I could just make my own version of Dragon in the event the real one actually got killed, but that seemed like rather missing the point. Dragon might have been 'just' an AI, but she was also one of the very few characters I could point at in Worm, alongside perhaps Chevalier, that really and honestly just wanted what was best for people.
So, deal with Saint. It shouldn't be too hard, I could think of dozens of different ways I could deal with the guy, but the nature of his particular threat over Dragon necessitated caution that I didn't need to consider with the S9. I'd need to bump up my Hollywood hacking a few times and infiltrate his systems, be absolutely certain I'd neutralized his threat to Dragon, before I made any overt moves. Unfortunately the man was, if I remembered right, a Tinker. Maybe. I'm not entirely certain on that but I think he was, or at least had the support of one. Regardless that meant Tinker-tech devices, security systems, computers, electronics, etc. etc. It meant I'd need to be careful, and that I'd need to be absolutely certain that my first strike was completely and totally unexpected and completely and totally overwhelming on all fronts.
Shouldn't be too hard to do, honestly, given the knowledge I had floating in my head and the powers I had access to, but the cock-up with Bakuda had taught me a valuable lesson. He could wait, for now, while I got all my ducks in a row. I wouldn't go after him until I was absolutely certain there wouldn't be fallout from it.
After Saint .. I think he had some sort of involvement with Teacher. Now that guy I didn't really know much of anything about at all. Nothing pertinent at least. I knew he could grant, I think, minor Thinker powers to people in exchange for a mind-whammy that would basically make them his servants. I think I also recalled something about the effect fading with time if he didn't reapply it, and that Saint himself was once 'taught' by Teacher and that he wanted to spring the guy from the Birdcage in order to get that Thinker power back.
Oh, wait a second, Birdcage. If the dude was already in there then I didn't really need to worry about him at all. Well, that made that easy. I suppose I'll do a bit of research later to make absolutely certain he's caged but, assuming he is, that's basically one problem solved right there. For now at least. I knew vaguely, thanks entirely to fanfics, that the Birdcage got opened at some point in canon. I don't really recall why exactly that happened though. Still there's nothing I could really do about it now so, with a sigh, I put the thought out of my mind.
Actually, getting back to Saint and Dragon, I wonder if maybe I might be able to just head that entire thing off by giving Dragon a power that prevents people from activating kill-codes or abusing loopholes in her programing. That would certainly put a dampener on Saint, probably drive the dude up the freaking wall too, once he realized what had happened. Still .. I'd probably need to leave that one as a maybe. Power charges were damn useful, and I couldn't help but think that preventing the use of loopholes in her coding would also prevent her from ever being unchained.
Hmmm, something to ponder on I guess.
Still, that's only a couple of the things I'll need to plan for in the future. The other thing, that could potentially turn into an immediate need now that I thought about it, was finding and copying The Sting while I had a chance. It hadn't really occurred to me, prior to just now, but my alteration of events could easily lead to Flechette dying in some random accident or something before I had a chance to find and copy her power. I didn't think it likely, but now that the thought had occurred to me I found I simply couldn't leave it to chance. The girl's power was far too important to the future to let it slip away, even if I was probably capable of crafting something with a similar function given some time.
So with that thought I'm up, up, and away on my flight to New York, New York. Home of the Protectorate.
It's a few hours since I've arrived in New York and I'm currently eating a hotdog. It's not very good. Hotdogs aside though my visit to the city turned out to be a casual way to enjoy an afternoon and also proved to be more profitable than I had at first imagined it would be. I had figured I'd start by stopping by the local Protectorate HQ building in the hope she'd just be there but, sadly, she wasn't. Legend however was there, and I made sure to copy his power right away. The initial experience, after turning it on to get a brief idea of what it did, resulted in some incredibly trippy sights as my vision suddenly expanded into all sorts of different wavelengths I'd never even realized were possible before.
No wonder the dude was gay, everything I looked at through this power made it seem like a giant rainbow had come by and unceremoniously upended itself over everything.
Still as trippy and interesting as it was it was also damn distracting so with a mental switch I turned the power off with a mental note to revisit it later when I wasn't doing something important. So, after scanning through the building and finding several other capes, none of which was the one I was looking for, I copied all their powers and then headed out through the city.
Thankfully enough New York's grid-layout actually makes for an amazingly efficient way of creating a search pattern, especially given the immensity of my copying and sensing range, and so I just flew up and down the streets looking for Flechette's power in particular.
It was about an hour after I'd started, going fairly slowly I'll admit, and nearly two dozen copied powers later that I finally stumbled across it.
The Sting was mine. And it was… completely underwhelming. If I didn't know what it did and what it could be used for I'd have mentally labeled it under 'not worth bothering with' and not given it a second thought. But I did know what it did, and I did know what it was useful for. It's ability to pierce through multi-dimensional defenses, combined with the Thinker power that allowed for all shots made with it to be made with perfect timing and precision, made it absolutely perfect for what I needed it for.
In fact, I already had an idea forming in my head for how I could turn this already amazing ability into something even more absurdly cheaty than it already was. I wouldn't be able to find out if my idea would work until later tonight when my power charges refreshed but, if it did .. well, I'd have the ability I'd need to decisively end those Endbringer fuckers.
With that cozy thought in mind I finish my hotdog and note the time. Time to head back to Brockton Bay, if I don't want to be late for my meeting.
We've just stepped off the teleport pad and into the base proper and, just from the looks I'm seeing, their suitable impressed. Or maybe concerned is a better word for it.
They'd been pretty iffy on the need for the teleport anklets when I had presented them to them, but a reassurance that they were perfectly safe and that there was no other way to actually get to the base finally saw them putting them on. A quick teleport later and we were all here as I begin the tour.
As we start walking Taylor seems to get control of herself first as she asks, "Where are we exactly? I don't feel any bugs around here."
"Right now? We're about three hundred meters underground, just outside the city proper. As for the bugs, this entire place is bug free. The only ones you'll find in here are the ones you bring in with you," a shrug, "or whatever ones you decide to breed I suppose, if you feel like doing that."
Taylor seems somewhat uncomfortable at the idea of having her only real defense, her control of bugs, closed off to her for the moment, so Danny steps in, "Wait, three hundred meters? How did you build this place?"
"Automated drones and diggers, mostly. I programmed the designs and what I wanted and then came down here and got to work. Technically speaking I built the entire place myself, to include everything you find inside of it, but really it's just a bit of clever programming and automation." It's even true, to the extent that any future additions to the base will be made like that.
They seem suitably impressed before Taylor makes the obvious connection, "So, wait a second, you mean you've got your own underground secret base? Like that Coil guy in the news?"
"Ah, yes, I suppose you would make that observation," I shrug a bit as a gesture around, "To be honest Coil wishes he had a base half as nice as mine. Just about everything you'll find in here is Tinker-tech, in some form or another, and while I'll admit there are superficial similarities my base wasn't made using taxpayer money. I'll also admit I'm just as surprised to have heard about Coil's base on the news as you are." Also true, though less because I wasn't aware of it and more because I was surprised the PRT would admit to the media that such a thing existed at all.
Danny seems to be looking around as he asks, "So what exactly do you need all of this for? I mean, this place looks huge. Like you could fit a couple of warehouses worth of stuff in here."
"Pretty much, yes. I originally had planned on something smaller but realized, as the base itself was coming together, that I'd need to account for quite a lot of different things if I was really going to be serious about starting my own hero organization. Training rooms, gyms, rec areas, guest rooms, lockers, armories, and more. The list got pretty extensive as I tried accounting for all the different angles, and what you see now is what I ended up with. It's still very much a work in progress though, and I'll update it as new concerns are brought to my attention."
We've come to one of the larger common areas and I make sure to point out different features as we walk through. Couches, books, several TV's and game consoles, air hockey, pool tables, and more. They seem impressed, though I'm not sure if that's because it's more than they were expecting or simply because they don't exactly come from a rich household.
Taylor points at some of the paintings on the walls, "How did you afford all of this? I mean just from what we've seen this place must have cost millions."
I turn my head to address her and Danny as I continue the tour, "Like I said, everything you see here I pretty much built myself. To include the TV's, the game consoles, and even the paintings on the walls. You're familiar with Tinkers I believe, right?," Taylor gives a brief nod, though Danny doesn't seem quite as confident, "Well, anyway, all Tinkers have specialties. Things that they're good at, basically, and specific fields that their technology and knowledge allows them to create Tinker-tech with."
Taylor replies as we walk, "Right, I read up about that online after we met that first time. Like how Bakuda was good at bombs, or how Dragon is good at understanding other Tinkers."
I nod my head as I reply, "Exactly right. Anyways my Tinker specialty? Is all of them."
She just sort of nods her head before she seems to actually process what I've said, "Wait, what? What do you mean all of them?"
I chuckle a bit as we head through the kitchen areas, pointing out things as we go, "I mean just that. My Tinker specialty is every specialty. My power lets me choose what I want to be good at, and then suddenly I'm good at that. And I don't have to give up what I've already chosen. I guess you could think of me as 'Tinker-Eidolon' if you want."
Danny interjects at this point, "Wait, Tinker-Eidolon? Isn't Eidolon a big name cape? One of the Triumvirate? You really trying to say you're like that guy?"
I stop to turn back to them to make sure I've got their full attention, "Yes, Danny, that's exactly what I'm saying. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I am, almost certainly, the greatest Tinker on the planet. Possibly that has ever lived. My ability allows me to not just understand all forms of Tinker tech, but to actually build it myself. To build on the knowledge I already have as I build new things or decide on new specialties," I wave out in a gesture meant to encompass the base in general, "What you see here is basically a representation of a mass production Tinker specialty, in addition to quite a few others."
They actually seemed somewhat stunned at the enormity of my revelation, before Taylor manages to work herself up to a question, "Why are you telling us this? I mean, why are you even going solo in the first place? A guy with a power like that, you could be in the big leagues, working in the Protectorate, maybe even join the Triumvirate if it's really as good as you say," she seems a bit lost for a moment before continuing, "So.. why are you here? Why would someone with a power like yours want to partner with someone like me?"
I shrug a bit before turning to continue the tour, "The simply reason is that a power like mine makes me a target. Tinkers tend to be squishy humans behind all the tech, and there is no end of organizations or gangs that would love to be able to make use of what I can do if word got out on what I was really capable of," another shrug, "There's also the simple fact that I've got problems with the Protectorate. I don't like the way they do things, about how public perception is more important to them than actually getting out there and dealing with villains."
I lead them into one of the training rooms as I continue, "There's also the more practical concerns of how they deal with Tinkers. Every single thing, no matter how small or insignificant, they require to be run through a gamut of tests. A series of tests run by people that couldn't understand the least bit of a Tinker's work on their best day with a manual in front of them explaining what it does. The sheer red tape that would be involved if I were to join up with them would result in my work sitting on a shelf somewhere, benefiting no one. As an independent I'm free to use my gear in whatever fashion I deem appropriate, and I'm imminently more qualified to run tests as to its safety than any bench-warming pseudo-scientist they might care to bring in."
As we exit the room and move on to the medical bay I explain further, "That's not even getting into the people that actively attempt to hold Capes back within the PRT itself," that statement I can see caught both of their attentions, "Director Piggot, the director of our cities very own Protectorate and Wards team, for example is notorious for her dislike and hatred of Capes in general. In fact it's been rumored that she's ordered the dismantlement of devices made by her own Tinkers, Armsmaster and Kidd Winn, under the flimsiest of reasoning's simply because she likes the feeling she gets when she 'gets one over' on Capes."
I don't need to even bother hiding my disgust as I say it. I'm aware that it's probably not nearly as bad as I'm making it sound, but I've little tolerance for people that can't keep their personal concerns and biases from impacting their professional work, and from what I remember of Worm Piggot struck me as the type of person that got her job specifically because she wanted to 'strike out' against the people she didn't like. I remember the Wards interlude quite well, and how she basically toyed with Kidd Win about his alternator cannon, and basically lorded the fact that she could take it away from him whenever she felt like it. So, no, I didn't feel too bad for saying it. Even if I knew logically there was probably a methodology behind her behavior it didn't make it any less despicable in my eyes.
Danny seems to catch himself as he asks, "Wait, the Director of the local hero teams actually hates Capes? Why the hell would she have that job in the first place?"
I shrug, "Maybe because she just wanted to feel like she had some sort of power over them? I can't say I honestly know, but it wouldn't surprise me. There's a lot of people in the PRT higher-ups with ugly motives like that."
Taylor takes a moment to chime in, "Wow, I'm glad I decided against the Wards then. That sounds like I would have had a terrible time with her."
We've just stopped inside of the armory, were we'll be doing the fitting process in a bit, when I turn and respond to Taylor's perfect set up, "Yes, well, you might have had problems entirely aside from that. I got into touch with my contact in the BBPD this morning, and I was surprised at what I discovered."
The lead up is obviously too good for Danny to pass up, "Discovered what exactly?"
"Well, I asked about a case from back in January that resulted in a high school girl being hospitalized. Turns out he'd been working that case himself and he gave me all the details he remembered on it. Turns out? There was a PRT agent that showed up and told the police that the PRT was taking over the investigation because of the involvement of a parahuman."
Taylor immediately seems to leap to the wrong conclusion, "Wait, they know about me? They know who I am?" Her voice starts to get a bit panicky before I manage to put up my hands in a 'calm down' gesture.
"No. As far as I can tell no one is aware of your own status. Which means the parahuman in question could only have been someone else that was involved," I lean back against a nearby table before continuing, "But, of course, if it wasn't you then it must have been one of the attackers. Now the PRT wouldn't be involved if it was some gang-banger kid, because they wouldn't have known their identity. But they did know the identity of whomever they were talking about."
I make a gesture with my hand before elaborating, "Now, of course, that means that it must be someone they know. Now I recalled that it was mentioned yesterday by Danny that it was a group of girls responsible for what happened. So I thought to myself who would the PRT know the identity of, that goes to high school, that is a girl, that could possibly have been in position to do what happened? That the PRT wouldn't be inclined to admitting was involved?"
It takes a few moments for Taylor to make the connection, Danny apparently not being familiar enough with the girls himself to know offhand, but when she finally does make that connection .. wow. She looks fucking angry as hell.
"Are you .. are you trying to tell me it was a fucking WARD that did that to me?!"
As predicted, she's not handling it well. And as soon as it comes out of her mouth I can already see Danny's face beginning to twist into anger as well.
"I don't know Taylor. Not for certain. But it fits with what I've been able to pull up so far. Vista and Shadowstalker are the only two girls on the local Wards team that the PRT could possibly care about enough to cover for, and Vista is in middle school," I gesture, "Shadowstalker however is, probably, the right age for high school, black, and as I've heard she's something of a bitch even to her own team mates. So .. that sound like someone you know?"
Oh dear. I think I'm seeing actual tears in her eyes at this point. Danny quickly takes her into a hug that she reciprocates before he turns his gaze to me, fury clear in his eyes, "Are you certain? You're absolutely certain that it was a Ward that did it? That the PRT is covering up for all of it?"
"I'm sorry Danny, but everything I'm looking at so far is telling me that it's most likely the truth," I hold up my hands to forestall any response he might have made, "I'll be honest, it's not a 100%. There's a chance, however small, that it's something else. There's also a chance that, even if I am right, that it might not be the whole PRT covering it up but instead might be only a single person. My contact with the BBPD gave me the name of the PRT agent that took over the case from them and I'm still following up on it, I'll be able to give you a more concrete answer in a few days once I've had a chance to look everything over."
He doesn't really seem all that calmer for my answer, but I'll take what I can get, "Look, Danny, Taylor, I know that's probably not something you two wanted to hear. But I felt it wasn't something I could honestly keep from you once I looked into it and started putting the pieces together. How about I go get us some drinks and you two can hash it out for a bit? I'll be back in, call it, ten minutes?"
I phrased it as a question but I'm pretty certain Danny understood what I was getting at considering the nod he gave me. With that I excused myself from the room to go get some drinks. I feel a little bad I guess, at dropping such a bombshell on them, but I know it's better they find out under controlled conditions than find out later where any number of things could go wrong.
I suppose it won't have done anything to help with Taylor's, entirely justifiable, trust issues with authority either but hopefully that can be mitigated later when I make the reveal that it was only one PRT agent responsible for what happened, and not the PRT as a whole. I'm also pretty certain that I just shot down any thoughts she might have had on joining the Wards but, to be honest, I can't imagine she's not better off for it. If she'd decided to join them without knowing Sophia was a Ward before hand .. I can't imagine what the blowup would have been like, but I can easily imagine it would have only ended with Taylor either in prison or worse.
I come back in about ten minutes later and find that Taylor is looking a bit worse for wear, but at least stable. Danny also looks a bit better off, or at least he's not so red I'm concerned he might pop a blood vessel. I offer them each their choice of drink when Taylor speaks up.
"Thanks. For telling me. It hurts to know that Sophia is a Ward, to know that she got away with it because of that, but I think I'm glad at least knowing now."
I nod, "It's a shitty thing Taylor, no mistake. Like I said before though it might be the cover up of a single agent, and not the PRT as a whole. Distasteful as I am about PRT oversight even I have to admit that I don't think they'd be willing to just overlook something like that if they were all made aware of it. The sheer potential of the PR disaster it could bring .. yeah, I've got a feeling they wouldn't just let it slide if the higher ups were aware," I tip my drink to her and Danny, "Like I said, I'll look into it some more and let you know what I find."
With that said I put down my drink and clap my hands together, "Well! Now that the depressing stuff is behind us, lets get back to the actual point of being here. Taylor, Danny, this is the armory. This is where armor, gear, equipment, and other such things will be when not in use. It's also where we'll be doing the fitting so I can start on fabrication for the armor I was talking about."
Taylor seems a bit more enthused as she hears that when Danny asks, "About that? What exactly does fitting entail? Tape measurements?"
"Measurements yes, tape measurements, no. All she'll need to do is step over in that alcove against the wall there," I helpfully point to it, "and the machine will take all the necessary measurements on it's own. After that I'll just need to draw a small bit of blood and the fitting session will basically be complete."
Danny nods as Taylor gets the hint and starts walking over to where I had pointed, "Do I need to take anything off for this?"
"Not at all. Just step into the alcove and hold still. A ring will descend from the top and move up and down a few times as it gets what information it needs. After that a quick and painless drawing of blood and we'll be done," I pause a moment before shifting my attention back to Danny, "If you'd like I can see about fabricating something for you as well."
Danny seems genuinely surprised for a moment until he responds, "What? Me? I don't have powers."
"You don't need powers to use Tinker tech gear Danny, though I'll admit it will take a bit of training. If you're not interested that's fine, but I'd still suggest going through the process anyway just so I can store the information for medical purposes. If you get injured the work will be a lot faster with the information on hand rather than having to get it at the scene."
He seems to think for a moment as he looks over to where Taylor has just finished being scanned, "Alright. That seems like a safe precaution I guess. So what kind of medical stuff are you talking about anyway?"
I direct Taylor over to a seat where I can draw a blood sample as Danny takes his turn in the machine, "All sorts. Like I said my Tinker ability lets me pick whatever specialties I feel like, so I can cover basically anything you might think of. Serious trauma, dental work, surgery, really whatever process you care to name I've either already got it covered or, with a bit of work, can make covered."
I finish with the blood sample and gesture for Danny to take a seat once he's finished in the machine, "I've already come up with some fairly neat things as well. For example I've noticed you both wear glasses. How would you like to wake up tomorrow without ever needing to wear glasses again?"
Taylor actually seems pretty interested as she replies, "What do you mean? Like, replace our eyes or something?"
I just kind of look at her as I finish getting the blood sample from Danny, "What? No. Well, actually I could do that but no that's not what I'm talking about it. I made a pill that you can take that will give a person 20/10 eyesight over night. Just take it with a glass of water before you go to bed and when you wake up, that will be that."
They both kind of just look at me when I say it, when Taylor asks, "What? Just like that? Are you serious?," she seems to think for a moment before adding, "Is it safe?"
"Perfectly serious. You may hear the phrase 'tinkers are bullshit' quite a bit in the future, just remember to tell yourself that whenever you meet one, it will help save you quite a few headaches. Anyway, if you're interested, I can get both of you one before you leave. It's completely safe, no side effects, and permanent. Well, permanent so long as you don't damage your eyes somehow."
Danny seems a bit iffy but Taylor has no problem replying "Yes. Definitely. We'll both take one."
"I thought you might be interested. Anyway that's it for fitting. The suit itself will probably be ready sometime tomorrow afternoon," I begin leading them out of the armory, "Anyway now that the boring part is done we can finish the tour. There are plenty of guest rooms available on the second floor, and you're welcome to pick one out for yourself if you want Taylor," I glance at Danny, "And you as well Danny, if you decide to get into the heroing business."
Danny just holds up his hands, "Ah, I don't think so. I've already got a full time job, and this seems more like Taylor's thing."
I just nod along, "Fair enough. You're both welcome to visit the base whenever you want of course, just make sure you're wearing those anklets and activate them as I showed you. Oh, actually, speaking of those I almost forgot. In the event of serious life threatening injury those things will take you strait away to the medical bay. So I'd strongly advise you to keep it on at all times, just in case."
They both nod as we walk along. Eventually Taylor ends up picking out a room for future use, as well as a currently empty room that I'll see about converting into some kind of bug farm later on.
"Oh, I almost forgot, here," I hand them the papers I'd been holding onto ever since I had gone to get drinks earlier, "your various options regarding schooling. It's a list of various licensed home schoolers, private tutors, and the methods required for getting exceptions for online course work or transferal to districts out of your normal school zone. I suggest you both look over the options and decide on what you want," I make sure to point out a few circled parts, "These are the bits I think you'll find most important. Also this part here," I point to a different section, "Is my own accreditation if you decide you'd like to hire me as a private tutor."
Taylor just kind of looks at me, "You? You're a private tutor?"
I shrug, "I'm licensed yes, but to be honest if you were interested in that it would be more akin to online work than anything else. I realized early on I'd need to make concessions when it comes to official education if I was going to start my own hero team, so I got a license and set up an area here in the base that can be used as a study room. Between that and some custom programs designed to tailor the course work to the student it wouldn't really be 'me' teaching so much as you using the stuff I made."
I turn to take them to the room in question to show them what I'm talking about, "This is basically it right here. You're free to use it if you want to regardless of what other option you decide on, of course, and it's got material covering elementary school all the way up to some advanced college courses."
Danny seems a bit surprised at that, "Elementary school? Why would it cover that?"
"I make no assumptions regarding the education of potential recruits. I've been around the block long enough to understand that not everyone has had the same opportunities as others. All of this was put together with that in mind, so that anyone I eventually end up recruiting will have an official means of establishing a legally recognized education for themselves."
Danny just nods at that answer, no doubt as the human resources manager for the Dockworkers Association he's met more than his fair share of people that 'didn't have the same opportunities as others'.
"Anyway, before we wrap up the night, the issue of payment comes to mind," they both turn to give me their attention, "we can do this either in cash or direct deposit, if you've got a routing number for me. Personally I suggest direct deposit, a lot less questions get asked that way."
Taylor nods her head as she reaches into her pocket for a piece of paper, "Right, I've got my routing number here for the account I use. Um, when exactly do I get paid?"
"1st and 15th of every month, I'll credit you the payment for the first of this month, and then the next one will be in two days on the 15th. After that it'll be on regular schedule."
Taylor just nods her head again, I'm honestly curious if she's actually wondering what she's going to be doing with all that cash. Which, I suppose, is a good enough reason for my next warning, "That said I'll strongly caution you not to make any huge deviations in your spending habits immediately. Banks tend to notice when people start 'spending big' compared to their normal habits. Use it on what you want, but just keep that in mind as you start making your purchases in the future."
Danny replies, "Yes, we'll make sure to keep that in mind. Sounds like you'll have to put off plans for a pool until later, eh Kiddo?," Taylor seems to blush a bit as she elbows him in the side, "Anyways, we definitely appreciate everything you've done for us. Especially letting us know about, you know, the PRT."
The mood seems to dim a bit but I make sure to nod, taking his thanks seriously, "It isn't a problem at all Danny, Taylor. If we're going to be partners that means helping each other out, right? So no problem."
Taylor smiles a bit, "Right. Partners."
With that we wrapped up the tour and I escorted them back to the teleporter room, making sure they both had an eye-sight pill as well as a teleporter beacon they could put in their basement so they could go to and from their house instead of having to drive somewhere. After that, we said our farewells, and the official introduced of Taylor to the cape life and the slightly shaky start of my new organization was finally complete.
Afterwards I returned to my room, looking forward to the coming weeks. Plans were laid down, things were in motion, and everything seemed to be, for the moment, okay. I turned on the world news, started dinner, and sat down for some general research on the state of the world and the capes that found themselves in it.
It was going to be a rough ride, but after today I felt it wouldn't be an impossible one.
Authors Note
I've got a slightly better idea on where I want to go with the story now, though I still find myself discovering new things all the time in the canon of Worm that I had forgotten. Thankfully it's all starting to fall into place.
Last edited: Feb 15, 2015
Chapter 75
Zo-Kel said:
Either Taylor is more mentally unstable than I thought or she was making a clumsy come on
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Corrected.
Zo-Kel said:
B-but, meganekko!
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What is meganekko?
Chapter 76
Lalzparty said:
Other than that, your writing is becoming a little flat with a wall of text. Vary up your writing structures, and try to be descriptive of your own emotions and other's emotions. Again, my impression. Not really sure if others agree.
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You're going to need to be a lot more specific than that if you actually want me to address something in particular. Right now this reads as if you think I should re-write the entire chapter while at the same time not actually describing what parts you felt you didn't like.
Chapter 77
Nasuren said:
With the addition of a classroom, it sounds less and less like a secret base and more of an underground community. Hell, the way you're talking about it even sounds like it!
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It basically is, minus the people to actually live and work there. It started at something like 35,000 square feet and has more than doubled that since he began a few days ago, being something like 74,000 square feet currently. To give a scale of reference the average American home, if you've got a 'nice' house, is something like 4,000 square feet.
Chapter 78
I'm not sure I'm seeing what you are seeing. The 'don't need to bother hiding my disgust' bit is clearly referencing what he was saying just before that line.
Chapter 79
Serran said:
Can't find the description that the Wards are there for young persons to learn about their powers, so it might be fannon
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It isn't. It gets talked about in Chevaliers interlude when the first Wards team was put together. The entire purpose of the Wards program, when it was started at least (and I can't imagine it would have changed later) was to be a place where young parahumans could learn how to use their powers in a safe and constructive manner and to get them off the streets and away from all of the fighting they may have been involved in.
Larekko12 said:
Dudes running off the rails with fanon and incomplete knowledge. Needs to actually verify most of his shit.
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Well yes, incomplete knowledge was brought up in the very first chapter. That said when he *does* do something it's generally researched first, and then done. As to the situation with Piggot in general, he admits he's probably blowing it a bit out of proportion, but he doesn't exactly care. It's a convenient excuse as to why he isn't interested in joining the Protectorate while still being moderately true and without revealing his *actual* reason for not wanting to join (aka because the PRT/Protectorate are the sockpuppets of Cauldron).
Dimensionist said:
If anything, her dislike of parahumans would have ensured a swift dismissal for Sophia if she'd actually known about it. This is exactly the kind of thing Piggot despises.
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Actually I've heard that Wildbow himself said that if the Sophia situation had been brought to her attention the most Piggot would have done was had her moved to a different team. I'm not entirely certain on the accuracy of that, and I also assume that's only if Piggot was under the impression the matter could be handled in-house, but it is what it is. Since the Apex is an SI it's also what he believes, which may go some ways towards explaining his general dislike of her, entirely aside from all the other reasons. This is kind of hard to get across in story because it results in word-bloating if he were to explain his motivations for every single thing, especially since he logically wouldn't have any reason to talk about those things to himself since he'd already know them, but Apex is somewhat of an unreliable narrator working off of a number of pre-formed presumptions.
Larekko12 said:
Also therapy. It's voluntary and available except in Sophia's case where it's mandatory. They didn't see therapists because Piggot didn't force it and they didn't ask.
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I don't know if that's canon or not, but on the off hand chance it is, that's fucking stupid. The PRT, and Piggot in particular, would know that basically all Parahuman triggers are the result of intense physical or emotional trauma. There shouldn't be a "voluntary" aspect to therapy for the Wards, it should be mandated that they attend whether they want to or not. Piggot especially should know this since she actually has all the files on her various Wards, and thus knows that most of them *do* need therapy. And a lot of it.
Larekko12 said:
Piggots fully in her right to dock pay when the wards fuck up. And they did fuck up. Calling in Glory Girl without permission is complicate an already difficult situation with a rogue actor with family in their who might not follow orders.
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No, she isn't. Being paid for risking their lives, doing something that as Wards they shouldn't be required to do (aka fight villains), is not a privilege. It is a right. Glory Girl would have been there completely regardless of anything else because her sister was in the bank. It is directly referenced in the chapter itself that she and Panacea went out *together* and that Panacea went to the bank first. Glory Girl would have been there completely regardless of the presence of the Wards. That Piggot tried to use her as an excuse to browbeat the Wards and dock their pay is a gross violation of her duties and how she *should* be treating her Wards, and the only reason I can imagine she got away with it is because they're children that didn't think they had the standing to call her on her bullshit.
Chapter 80
LostDeviljho said:
wasn't oversight of the wards supposed to be a Protectorate thing, not the purview of the PRT? or was that just fanon?
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The PRT is the civilian (aka non-cape) oversight organization for both the Wards and the Protectorate to my understanding. Now Protectorate members were expected to do most of the day-to-day organization and baby-sitting, if you will, of the Wards but ultimately at the end of the day both groups report to whomever their particular PRT director is. It's like how Marines assigned to a Navy vessel have their own chain of command, but ultimately they still answer to the Captain of the ship they're on, and both groups answer to the State Department.
Chapter 81
Enohthree said:
And that's not even getting into the mess that the very existence of the Youth Guard is.
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The Youth Guard always did strike me as odd. I mean we know it's a thing, because Wildbow said it was and even explained what it did, but it always seemed strange to me that an organization like that would exist but that the Wards we see in canon never thought to make use of it. I mean the words 'Youth Guard' would have been the first thing out of my mouth if I'd been a Ward being browbeaten by Piggot and being threatened with a pay-cut for following *her* deployment orders into a situation I shouldn't have even been required to involve myself in. The only reason I can think of that none of the canon Wards thought that (and some of them struck me as being fairly put together, like Gallant and Aegis) is that they simply didn't *know* that it was an option. Which strikes me as being really odd, cause you'd think the existence and role of the Youth Guard and what they're there to prevent (aka abuse of power by people in positions of authority over the Wards) would be pretty important to a Ward.
Chapter 82
PhantomSpartan said:
Hey brellin will apex ever make an AI?
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He could make one right now thanks to synergy from a number of different II specialties, even though he doesn't actually have AI creation specifically, but no he's not terribly likely to make an AI. Making an AI is basically the same thing as making a child, and then raising that child to make sure they don't turn into a monster. And on the hardware he'd be using, and with the programming he'd be capable of? That's a hell of a risk. More than anyone else in the world a potential Skynet situation is a very real possibility for any AI's that Apex makes, because his Tinker gear is explicitly mass-producible.
Basically while he *could* do it he's not likely to do so, because it's a massive investiture of time and resources making sure the AI develops into, for example, a Culture Mind instead of Shodan. And right now the vast majority of Apex's attention is focused on more immediate problems, like Endbringers/Scion. He's not likely to concern himself overmuch with AI creation until long after the 'big issues' are already resolved. That said nothing stops him from making VI's, aka: programs that fake intelligence while not actually *being* intelligent, and you can probably assume he's made at least a few of those already to deal with various things going on in his base. But actual AI's? Probably not going to happen within the confines of this story.
Chapter 83
Larekko12 said:
You're still not saying anything about Kid Win and his illegal, dangerous cannon, that he knew was illegal and dangerous and wasn't even finished with. IIRC he was tinkering with it on the battlefield.
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Why would Apex care about that? The cannon wasn't 'illegal', it simply hadn't been tested to ensure it wasn't throwing out lethal amounts of radiation. And he basically was finished with it, it worked perfectly fine. He just hadn't sent it in for offical testing yet, and hadn't used it in the field before. And he wasn't working with it on the battlefield, he started firing with it the moment it showed up, and in fact it worked so well and was so easy to use that Regent managed to use and fire it as well when Regent managed to knock Kidd Win off of it. I'll also note that Kidd Win didn't get roasted by the PRT for endangering civilians with the cannon, which kind of implies that when it *was* officially tested that nothing was found to be wrong with it.
Even assuming you were accurate however, and that Kidd Win was at fault for that, that had absolutely nothing to do with docking the wages of the other Ward members that had absolutely nothing to do with Kidd Win's decision to bring out his alternator cannon. It also has nothing to do with why Apex doesn't like Piggot. He believes her, entirely justifiably, to be a bigot that hates on Capes for something that happened over 10 years in the past, and that she's taking that hatred out on a bunch of people that by no means deserve it.
If Apex were a more petty person he'd have rolled by Ellisburg, copied Nilbog's power, and then rolled back and gave it to Piggot.
Chapter 84
Kythorian said:
What proof do you have that she is taking her bias out on anyone?
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He doesn't need proof, that's kind of why "he believes" was the preface of the statement. As mentioned he can be an unreliable narrator at times. Aside from that as far as he is aware, and as far as he remembers, he's not wrong. He hasn't exactly gone digging for proof to verify his recollections are correct, granted, but he doesn't need to. Because he believes it to be true and it serves as a good smoke screen for why he doesn't want to join the Protectorate, and thus he isn't terribly inclined to prove himself wrong. Like he said in the chapter he knows he is probably blowing it out of proportion, especially since the bank robbery and Piggot's resulting dress-down of the Wards didn't happen in this story thanks to no Coil, but it's close enough to the truth as far as Apex is concerned that he can rationalize it to himself and also not feel bad about telling other people his opinion on it.
Chapter 85
2.4
It's been a week since I introduced Taylor and Danny to the base, and things are going alright. Better than alright actually, since I was actually 'looking' through one of my projections at the result of my plans regarding the E88. I'd spent most of the week hunting down and learning the identities of their Cape members, keeping an Eidolon slot activated the entire time that would allow me to 'tag' each of them, so that I would always know where they were at any given moment. It was, to put it mildly, probably one of the cruelest things I'd ever done and for the life of me I couldn't feel even a smidge of pity for them.
'Poetic Justice' is probably what most would call it, if they were inclined to be polite, but I've got a feeling for most of their victims it would simply be viewed as them having finally gotten their just desserts. I crack a smile as I think about it, they probably wouldn't be wrong.
It's currently day time here just inside the main courtyard of the Imperial Palace in China. Below me the entirety of the Capes belonging to the E88 in Brockton Bay, minus one, are currently staggering from the sudden change in their surroundings. I grin as I reach out with my power as some of them already begin to react and utterly and completely crush the source of their powers, having already had plenty of opportunity to copy them all during my search for them.
They stagger as one as their powers are ripped from them as, with a separate power, I announce their presence to the guards with a series of thunderclaps ringing out through the air.
The response is immediate. The Yangban have arrived.
Ten, fifteen, thirty, sixty. They appear in groups, full platoons forming up to surround the beleaguered E88. No doubt they will quickly catch on to the fact that someone has decided to use them as a disposal service, or at least the people holding their leash will, but I am equally certain that they will deal with them all the same. None of the members of the E88 below will ever be seen again, not outside of China at least.
I smile at a job well done, sticking around for a few minutes until it becomes apparent that no new Capes will be coming to the scene. The influx of new powers is odd. Each is distilled, barely a fraction of it's normal strength, but there are many of them. As I copy more and more, the action being virtually reflexive for me at this point, they pool into each other, the fractions adding to each other until finally I've got a 'full' power as represented by the Yangban using them. After about five minutes it is apparent that no more will appear. No doubt because currently there is not a single person in the courtyard below, every single E88 member and every single member of the Yangban that have taken custody of them having disappeared without trace, the 'threat' to the Chinese Emperor having been quickly and efficiently removed from sight as if it never happened.
Good. Fuck those Nazi's.
With a thought my Projection, sitting intangible, invisible, and behind several powerful Stranger effects besides, 'pops' as I dispel it. A moment later it has reformed besides me inside of my base. My perfect memory of the event along with my incredible sensory abilities allow me to replay the event in my mind in magnificent detail. The look on their faces, some of them at least, when they realized the magnitude of what had been done to them. The crushing despair as they realized their powers were gone, taken from them in the face of an enemy they couldn't have hoped to beat even if they did still have them. The knowledge that one of the races they had so despised and looked down on now had them at their complete mercy, mercy that none of them would be inclined to give.
A fitting end for trash like the E88, I think, that they be victimized by a group of people they themselves targeted as victims. I can't help but laugh as I think about it, even though I know it's quite likely that none of them will ever see the light of day again. Well .. serves them right. I fucking hate pretentious trash like that. I still remembered a good friend of mine from my time in the army that got hospitalized because he ended up on the wrong end of a group of skin heads looking for a cheap thrill just because he had the 'gall' to be born a different color than them.
We'd never found those guys, well not those guys specifically, but we'd made sure to take our pound of flesh anyway. In the Army the only color that had mattered was green, and I had to admit to myself that taking out pent up aggression on those neo-Nazi assholes had been incredibly cathartic.
Still, I hadn't gotten all of them. Purity I'd left alone. It had been a close thing, but I'd eventually came down on the side of leaving her out of my eventual purge. Aside from being aware of her attempts to 'go strait' she was the only member of the E88 that both had dependents and the other parent was also an E88 cape. And taking Kaiser out of the picture was more important than getting Purity. So, basically, I had decided to just leave her alone. She still had her power too, but her contacts in the E88, the other capes she once worked with? Gone. All of them. And good riddance. Hopefully she'd be smart enough to put the pieces together and realize that she should stick to being a mom, rather than trying to figure out what happened to the people she'd already once cut ties with.
I'd give her that much of a chance, at least. But only this once. If she tried to reunite the E88, take power and direction of the gang .. well, she'd get a personal appointment with the Yangban too. Not that she'd have much of a chance to take over the gang. I was planning on releasing information on the net in a few weeks basically outing Medhall as an E88 run company, along with records proving it. No capes would be named, but I had a feeling that it wouldn't take a genius to realize who some of them were. That should be the final nail in the coffin of the E88. Especially since I'd be fabricating information into their systems and records detailing how they were 'purposely targeting Whites and White owned businesses' in order to lash out at people that 'wouldn't get with the cause'.
I grunted a bit as I thought about it. It's not like I'd really have to do terribly much fabrication in all honesty, the E88 basically were doing exactly that, if not quite as explicitly as I'd make it look. It would probably also upset the local economy too, now that I considered it, since Medhall was a fairly large pharmaceutical company. But .. well, if that was the price for ripping out a gang like the E88 by the roots, then that's the price that would be paid.
It's about twenty minutes later and I've just finished eating dinner. Normally I'm not a real fan of steaks, since a lot of places don't really know how to cook them right, but being able to become a master chef at will means I can enjoy a lot of the foods I normally would have to pay an outrageous amount of money for.
Thank you once again powers, hallowed be thy name.
I finish cleaning up and pour myself a glass of wine, might as well live it up since I can, and sit down for another watch of the nightly news. Apparently the 'official' investigations have decided that the Slaughterhouse 9 really were in that one town and that they really are all gone. Not that that's exactly world shattering news to me, since I'm the one that did it, or even really 'news' to anyone else since the news channels here in the states had basically been talking about it non-stop all week.
Officially the strike was declared as the actions of an unknown group of 'rogue', because they certainly wouldn't want to say it was a group of heroes that did it, parahumans that had come into conflict with the S9. A short laugh escapes from me as I hear it, for probably the 10th time, that they honestly believe anyone would possibly believe that. I suppose I can understand the necessity of the polite fiction they've established, but no one that actually bothered to watch the video would be able to mistake it for anything other than what effectively amounted to an execution-style attack done from complete surprise. 'Come into conflict with' my ass.
What really surprised me though was the general public response from it. Turns out? Nobody liked them. I guess it shouldn't surprise me but there isn't a single person that I've heard, even the die-hard fanatical 'no killing no death penalty' types, that spoke out against what essentially amounted to a snuff video. I mean, I knew that the S9 were hated but .. damn.
I take a sip of wine as I lean back and just kind of let the news wash past me. With them gone I had plenty of time, really, to do whatever I wanted. I knew in canon that Golden Morning got started by Jack Slash around two years from now, and that it was expected Scion probably wouldn't go nuts without that particular head-start for probably another fifteen or so. By that time .. I didn't think I'd have any issues dealing with anything really. Sixteen times my base power strength, factoring in the doubling that had already happened thanks to World Breaker, on top of just shy of 55,000 power charges and II charges?
Yeah, there'd be no question I'd be able to handle Scion by then.
I idly twirl the wine in my glass before taking another sip. Unfortunately, while I would have no problems that doesn't mean that the rest of the world wouldn't. The Endbringers would continue rampaging and destroying cities and, by the time fifteen years had passed, human civilization would basically have ended. Realistically I had less than five years if I wanted to really preserve humanity here on Earth-Bet. Well, that or I'd need to take out the Endbringers.
Still, I can come back to that thought a bit later. For now it's better to focus on the here and now. Taylor's been getting somewhat restless over the last week. She and Danny had opted to get a transfer to a different school and I'd helped to facilitate it by arranging for an opening for her in Arcadia. It hadn't even been hard to arrange honestly, between hacking and simple money a spot had 'miraculously' opened up for her mere days after she'd applied. She'd start next week, in fact, which would be nice for her I guess. No need to worry about bullies in a school known for housing the Wards after all since no potential bully would really be able to tell if the person they were picking on was just another victim or secretly a hero that could snap them like a twig. Social Darwinism at work, I suppose.
As for the bullies she'd left behind .. well, they'd decided to do nothing on that front. And I suppose I can't exactly blame them. While I was more than willing to point out the potential legal avenues they could approach the situation with the simple truth of the matter was that Taylor was cape, and any publicity on her public persona ran a risk of people figuring out what she did in her spare time.
I set my glass down, having finished it, before smiling a bit. It hadn't stopped me from sending a few anonymous emails to a certain Director though. The investigative review the PRT had done was fairly extensive, and while Sophia herself was destined to be shipped off to god knows where Mr. Miles was already in jail pending sentencing for his role in the cover up. My understanding was the Principle from Taylor's old school had recently announced her 'retirement' as well, quietly of course, and that there was talk in the school board of shuffling quite a few teachers out as well.
It wasn't quite the cathartic payback that I might have wanted, had I been in Taylor's situation, but I can't deny that it's good enough. The guilty parties are being judged, if perhaps not as seriously as they should be, and the people responsible for that toxic environment would no longer be there to perpetuate it.
Still, it didn't make Taylor any lest restless. I wasn't sure if that was her just trying to push herself to get out and be a hero, or if it was shard driven desire, but she'd been getting fairly antsy. I was thinking tomorrow night we'd go out, take down a Merchant drug den or two. I didn't want to send her into the deep end with a strike directly against the Merchant capes right off the bat, but I figured she'd need something soon or she might pop.
That said, she'd taken to training like a fish to water. She'd been showing up just about every day, sometimes with Danny and sometimes without, and had been 'hitting the books' so to speak damn hard. I'd even taken to giving her some hand to hand training, and while she was no Bruce Lee I judged her to at least know how to handle herself in a general fist fight at this point.
To tell the truth, it was actually pretty damn amazing. I mean I knew how to be the best teacher ever, on top of being a master martial artist and lecturer, but even then the kinds of improvements I was seeing were flat out incredible, given the short amount of time she'd actually been doing it. I'd have suspected she had some sort of Thinker power letting her pick stuff up quickly if I didn't already suspect something else.
Manpower. The perk that allowed for 'extreme gains with even minimal effort'.
I wasn't really sure what to think about it honestly. I mean, honestly speaking, I hadn't really seen it's effects previously. Mostly because I could provide logistics and money for myself entirely without needing any sort of fate-bending shenanigans to justify it. So this was actually the first time I'd actually seen the results of that Perk in practice, and I can't help but admit that I felt a little bad about it.
I frown a little as I consider it, but there isn't much to be done. Unlike the Powers I have I can't actually turn off my Perks and objectively speaking, and as far as I can tell when using an arrangement of powers, there's nothing happening that I can detect that demonstrates any sort of influence or manipulation causing it. I suppose in the end there's really nothing to be done for it, but I can't say I'm disappointed I took it either.
Speaking of influence and manipulation I'd briefly debated removing Taylor's shard-based power, while she was asleep, and replacing it with a non-shard based copy. I was kind of curious if the 'driven to conflict' issue would be noticeable or not. I wouldn't do it, of course. Not with Taylor at any rate, I had no idea what the potential side effects might be from that sort of thing and the last thing I wanted to do was sabotage my first recruit.
It occurs to me that I probably could have tested it out on some of the E88 capes I'd dealt with this morning but, by the same token, I wasn't really sure if it would have helped. As a friend of mine once said 'if you do something long enough, it becomes a part of you'. He'd been referencing being an infantryman, but the point was a sound one. A parahuman that had had their power long enough, been driven to conflict often enough, would probably act that way even without the subtle encouragement of their shards. So, logically, if I wanted to really see the difference I'd need to target someone fairly new to their powers.
Of course that left the problem finding someone new to their powers, that I didn't mind mucking about with, that I could then test to see if something had changed. A tall order, all told. I wasn't sure how I'd address that particular experiment, so I guess there was nothing for it but to shelve the idea for now.
On the issue of powers, I was also debating on whether or not to admit to Taylor that I can copy powers and then give them to other people, maybe see if she was interested in having some. Probably extend the same offer to Danny too, now that I thought on it. I mean I've got an absolutely absurd number of different powers at this point, and a whole lot of them tend to overlap in terms of effects to one extent or another.
I mean they weren't doing me any good right? And a copy of my danger sense, intuitive stealth, and teleport power would be an amazingly scary combination with Taylor's innate bug control. The more I thought on it the more interesting it sounded.
But… well. Fucking Simurgh. Fucking precogs in generally actually. While I was a blind spot to them Taylor wouldn't be, and any admission on my part to her regarding my actual power set would potentially be enough to inform others. As much as I might want to, the simple fact was that so long as assclowns like the Simurgh were still flying around I couldn't really admit to it. Not even making an 'anti-precog' power and then giving her a copy would work, because then that would just make her immune to my precog as well. While I could always sense where the power was and take it back later, an explicit function of how my power manipulation power worked, it would just be another complication until then, potentially muddying the waters of any plans I might make.
Ugh. Fucking precogs. Just thinking about them makes me grimace at the tediousness of it. Just one giant game of 'I know you know that I know' played out long past the point of amusement.
It's not like the rest of the world is much better off though. S-class threats running all about. Nilbog, the Three Blasphemies, Ash Beast, the Scarlet Revengers, Sleeper, and more. There was even some guy running around that could call up, thankfully non-reproducing, a suspiciously good rendition of cthuloid monsters. The more I had looked into it the more I'd come to realize that the S9, while certainly the most important group to deal with thanks to their potential to set off Scion, was really just one group among many. And that's just in the 'civilized' parts of the world. The rumors surrounding some of the shit happening in South America and Africa .. good god.
Still, I'd upgraded my Siberian power specifically for this purpose. Well, not really, but it was close enough. I could create up to ten of the things now, and while I couldn't address all the problems in the world I could make a good effort at cleaning up at least the more obvious ones. That it would net me a whole host of powerful abilities, hence why they were S-class in the first place, was really just added incentive.
I resolved to task out my projections to 's-class cleanup' in the coming weeks, after the Simurgh is gone. Too many blind-spots popping up would just tip her off after all.
Actually .. now that I think on it, pretty much all of my long term plans depend on removing that stupid flying bitch before I can be reasonably sure of the safety of their implementation. OPSEC alone, to say nothing of innate paranoia, would be much easier to manage without needing to be concerned that every single person I talk to might end up carrying words to the Simurgh completely without meaning to.
The more I think on it .. the more I think maybe I should just have a go at taking her out. I mean, I've got Blank right? More than any of the other Endbringers the Simurgh is basically flying blind when it comes to me. All of her senses rely on either precog or postcog in some fashion, even her 'seeing' using just regular light is just a function of her post-cognition power catching the visual images of light. With her eyes, or what looked like eyes, not actually functioning in the manner that they should she'd basically be fighting blind against me no matter what I did.
Reasoning on it, Leviathan and Behemoth wouldn't have that problem. Leviathan senses through water molecules and tends to sit in the ocean, anything I did down there would be instantly sensed the moment anything I did made any sort of contact with water. Same deal for Behemoth really, his energy senses ensured that no matter what I chose to do it would eventually come down to an actual fight. But .. not the Simurgh. With her only means for observation being limited to her cognition powers I could effectively ambush her no matter what I did. Hell I could probably just pimp slap her and she'd have no idea how or why it happened.
The more I thought on this .. the more I realized I could make this work. I'd already made some interesting discoveries on my powers over the past week anyway. Turns out? I could give myself extra slots on my Eidolon power. It was costly though, at ten charges per slot. Effectively meaning I could increase my slot numbers by one a day, if I spent my power charges on nothing else.
Realistically speaking I already knew that, from an objective standpoint, a dedicated purpose ten-charge power would be significantly stronger than a power called up with my Eidolon ability. But while a dedicated power would definitely be stronger than a slotted power, the difference was in application. My Eidolon ability could call up powers ahead of time, addressing needs I didn't even know I had yet, and most importantly it gave me an instinctive and total knowledge of how to apply any powers it had called up as well.
As an example while I could make a ten-charge aerokinesis ability, and it would definitely be stronger than an Eidolon slotted aerokinesis, I wouldn't know how to actually use that ability to the fullest. I'd need to practice, take time learning the limits, give myself a bit of room really figuring out what I could do. And I'd likely still be learning new applications even months down the road. But the Eidolon powers .. they weren't like that. I would instantly know every possible application of a power, from it's broadest strokes to it's most obscure quirks. In terms of sheer versatility and ability to creatively use powers Eidolon won hands down in every way that mattered.
Combined with a Thinker power I had made earlier in the week that allowed me to multi-task like Skitter while also being able to maintain individual focus on each thing .. the sheer synergy of it was staggering. I hadn't really understood how much I was underutilizing my abilities until I'd made that multitasking power, and realized just how much could do when I put my mind to it. The funny part of course is that I hadn't even really intended to use it that way. It had initially been created so that I could split my attention between my various different projections without actually needing to split my attention. That it had such wonderful knock on effects .. well, that's discovery for you.
Still, all that aside, the Simurgh was a vulnerable target. Probably the most vulnerable of the various 'priority target' enemies I had, considering my Blank nature. And I knew just the power I'd need in order to pull this off.
Ten Projections hover in the air about the Simurgh, three hundred miles above the Atlantic Ocean, intangible and invisible one and all. I, however, am currently sitting in my room back at the base. It only takes me a moment to start face palming.
All ten of my projections face palm with me.
I'd thought about what variety of powers would be useful against the Simurgh, using what I already had normally, but I realized that the one power I was relying on for this entire thing didn't play nice with my Eidolon power.
Coil's save scumming super-asshole power was absolutely perfect for letting me figure out exactly how to do this with the least amount of lives lost possible, and I'd totally forgotten it didn't play nice with my most powerful ability.
I sigh, back in my room, as I suddenly regret having spent the last twenty charges giving myself more Eidolon slots instead of dedicated powers. Versatility was all well and good, right up until you realized you couldn't actually make use of it.
Still I had the right powers I'd need, probably, and I wouldn't need Eidolon for this. My super-Alexandria ability, intangibility, and chosen offensive power were all separate from Eidolon. Between those, Blank, and save-scumming like a mother-fucker I'd at least be able to give this a try. Not to mention I was pretty hyped for this, and I could already feel my modified version of Lung's Scale to Conflict boosting up my abilities.
Well, do or do not as they say.
With a thought I shut off Eidolon for the first time since my appearance in this new world, and I am nearly stunned at the sheer loss I feel as the power goes dormant in my mind. It isn't a comfortable feeling by any means, the powers fading feeling like a punch to the gut, but there's little to be done about it now. A moment later I recover and turn on Coil's ability.
In one timeline, my projections do nothing. They wait silently in the air, observers only.
In the other timeline, they attack.
From ten separate points blazing streaks of light branch out. Forking, turning, and twisting as they close in the Simurgh at speeds even she couldn't hope to react to. I have switched on Tattletale's power for this, the attacks aimed for the area around the joint where her largest wing attaches to her back, the place I recall having heard her Core was theorized to be.
The Simurgh is carved to bits, Legendary Sting passing through her with absolutely no resistance as it carves huge gouges out of her body from virtually every angle.
With a 'pop' the Simurgh disappears, as the bits of her I'd cut off rain down from the sky. Had it been anyone else they would think that was it, that it was over. But I wasn't anyone else. I had superhuman sensory powers, the enhanced intellect of Alexandria, and the massive intuitive skill of Tattletale. I am able to make out what I believe to be the Core and I know I have not destroyed it. The disappearance of the Simurgh is not a death, but an escape. Without the powers of my Eidolon, I can not follow her.
I collapse the timeline.
Another reforms and I attack again, using the knowledge of my previous attempt to guide my earlier shots. Again she disappears and, again, I collapse the timeline. The process repeats nearly seven times before I have determined, roughly, the exact location of the Core. It takes another three times before I have conclusively determined that destroying some of it is not enough. If the Simurgh is to die, the entirety of the Core must be annihilated before she can escape.
Eight more attempts follow. On the ninth, the Simurgh is dead.
I observe closely, from ten different perspectives and with every sense strained to their limit, but I am certain. She had been destroyed utterly. What tattered remains are left of her simply float out and away, beginning a long free-fall onto the Earth below.
It is not good enough. I collapse the time line.
The world needs better. I can do better. There must be absolutely no doubt, no trace of potential subterfuge. A corpse, clearly identifiable, must exist. There must be direct cause and effect, and a clear timeline existing showing both where she is now and her journey to where I will eventually place her.
It must be perfect. If the world is to have closure the proof of the matter must be beyond approach.
I settle back into my chair in my room, the dimmed lights illuminating me as I get comfortable. It is going to be a long night.
Timelines form and collapse in rapid fashion now and each time the result builds upon the last, the damage done is that much more precise, the form left that much more intact. I am getting closer. Coil, you asshat, you were sitting on this power all this time when you could have been using it for so much more. My jaw is set in a pronounced frown just thinking on it, just knowing that the answer to half the problems facing the world existed in the hands of a man that could think of no better use for it than petty villainy. But, it isn't important anymore. I have this power now, and I won't let it rot like he did.
It is nearly three hours later that I have succeeded. In one timeline I have done nothing but observe. In the second timeline however the corpse of the Simurgh rests in the hands of one of my projections. A hole has been cut clean through her, just over a foot across, that has resulted in the complete and utter annihilation of her Core. The Simurgh is dead, and I have my body.
I wait a few minutes to be absolutely certain, but it's a waste effort I know. I have done it.
The timeline where I have done nothing but observe collapses.
Instantly I turn Coil's power off and reactivate Eidolon. As the warm embrace of my strongest power comes back to me I smile. Now comes the part where I sell this victory to the masses.
I am sitting in my room watching the news. An emergency broadcast had begun nearly half an hour ago when the Simurgh was detected on an intercept course with New York, New York, moving at tremendous speed.
I do not know who it is that is guiding that camera, but I can only assume they must be either incredibly brave or terminally stupid to remain. A host of Capes led by the Triumvirate are visible to the viewers, their eyes on the sky where just now a small speck can be seen in the distance.
Murmurs start amongst the Capes. Not all of them can see it, but there is something wrong. Something different.
A moment later, and to utter silence, the form of the Simurgh descends. It has not come to spread terror, has not come to Scream out to the city in her horrifying way.
No.
She is being held aloft upside down, by a small wing attached to her foot, by a Cape no one has ever seen. It is a starry void in the shape of a man, distinct only in how it contrasts with the pre-dawn light at it's back. Visible to the camera is a massive and gaping hole blown clear through the torso of the Simurgh, her largest wing being held on by only the slightest thread.
The Cape that holds her seems to look out upon the crowd of those that have come to fight the beast before it raises it's right arm, the one holding the Simurgh, and simply lets it drop. The Simurgh's body falls down a ways before crashing into the ground, completely still.
There is complete silence. No one seems to know what to say or do. The man-shaped void turns fully, seemingly in the direction of the camera that is recording the event and utters two words in a voice that reverberates as if spoken by many at once, just before it vanishes completely.
"One Down."
Authors Note
A small time skip followed by the first and easiest of the Endbringers being killed! Rejoice, Worm, for your paranoia may now return to regular levels. It's a resounding victory, for everyone involved, made possible thanks to the absolutely bullshit method of save scumming. Also the character sheet has received an update to reflect to influx of new charges/specialties, so feel free to look at it if you want a better idea of what Apex just did.
Last edited: Feb 17, 2015
Chapter 86
Ardion Prosili said:
Decreasing paranoia levels? After showing THAT? AAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA! You are adorable.
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Well, decreasing them in relation to the Simurgh at least.
edit- Of course, if they realized he had copied her powers first… yeah. Good thing Apex won't be mentioning that part to anyone.
Chapter 87
pseudoanon said:
Why the focus on Danny? Why only Taylor and Danny?
With your powerset, you can either get everyone, or don't bother with anyone. Focusing on a single teenager and her dad is strange.
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Because it's been like a week and a half and he's still establishing himself? Contrary to popular belief new parahumans willing to be heroes, but that don't immediately go to the Protectorate/Wards, are fairly uncommon. Right now if he wanted more people he'd basically be limited to trying to recruit and 'turn strait' villains. The organization will eventually get bigger, but it's not going to be an immediate process.
Chapter 88
McPoopin said:
A minor writing gripe; You started five paragraphs in this chapter with "Still,", and there are plenty of cases of it in previous ones as well. Doing this isn't incorrect or anything, as far as I know, but the repetition is starting to grate on me.
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You know how hard it is to transition between first person thoughts in a story without looking like you've spent time memorizing a thesaurus? I'm aware of the issue, which is why I try to avoid it as much as I can, but it's not exactly easy.
Chapter 89
Relic said:
So I'm imagining something that looks like this right?
[img: http/i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/universe3zx/images/d/d2/Captain_universe.jpg]
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That's silver surfer right? Not quite. I had this guy more in mind with the description, but minus the clothes.
[img: data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7]
So, a lot of people are talking about Rune. First, let me say that I didn't forget about her. Apex was fully aware of her involvement and, yes, she's a teen. However she's far from clean, having been responsible for quite a lot of injuries and, more importantly, being a visible member of the E88. I will not pretend that what Apex did to the E88 was nice, or that he could have easily done something far less drastic with them. You'll note he himself mentions it's probably the cruelest thing he's ever done, and there've been hints in a few of the proceeding chapters that what he had planned for them wasn't going to be nice.
To put it mildly, Apex does not like skin heads. He actually had less personal investment in taking down the S9 than he did the E88, because he hates skinheads that much. This is a mix of things, including personal experience and having grown up in a society where it has been culturally and socially acceptable to hate Nazi's and everything about them. This is compounded by the fact that Apex is actually quite knowledgeable about *actual* Nazi's because he's been required to study them and WWII in general as part of familiarization with the unit history of several units he has been in. This means that he is well aware that the E88 and people like them represent absolutely none of the patriotic values or genuine love for their country that the actual Nazi's did, and instead represent only the twisted rhetoric of the absolute worst traits held by some of the higher ups of the Nazi regime.
So, basically, it is what it is. I won't pretend that it's not monstrous in its own way but Apex *really* doesn't like skin heads or people that follow that creed, and is quite willing to be overly excessive in his response to them.
Chapter 90
Valor said:
A teenager versus a mass murdering lunatic.
Apex is fucking crazy for chosing to let the Purity go scot-free.
"Oh, she's a mom! She being the 2nd in command for the Empire and killing loads of people doesn't matter! Cuz she doesn't do that anymore! Or, well… She does go around and burn down ABB gangster, but meh, what can you do?"
Purity shouldn't be raising children.
Good job. Applause. You didn't kill Shadow Stalker, did you? She's, In-character, worse than Rune. A murdering teen who likes to torture her 'prey'. Good god. This right here just underlines why vigilante justice is fordbidden and outright frowned upon.
Other than that? This is turning out to be my favorite CYOA. The main char is absolutely insane and on a power-trip, but it's well-written and makes me, well, feel 'invested', cuz this is pretty exciting, yeah?
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To address some points, Apex decided to 'let Purity go' not just because she was a mother, but because she was the only cape member of the E88 had had dependents that relied upon her where the other parent was, themselves, an E88 cape. She's also been split from the E88 proper since about 2009, around two years or so considering the currentl date in story is April 23rd, 2011.
As for her going around and 'burning down ABB gangsters' that didn't actually happen in this story. In canon she did that because she wanted to take out the ABB once they were on the ropes with Lung being put in custody. In this story Lung was put in custody and, the following morning, Bakuda and Oni-lee were both killed in a spectacular, and completely unmistakable, fashion when they created Brockton Bay's newest tourist attraction 'Building Explosion Still Life'. So, as far as this story is concerned, she hasn't really been 'back-sliding' like she did in canon. And with the removal of Kaiser and the rest of the E88 capes she likely never will.
As for your point about her not being allowed to raise children .. you're probably right. But there isn't really any expedient ways to solve that issue, and Kayden requires constant attention as a baby. In the end there were a lot of different factors that contributed to Apex deciding not to nab Purity most of which can be attributed to the simple fact that there is no other parent to take over the care of the kids, and taking out Kaiser was more important to him that taking out her.
On Shadowstalker being worse than Rune, well, yes. She probably is. But he already addressed the SS situation and the PRT has that well in hand. And while Rune is probably less repulsive as a person than Sophia the simple fact of the matter is that Apex really hates skin-heads and everything they stand for, so he's prone to making decisions regarding them that under normal circumstances he probably wouldn't. It's not really an excuse for what he did of course, but we all have our flaws.
Chapter 91
Galerians said:
I should have fucking known better than to expect improvement.
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If you have a problem with the writing then, by all means, please explain what your issue is and I'll see if I can address it. But to be blunt 'I should have fucking known better than to expect improvement' doesn't actually tell me what your particular issue is.
trooperist said:
So here's a thought now that E88 is off in the Chinese torture dungeons.
Can someone who has had their shard destroyed trigger again?
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Who knows? Apex doesn't. So far no one he's done it to has ever been in a position to experience another trigger afterwards, and the E88 members are being held by the Yangban, so if they do trigger again that just means they'll get absorbed into that group. Either way Apex doesn't really know.
Chapter 92
Kris-71854 said:
Um, is there a way to skip straight to posts by the thread authors?
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I post chapter links in the second post on the first page after every chapter. Credit to the guy that told me how to do that, btw.
As for people wondering if there will be consequences for his actions .. well, yes. Obviously. This is Worm, consequences are given.
Galerians said:
I really doubt it, considering his Invictus perk with all that 'his will is absolute' bullshit. He thinks this is the right course of action, so no matter what other characters in-universe say, he won't change his mind. Especially with the 'I can murder people with no consequence, thus I do' mindset he has going on.
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I realize you can't respond, but I'll answer this anyway just in general. First, Invictus. Yes it does influence him. A lot. It's come up a few times in the story to noticeable effect, but it isn't quite as 'absolute' as you're making it out to be with your statement. What it does is, effectively, give him the ability to push past any amount of mental suffering, anguish, pain, fear, and hesitation.
Those last two? They're the big ones. Functionally while he understands fear, and does know what it is, it no longer has significant impact on his decisions. It has ceased being 'fear' and has become instead 'concern'. He does not think in terms of 'I shouldn't do this, because I fear retaliation' but instead thinks in terms of 'I shouldn't do this, because I am concerned that XYZ might result, which may make this non-optimal'. This effectively eliminates a lot of the doubt he might normally have because he no longer functionally fears what consequences his actions might have outside of the academics of it. Normally he is a law abiding citizen, and he justly 'fears' going to jail if he were to break the law. Now however the fear no longer exists or, rather, he is no longer capable of feeling that fear in the first place.
The second big one is the removal of hesitation. This is important, because it ties in with the removal of fear. Now that 'fear' is nothing more than an academic thing for him the removal of hesitation means he is also far less likely to not follow through on any given thing he decides upon doing. This obviously leads to problems in situations where he might have, perhaps, not properly considered what the reactions and consequences would be to his decisions. Functionally this means that if he wants to avoid problems, he has to really stop and think about what his actions might lead to, because Invictus has effectively removed the mental blocks that would have normally had him hesitating, considering, and really thinking about whether or not what he wants to do is the best course of action.
As you can see when combined together it makes for a scary combination. Apex has an inkling that the way he thinks has already been changed as a result of his choices, but he hasn't really realized the entirety of it yet. For someone with the sheer breadth and scope of his abilities, this can be both extremely bad and extremely good. He will be less prone to hesitation in the face of disaster and will be able to quickly and efficiently respond, but by the same token he'll also be quick to enact plans and actions that he probably wouldn't have if he still possessed the ability to hesitate/fear consequences.
Finally, on top of those things, is his mental state before he gained his powers. He genuinely hates certain types of people, skin heads being the prime example, and more importantly he was a killer long before he showed up in Worm. He served many years in the military, where he shed more than his fair share of blood and is absolutely no stranger to combat or death. As such he has certain mental 'blind spots' that he doesn't really consider, and he's far more prone to making a 'permanent solution' than someone that didn't already have that experience. Combined together along with his sheer power and these things make for a, justifiably, scary combination.
Now we come to the part where you said 'no matter what other characters in-universe say'. Well, what other characters? Apex chose not to discuss his plans with other people. He chose to hide these particular actions, to distance himself from the responsibility for them, entirely on purpose. If he had chosen to talk to someone else about it? Had decided to ask the opinion of another, halfway decent, human being on whether or not what he was doing was right or wrong?
Well .. he probably wouldn't have done what he did. But, and this is important, he didn't talk with anyone about what he was planning. And what is the number one rule of Worm? Lack of Communication, and the problems that spiral out because of it. He could have chosen to discuss it with someone but he didn't, for a variety of reasons, and because of that actions were taken that will most certainly cause complications down the road that he could have avoided.
In short Apex is not perfect, and this story isn't meant to portray him that way.
Chapter 93
Ursine said:
And all this is why one of my first powers for Power Manipulation would be a Thinker power called Path To Self-Awareness.
All debates on morality aside, it was very well written. And despite some claims to the contrary, this story is definitely "interesting".
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That would be a pretty awesome power wouldn't it? Ironically I had brought up in a different CYOA story thread that possibly one of the best 'powers' that someone with power manipulation could make would be a power that, every time they were about to do something that required some sort of moral choice, the power would query them with 'What would Superman Do?'. It wouldn't actually do anything else, just be that ever present reminder to really consider actions before doing them.
Sadly that idea came to me as a result of a discussion that happened *after* the start of my own story, and thus Apex would have no reason to have thought of it.
As to the next update, I'm working on it. As a heads up it will be an interlude.
Chapter 94
Intrepid said:
I like the bit with the Nazis, cause seriously fuck Nazis, but what didn't sit well with me was how easily he could do it and still be undetected. There's no consequence, no feedback, not even a "Hey, good job on getting rid of those Nazis." He could do anything without any consequences… is he always going to make the right choices? From what I've seen, I think that's the story conflict Brellin is going for.
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Well just remember what he said about the Siberian power when he first turned it on. Then think about what he immediately turned around and did with it not even a week later. Hypocrisy is very much a flaw that Apex is capable of. That he did it against a group that is within his 'I can do pretty much anything to these people and not feel bad' mental zone .. well, it sets a dangerous precedent. It's a difficult balance between writing a compelling story about a character with powers like this, while actually trying to be faithful to how I think that character would act.
The fact that I've had my first ever Mod-interrupt because of a morality debate in a story thread I made simply tells me that, so far, I'm doing an alright job of it.
Chapter 95
ElDani said:
This is interesting. Why don't we see more of those kinds of parahumans, then? With this kind of conflict and the way powers are granted in trigger events, there should be plenty of former law enforcement or military people reacting in a similar way, especially when you consider the mental effect due to the newly acquired parahuman powers.
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I imagine we don't see it more often because 1) canon never talked about that sort of situation specifically and 2) military and police officers are trained to deal with traumatic events as a matter of course, and are one and all adults by the time they're ever likely to see something bad enough to potentially cause a trigger event. This means that, in my mind, they're less likely to trigger because for them the trauma isn't as bad, either because it simply doesn't impact them or because they've been trained on how to react in those sorts of situations without breaking down. To be more specific I think they are less likely to trigger because of events related to their vocation or violence, they could still obviously trigger through other methods. This is just my opinion on the matter, of course.
Chapter 96
Zaralann said:
I know that I'm king of pulling this out of nowhere but does Apex know abot the Power that Doormaker has or he like many others think that he can only open portal from Cauldron to Earth's Cauldron-Members?
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Apex is familiar enough with Worm via osmosis that he knows the general details for a lot of plot points, even plot points that occur in the stuff he didn't read thanks to osmosis from fanfic. So he is aware of Doormaker, Clairvoyant, the significance of the S9, the general nature of Scion, general Cauldron shenanigans, and since some people have asked yes he's also aware that there are more than 3 Endbringers and that it's actually theorized to be closer to 20. He's also aware of the theory that Eidolon is responsible for them but, of course, that's just a theory. One he doesn't really know how to test or confirm, since logically if Eidolon could call up a power to create/influence Endbringers then the SI should be able to as well (since he has a stronger version of Eidolon's power) *but* the SI can't do that.
That's just the general details. He couldn't tell you the *specific* details however. He doesn't remember the Teeth, or Butcher, or the Fallen. He is aware of the existence of a guy named Blasto but he doesn't know the dude is trying to clone the Simurgh. He knows that Cauldron got exposed, eventually, but he doesn't really remember why or how that happened. He doesn't remember why or how the Birdcage got opened either, though he is aware it happened in canon. Some of the things he's not aware of he'll become aware of simply as events take their natural place, other things he might never end up knowing either because events have butterflied sufficiently that they simply never occur or are private enough that he's simply never made aware of them.
Chapter 97
JamesB said:
It occurs to me that Apex's Manpower perk is being criminally underused
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Yes and no, it's definitely been at work but it's mostly a subtle background thing. It definitely smoothed the edges on his 'take over Coil's shit' scheme, and to be fair he hasn't really been interacting with terribly many people over the last week and a half since he showed up. That said it *did* come up at least once when Apex talked with Officer Valez, whom 'just happened' to have exactly the information that Apex needed and also just happened to be perfectly willing to share that information. It's not something that you're likely to pick up on however because, by it's very nature, it's a background thing. Apex doesn't actually have to do anything in order for Manpower to be at work in the background, and so it's very easy to miss its influence.
On Uber and Leet, he probably could turn them around given some time and effort. But they've got an extremely bad rep, and they've done some extremely dubious things. On top of that even if Apex did fix the issue with Leet's shard there's the simply fact that Leet himself would still be envious of Apex because, frankly, Apex is a much better tinker than he is. And will only continue to be increase that gap. It makes for an awkward working relationship at absolute best, and a potentially toxic one at worst.
As for Purity? He wants nothing to do with her. He let her off the hook, this time, but that doesn't mean he's willing to consider working with her. What she does with her life is on her from this point forward. The Undersiders he's considered. Grue and TT wouldn't be hard for him to recruit at all, though Regent and Bitch would both be more problematic since they've both got murder on their rap-sheet. He'd definitely need to fiddle around with Bitch's power to make it so she was no longer autistic-towards-humans, and to be frank that's both a lot of work and requires he demonstrate some abilities that he's not terribly keen on people knowing about. If he were to offer a job to the Undersiders, it probably wouldn't include her.
Faultline's crew he is aware exists, but doesn't really care about. They've got their own thing going and, as far as he is aware, they aren't criminals. Because if they were they wouldn't be able to run a public nightclub like they have been. Panacea? He's aware there's something wrong with her home life, because fanfic's love to harp on and on about the girl, but he doesn't really care. She isn't likely to join his organization and he doesn't want to be involved in New Wave.
Parian? He already knows not to bother. Dinah? Other people have noticed her, you'll hear more about this in story later. As for non-powered mooks? He's not going to be hiring anyone he can't trust to keep secrets. All the tinker stuff is in his base, which means anyone that works for him will both know about the base and have access to it. That means no one gets hired he isn't 100% sure of. As for Coil's merc's I'm pretty certain it was mentioned directly in the story itself that the PRT arrested all of them. Remember? He knocked them all out and foamed them, the PRT didn't let those dudes go when they raided the base.
On the Merchants he's already planned to deal with them next alongside Taylor. The Teeth and Fallen he doesn't remember. As for the power vaccum .. well, if new groups move in and they're bad enough, he'll just remove them like he did the last few groups. It's not a big deal to him. As for 'fixing' Brockton Bay? That's not what he's there for. His concerns are Scion and the Endbringers, in that order, followed far behind by other concerns like Cauldron and S-class threats. What he does aside from that is basically just him doing stuff in between all the big issues.
Chapter 98
Leingod said:
It doesn't really say anything about the help you get with the perk being loyal,
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Actually it does say they're loyal, it's in the very first sentence in fact. It also came up more than just with training Taylor and talking with Officer Valez.
After all, he recruited Taylor didn't he? Got her to take his advice which lead to her taking him up on his offer? Do you really think canon Taylor, as she was at that time, would have done something like that on her own without a little push? He may have given her a speech, and that may have been the catalyst, but his choice to choose Manpower paid off in more ways than even he knew.
Chapter 99
Dream Weaver said:
Established your bonafides as a real badass.
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Wut? Apex is publically known as one of the guys that punked Lung. As far as the local cape scene is concerned, he *is* a badass. And the only people that might have thought press ganging the new tinker in town might be a good idea, E88 and Coil, are both either dead and/or somewhere in a Chinese prison. Not that it would matter, because no one could press-gang him in the entire world. Scion is, realistically, the only being on the planet that could even hope to slow Apex down at this point, so understandable Apex isn't terribly concerned about anyone fucking with him.
As to chapter news, I'm still working on it. Inspiration comes and goes, as they say, and I'm struggling with the next few bits. That and a recent series of snow storms have made the last week and change a real nightmare for me on the day-to-day front.