At only fifteen, I can already say I've had three moments in my life when everything changed...
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Must Love Dogs
- Thread starter BreezyWheeze
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- Location
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At only fifteen, I can already say I've had three moments in my life when everything changed forever. When I opened the door to go to school that day, I didn't expect a fourth. Sitting there on the walkway just past the three rickety steps down was a dog:
He was medium-size-ish and had that mottled brown-black fur I'd later learn was called brindle. Seeing me, his tail started wagging back and forth furiously. He let out a single happy bark and stood. He was wearing one of those little vest things that said "Service Dog" along each side of his body, but was missing a collar.
Not being much of a dog person, I approached cautiously, holding my hand out for him to sniff. "Hey boy, are you lost?"
He bobbed his head side-to-side in a very un-doggy fashion while sniffing my hand and giving it a quick lick.
"So you're not lost? You meant to be here, did you?" I asked, a bit of sarcasm unintentionally creeping into my voice. He bobbed his head up-and-down in a very clear and very un-doggy "yes."
Whoa.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Yes.
"Is two plus two equal to five?"
No.
"Is two plus two equal to six?"
No.
"Is six times six equal to thirty-seven minus one?"
Yes.
Holy… shit.
I stood there for a moment, completely gobsmacked. A moment later:
"Are you a dog?"
Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes.
"Why are you here at my house?"
He cocked his head at an angle in that funny way dogs do when they don't understand something.
Oh, right. Not a yes-no question.
"Are you here for me?"
Yes. Bark. Yes. Bark. Yes.
He was bobbing his head up and down and wagging his tail so furiously I thought he was nearly having a seizure.
"Well I have to go to school now, and you can't come with me."
No.
"I mean it, they're not going to let me have a dog."
He sat down and did a quick scratch with his back leg, but instead of scratching his ear or neck or whatever, he aimed his back paw at the part of his vest that said 'service animal.'
"Who sent you?"
This time he just gave me a look, not even cocking his head.
"Did someone send you to follow me?"
No.
"Are you a parahuman projection thingy?"
No.
"Are you a Tinkertech creation?"
No.
I took a quick look at my watch, noticing that I was going to be running late. I exclaimed as such and set off at a jog. The dog followed right on my heels. I got on the bus and boarded, flashing my school ID. The bus driver opened her mouth upon first seeing the dog, but noticing the service animal vest, she promptly snapped it shut, thought for a moment, and then bit out, "You don't look blind."
Why on earth would she think I was…?
Oh, right. God, my brain felt like it was thinking through mush ever since I opened the door and saw my new canine companion. I made my way to the back of the bus, and he immediately squirmed between my legs, facing outward. The other bus riders showed a mix of apathy, vague amusement, and more apathy. Brockton Bay, ladies and gentlemen.
I had a little less than a half-hour to think over what the hell was going on. Absentmindedly, I reached forward and started giving the dog a good scratch around the ears. His back leg did a bit of that kick-y thing that dogs do.
So based on the reactions of the other riders, I obviously wasn't hallucinating. He was real and looked just like a dog to everyone else, too. He'd understood English, so he wasn't a dog. Assuming I believed that he was telling the truth, he wasn't a projection or Tinkertech, but he didn't seem to know whether or not he was a dog.
I leaned forward and nuzzled the top of his head with my face. He sure smelled like a dog.
"Are you a Case 53? A parahuman?" I whispered into the back of his head.
He gave the tiniest shake of "no."
"You don't know what you are?"
Yes.
"Are you really going to follow me around all day at school?"
Yes.
Oh no. They're just going to find some way to make me miserable. To maybe even hurt the dog. I sucked a quick breath in – what if he hurts them? He was something weird, for sure, but he had a dog's body and dog's teeth. What if he attacked Emma? There's no way that wouldn't lead to a lawsuit from her Dad.
A jerky stop by the bus driver shook my attention for a moment. The two people near the back of the bus got off, and I immediately moved the very last row. Unsurprisingly, the dog followed closely, but this time he hopped up on the seat next to me. The bus driver shouted something but I ignored her and she immediately gave up.
"I'm going to need a name for you."
Yes.
I pulled out a notebook and a pen and turned to a blank page. I wrote the alphabet in large letters. As I was getting to X-Y-Z I felt a lick on my cheek.
"Know where we're going with this, huh?"
Yes.
I held my pen over the A. Lick. At the top of the page I wrote an A. I moved my pen slowly across the alphabet and got another face-lick at R. Then at I and S and T.
"Hey stop that my face is getting really gross."
He gave a very short growl. Huh. Guess he didn't like that.
"Jeez, sorry. So your name is Aristotle?"
Yes.
"Okay well I'm going to call you 'Arry' for short."
Face-lick. Ick.
I had so many more questions I wanted to ask him and the alphabet thing was working out really well, but we were getting close to Winslow. Should I even go? It's not like I could really learn anything. I'd basically given up on learning anything months ago, and after the thing with the locker, I'd stopped putting any real effort into my homework either. I did a bit, but so often Emma and Sophia would steal it or destroy it that it barely seemed worth bothering. Plus, I had plenty of other more important matters to keep my attention.
And now I had a sapient dog.
What did I really gain by going? Was I willing to let them win? I think in the end that was what kept me going. Sheer stubbornness and a refusal to let them bully me into giving up entirely.
"Hey so school is tough for me…"
Yes.
"…and I don't think it'll be safe for you there."
No.
"I think it'll end up just creating more problems for me and for you."
No.
"Please, can you just wait off of school grounds, maybe? Hide somewhere? Just can you…"
No. No. No. No.
He was back in vigorous head-shake mode.
"Do you have powers?"
Yes.
"What are they?"
Head tilt.
Right.
I took a deep breath, packed away the notebook and exited the bus just a bit down from the school. I stood out on the sidewalk, looking over the crumbling brickwork that made up the front of the building. The bell rang and students streamed inwards. Arry and I got a few glances but the mob generally ignored us. I waited another ten minutes for the late bell and then made my way in. Rather than heading for homeroom or my new locker, I went to the Principal's office. The security guard took one look at Arry's service dog vest and went right on ignoring me and everyone else.
Entering the Principal's office, I saw the usual – three bored office workers, closed doors to the administrators' offices, and a handful of hoodlums already sitting on chairs awaiting judgment.
"Nice dog," one of the white shaven-headed boys offered.
"Thanks," I mumbled back.
The comment about the dog caught the secretary's attention. "May I help you?" she asked peevishly.
"Yes I have my service dog with me today and I wanted to check about whether I needed to fill out any paperwork or anything with you."
"You have a service dog?" she asked, apparently unable to keep a bit of incredulity from her voice. Bitch. That got the attention of the other two secretaries, all of whom now stood and were peering over the counter at Arry.
"Aww, what a little cutie!" offered the older one. Arry obligingly wagged his tail at her.
"Well he may be cute, but I'm afraid we don't have any record of you or any student having a service animal, and I'm not even sure…" she drifted off to think for just a moment before continuing "… well of course you have his registration paperwork with you, don't you? Proof of his status as a service animal?"
Of course that's what she'd do. Not sure how to deal with a situation, she immediately turned it back on me.
"Sorry, I was in a rush this morning, and I forgot to bring it," I said to my shoes.
"Oh Phyllis, let the poor dear go with her cute pup," interjected the dog-lover of the bunch. "She obviously needs his support," she commented, seeing how Arry was leaning against my leg, my hand absently scratching at his ears.
"Well I don't know, I should check with," Phyllis started, before hearing a very raised voice coming from the Principal's office.
"You know what, let's not disturb Ms. Blackwell. Go ahead hun but I want you to come back immediately at the start of your lunch and we can take care of the paperwork."
I hightailed it out of there and headed to my first class. For all that I detested Mr. Gladly for trying so hard to be cool, I'd take advantage of it this one time – there was no way he'd punish me.
I opened the door, interrupting whatever speech Gladly was giving, and all eyes in the room snapped onto Arry.
"Taylor?" he asked.
"Sorry I'm late I had to stop at the principal's office for approval for my service dog," I said in a hurried rush, making my way to my seat. Gladly had a bewildered and slightly amused look on his face but before he could even get a single word out, Madison broke the silence in the room by stage-whispering "dog for a dog."
Laughs.
Arry stopped dead-center at the front of the room. Turned and looked right at Madison. He growled, skin peeling back from his teeth.
He leaned slightly forward, not approaching her. The fur started sticking up on the back of his neck – even his little service dog vest started lifting up from how far the fur along his back was standing up. His tail was pointed straight back. Every inch of him shouted "you are about to get a face full of angry canine."
Madison yelped and started to stand up when she suddenly vanished. Gone.
No noise, no visual cue, nothing.
One second Madison was there, the next it was like she'd never existed. Students suddenly exclaimed, several of them barreling away from the space where Madison had been.
Oh shit.
---
Oh boy oh boy this is great everything smells so amazing and there's an old bagel sitting in stagnant water on the side of the road and it tastes amazing. And there's so many things to smell! This is awesome.
I pad along, taking in the richest array of smells I'd ever smelled. This is so real it is the realest place I'd ever been and I don't know what's going on but I love it. Oh look, some sad little flowers but they smell great and oh look a dog peed here and that smells great and everything's great!
Hey, a newspaper vending machine, let's take a look. "Brockton Bay Herald" Oh okay so I'm in Brockton Bay which means I'm in Worm and that's a scary place but I'm not scared because there's so many smells and so many wonderful things like flowers and dog pee and old water puddled on the side of the road.
I drink some of it.
Then I throw it up but that's okay.
I stop and cock my head for a moment. I could feel something… some energy there inside me. I mentally pull on it and suddenly time stops. There's a window in front of me, like a computer window. I type a few random keystrokes. Well, not "typed" typed but I just kind of think about it and the letters appear.
Okay so now I'm in Brockton Bay and I have super-powers and I have to go find Taylor and I have this window but I don't think this is a Gamer fic because it's just a blank window. I type in "help" to see if I could get help because I'm a good dog and I need help.
A huge list of commands rolls by. I will the screen to scroll back up so I can look them over.
Oh boy! Yay! I have a bunch of console commands like from Fallout or Elder Scrolls! I immediately type in
A bundle of cash – specifically a $10,000 banded bundle of hundred dollar bills – drops to the ground in front of me. Silly dog! I don't have pockets!
But this is great, I got normal cash instead of bottlecaps like in Fallout. I quickly scoop up the bundle of cash in my mouth and start heading to Taylor's house.
I get about four feet before I smell some really important cat pee and drop the cash and follow the trail of cat smell since it is a dangerous cat that has to be found and hunted down and stopped at all costs.
A small park is nearby. Barely a park, really, just a few benches and some sad, withered trees and some homeless people that smelled great so full of so many smells and
CAT! THERE HE IS!
I give chase. The cat runs briefly but then turns sideways to me, back arches, hissing voice and teeth showing. This looks dangerous. Time to pull out the big guns.
I pounce at him. He gives a sharp swipe with his sharp claws on his stupid cat-foot but the claws just bounce right off my snout. Ha! God mode, you little bastard!
He runs up one of the sad trees. I bark at him a few times so that he knows he didn't win. Not really.
Anyway, I needed to go find Taylor. And I had a present for her. What was it again? I forgot. It doesn't matter.
Hm.
How the hell am I going to find where Taylor lives? I decide to just spam the center-on-cell command and hope I get lucky.
Grr. This is getting frustrating. I want the exterior, so let's try the 'Ext' suffix.
Ah! There we go! The world disappears for a moment, filled with a loading screen. Oh, that looks like Leviathan. Scary! I'm gonna bite his face off. Even Leviathan is no match for God Mode dog.
There it is! Yay! So many good smells! I wander around for a little while scouting out the neighborhood when I suddenly remember Taylor's present – cash money!
Oh, but she might be scared so I'll have to be sneaky. I go back to her house and worm my way under the bushes along the side of her house.
Ten bundles of hundreds drop from right in front of my snout into a nice little pile.
I head back to the front door and sit, waiting for her. She'll come out any second now. It's dark so it's late but I'm a good boy and I'll wait for her. My tail wags slightly each time I think of seeing her.
…
It's been a really long time and my feet would hurt and my back would hurt but I'm in God Mode so everything is okay and nothing hurts.
I wait some more.
Suddenly I hear noise from inside and there she is, there she is, there she is!! OH MY GOD BEST DAY EVER! I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU!!!
She asks me some questions and I tell her yes and no and I'm a good boy. She writes the alphabet and I decide my name is Aristotle because he was smart and founded the peripatetic school of philosophy and I really like walks.
We go to the school and it smells so amazing there. It smells like food and sadness and hormones and I love it.
We get to class and Madison is a total cunt. Well, we can straighten that right up can't we?
I growl at her a bit first so everyone knows she's a cunt. Then I pull up the console command, move my attention onto Madison and click on her. Her ID comes up and a little of the ol'
Bye-bye Madison!
I bark and I'm happy and everyone is kind of freaking out but I go over to Taylor OH MY GOD! TREATS! The seat HAS STICKY DELICIOUS TREATS! I begin licking her seat clean for her. There's some stuff going on or something but it doesn't matter because I'm busy. This is delicious and I'm helping Taylor have a clean seat.
Eventually I look up from the seat and me and Taylor are the only ones in the room. Awesome. I don't like any of them anyway.
This is going to be so much fun!
Not being much of a dog person, I approached cautiously, holding my hand out for him to sniff. "Hey boy, are you lost?"
He bobbed his head side-to-side in a very un-doggy fashion while sniffing my hand and giving it a quick lick.
"So you're not lost? You meant to be here, did you?" I asked, a bit of sarcasm unintentionally creeping into my voice. He bobbed his head up-and-down in a very clear and very un-doggy "yes."
Whoa.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Yes.
"Is two plus two equal to five?"
No.
"Is two plus two equal to six?"
No.
"Is six times six equal to thirty-seven minus one?"
Yes.
Holy… shit.
I stood there for a moment, completely gobsmacked. A moment later:
"Are you a dog?"
Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes.
"Why are you here at my house?"
He cocked his head at an angle in that funny way dogs do when they don't understand something.
Oh, right. Not a yes-no question.
"Are you here for me?"
Yes. Bark. Yes. Bark. Yes.
He was bobbing his head up and down and wagging his tail so furiously I thought he was nearly having a seizure.
"Well I have to go to school now, and you can't come with me."
No.
"I mean it, they're not going to let me have a dog."
He sat down and did a quick scratch with his back leg, but instead of scratching his ear or neck or whatever, he aimed his back paw at the part of his vest that said 'service animal.'
"Who sent you?"
This time he just gave me a look, not even cocking his head.
"Did someone send you to follow me?"
No.
"Are you a parahuman projection thingy?"
No.
"Are you a Tinkertech creation?"
No.
I took a quick look at my watch, noticing that I was going to be running late. I exclaimed as such and set off at a jog. The dog followed right on my heels. I got on the bus and boarded, flashing my school ID. The bus driver opened her mouth upon first seeing the dog, but noticing the service animal vest, she promptly snapped it shut, thought for a moment, and then bit out, "You don't look blind."
Why on earth would she think I was…?
Oh, right. God, my brain felt like it was thinking through mush ever since I opened the door and saw my new canine companion. I made my way to the back of the bus, and he immediately squirmed between my legs, facing outward. The other bus riders showed a mix of apathy, vague amusement, and more apathy. Brockton Bay, ladies and gentlemen.
I had a little less than a half-hour to think over what the hell was going on. Absentmindedly, I reached forward and started giving the dog a good scratch around the ears. His back leg did a bit of that kick-y thing that dogs do.
So based on the reactions of the other riders, I obviously wasn't hallucinating. He was real and looked just like a dog to everyone else, too. He'd understood English, so he wasn't a dog. Assuming I believed that he was telling the truth, he wasn't a projection or Tinkertech, but he didn't seem to know whether or not he was a dog.
I leaned forward and nuzzled the top of his head with my face. He sure smelled like a dog.
"Are you a Case 53? A parahuman?" I whispered into the back of his head.
He gave the tiniest shake of "no."
"You don't know what you are?"
Yes.
"Are you really going to follow me around all day at school?"
Yes.
Oh no. They're just going to find some way to make me miserable. To maybe even hurt the dog. I sucked a quick breath in – what if he hurts them? He was something weird, for sure, but he had a dog's body and dog's teeth. What if he attacked Emma? There's no way that wouldn't lead to a lawsuit from her Dad.
A jerky stop by the bus driver shook my attention for a moment. The two people near the back of the bus got off, and I immediately moved the very last row. Unsurprisingly, the dog followed closely, but this time he hopped up on the seat next to me. The bus driver shouted something but I ignored her and she immediately gave up.
"I'm going to need a name for you."
Yes.
I pulled out a notebook and a pen and turned to a blank page. I wrote the alphabet in large letters. As I was getting to X-Y-Z I felt a lick on my cheek.
"Know where we're going with this, huh?"
Yes.
I held my pen over the A. Lick. At the top of the page I wrote an A. I moved my pen slowly across the alphabet and got another face-lick at R. Then at I and S and T.
"Hey stop that my face is getting really gross."
He gave a very short growl. Huh. Guess he didn't like that.
"Jeez, sorry. So your name is Aristotle?"
Yes.
"Okay well I'm going to call you 'Arry' for short."
Face-lick. Ick.
I had so many more questions I wanted to ask him and the alphabet thing was working out really well, but we were getting close to Winslow. Should I even go? It's not like I could really learn anything. I'd basically given up on learning anything months ago, and after the thing with the locker, I'd stopped putting any real effort into my homework either. I did a bit, but so often Emma and Sophia would steal it or destroy it that it barely seemed worth bothering. Plus, I had plenty of other more important matters to keep my attention.
And now I had a sapient dog.
What did I really gain by going? Was I willing to let them win? I think in the end that was what kept me going. Sheer stubbornness and a refusal to let them bully me into giving up entirely.
"Hey so school is tough for me…"
Yes.
"…and I don't think it'll be safe for you there."
No.
"I think it'll end up just creating more problems for me and for you."
No.
"Please, can you just wait off of school grounds, maybe? Hide somewhere? Just can you…"
No. No. No. No.
He was back in vigorous head-shake mode.
"Do you have powers?"
Yes.
"What are they?"
Head tilt.
Right.
I took a deep breath, packed away the notebook and exited the bus just a bit down from the school. I stood out on the sidewalk, looking over the crumbling brickwork that made up the front of the building. The bell rang and students streamed inwards. Arry and I got a few glances but the mob generally ignored us. I waited another ten minutes for the late bell and then made my way in. Rather than heading for homeroom or my new locker, I went to the Principal's office. The security guard took one look at Arry's service dog vest and went right on ignoring me and everyone else.
Entering the Principal's office, I saw the usual – three bored office workers, closed doors to the administrators' offices, and a handful of hoodlums already sitting on chairs awaiting judgment.
"Nice dog," one of the white shaven-headed boys offered.
"Thanks," I mumbled back.
The comment about the dog caught the secretary's attention. "May I help you?" she asked peevishly.
"Yes I have my service dog with me today and I wanted to check about whether I needed to fill out any paperwork or anything with you."
"You have a service dog?" she asked, apparently unable to keep a bit of incredulity from her voice. Bitch. That got the attention of the other two secretaries, all of whom now stood and were peering over the counter at Arry.
"Aww, what a little cutie!" offered the older one. Arry obligingly wagged his tail at her.
"Well he may be cute, but I'm afraid we don't have any record of you or any student having a service animal, and I'm not even sure…" she drifted off to think for just a moment before continuing "… well of course you have his registration paperwork with you, don't you? Proof of his status as a service animal?"
Of course that's what she'd do. Not sure how to deal with a situation, she immediately turned it back on me.
"Sorry, I was in a rush this morning, and I forgot to bring it," I said to my shoes.
"Oh Phyllis, let the poor dear go with her cute pup," interjected the dog-lover of the bunch. "She obviously needs his support," she commented, seeing how Arry was leaning against my leg, my hand absently scratching at his ears.
"Well I don't know, I should check with," Phyllis started, before hearing a very raised voice coming from the Principal's office.
"You know what, let's not disturb Ms. Blackwell. Go ahead hun but I want you to come back immediately at the start of your lunch and we can take care of the paperwork."
I hightailed it out of there and headed to my first class. For all that I detested Mr. Gladly for trying so hard to be cool, I'd take advantage of it this one time – there was no way he'd punish me.
I opened the door, interrupting whatever speech Gladly was giving, and all eyes in the room snapped onto Arry.
"Taylor?" he asked.
"Sorry I'm late I had to stop at the principal's office for approval for my service dog," I said in a hurried rush, making my way to my seat. Gladly had a bewildered and slightly amused look on his face but before he could even get a single word out, Madison broke the silence in the room by stage-whispering "dog for a dog."
Laughs.
Arry stopped dead-center at the front of the room. Turned and looked right at Madison. He growled, skin peeling back from his teeth.
He leaned slightly forward, not approaching her. The fur started sticking up on the back of his neck – even his little service dog vest started lifting up from how far the fur along his back was standing up. His tail was pointed straight back. Every inch of him shouted "you are about to get a face full of angry canine."
Madison yelped and started to stand up when she suddenly vanished. Gone.
No noise, no visual cue, nothing.
One second Madison was there, the next it was like she'd never existed. Students suddenly exclaimed, several of them barreling away from the space where Madison had been.
Oh shit.
---
Oh boy oh boy this is great everything smells so amazing and there's an old bagel sitting in stagnant water on the side of the road and it tastes amazing. And there's so many things to smell! This is awesome.
I pad along, taking in the richest array of smells I'd ever smelled. This is so real it is the realest place I'd ever been and I don't know what's going on but I love it. Oh look, some sad little flowers but they smell great and oh look a dog peed here and that smells great and everything's great!
Hey, a newspaper vending machine, let's take a look. "Brockton Bay Herald" Oh okay so I'm in Brockton Bay which means I'm in Worm and that's a scary place but I'm not scared because there's so many smells and so many wonderful things like flowers and dog pee and old water puddled on the side of the road.
I drink some of it.
Then I throw it up but that's okay.
I stop and cock my head for a moment. I could feel something… some energy there inside me. I mentally pull on it and suddenly time stops. There's a window in front of me, like a computer window. I type a few random keystrokes. Well, not "typed" typed but I just kind of think about it and the letters appear.
Okay so now I'm in Brockton Bay and I have super-powers and I have to go find Taylor and I have this window but I don't think this is a Gamer fic because it's just a blank window. I type in "help" to see if I could get help because I'm a good dog and I need help.
A huge list of commands rolls by. I will the screen to scroll back up so I can look them over.
Oh boy! Yay! I have a bunch of console commands like from Fallout or Elder Scrolls! I immediately type in
and close the console command window.
A bundle of cash – specifically a $10,000 banded bundle of hundred dollar bills – drops to the ground in front of me. Silly dog! I don't have pockets!
But this is great, I got normal cash instead of bottlecaps like in Fallout. I quickly scoop up the bundle of cash in my mouth and start heading to Taylor's house.
I get about four feet before I smell some really important cat pee and drop the cash and follow the trail of cat smell since it is a dangerous cat that has to be found and hunted down and stopped at all costs.
A small park is nearby. Barely a park, really, just a few benches and some sad, withered trees and some homeless people that smelled great so full of so many smells and
CAT! THERE HE IS!
I give chase. The cat runs briefly but then turns sideways to me, back arches, hissing voice and teeth showing. This looks dangerous. Time to pull out the big guns.
I pounce at him. He gives a sharp swipe with his sharp claws on his stupid cat-foot but the claws just bounce right off my snout. Ha! God mode, you little bastard!
He runs up one of the sad trees. I bark at him a few times so that he knows he didn't win. Not really.
Anyway, I needed to go find Taylor. And I had a present for her. What was it again? I forgot. It doesn't matter.
Hm.
How the hell am I going to find where Taylor lives? I decide to just spam the center-on-cell command and hope I get lucky.
Grr. This is getting frustrating. I want the exterior, so let's try the 'Ext' suffix.
Ah! There we go! The world disappears for a moment, filled with a loading screen. Oh, that looks like Leviathan. Scary! I'm gonna bite his face off. Even Leviathan is no match for God Mode dog.
There it is! Yay! So many good smells! I wander around for a little while scouting out the neighborhood when I suddenly remember Taylor's present – cash money!
Oh, but she might be scared so I'll have to be sneaky. I go back to her house and worm my way under the bushes along the side of her house.
Ten bundles of hundreds drop from right in front of my snout into a nice little pile.
I head back to the front door and sit, waiting for her. She'll come out any second now. It's dark so it's late but I'm a good boy and I'll wait for her. My tail wags slightly each time I think of seeing her.
…
It's been a really long time and my feet would hurt and my back would hurt but I'm in God Mode so everything is okay and nothing hurts.
I wait some more.
Suddenly I hear noise from inside and there she is, there she is, there she is!! OH MY GOD BEST DAY EVER! I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU!!!
She asks me some questions and I tell her yes and no and I'm a good boy. She writes the alphabet and I decide my name is Aristotle because he was smart and founded the peripatetic school of philosophy and I really like walks.
We go to the school and it smells so amazing there. It smells like food and sadness and hormones and I love it.
We get to class and Madison is a total cunt. Well, we can straighten that right up can't we?
I growl at her a bit first so everyone knows she's a cunt. Then I pull up the console command, move my attention onto Madison and click on her. Her ID comes up and a little of the ol'
and she disappears.
Bye-bye Madison!
I bark and I'm happy and everyone is kind of freaking out but I go over to Taylor OH MY GOD! TREATS! The seat HAS STICKY DELICIOUS TREATS! I begin licking her seat clean for her. There's some stuff going on or something but it doesn't matter because I'm busy. This is delicious and I'm helping Taylor have a clean seat.
Eventually I look up from the seat and me and Taylor are the only ones in the room. Awesome. I don't like any of them anyway.
This is going to be so much fun!
- Location
- Arizona
Arry finally finished licking my seat and looked up at me, tongue protruding slightly:
"Arry, did you kill Madison?"
No.
"Can you bring her back?"
Yes.
I gave a small huff of irritation. "Will you bring her back now?"
No.
Argh! He poked his snout at my backpack, nudging it three or four times. I opened it and he immediately stuck his whole head in, pulling out a stack of folders and a textbook. He shook his head slightly, scattering my supplies across the floor and then immediately poked his nose at the notebook we'd been using before.
I scooped it off the ground, turned to our alphabet array and started moving through the letters one at a time.
U
F
O
R
G
O
T
T
O
S
A
Y
P
L
E
"Oh for fuck's sake, Arry!"
He gave me another one of those looks. "Oh great Aristotle my super-powered dog companion, will you…"
I trailed off for a second. The moment that I identified as his companion, I felt a small tingle of energy run over my body.
"What was that?"
Head tilt. "Do you know what that was?"
No.
My sarcasm deflated, I quickly asked, "Arry, please bring Madison back."
The door the classroom swung very slowly open.
Armsmaster.
Arry stood up, shook his tail vigorously, and turned his head towards where Madison had disappeared. In an instant, she was back, in the exact same posture she had been when she disappeared. "What the…!?" she yelped, falling backwards onto her rear.
Arry gave a low huffing pant. I wasn't sure if dogs could laugh, but if they could, that was probably what it sounded like.
"What's going on?" Armsmaster and Madison both said in unison. I shrunk even farther into my hoodie than usual.
I started talking all in a rush: "I don't know. I'm just a girl here at school and this is my service dog. Madison disappeared for like fifteen minutes so I think maybe Madison is a parahuman because she freaked out when my dog was growling at her and in response to freaking out she just like disappeared I guess to like a safe dimension or something and then she…"
Armsmaster made a sideways motion with his hand at me. I shut up.
"Are you alright, miss? Do you require immediate medical attention?" he asked, taking a few steps towards Madison.
She righted herself and looked a little shaky, sneaking wide-eyed glances at Arry. "Umm… no? I don't know? I feel fine."
"There's clearly been a parahuman incident, so we should get you checked over back at the Protectorate HQ. Are you willing to come with me?"
Madison was still looking a little stunned and simply nodded. Armsmaster turned to the door, gesturing some PRT troopers into the room, who promptly escorted Madison out. He then turned to me and gave me a once over that felt weirdly… appraising. Or invasive. Or something. Or probably I was just imagining it since after less than a second he gave me a large, friendly smile.
"Is your dog friendly?" he asked, walking a few paces forward. Arry gave a bark and a few quick tail wags.
"May I pet him?"
"Uh yeah sure." I wasn't exactly showing the height of eloquence here – first far too many words and now not enough. I mean this was Armsmaster, one of the top ten most famous heroes in the country, asking to pet my dog. A dog I'd had for all of an hour.
Arry moved forward towards Armsmaster, angling his head up towards Armsmaster's hand, meeting him partway.
"You've got him very well trained."
"Yeah he's actually just really smart. Like really smart."
"Taylor, can you explain exactly what happened here?"
"Not really, no."
I thought maybe I caught the tiniest flash of irritation, but he immediately went back to his approachable-hero-smile. "That's fine, parahuman events are often confusing. How about you just tell me in your own words what you saw?"
"I brought my service dog to school today, and I stopped at the principal's office to take care of the paperwork. So I came in late to class. Everyone looked at me and Madison,"
"That's the girl who disappeared and reappeared?"
"Yeah Madison, she said something in like a loud hissing whisper and," here Arry started to growl lightly "and Arry didn't like the noise so he started growling a lot at Madison. He was looking really angry and Madison got scared, started to stand up, and then suddenly disappeared. Everyone freaked out and the teacher asked me to stay in the room with my dog and escorted the students out and then I guess he called you guys."
"There was a parahuman incident and the teacher asked you and your service dog to stay in the room?" a mix of disbelief and disdain colored his voice.
"Yeah I'm not sure why he thought I did something. The teachers are really shitty to me, even after the locker, and so I…" I trailed off. I can't believe I was about to start complaining to a world-famous hero about my problems. Stupid, stupid petty kid shit.
I was snapped out of my reverie by his hand coming to rest gently on my shoulder. "It's okay Taylor. Thanks for your report. Would you be able to come out to the Rig with us so we can run a couple of quick tests just to make sure you're okay?"
My heart started thudding in my chest. They had ways to tell if you were a parahuman, right? I mean I knew about the lobe in the brain and everything but could they scan me without me even knowing? What would they do if they knew I was a parahuman? What would they do to Arry? Would he even let them separate us? This was too much. Too much.
I was hit by a wave of disorientation. I saw a static panorama… like a painting of the Brockton Bay skyline, edge of the boat graveyard visible in the…
And I was home. Or, well, right outside my home.
In the exact spot where I first saw Aristotle sitting. I looked down and there he was, tail wagging away, mouth open in a wide, loose panting smile.
"Holy crap Aristotle! Did you just teleport us home?"
Yes.
"What the hell, it's not like they can't find out where I live!! Now they're definitely going to be coming for us. What the hell am I going to do," my hand suddenly felt warm and wet with little pointy… oh he's got my hand in his mouth, leading me towards the front door.
I opened up and he darted in, running around like mad smelling everything.
"Hey whatever you do, don't…" …and it was too late. He peed on the front of the stove.
"Aristotle! Come on!"
I went over to the dining room table, grabbing another notebook I'd left there this morning. Grabbing a pen, I sat on the couch, notebook laid out in front of me. This time I re-wrote the alphabet in a grid pattern with the numbers one through six down the left-hand side. I'd have to speed this up if I wanted to communicate with him faster.
I could hear his rat-a-tat of footsteps across the floorboards upstairs.
"Arry get over here!" I barked to him.
Thumpthumpthumpthump he came bombing down the stairs.
"Okay they're going to look up where I live and show up here any minute. So you've got about ninety seconds to explain… well, to explain everything."
I held the pen by the first row of letters and tapped down the rows. He figured out what I was doing instantly and had the decency to stop me with quiet little chuffs rather than face licks this time.
NO IDEA WHAT GOIN ON
U SCARED SO I US HOME
MONEY IN BUSH OUTSIDE
HIDE UR BUGS
I dropped the pen I was using to point to the letters.
"What are you? WHO ARE YOU?!" I leaned away from him and he licked my knee. Before I could react he hopped up onto the couch, nuzzled his head under my chin and started licking the collar of my hoodie.
God. God. He moved just like a dog. He smelled just like a dog. He had awful dog breath and was getting his awful dog breath saliva all over my shirt. I couldn't wrap my head around this. Somehow he knew about me and about my power. He could make people disappear, teleport us, and seemed about as smart as…
…wait, money?
I heard the sound of Armsmaster's motorcycle in the distance.
---
Taylor and I talk for a little bit and I lick her collar because it tastes so yummy like potato chips and synthetic fiber and old friendship. And then I can hear Armsmaster coming I hope he doesn't scare Taylor again because I don't know any other cell names so trying to teleport us won't work.
I'm so glad Taylor made herself my companion now she can't ever die no matter what!!
Armsmaster bangs on the door and Taylor flinches. She seems so scared! Don't worry, Taylor, I'll get the door. I bound off of her and go over the to the door and
I give his leg a lick. His armor tastes like loneliness and burning. I back away and bob my head to invite him in to our house. I'm so courteous!
He says something to Taylor and then walks in. As soon as he's past the threshold I
Taylor seems really scared so I go over and lean against her.
Oh! OH I KNOW!
I toggle on all the map markers around Brockton Bay. Not as good as teleporting with console commands, but fast-travel will let us… wait. Shit. No. I don't have a Pip Boy or a Skyrim map or anything. No fast-travel for me! Well, except for running. I'm a very good runner. I think. With God Mode on I don't have to worry about ever getting tired so I bet I'm a good runner.
I look over and it looks like Armsmaster saw the notebook before Taylor could hide it. Uh-oh. She smells really nervous.
I go over and give her a few licks just to make sure everything's okay.
He's asking her some questions but I can't really understand him. Then he's looking at me and asking me some questions but I can't really understand him.
Taylor turns to me and asks if I can understand him. Yay! A question I can answer! I'm a good boy and I like answering questions.
I shake my head no. Darting my head all weirdy lefty-righty-uppy-downy for yes and no is strange. It's not hard and it doesn't hurt, but it's like… I dunno. Patting your head and rubbing your belly.
Oh! Rubbing belly! I bet I love belly rubs. I bash my head lightly into Armsmaster's knee and then flop on the ground and roll belly-up.
Oh yes. Ohhhhh yessss… I do love belly rubs. Big strong armored hand belly rubs. Maybe Armsmaster should be my companion. He could follow me around and be sworn to carry my burdens. I wonder if he has treats in his axe thing.
Taylor's asking me something else. What? No, I already said I'm not a Case 53. I'm a dog, sheesh.
Taylor says something.. "No, he's not my power…"
Uh oh. That was a slip. That means she does have a power. My teacher Plato could've taught her a thing or two about rhetoric and use of language when engaging in a dialectic with someone as intelligent as Armsmaster. Oh well.
Am I willing to go the PRT building with her? Why is she even asking? Doesn't she know she's my companion now? She has to go wherever I do until I dismiss her, which I'm never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never going to do.
Unless Armsmaster offers to be my companion and build a tinker-tech belly rubber.
We go out to his motorcycle and he pushes some buttons and a sidecar pops out. I pee a little in excitement.
I jump into the sidecar and look around excitedly, but I don't see any goggles or a World War 1 style aviator helmet. So disappoint.
Taylor gets onto the motorcycle behind Armsmaster. She seems really nervous about wrapping her arms around him and his armor so I lick her hand and then his armor to show her it's all okay.
It is all okay and we go roaring off down the street and oh my god, and oh my god, and oh my god this is the greatest thing that's ever happened in the history of the world and the smells and sniffs and breeze and my tongue is a mile long flapping out of my head and my ears are dancing in the wind MY EARS ARE DANCING IN THE WIND AND I LOVE EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
---
PRT/PRO INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM
Form NPPE-001: INITIAL ENCOUNTER AND PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT
FILING NUMBER: 3201139
FILED BY: ARMSMASTER, PROTECTORATE ENE
SENT TO: OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR ENE
cc: EMILY PIGGOT, REBECCA COSTA-BROWN, OFFICE OF THREAT OVERSIGHT, LEGAL AFFAIRS OFFICE, YOUTH GUARD LIASON OFFICE, THINKER TEAM SIX – PRT/PRO INTERACTIONS, WEGDG ANALYSIS UNIT FIVE – NEW ENCOUNTERS
DATE INCIDENT: 2011-03-10
DATE FILED: 2011-03-10
PROTECTORATE MEMBERS INVOLVED: Armsmaster
INITIAL ENCOUNTER SUBJECT: Hebert, Taylor
PRELIMINARY THREAT ASSESSMENT:
Master 2 (6)*: Subject demonstrated control over a small number of insects present in the PRT building. Sub-rating 6 applied to dog-like projection named Aristotle. Subject denied having conscious control over Aristotle.
Thinker 1: Subject demonstrated sensory awareness of the presence of insects in the building
*Sub-rating Shaker 5, Mover 4: Aristotle demonstrated teleportation over a distance of 2.3 miles, moving Miss Hebert and itself from Winslow High School to the Hebert residence. Aristotle demonstrated the ability to place both a human and a door into a temporary stasis in a pocket dimensions and to reverse this effect at will. Effect potentially re-classified as Blaster or rating re-assessed upon further testing.
Executive Summary:
Following an assault at school, Taylor Hebert triggered with a Master power to control bugs in a one-block radius. (see follow-up protocol #A4513219 for subsequent investigations re: alleged perpetrators)
This morning the dog, which she claims named itself Aristotle, appeared on her front stoop and accompanied her to school. She claims the dog demonstrates human-level intelligence however it only seems to respond to her commands. The dog demonstrated instantaneous teleportation, and an ability to place another student in a temporal stasis in a pocket dimension. No deleterious effects have been noted on the student. Both the teleportation and initial use of the pocket dimension power were in moments of high emotional distress for Miss Hebert. Working model is that the dog is a projection of hers, albeit one not controlled consciously.
Given that Miss Hebert was a minor and proved to be reasonably cooperative, we have agreed to allocate resources to concoct a cover story about a parahuman on the loose with a pocket dimension power who just so happened to take action at the moment Miss Hebert's dog was growling at a student.
Miss Hebert declined membership in the Wards, declined further power testing, and in light of the lack of harm to Miss Clements, Miss Hebert was released as soon as her father arrived to pick her up.
DISPOSITION: Friendly parahuman, currently unaligned rogue. Ward recruitment priority: LEVEL 5 – HIGHEST PRIORITY
"Arry, did you kill Madison?"
No.
"Can you bring her back?"
Yes.
I gave a small huff of irritation. "Will you bring her back now?"
No.
Argh! He poked his snout at my backpack, nudging it three or four times. I opened it and he immediately stuck his whole head in, pulling out a stack of folders and a textbook. He shook his head slightly, scattering my supplies across the floor and then immediately poked his nose at the notebook we'd been using before.
I scooped it off the ground, turned to our alphabet array and started moving through the letters one at a time.
U
F
O
R
G
O
T
T
O
S
A
Y
P
L
E
"Oh for fuck's sake, Arry!"
He gave me another one of those looks. "Oh great Aristotle my super-powered dog companion, will you…"
I trailed off for a second. The moment that I identified as his companion, I felt a small tingle of energy run over my body.
"What was that?"
Head tilt. "Do you know what that was?"
No.
My sarcasm deflated, I quickly asked, "Arry, please bring Madison back."
The door the classroom swung very slowly open.
Armsmaster.
Arry stood up, shook his tail vigorously, and turned his head towards where Madison had disappeared. In an instant, she was back, in the exact same posture she had been when she disappeared. "What the…!?" she yelped, falling backwards onto her rear.
Arry gave a low huffing pant. I wasn't sure if dogs could laugh, but if they could, that was probably what it sounded like.
"What's going on?" Armsmaster and Madison both said in unison. I shrunk even farther into my hoodie than usual.
I started talking all in a rush: "I don't know. I'm just a girl here at school and this is my service dog. Madison disappeared for like fifteen minutes so I think maybe Madison is a parahuman because she freaked out when my dog was growling at her and in response to freaking out she just like disappeared I guess to like a safe dimension or something and then she…"
Armsmaster made a sideways motion with his hand at me. I shut up.
"Are you alright, miss? Do you require immediate medical attention?" he asked, taking a few steps towards Madison.
She righted herself and looked a little shaky, sneaking wide-eyed glances at Arry. "Umm… no? I don't know? I feel fine."
"There's clearly been a parahuman incident, so we should get you checked over back at the Protectorate HQ. Are you willing to come with me?"
Madison was still looking a little stunned and simply nodded. Armsmaster turned to the door, gesturing some PRT troopers into the room, who promptly escorted Madison out. He then turned to me and gave me a once over that felt weirdly… appraising. Or invasive. Or something. Or probably I was just imagining it since after less than a second he gave me a large, friendly smile.
"Is your dog friendly?" he asked, walking a few paces forward. Arry gave a bark and a few quick tail wags.
"May I pet him?"
"Uh yeah sure." I wasn't exactly showing the height of eloquence here – first far too many words and now not enough. I mean this was Armsmaster, one of the top ten most famous heroes in the country, asking to pet my dog. A dog I'd had for all of an hour.
Arry moved forward towards Armsmaster, angling his head up towards Armsmaster's hand, meeting him partway.
"You've got him very well trained."
"Yeah he's actually just really smart. Like really smart."
"Taylor, can you explain exactly what happened here?"
"Not really, no."
I thought maybe I caught the tiniest flash of irritation, but he immediately went back to his approachable-hero-smile. "That's fine, parahuman events are often confusing. How about you just tell me in your own words what you saw?"
"I brought my service dog to school today, and I stopped at the principal's office to take care of the paperwork. So I came in late to class. Everyone looked at me and Madison,"
"That's the girl who disappeared and reappeared?"
"Yeah Madison, she said something in like a loud hissing whisper and," here Arry started to growl lightly "and Arry didn't like the noise so he started growling a lot at Madison. He was looking really angry and Madison got scared, started to stand up, and then suddenly disappeared. Everyone freaked out and the teacher asked me to stay in the room with my dog and escorted the students out and then I guess he called you guys."
"There was a parahuman incident and the teacher asked you and your service dog to stay in the room?" a mix of disbelief and disdain colored his voice.
"Yeah I'm not sure why he thought I did something. The teachers are really shitty to me, even after the locker, and so I…" I trailed off. I can't believe I was about to start complaining to a world-famous hero about my problems. Stupid, stupid petty kid shit.
I was snapped out of my reverie by his hand coming to rest gently on my shoulder. "It's okay Taylor. Thanks for your report. Would you be able to come out to the Rig with us so we can run a couple of quick tests just to make sure you're okay?"
My heart started thudding in my chest. They had ways to tell if you were a parahuman, right? I mean I knew about the lobe in the brain and everything but could they scan me without me even knowing? What would they do if they knew I was a parahuman? What would they do to Arry? Would he even let them separate us? This was too much. Too much.
I was hit by a wave of disorientation. I saw a static panorama… like a painting of the Brockton Bay skyline, edge of the boat graveyard visible in the…
And I was home. Or, well, right outside my home.
In the exact spot where I first saw Aristotle sitting. I looked down and there he was, tail wagging away, mouth open in a wide, loose panting smile.
"Holy crap Aristotle! Did you just teleport us home?"
Yes.
"What the hell, it's not like they can't find out where I live!! Now they're definitely going to be coming for us. What the hell am I going to do," my hand suddenly felt warm and wet with little pointy… oh he's got my hand in his mouth, leading me towards the front door.
I opened up and he darted in, running around like mad smelling everything.
"Hey whatever you do, don't…" …and it was too late. He peed on the front of the stove.
"Aristotle! Come on!"
I went over to the dining room table, grabbing another notebook I'd left there this morning. Grabbing a pen, I sat on the couch, notebook laid out in front of me. This time I re-wrote the alphabet in a grid pattern with the numbers one through six down the left-hand side. I'd have to speed this up if I wanted to communicate with him faster.
I could hear his rat-a-tat of footsteps across the floorboards upstairs.
"Arry get over here!" I barked to him.
Thumpthumpthumpthump he came bombing down the stairs.
"Okay they're going to look up where I live and show up here any minute. So you've got about ninety seconds to explain… well, to explain everything."
I held the pen by the first row of letters and tapped down the rows. He figured out what I was doing instantly and had the decency to stop me with quiet little chuffs rather than face licks this time.
NO IDEA WHAT GOIN ON
U SCARED SO I US HOME
MONEY IN BUSH OUTSIDE
HIDE UR BUGS
I dropped the pen I was using to point to the letters.
"What are you? WHO ARE YOU?!" I leaned away from him and he licked my knee. Before I could react he hopped up onto the couch, nuzzled his head under my chin and started licking the collar of my hoodie.
God. God. He moved just like a dog. He smelled just like a dog. He had awful dog breath and was getting his awful dog breath saliva all over my shirt. I couldn't wrap my head around this. Somehow he knew about me and about my power. He could make people disappear, teleport us, and seemed about as smart as…
…wait, money?
I heard the sound of Armsmaster's motorcycle in the distance.
---
Taylor and I talk for a little bit and I lick her collar because it tastes so yummy like potato chips and synthetic fiber and old friendship. And then I can hear Armsmaster coming I hope he doesn't scare Taylor again because I don't know any other cell names so trying to teleport us won't work.
I'm so glad Taylor made herself my companion now she can't ever die no matter what!!
Armsmaster bangs on the door and Taylor flinches. She seems so scared! Don't worry, Taylor, I'll get the door. I bound off of her and go over the to the door and
it. Armsmaster's hand swings through the space where the door was.
I give his leg a lick. His armor tastes like loneliness and burning. I back away and bob my head to invite him in to our house. I'm so courteous!
He says something to Taylor and then walks in. As soon as he's past the threshold I
the front door. Wouldn't want to let in a draft! It's chilly out there for sure.
Taylor seems really scared so I go over and lean against her.
Oh! OH I KNOW!
I toggle on all the map markers around Brockton Bay. Not as good as teleporting with console commands, but fast-travel will let us… wait. Shit. No. I don't have a Pip Boy or a Skyrim map or anything. No fast-travel for me! Well, except for running. I'm a very good runner. I think. With God Mode on I don't have to worry about ever getting tired so I bet I'm a good runner.
I look over and it looks like Armsmaster saw the notebook before Taylor could hide it. Uh-oh. She smells really nervous.
I go over and give her a few licks just to make sure everything's okay.
He's asking her some questions but I can't really understand him. Then he's looking at me and asking me some questions but I can't really understand him.
Taylor turns to me and asks if I can understand him. Yay! A question I can answer! I'm a good boy and I like answering questions.
I shake my head no. Darting my head all weirdy lefty-righty-uppy-downy for yes and no is strange. It's not hard and it doesn't hurt, but it's like… I dunno. Patting your head and rubbing your belly.
Oh! Rubbing belly! I bet I love belly rubs. I bash my head lightly into Armsmaster's knee and then flop on the ground and roll belly-up.
Oh yes. Ohhhhh yessss… I do love belly rubs. Big strong armored hand belly rubs. Maybe Armsmaster should be my companion. He could follow me around and be sworn to carry my burdens. I wonder if he has treats in his axe thing.
Taylor's asking me something else. What? No, I already said I'm not a Case 53. I'm a dog, sheesh.
Taylor says something.. "No, he's not my power…"
Uh oh. That was a slip. That means she does have a power. My teacher Plato could've taught her a thing or two about rhetoric and use of language when engaging in a dialectic with someone as intelligent as Armsmaster. Oh well.
Am I willing to go the PRT building with her? Why is she even asking? Doesn't she know she's my companion now? She has to go wherever I do until I dismiss her, which I'm never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never going to do.
Unless Armsmaster offers to be my companion and build a tinker-tech belly rubber.
We go out to his motorcycle and he pushes some buttons and a sidecar pops out. I pee a little in excitement.
I jump into the sidecar and look around excitedly, but I don't see any goggles or a World War 1 style aviator helmet. So disappoint.
Taylor gets onto the motorcycle behind Armsmaster. She seems really nervous about wrapping her arms around him and his armor so I lick her hand and then his armor to show her it's all okay.
It is all okay and we go roaring off down the street and oh my god, and oh my god, and oh my god this is the greatest thing that's ever happened in the history of the world and the smells and sniffs and breeze and my tongue is a mile long flapping out of my head and my ears are dancing in the wind MY EARS ARE DANCING IN THE WIND AND I LOVE EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
---
PRT/PRO INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM
Form NPPE-001: INITIAL ENCOUNTER AND PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT
FILING NUMBER: 3201139
FILED BY: ARMSMASTER, PROTECTORATE ENE
SENT TO: OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR ENE
cc: EMILY PIGGOT, REBECCA COSTA-BROWN, OFFICE OF THREAT OVERSIGHT, LEGAL AFFAIRS OFFICE, YOUTH GUARD LIASON OFFICE, THINKER TEAM SIX – PRT/PRO INTERACTIONS, WEGDG ANALYSIS UNIT FIVE – NEW ENCOUNTERS
DATE INCIDENT: 2011-03-10
DATE FILED: 2011-03-10
PROTECTORATE MEMBERS INVOLVED: Armsmaster
INITIAL ENCOUNTER SUBJECT: Hebert, Taylor
PRELIMINARY THREAT ASSESSMENT:
Master 2 (6)*: Subject demonstrated control over a small number of insects present in the PRT building. Sub-rating 6 applied to dog-like projection named Aristotle. Subject denied having conscious control over Aristotle.
Thinker 1: Subject demonstrated sensory awareness of the presence of insects in the building
*Sub-rating Shaker 5, Mover 4: Aristotle demonstrated teleportation over a distance of 2.3 miles, moving Miss Hebert and itself from Winslow High School to the Hebert residence. Aristotle demonstrated the ability to place both a human and a door into a temporary stasis in a pocket dimensions and to reverse this effect at will. Effect potentially re-classified as Blaster or rating re-assessed upon further testing.
Executive Summary:
Following an assault at school, Taylor Hebert triggered with a Master power to control bugs in a one-block radius. (see follow-up protocol #A4513219 for subsequent investigations re: alleged perpetrators)
This morning the dog, which she claims named itself Aristotle, appeared on her front stoop and accompanied her to school. She claims the dog demonstrates human-level intelligence however it only seems to respond to her commands. The dog demonstrated instantaneous teleportation, and an ability to place another student in a temporal stasis in a pocket dimension. No deleterious effects have been noted on the student. Both the teleportation and initial use of the pocket dimension power were in moments of high emotional distress for Miss Hebert. Working model is that the dog is a projection of hers, albeit one not controlled consciously.
Given that Miss Hebert was a minor and proved to be reasonably cooperative, we have agreed to allocate resources to concoct a cover story about a parahuman on the loose with a pocket dimension power who just so happened to take action at the moment Miss Hebert's dog was growling at a student.
Miss Hebert declined membership in the Wards, declined further power testing, and in light of the lack of harm to Miss Clements, Miss Hebert was released as soon as her father arrived to pick her up.
DISPOSITION: Friendly parahuman, currently unaligned rogue. Ward recruitment priority: LEVEL 5 – HIGHEST PRIORITY
- Location
- Arizona
A/N:
My breath burned in my lungs, my feet slapping a painful staccato on the concrete. I had to move. I had to move. Faster. Relief was a bare ten minutes away. I'd left the Boardwalk behind eons ago, passed the grungy off-Boardwalk shopping area and was in a nondescript residential neighborhood.
At my side, Arry loped along easily, his tongue lolling out. He wasn't even breathing hard. Little turd.
An untold time later, I finally arrived at my destination. Home.
Missing my morning run for even two days had set me back. Or I guess it didn't, not really. When I thought about it my body didn't actually feel all that bad, but I'd lost a bit of the mental edge needed to slip into the painful rhythm of the run.
I blamed the furry jerkface at my side. He didn't get in the way, but he did have a habit of either darting ahead or running off to the side to investigate. He never got far, but when the distance between us grew too great, I started to get uneasy. It was almost like I felt obligated to go follow him. Just enough to put me slightly off my stride. Before I ever acted on the impulse, he came back though.
I headed for the stairs up to the front door when Arry darted in front of me, blocking the door. He nudged and shoved me over to the side of the house. I'd learned to just go with him when he started to get like this. Better to just play along.
He scrabbled under the bush and came back out carrying something in his… oh my god. Three stacks of hundred dollar bills. He wasn't kidding about having money hidden in the bush. I'd completely forgotten about that with all of the insanity of the past two days. He crawled back in and out two more times, depositing the cash at my feet.
I quickly jerked my head around to see if anyone was watching. I scooped up the stacks of cash and headed back inside, promptly dumping the stack on the coffee table. I picked up one stack and riffled through it. It sure looked real to me.
"Hey Dad?" I called out.
A heard a muffled mmphhmph from upstairs. Dad was standing there in his brown slacks and undershirt, brushing his teeth. I showed him the stack of cash. "More surprises from Aristotle," I waggled the cash at him.
His toothbrush came to a dead stop. He stared at me for a couple of beats and then slowly turned, walking back to the bathroom. Moments later he thundered down the stairs and plopped onto the couch, looking at the cash.
"What?"
Like daughter, like father. The Eloquent Heberts.
"I don't know, Dad. Arry just said he had cash hidden in the bush on the side of the house and then he pulled out this."
"Did he steal it?"
I relayed the question and Arry shook his head no.
"Did you make it?"
Yes.
"How on earth does a dog make money?!" Dad asked with a slight tinge of hysteria.
"Arry, how'd you make money?"
In an instant a stack of banded hundreds appeared directly in front of his snout and plopped down quietly onto the table, adding to the pile.
Dad gave a single bark of laughter. "Okay there's no way we can keep this. He must be teleporting it in from a bank vault somewhere. That or it's counterfeit. You said he teleported you guys once, right? So he must…"
"Should we take it to the police?"
"The PRT, I'd think."
"Okay Arry, no more making cash like this, please?"
He cocked his head that he didn't understand.
"We can't explain where so much cash came from so we'd have to…"
I was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a ten dollar bill. Then a five. Then a twenty. Then a series of ones. The dozen bills fluttered slowly onto the table.
I scrunched my eyes up, took a deep breath in and slowly let it out. "No Arry, that's not what I mean. It's not that it was tens of thousands of dollars, it's that the money came from nowhere. Just making a bunch of smaller bills isn't any better."
The truth was, I didn't really mind the smaller bits of cash. It'd be nice to have a few hundred bucks of walking-around money on hand, but if Dad's guess was right and he was teleporting it from somewhere else, I couldn't be a party to theft. What if he was stealing it from like a charity or something?
Yeah, right, Taylor. A charity that keeps wrapped stacks of hundreds.
He licked my hand.
"Arry, will you please stop making cash?"
Yes.
"They wanted to have another talk with the both of us, so we may as well get that scheduled right away. We can bring the cash then."
-
I'd had Friday off since the PRT closed the school to make a big show about "testing for residual parahuman effects" or something. A whole glorious weekend available to work on my costume, make more hero plans, and slowly figure out what was going on with the eldritch abomination that was my dog.
Dad called the PRT and they were thrilled to set up another appointment first thing Monday morning. Hey! Another day off school! I wasn't going to object.
"Hey squirt, I have to get some work done this morning, but I'll be back for lunch. We can talk more then," he offered as he headed out the door.
I knew I basically had the whole day to myself. When Dad worked on a weekend claiming he'd be "back by lunch" that actually meant "the end of the day." For years he'd been using work as his retreat from… everything else… and it looked like things weren't going to change now. We'd had a really awkward conversation Thursday when he picked me up from the PRT building and again yesterday. He took to Arry right away, making a comment about Bubba, the black lab he'd grown up with. He seemed more freaked out by me having powers than by a random para-dog showing up on our front doorstep.
If I'd had to guess, it was that Arry seemed to be aggressively watching out for me. Teleporting us home when he sensed danger and stopping Madison when she was being a bitch to me both got Arry a ton of points in Dad's book. He kept asking if Arry was actually part of my power. I was pretty sure he still didn't believe either of us when we both insisted that he was his own dog.
I came out from a quick shower to see that Arry had completely scrunched up all the covers on my previously-made bed, curled into a little ball and was looking at me like he sensed maybe I was unhappy but he 110% did not give a shit.
Done with my morning ablutions, I headed down to the basement to keep working on my costume. Arry followed me after making a quick stop in the living room. Hunched over my workbench, I lost track of him until I felt him booping my foot repeatedly. He'd brought the notebook and pen down. I sighed in a bit of irritation before catching myself and turning the sigh into a laugh. It'd been just over 48 hours since a teleporting sapient dog showed up on my doorstep and I was already starting to take him for granted.
But dammit, I had work to do!
"Okay, okay, Aristotle, we can talk for a few minutes but then I want to get back to my costume."
Yes.
I LET U WORK IF U MAKE ME MASK WITH THAT
He then pointed at a scrap piece of silk.
"I mean, yeah I guess I could make you a mask that would sort of go over your head but…"
"… I mean everyone would still be able to see your size and fur color and…"
Like all of his powers, the next one activated with no sound, no visual fanfare. One minute I was staring at Aristotle, brindle-fur street dog and the next he'd transformed into an enormous Doberman. Enormous.
"Arry?"
Yes.
"How did you…"
In a flash, he transformed into a Chihuahua, a Great Dane, a little white floofy dog, a Golden Retriever, and back to Arry.
"How many superpowers do you have?"
ONE
BUT ITS GUD
"Okaaay.. I guess that solves the secret identity thing. Well, go back to Doberman form and we'll get the mask made. All I have to do is …"
The off-cut of fabric was more than big enough. Mostly I just had to cut out eye holes with my shears and then tie it on his head.
"There you go! Perfect!"
He gave a little huff and disappeared.
As he left I felt a bone-deep pull towards the east. I felt sick to my stomach. I had to go catch up with him, I had to do anything to get to him, I had to…
… and it was gone. I felt the same sort of prickling across my skin from a couple of days ago right before he made Madison re-appear, but almost in reverse? Maybe? If that made sense?
I shook my head slightly, clearing my thoughts. I was just going to have to get used to an endless series of weird now that he'd fallen into my life.
I had to take advantage of my Dad-free time in the house to work on my costume. The mandibles on the mask were looking pretty good, but I wasn't sure if it was going to come across as too edgy or…
---
Taylor seems surprised. We talk a little more and then I show her what I can do.
Taylor is obviously super-impressed and she sets to making my mask and it's done so fast and its on my head and it's amazing and let's go!
I suddenly realize Taylor is still my companion and will try really hard to start pathing towards me. That's bad because I don't know if she can swim and the Bay smells delicious but is probably bad for humans to swim in in March and I think about dismissing her. I think really hard about dismissing her. I hope that worked!
I stop thinking about Taylor when more gloppy stuff hits me. This is bad. This is so bad. My tongue is stuck on this squishy stuff that smells like ambition and plastic. I whip my head side-to-side and I'm sure it would hurt so bad if I didn't have God Mode toggled on but I can't get free.
Grr. Grrrr. GRRRR. I try to growl at the squishy stuff but it keeps expanding and getting all over my fur and this is terrible and now the squishy stuff on my tongue is expanding into my mouth.
Enough!
Or the ground.
I guess I was angled slightly upwards because now I'm standing about three feet off the ground and they're shooting more sticky stuff and it passes right through me. I'm kind of mad because I'm a hero I'm the hero SCARYDOG and they shouldn't be doing this so I bark at them for awhile. Then I run on the air all the way to the top of the Rig.
Time to go!
I'm kind of surprised that that worked. I guess places like Ellisburg or the Rig are like Jacobstown or Goodsprings – places important enough that the cell is just named after the place itself. More flashing lights and sirens so I quickly
I decide to run around for a little while. I was right! I don't get tired while God Mode is toggled on. Out of curiosity I
I dart out after that bastard cat and I can smell him and its not actually the same cat it's a different cat but that doesn't matter they're all evil and suddenly there's a loud noise to my left and I look and it's a car coming right at me and then it hits me and it hurts so much and I fall on the ground and it hurts so much I can't think and so I
I growl and howl my displeasure at the world. I do it a lot. I'm good at baying. I would be better if I were in Plott Hound mode but even as a Doberman I can get some good howls in.
I go home and hide in the money bush on the side of my home and transform from SCARYDOG back into Arry and all the blood and grit are gone and my mask is gone and my service dog vest is back. That's nice and of course it works that way because I'm a good dog. I decide to go see Taylor so I
Today was the best day ever.
---
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♦Topic: Para..dog?!?
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
RandoLastNight (Original Poster)
Did anyone catch sight of a… an I can't believe Im actually saying this… teleporting dog earlier today? I was walking my dog past Arcadia when a dog literally just appeared out of nowhere in front of the school gates. It was the biggest domberman ive ever seen and it was wearing a mask. No bullshit. A mask:
[Link]
So now there are parahuman dogs? wtf! theres still plenty of us humans that would like powers.
Anyway, he sniffed around like a normal dog, peed on a bush and totally ignored me. My boy Chaser was barking his head off at him, but the para-dog ignored us and then POOF disappeared.
(Showing Page 1 of 3)
► Glory Girl (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Dog.
Yeah. Okay sure. You just put that mask on your own dog and took a picture.
► The_Tailor (Cape Geek)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Holy crap I thought I was imagning things! I was window-shopping and I saw the same thing! Right in front of Fugly Bobs! And then he disappeared and when I walked over, he had appeared inside the restaurant!! They were yelling at him but this one kid threw his hamburger at him and the dog was just scarfing it down. When the owner came out with a broom the dog just disappeared!!!!!!!!!!!!
► NotYetReady_3
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Edit: ninja'd I guess there really was a teleporting dog
I call b.s. times a thousand. @GloryGirl is right this guy is just making up random crap for attention. Mods, please baninate forever!
► Bagrat (Guy in the Know)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
The guy in the know with some knowledge for y'all – you're not imagining things. Brockton Bay does indeed seem to be home to the world's first paradog. It appeared briefly on the Rig, in front of the PRT, at Arcadia, and at Fugly Bob's. It was also hit by a car and looked pretty beat up, but then immediately popped up and ran after a cat.
[Pic 1]
[Pic 2]
[Video]
Yes, I know what you're thinking – who in there right mind stops and records a video of a guy getting out of his car and going over to a dog he'd just hit in the road. People are crazy in this town, but now we've got footage of a mask-wearing Doberman damn near the size of a pony jumping up and running away.
► TigerTigerBurningBrite (Verified Cape)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Curses! The feline uprising has found its nemesis!
► JoeBlogs
Replied on March 12, 2011:
I'm the one that hit the dog. He just darted out in front of me! My car is all messed up and I don't think my insurance covers cape dogs. Wat do I do?!@
► SpecificProtagonist (Cape Geek)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Aww!! So cute! I'm halfway done with the first chapter of my new ParadogxSiberian fic. Check it out on that other cape site!!!!
Yes those are pictures of my dog, and yes I'm writing this fic solely to have an excuse to post pictures of my dog.
My breath burned in my lungs, my feet slapping a painful staccato on the concrete. I had to move. I had to move. Faster. Relief was a bare ten minutes away. I'd left the Boardwalk behind eons ago, passed the grungy off-Boardwalk shopping area and was in a nondescript residential neighborhood.
At my side, Arry loped along easily, his tongue lolling out. He wasn't even breathing hard. Little turd.
An untold time later, I finally arrived at my destination. Home.
Missing my morning run for even two days had set me back. Or I guess it didn't, not really. When I thought about it my body didn't actually feel all that bad, but I'd lost a bit of the mental edge needed to slip into the painful rhythm of the run.
I blamed the furry jerkface at my side. He didn't get in the way, but he did have a habit of either darting ahead or running off to the side to investigate. He never got far, but when the distance between us grew too great, I started to get uneasy. It was almost like I felt obligated to go follow him. Just enough to put me slightly off my stride. Before I ever acted on the impulse, he came back though.
I headed for the stairs up to the front door when Arry darted in front of me, blocking the door. He nudged and shoved me over to the side of the house. I'd learned to just go with him when he started to get like this. Better to just play along.
He scrabbled under the bush and came back out carrying something in his… oh my god. Three stacks of hundred dollar bills. He wasn't kidding about having money hidden in the bush. I'd completely forgotten about that with all of the insanity of the past two days. He crawled back in and out two more times, depositing the cash at my feet.
I quickly jerked my head around to see if anyone was watching. I scooped up the stacks of cash and headed back inside, promptly dumping the stack on the coffee table. I picked up one stack and riffled through it. It sure looked real to me.
"Hey Dad?" I called out.
A heard a muffled mmphhmph from upstairs. Dad was standing there in his brown slacks and undershirt, brushing his teeth. I showed him the stack of cash. "More surprises from Aristotle," I waggled the cash at him.
His toothbrush came to a dead stop. He stared at me for a couple of beats and then slowly turned, walking back to the bathroom. Moments later he thundered down the stairs and plopped onto the couch, looking at the cash.
"What?"
Like daughter, like father. The Eloquent Heberts.
"I don't know, Dad. Arry just said he had cash hidden in the bush on the side of the house and then he pulled out this."
"Did he steal it?"
I relayed the question and Arry shook his head no.
"Did you make it?"
Yes.
"How on earth does a dog make money?!" Dad asked with a slight tinge of hysteria.
"Arry, how'd you make money?"
In an instant a stack of banded hundreds appeared directly in front of his snout and plopped down quietly onto the table, adding to the pile.
Dad gave a single bark of laughter. "Okay there's no way we can keep this. He must be teleporting it in from a bank vault somewhere. That or it's counterfeit. You said he teleported you guys once, right? So he must…"
"Should we take it to the police?"
"The PRT, I'd think."
"Okay Arry, no more making cash like this, please?"
He cocked his head that he didn't understand.
"We can't explain where so much cash came from so we'd have to…"
I was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a ten dollar bill. Then a five. Then a twenty. Then a series of ones. The dozen bills fluttered slowly onto the table.
I scrunched my eyes up, took a deep breath in and slowly let it out. "No Arry, that's not what I mean. It's not that it was tens of thousands of dollars, it's that the money came from nowhere. Just making a bunch of smaller bills isn't any better."
The truth was, I didn't really mind the smaller bits of cash. It'd be nice to have a few hundred bucks of walking-around money on hand, but if Dad's guess was right and he was teleporting it from somewhere else, I couldn't be a party to theft. What if he was stealing it from like a charity or something?
Yeah, right, Taylor. A charity that keeps wrapped stacks of hundreds.
He licked my hand.
"Arry, will you please stop making cash?"
Yes.
"They wanted to have another talk with the both of us, so we may as well get that scheduled right away. We can bring the cash then."
-
I'd had Friday off since the PRT closed the school to make a big show about "testing for residual parahuman effects" or something. A whole glorious weekend available to work on my costume, make more hero plans, and slowly figure out what was going on with the eldritch abomination that was my dog.
Dad called the PRT and they were thrilled to set up another appointment first thing Monday morning. Hey! Another day off school! I wasn't going to object.
"Hey squirt, I have to get some work done this morning, but I'll be back for lunch. We can talk more then," he offered as he headed out the door.
I knew I basically had the whole day to myself. When Dad worked on a weekend claiming he'd be "back by lunch" that actually meant "the end of the day." For years he'd been using work as his retreat from… everything else… and it looked like things weren't going to change now. We'd had a really awkward conversation Thursday when he picked me up from the PRT building and again yesterday. He took to Arry right away, making a comment about Bubba, the black lab he'd grown up with. He seemed more freaked out by me having powers than by a random para-dog showing up on our front doorstep.
If I'd had to guess, it was that Arry seemed to be aggressively watching out for me. Teleporting us home when he sensed danger and stopping Madison when she was being a bitch to me both got Arry a ton of points in Dad's book. He kept asking if Arry was actually part of my power. I was pretty sure he still didn't believe either of us when we both insisted that he was his own dog.
I came out from a quick shower to see that Arry had completely scrunched up all the covers on my previously-made bed, curled into a little ball and was looking at me like he sensed maybe I was unhappy but he 110% did not give a shit.
But dammit, I had work to do!
"Okay, okay, Aristotle, we can talk for a few minutes but then I want to get back to my costume."
Yes.
I LET U WORK IF U MAKE ME MASK WITH THAT
He then pointed at a scrap piece of silk.
"I mean, yeah I guess I could make you a mask that would sort of go over your head but…"
Like all of his powers, the next one activated with no sound, no visual fanfare. One minute I was staring at Aristotle, brindle-fur street dog and the next he'd transformed into an enormous Doberman. Enormous.
"Arry?"
Yes.
"How did you…"
In a flash, he transformed into a Chihuahua, a Great Dane, a little white floofy dog, a Golden Retriever, and back to Arry.
"How many superpowers do you have?"
ONE
BUT ITS GUD
"Okaaay.. I guess that solves the secret identity thing. Well, go back to Doberman form and we'll get the mask made. All I have to do is …"
The off-cut of fabric was more than big enough. Mostly I just had to cut out eye holes with my shears and then tie it on his head.
"There you go! Perfect!"
He gave a little huff and disappeared.
As he left I felt a bone-deep pull towards the east. I felt sick to my stomach. I had to go catch up with him, I had to do anything to get to him, I had to…
… and it was gone. I felt the same sort of prickling across my skin from a couple of days ago right before he made Madison re-appear, but almost in reverse? Maybe? If that made sense?
I shook my head slightly, clearing my thoughts. I was just going to have to get used to an endless series of weird now that he'd fallen into my life.
I had to take advantage of my Dad-free time in the house to work on my costume. The mandibles on the mask were looking pretty good, but I wasn't sure if it was going to come across as too edgy or…
---
Oohhh… so many dog breeds! Yay! And I could play around with the coloration and the patterns and the snoot length and everything! This was great! I made myself into a Doberman and moved the size slider bar all the way to the right. I'M A BIG FIERCE GUARD DOG! MY HERO NAME WILL BE SCARYDOG!!
Taylor seems surprised. We talk a little more and then I show her what I can do.
Chihuahua!
Great Dane!
Havanese!
Yellow Labrador!
Plott Hound!
Taylor is obviously super-impressed and she sets to making my mask and it's done so fast and its on my head and it's amazing and let's go!
Holy crap that worked first try! I should guess more cell names! I'll need a bunch of places that Taylor and I can teleport in case things get really dangerous. Oh there's loud alarms and they hurt my sensitive ears and I paw at my head and there's shouting and they squirt me with squishy stuff and I try to lick it and my tongue gets stuck.
I suddenly realize Taylor is still my companion and will try really hard to start pathing towards me. That's bad because I don't know if she can swim and the Bay smells delicious but is probably bad for humans to swim in in March and I think about dismissing her. I think really hard about dismissing her. I hope that worked!
I stop thinking about Taylor when more gloppy stuff hits me. This is bad. This is so bad. My tongue is stuck on this squishy stuff that smells like ambition and plastic. I whip my head side-to-side and I'm sure it would hurt so bad if I didn't have God Mode toggled on but I can't get free.
Grr. Grrrr. GRRRR. I try to growl at the squishy stuff but it keeps expanding and getting all over my fur and this is terrible and now the squishy stuff on my tongue is expanding into my mouth.
Enough!
My mouth snaps shut as the foam suddenly slides right off me and through me. I quickly pad forward and emerge, not interacting at all with the foam.
Or the ground.
I guess I was angled slightly upwards because now I'm standing about three feet off the ground and they're shooting more sticky stuff and it passes right through me. I'm kind of mad because I'm a hero I'm the hero SCARYDOG and they shouldn't be doing this so I bark at them for awhile. Then I run on the air all the way to the top of the Rig.
I plop the four inches onto the metal grate-thingie on the walkway really far up high. This is the best day ever. I can smell the ocean and the fish and the air and the screaming behind me.
Time to go!
Oh look a big wall! And posts of men everywhere! And a big closed metal gate!
I'm kind of surprised that that worked. I guess places like Ellisburg or the Rig are like Jacobstown or Goodsprings – places important enough that the cell is just named after the place itself. More flashing lights and sirens so I quickly
Home! Home!! Time to play around and find more cell names. I run around and I experiment long enough for the shadows around the city to get pretty small and discover that MedhallExt, PRTExt_1, FuglyBobsExt, FuglyBobs, ArcadiaExt, and RubyDreamsExt are all valid cell names. I can't figure out others, which isn't much of a surprise. The console cell names are a weird mish-mash of names, abbreviations, and numbers.
I decide to run around for a little while. I was right! I don't get tired while God Mode is toggled on. Out of curiosity I
and keep running. Oh jeez now I get tired. Not right away because I'm a good, strong dog. I'm SCARYDOG the hero and I will save the day even if my paws are getting kind of sore and I want a treat and OH MY GOD THERE HE IS!!
I dart out after that bastard cat and I can smell him and its not actually the same cat it's a different cat but that doesn't matter they're all evil and suddenly there's a loud noise to my left and I look and it's a car coming right at me and then it hits me and it hurts so much and I fall on the ground and it hurts so much I can't think and so I
and I pop right up and I have blood and grit and bad stuff all over me but I don't hurt anymore. Maybe I should go check on Taylor but I can see the cat over there on a bench so I run after him fast as I can but he gets away.
I growl and howl my displeasure at the world. I do it a lot. I'm good at baying. I would be better if I were in Plott Hound mode but even as a Doberman I can get some good howls in.
I go home and hide in the money bush on the side of my home and transform from SCARYDOG back into Arry and all the blood and grit are gone and my mask is gone and my service dog vest is back. That's nice and of course it works that way because I'm a good dog. I decide to go see Taylor so I
and walk through the dirt and wall of the basement and her back is to me and I
and I fall the inch onto the floor and that startles her and she smiles and me and talks with me and gives me some belly rubs with her costume gloves on and that's the best thing ever because the pointy bits dig in and get some really good scritches and I love her.
Today was the best day ever.
---
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■
♦Topic: Para..dog?!?
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
RandoLastNight (Original Poster)
Did anyone catch sight of a… an I can't believe Im actually saying this… teleporting dog earlier today? I was walking my dog past Arcadia when a dog literally just appeared out of nowhere in front of the school gates. It was the biggest domberman ive ever seen and it was wearing a mask. No bullshit. A mask:
[Link]
So now there are parahuman dogs? wtf! theres still plenty of us humans that would like powers.
Anyway, he sniffed around like a normal dog, peed on a bush and totally ignored me. My boy Chaser was barking his head off at him, but the para-dog ignored us and then POOF disappeared.
(Showing Page 1 of 3)
► Glory Girl (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Dog.
Yeah. Okay sure. You just put that mask on your own dog and took a picture.
► The_Tailor (Cape Geek)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Holy crap I thought I was imagning things! I was window-shopping and I saw the same thing! Right in front of Fugly Bobs! And then he disappeared and when I walked over, he had appeared inside the restaurant!! They were yelling at him but this one kid threw his hamburger at him and the dog was just scarfing it down. When the owner came out with a broom the dog just disappeared!!!!!!!!!!!!
► NotYetReady_3
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Edit: ninja'd I guess there really was a teleporting dog
I call b.s. times a thousand. @GloryGirl is right this guy is just making up random crap for attention. Mods, please baninate forever!
► Bagrat (Guy in the Know)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
The guy in the know with some knowledge for y'all – you're not imagining things. Brockton Bay does indeed seem to be home to the world's first paradog. It appeared briefly on the Rig, in front of the PRT, at Arcadia, and at Fugly Bob's. It was also hit by a car and looked pretty beat up, but then immediately popped up and ran after a cat.
[Pic 1]
[Pic 2]
[Video]
Yes, I know what you're thinking – who in there right mind stops and records a video of a guy getting out of his car and going over to a dog he'd just hit in the road. People are crazy in this town, but now we've got footage of a mask-wearing Doberman damn near the size of a pony jumping up and running away.
► TigerTigerBurningBrite (Verified Cape)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Curses! The feline uprising has found its nemesis!
► JoeBlogs
Replied on March 12, 2011:
I'm the one that hit the dog. He just darted out in front of me! My car is all messed up and I don't think my insurance covers cape dogs. Wat do I do?!@
► SpecificProtagonist (Cape Geek)
Replied on March 12, 2011:
Aww!! So cute! I'm halfway done with the first chapter of my new ParadogxSiberian fic. Check it out on that other cape site!!!!
Multimaster
- Location
- Arizona
MadMaud said:
"There's never enough time in the day, is there?" Danny asked sympathetically.
Armsmaster, sitting across the interview table from Danny and Taylor gave out a low humph of agreement. "Even if I had three of me, I still feel like I'd barely be able to keep up."
Arry interrupted the flat mood in the room with a bright, happy bark, drawing everyone's attention. He gave a low chuff and pointed his nose at Taylor's backpack.
She swiftly removed the notebook and flipped it open to v5.0 of their alphabet matrix. Ongoing use had led to optimizations in letter order, including some common phrases as whole choices ("Yes" "No" "I don't know" "Treats" "Because I used my power to incite yet another regional war")
I CAN HELP WITH THAT
"Help with what, Aristotle?" Danny asked.
I SHOW U
He looked over at Armsmaster and in an instant two more Armsmasters appeared on either side of him. 'I'll never get used to how his power works,' Danny mused to himself, startled at the lack of fanfare every time Arry casually broke the universe.
"Gah!" all three Armsmasters shouted in unison. The seated one smoothly stood, reached behind him, grabbing and deploying his halberd into a ready position. He was a mere heartbeat behind the other two Armsmasters in adopting a ready pose.
A long moment of silence passed.
"Alpha niner Brazil purple"
"Alpha niner Brazil purple"
"Alpha niner Brazil purple"
They recited in unison.
"Dragon, run a full biometric on me first and..."
"Dragon, run a full biometric on me first and..."
"Dragon, run a full biometric on me first and..."
Arry hopped up onto the interview table and started spinning madly, interrupting the Greek Arms-chorus in its recitations. Eventually he came to a wobbly stop, pointing his nose at one of the standing Colins. His back legs continued to wobble slightly and his tail traced little circles in the air.
His chest heaved and a deep horking noise came forth.
"Oh god no, Arry, not..." Taylor seemed to be the only one who knew what was about to happen.
A torrent of undigested grass, stomach acid, pulpy kibble, and what looked like half of a Lego man spewed forth, covering the chest plate of one of the Armsmasters.
He looked down at his armor with a deepening frown. The other two responded:
"Glad I don't have to clean that up."
"Glad I don't have to clean that up."
In a flash, Arry lept off the table, pouncing onto the chest of one of the unsullied Armsmasters. He was far too adroit a combatant to be staggered by the move, but it did require him to spin slightly and deflect the furry mass with his polearm.
Throughly de-synced the Armsmasters three stood silently for just a moment, before coming to similar conclusions:
"I'll take conference room C"
"I'm going directly to the workshop to clean up."
"I'll stay here with the Heberts."
Arry was barking happily, still looking a little woozy after his fit of spinnyzoomies.
"ARISTOTLE ROBERTO GUSTAV HEBERT! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO!!" Danny roared.
Unperturbed, he nosed the alphabet matrix. Hands shaking, Taylor picked up the pen:
I MAKE MOR ANYTHIN
ARMAST SAY NEED 3
At that he gave the remaining hero a sloppy visor-lick, leaving behind small particles of grass and puke.
"Miss Hebert, I need you to give me your absolute assurance that your dog will not use his duplication power again without express orders and permission of the target." Armsmaster said, sounding surprisingly level.
--
ARMSCHAT SECURE PROTOCOL v.14.191321
Room: Private Chat
USERS: Dragon, Arms1, Arms2, Arms3
ARMS2: I call dibs!
ARMS1: You can't just call dibs.
DRAGON: I don't know, Alpha, I think he can. That kind of enthusiasm should be rewarded.
ARMS3: No, no NO stop getting off track. We're not just skipping past the part where I get stuck doing all of the paperwork for the next week.
ARMS1: You volunteered.
ARMS2: Guys I'm heading to quarters to pack now. Dragon and I will send you pictures!
ARMS3: I do NOT volunteer.
ARMS2: Totally volunteered.
DRAGON: Hey, Three-pete, if you didn't want to do the paperwork you shouldn't've commented how great it would be to have one
ARMS3: STOP CALLING ME THAT!
ARMS1: Three-pete!
ARMS2: Three-pete!
ARMS3: How come we get stuck with Twofer and Three-pete but he gets an awesome name like Alpha?
ARMS1: Respect your elders, boys!
ARMS3: IT WAS A RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR YOU ASS!
DRAGON: Now, now, Colins. We all know you're all equal. The RNG is the only fair way going forward. For now though, I think Alpha should get back to patrols, Twofer should use some of the accrued vacation time, and Three-pete should get started on that requisition paperwork.
ARMS2: Filed in triplicate!
ARMS3: I will cut you.
--
Alexandria considered herself unflappable. Not in the sense that nothing could get to her, but in the sense that she could always, always, maintain a calm exterior of total control. She hadn't lost her temper since the day Hero died and hadn't shed a tear since the day she drank that vial.
And yet, she looked down and the flooded cityscape of Brockton Bay and, for just a second, gave out a whimper of complete terror.
Standing forty feet in the air was a Shih Tzu with a pink bow in its hair. While a bit odd, that didn't merit much of a reaction. The Shih Tzu was directly facing Leviathan. Although cause for focused determination, the presence of an Endbringer didn't inherently merit an overly emotional reaction either.
No, the cause of terror was that the Shih Tzu gave out a single yappy bark, and suddenly there were two Leviathans. Another yappy bark and there were four.
For some reason all four Levithans were just standing there. Not moving. Nothing.
A moment later, the ground was flooded.
Not with water.
With Armsmasters.
A veritable pile of power armor, halberds, and beards spawned on the ground under the floating Shih Tzu. With remarkable efficiency, they sorted themselves out, forming phalanxes and strike teams, flanking groups and out runners.
A cloud of butterflies swarmed in, hundreds of thousands of red and yellow wings forming themselves into giant letters in the sky.
SCARYDOG SAYS HE CAN ONLY HOLD THE LEVIATHANS FOR TWO MORE MINUTES
MULTIPLE ACCESS POINTS TO LEVIATHAN POWER CLUSTERS WILL CONSIDERABLY SLOW REACTION SPEED
BUT BE CAREFUL HYDROKINESIS IS SPREAD ACROSS FOUR CONTROL NODES NOW BUT STILL DEADLY
The butterflies then formed themselves into a giant countdown timer, slowly and beautifully ticking down to their oblivion.
'The world has gone mad. Nothing makes sense anymore.' was all she could think as the Arms-army began giving a deep bellowing yell. At twenty seconds they set into some sort of war chant that she couldn't quite make out from her height. They stomped armored feet, slammed the butts of their three hundred halberds against wet pavement.
As three counted down to two, the Armsy gave up whatever words they had been chanting and fell into a bestial war cry that shook her to the bone. Three hundred halberds simultaneously spawned fuzzy grey clouds of death.
One.
It was a ballet of destruction. A symphony of impossible movement. Leviathans lumbered and swung, water whipped, and Armsmaster was everywhere. Armsmaster was nowhere. Never hit, never hurt. For thirty seconds Alexandria witnessed the single greatest display of martial prowess and coordination in human history.
Setting her mouth in a grim line, she joined the fray.
- Location
- Arizona
A/N IMPORTANT AU - RADICAL CHANGE TO THE WORLD:
"No! Goddammit Arry stop eating that!"
I pulled pointlessly on the leash. I waggled it back and forth to no effect. Some asshole had left an entire uneaten tray of food from In-N-Out on the road and Arry was eating it like his life depended on it. We bought him dog food! He ate an entire large baking dish of ziti last night! And yet now he was going at the cold fries and congealed burger fat like he hadn't seen calories in a month.
I tried pulling on the leash again but that just got him to turn his head slightly, putting the leash into his visual field, at which point it disappeared. We didn't really need a leash, of course, but I thought it was a good idea to keep up appearances. I hoped he remembered exactly where the leash was to turn it back on, because the damn thing cost me fifteen bucks I couldn't really spare. Or… well, I could ask Arry to make me some money. Nobody would miss just like thirty bucks, right?
For some reason Aristotle was really insistent that I go out on a walk with him this morning. He'd had the whole day to himself yesterday, presumably teleporting around and sniffing things, but this time he'd insisted on walking like a normal dog. He'd started the day by pulling on the leash a bit to get me jogging, so our walk had turned into my morning run.
Well, until he found a whole goddamn tray of uneaten burger garbage. Ugh.
After finishing his gourmet breakfast, he lead me straight into the crappier part of the Docks. I couldn't help but feel a heavy sense of discomfort. Although I technically lived in the Docks, there was the Docks and then there was the Docks, and right now Aristotle and I were definitely in the latter. I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid, that I had a teleporting dog to get me out of trouble, but I started pulling together a swarm anyway.
I could feel the outlines of homeless sleeping in alleys. The occasional occupied building was either over-stuffed with too many living in too small a space, or too few living in large, open spaces that didn't actually feel like they were meant to be apartments. A few other folks were out walking this early. Actually, it was mostly a few other folks shambling slowly around this morning, still deep in the throes of whatever chemical haze they'd started on the night before.
I could feel one man a block away walking briskly along with three dogs. Arry pulled in their general direction, but I didn't get the sense that he knew where they were. More that he was just following the scents in the neighborhood. We turned a corner and caught sight of the other dog-walker and Arry took off like a shot, barking happily.
The other dog-walker turned out to be a butch woman rather than a man. I set into a rapid jog to catch up. The woman shot small glances down at Arry but fixed most of her attention on me. If looks could kill, I'd've been pasted all over the street in a heartbeat.
"What's wrong with you. He needs a leash."
"Oh yeah sorry," I knelt down and tried to pull Arry back from the other three dogs. They were all looking pretty aggressive but a few sharp commands from the woman had them sitting attentively.
"If you can't take care of your dog, you shouldn't have him."
"Look, I'm really sorry, he won't cause any more trouble. Aristotle! Lay off. Do not cause us any more trouble."
He turned and looked at me.
"Please do not cause any more trouble."
He nodded.
"What the fuck!"
"What?" my head whipped up to the woman. She had a really confused, angry look on her face, like there was something profoundly wrong with Aristotle and she had no idea what it was.
"Brutus, Judas, guard! Angelica, stay!"
The two larger dogs stood up and moved to either side of the woman while her little one-eyed terrier held back. Arry seemed amused by the whole thing and took a step forward.
Brutus and Judas both pulled back the skin over their teeth and gave extremely threatening growls. Arry growled back and instantly transformed into SCARYDOG.
The woman let out a wordless cry and took a step backwards. SCARYDOG loosed a series of deep, chest-rattling barks. With each resonant clap, Brutus and Judas backed further down, tails tucking farther and farther between their back legs.
Once the two other dogs had been cowed into submission, he popped back into being Arry and gave out several pleasant yaps and some butt-swinging tail wags.
"Your dog is a cape…" the woman said in a quiet, breathless tone.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry about this, please don't tell anyone," in my panic I started pulling my swarm in tighter. The woman's dogs looked dangerous, and while I was sure Arry could dump them in his little on-pause pocket-dimension, I thought it'd almost be better to just drive them off with some bees or something, leaving her totally confused about the encounter (and hopefully less likely to remember my face as a result).
Arry looked up at me, gave me a couple of quick nods and immediately ambled over to the other animals for the usual round of sniffs.
"He's normal and he acts like a dog but then he looks at you and he acts all weird," the woman commented. "I wonder if…
"How do you make him turn into the big Doberman?" she asked. Arry, hearing the request, popped back into SCARYDOG.
A moment later his flesh started to ripple. Spikes shot out of his shoulders and hips. He doubled in size, his tail rapidly spooling out into a thick, leathery, whip-like appendage, ending in several vicious foot-long spikes.
The woman once again took a half-step back, seeming even more startled than I was by his transformation.
"What the fuck did you do to my dog!?" Again, instinct took over and I started to pull in the insects. The clouds of fliers around us were now obviously not natural, although I wasn't yet attacking.
SCARYDOG didn't seem upset by the transformation, and started bounding around the sidewalk and street, happily smashing his tail-spikes into the pavement. Whatever just happened made him insanely strong, as he was leaving divots in concrete as easily as he would've left footprints in mud.
"My power never works that fast."
The swarm paused in its buzzing. "Wait, you're a parahuman too?"
"Yes. My power is dogs." At that, her own dogs started to swell slightly. The process was much slower, and the armor, bone, and spikes seemed… off. Asymmetrical. Monstrous, even.
SCARYDOG turned to me, gave a few more enthusiastic whomps on the road and promptly turned back into Arry. He looked completely unchanged, vest and all.
"Now my power won't work on him," she cocked her head, looking just like Arry did when he was confused.
"What the hell, stop using your power on my dog!" I shouted. The girl's eyes flicked up to mine. She gave me a challenging stare and I started reaching for my pepper spray. Before I could act, Arry grabbed my hand in his mouth and…
---
[Danger]
[Agreement]
[Alertness]
[Agreement]
[Aggression]
[Support]
[Support]
[Dominance]
[Support]
[Support]
[Strength]
[Support]
[Support]
[OH HI GUYS IM ARISTOTLE!]
[Startled]
[Startled]
[Startled]
[STRENGTH]
[Support]
[Support]
[DOMINANCE]
[Support]
[Support]
[IM WAY STRONGER THAN YOU]
[ESPECIALLY IF GET BIG LIKE THIS]
[DOMINANCE!]
[SUBMISSION]
[Submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[GREAT NOW WE CAN BE FRIENDS!]
[friends]
[friends]
[friends]
[friends]
[friends]
[friends]
[Destination]
[Agreement]
[Buttsniff]
[Agreement]
-
Oh boy oh boy! It's Bitch! Maybe if I'm very very lucky and a very very good boy she'll use her power on me and I can be super awesome too! Just to be safe, I'd better
Ohhhhhhhh wowwwww that feels amazing!! She used her power on me for a second and I grew super-duper fast like normally would've taken lots of minutes.
I'm awesome but now I'm bigger which means even more awesome and I have spikes and I'm so strong and I have a tail and even my tail is awesome because -
Oh.
My.
God.
OH.
MY.
GOD.
OHMYGOD.
I have a thagomizer. I HAVE A THAGOMIZER!!
I start thagomizing the shit out of the street and sidewalk.
Okay I need to go home and show dad this. I turn back into Arry real quick and turn God Mode back on so I don't change as Arry at all and I pull on Taylor's hand and then I
This is the best day ever!
In-N-Out is an East Coast burger chain here.
"No! Goddammit Arry stop eating that!"
I tried pulling on the leash again but that just got him to turn his head slightly, putting the leash into his visual field, at which point it disappeared. We didn't really need a leash, of course, but I thought it was a good idea to keep up appearances. I hoped he remembered exactly where the leash was to turn it back on, because the damn thing cost me fifteen bucks I couldn't really spare. Or… well, I could ask Arry to make me some money. Nobody would miss just like thirty bucks, right?
For some reason Aristotle was really insistent that I go out on a walk with him this morning. He'd had the whole day to himself yesterday, presumably teleporting around and sniffing things, but this time he'd insisted on walking like a normal dog. He'd started the day by pulling on the leash a bit to get me jogging, so our walk had turned into my morning run.
Well, until he found a whole goddamn tray of uneaten burger garbage. Ugh.
After finishing his gourmet breakfast, he lead me straight into the crappier part of the Docks. I couldn't help but feel a heavy sense of discomfort. Although I technically lived in the Docks, there was the Docks and then there was the Docks, and right now Aristotle and I were definitely in the latter. I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid, that I had a teleporting dog to get me out of trouble, but I started pulling together a swarm anyway.
I could feel the outlines of homeless sleeping in alleys. The occasional occupied building was either over-stuffed with too many living in too small a space, or too few living in large, open spaces that didn't actually feel like they were meant to be apartments. A few other folks were out walking this early. Actually, it was mostly a few other folks shambling slowly around this morning, still deep in the throes of whatever chemical haze they'd started on the night before.
I could feel one man a block away walking briskly along with three dogs. Arry pulled in their general direction, but I didn't get the sense that he knew where they were. More that he was just following the scents in the neighborhood. We turned a corner and caught sight of the other dog-walker and Arry took off like a shot, barking happily.
The other dog-walker turned out to be a butch woman rather than a man. I set into a rapid jog to catch up. The woman shot small glances down at Arry but fixed most of her attention on me. If looks could kill, I'd've been pasted all over the street in a heartbeat.
"What's wrong with you. He needs a leash."
"Oh yeah sorry," I knelt down and tried to pull Arry back from the other three dogs. They were all looking pretty aggressive but a few sharp commands from the woman had them sitting attentively.
"If you can't take care of your dog, you shouldn't have him."
"Look, I'm really sorry, he won't cause any more trouble. Aristotle! Lay off. Do not cause us any more trouble."
He turned and looked at me.
"Please do not cause any more trouble."
He nodded.
"What the fuck!"
"What?" my head whipped up to the woman. She had a really confused, angry look on her face, like there was something profoundly wrong with Aristotle and she had no idea what it was.
"Brutus, Judas, guard! Angelica, stay!"
The two larger dogs stood up and moved to either side of the woman while her little one-eyed terrier held back. Arry seemed amused by the whole thing and took a step forward.
Brutus and Judas both pulled back the skin over their teeth and gave extremely threatening growls. Arry growled back and instantly transformed into SCARYDOG.
The woman let out a wordless cry and took a step backwards. SCARYDOG loosed a series of deep, chest-rattling barks. With each resonant clap, Brutus and Judas backed further down, tails tucking farther and farther between their back legs.
Once the two other dogs had been cowed into submission, he popped back into being Arry and gave out several pleasant yaps and some butt-swinging tail wags.
"Your dog is a cape…" the woman said in a quiet, breathless tone.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry about this, please don't tell anyone," in my panic I started pulling my swarm in tighter. The woman's dogs looked dangerous, and while I was sure Arry could dump them in his little on-pause pocket-dimension, I thought it'd almost be better to just drive them off with some bees or something, leaving her totally confused about the encounter (and hopefully less likely to remember my face as a result).
Arry looked up at me, gave me a couple of quick nods and immediately ambled over to the other animals for the usual round of sniffs.
"He's normal and he acts like a dog but then he looks at you and he acts all weird," the woman commented. "I wonder if…
"How do you make him turn into the big Doberman?" she asked. Arry, hearing the request, popped back into SCARYDOG.
A moment later his flesh started to ripple. Spikes shot out of his shoulders and hips. He doubled in size, his tail rapidly spooling out into a thick, leathery, whip-like appendage, ending in several vicious foot-long spikes.
The woman once again took a half-step back, seeming even more startled than I was by his transformation.
"What the fuck did you do to my dog!?" Again, instinct took over and I started to pull in the insects. The clouds of fliers around us were now obviously not natural, although I wasn't yet attacking.
SCARYDOG didn't seem upset by the transformation, and started bounding around the sidewalk and street, happily smashing his tail-spikes into the pavement. Whatever just happened made him insanely strong, as he was leaving divots in concrete as easily as he would've left footprints in mud.
"My power never works that fast."
The swarm paused in its buzzing. "Wait, you're a parahuman too?"
"Yes. My power is dogs." At that, her own dogs started to swell slightly. The process was much slower, and the armor, bone, and spikes seemed… off. Asymmetrical. Monstrous, even.
SCARYDOG turned to me, gave a few more enthusiastic whomps on the road and promptly turned back into Arry. He looked completely unchanged, vest and all.
"Now my power won't work on him," she cocked her head, looking just like Arry did when he was confused.
"What the hell, stop using your power on my dog!" I shouted. The girl's eyes flicked up to mine. She gave me a challenging stare and I started reaching for my pepper spray. Before I could act, Arry grabbed my hand in his mouth and…
---
[Danger]
[Agreement]
[Alertness]
[Agreement]
[Aggression]
[Support]
[Support]
[Dominance]
[Support]
[Support]
[Strength]
[Support]
[Support]
[OH HI GUYS IM ARISTOTLE!]
[Startled]
[Startled]
[Startled]
[STRENGTH]
[Support]
[Support]
[DOMINANCE]
[Support]
[Support]
[IM WAY STRONGER THAN YOU]
[ESPECIALLY IF GET BIG LIKE THIS]
[DOMINANCE!]
[SUBMISSION]
[Submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[submission]
[GREAT NOW WE CAN BE FRIENDS!]
[friends]
[friends]
[friends]
[friends]
[friends]
[friends]
[Destination]
[Agreement]
[Buttsniff]
[Agreement]
-
Oh boy oh boy! It's Bitch! Maybe if I'm very very lucky and a very very good boy she'll use her power on me and I can be super awesome too! Just to be safe, I'd better
just in case God Mode stops her from putting her special powers on me.
Ohhhhhhhh wowwwww that feels amazing!! She used her power on me for a second and I grew super-duper fast like normally would've taken lots of minutes.
I'm awesome but now I'm bigger which means even more awesome and I have spikes and I'm so strong and I have a tail and even my tail is awesome because -
Oh.
My.
God.
OH.
MY.
GOD.
OHMYGOD.
I have a thagomizer. I HAVE A THAGOMIZER!!
I start thagomizing the shit out of the street and sidewalk.
Okay I need to go home and show dad this. I turn back into Arry real quick and turn God Mode back on so I don't change as Arry at all and I pull on Taylor's hand and then I
because I can't wait to get home and change back and show dad the greatest thing that's ever happened. I got a thagomizer!!!
This is the best day ever!
- Location
- Arizona
Aristotle chuffed quietly and tried to lick my face. I dodged my head to the side and pushed his snout sharply away.
"Taylor!"
"No, Dad. I'm still mad at him. You didn't see what people were saying about him online last night. He freaked everyone out and one person even said he teleported to Ellisburg!"
Yes, Arry bobbed his head.
That caught Dad's attention. He pulled his eyes off the road for a moment to fix a sharp stare at Aristotle.
"What the hell were you doing at Ellisburg, Aristotle?!"
Head cock.
"The rumor said he was only there for a few seconds before showing up out front of the PRT building."
"Well, now I know why they sounded so frantic this morning when they called and asked us to come in early."
We rode in silence for a few minutes, each stewing in our own thoughts. Arry's tail thumped against the seat back between us as he tried to wag it at the passing sights.
"Okay, well that makes things a little more complicated. But still, we'll want to go in there with a plan."
I let a tiny huff of air out of my nose. Dad had been pestering me all day yesterday about the upcoming negotiations and I'd kept blowing him off. It was just… I never really wanted to involve him in this. This was my hero life. It was supposed to be mine. Mine alone. A place separate from school or home or the petty tragedies that made up the life of "Taylor" and where I could be someone… something… more. Instead, Aristotle and the PRT and stupid Madison had screwed everything up and I'd had to show my costume to Dad and Aristotle outed me to a girl who I'd learned was the murderer Hellhound and nothing was going right.
As if he could sense my upset distraction, Arry swooped in for a particularly frothy face-lick. Ugh. He nosed the bag resting between my knees. It'd be a pain in the ass but I could sort of do the alphabet with him in the car.
NO SAD WEAVER
"What the hell does that mean?"
U WEAVER
"I'm Weaver?"
"I like that!" Dad chimed in. "Like with your spider silk cloth, that's a great cape name. Plus, you could focus on production which will bring in money and avoid having to run around on the streets like most cape lunatics…"
He trailed off, realizing he'd just sort of implied I was a lunatic.
"Thanks, Dad."
"No, Taylor, please it's not... I didn't…
He floundered in silence for a moment. Of course this earned him an ear full of dog spit delivered via high-velocity Arry-tongue.
He laughed, trying very hard to keep his focus on the road while turning his head down to his shoulder to wipe the goop off. I took mercy on him, pulling my hoodie sleeve over my hand and wiping down his ear.
The tension completely dissolved in the solvent of saliva, he continued, "I just want you to be safe, Taylor. There's so many crazy dangerous villains out there, and I don't think I could handle it if…"
"Okay Dad."
I couldn't have this conversation now. I'd agree with him so we could get through this interview.
"Okay what?"
"Okay I won't go running around the city like a lunatic cape without making sure I can stay safe."
Aristotle gave a sharp bark and nosed the notebook.
U SAFE WITH ME
I ruffled the fur on his head and gave his neck scruff a good scratch. "I know buddy."
NO RELY W ME U IMMORTAL
I just stared at the page silently for a few seconds.
Yeah, okay, no. Nope.
Nope.
Not dealing with that sentence right now.
I quickly turned the page, hiding the existential horror of it.
"Thank you, Taylor. That really sets my mind at ease. So let's think about our plan. We'll be there in just a few minutes, so we need to outline the basics."
Ugh, he was still on the whole negotiation planning thing.
"Fine. So what does that mean?"
"The PRT is going to want things from you. They're going to want to recruit you into the Wards, get you to sign on as an affiliate, or more importantly just get information from you. We've got to decide what you want to ask for in return. So, honey, what do you want?"
"Jesus. That's a hell of a question."
He gave a condescending smile, "I know, it's one that's hard for an adult, much less a teenager. But let's think of at least three or four things we can ask for as a starting position, even if we don't think we can get them."
I blurted out in a rush: "I want to be transferred to Arcadia. And I don't want to join the Wards. I want them to leave me alone."
Arry sensed my distress and immediately poked his face right up against my glasses.
The sharp spurt of words left Dad nonplussed for a moment. "Okay, and I know I promised I wouldn't press the issue on the Wards, so that's fine. We can definitely ask them to use their pull to get you transferred to Arcadia. I think once they get a chance to test that piece of spider silk, they'll be willing to deal."
We pulled into the parking deck nestled between the PRT and municipal building. Slowing the car to a crawl, Dad once again broke the silence, "Is that it? A transfer to Arcadia and to be left alone?"
I gave him a small nod.
As we parked, a thought struck me. "Arry, can you shrink down to a little Chihuahua and fit inside my backpack?"
At Dad's look, I continued: "The kids at school have seen me with a dog at the exact moment of a 'parahuman incident' and then that same weekend a teleporting dog shows up around town, and now we're walking into the PRT building. My identity is already paper-thin, but maybe if they don't see a dog with me..."
Arry nodded and immediately turned into the smallest Chihuahua I could've imagined. He looked photoshopped. A giggle escaped. I gently placed him in the open space in my backpack on top of the folders and books and we made our way in.
-
"What were you doing at Ellisburg?"
The fat woman had fixed her gimlet stare on Aristotle's dopey face and hadn't left it for almost the entire interview. Behind her, Armsmaster could've been a statue but for the tiny movements of his head as he followed the action.
EXPERIMENTING
"On what?"
TELEPORT NEED NAME OF PLCE
TRY RNDOM NAME
ARCAD WORK
FUG BOB WRK
ELLS WRK
BIRDCAG…
I dropped the pen.
Oh... fffuck.
"Wait. Here." She heaved her bulk up and bustled out, giving some sort of signal I didn't see to Armsmaster. He turned to look at me and Dad, mouth pressed into a thin line. I could only see the bottom half of his face but he looked… weird. I don't know. Conflicted. Like part of him wanted to be angry at me, but the bigger part of him just hated this whole situation. Like a 'bit into a lemon' look.
"It's going to be a few minutes while the Director makes some calls. Let's discuss you and your situation, Taylor, while she follows up with what Aristotle just told us."
It was eerie how he could turn on the dime like that. One second, he had a world of unpleasantness surrounding him, and the next he was giving me the thousand-watt "happy hero" smile and tone. He lowered himself into the chair Director Piggot had just vacated.
Dad rallied quickly. "Yes, I think the Protectorate would be very interested in a deal with Taylor for a unique product only she can offer."
He gave a little head bob at me, pointed towards Armsmaster. He was trying so hard to take on an encouraging tone and failing miserably.
I could feel the agitation out there, with a gnat placed on the Director and more on those around her. I couldn't really hear or see through my bugs, but I could sense the vibrations. Was that agitation physical? Sound waves? I couldn't tell, but it was definitely a vibe that screamed of anxiety and tightly-leashed violence.
I opened the bag and pulled out the square of spider-silk. It was sizeable – almost three square feet – and ugly. It had the uneven sickly grey that all my work did before I dyed it. I slid it across the table towards Armsmaster.
He picked it up, giving it a gentle tug. "What's it made of?"
"Black widow dragline silk."
I heard the tiniest whine from his armor's motor-thingies as his head snapped up to look at me.
"Your control is that fine?"
"Easily."
One of the armor pieces over his forearm gave a quiet snap as a compartment opened. He pulled out a small knife-looking thing and gave a few ineffectual swipes at the fabric. He placed it flat on the table and pushed hard, finally able to damage it. With a deft flick, he turned the knife around, pommel facing the fabric. He turned slightly to the side, held the fabric dangling in front of him. A small jet of blue flame appeared on his knife. He moved it slowly towards the fabric, stopping the instant it started to blacken.
Apparently satisfied with his tests, he put the tools away.
"May I keep this for further testing?"
"Uhh… yeah?"
"Assuming you can consistently produce work of at least this quality, I can assure you the PRT will gladly buy all of the fabric you can produce. Are you able to weave it directly into a body suit?"
"Yes? I'm making my own costume with it."
He gave a sharp nod. "I'll want to personally purchase ten square yards of the material as soon as you can produce it, and pay you thirty-five thousand dollars out of my own Tinker budget."
I gave a gasp and before I could even begin to process what that meant, Dad cut in: "Two hundred thousand. She is literally the only source in the world for spider-silk woven textiles."
Holy shit Dad! He was arguing with Armsmaster!
"But not the only source in the world for meta-materials that are only obtainable from Tinkers. My budget is fixed at the start of the year, Mr. Hebert and I can't go over fifty without extended approval budgeting that takes months to clear."
Dad nodded as if this were a totally normal conversation.
"I'm not a Tinker…" I interjected quietly.
Armsmaster gave a nod down at the swatch of slightly-charred fabric, "Yes, Taylor, you are. The silk alone would merit a Tinker 1 threat rating, and I'm sure a review of arthropod species around the world will discover any number of other organics naturally produced that are otherwise impossible to craft at scale. Welcome to the club," he smiled.
Dad had apparently had an idea while we were talking. "We'll take the thirty-five for the ten square yards but you also have to provide Taylor with at least two Tinkertech devices of your own manufacture that will help keep her safe when she goes out patrolling."
"You plan to patrol?" Armsmaster asked sharply. "Why are you so adamant about not joining the Wards?"
"I just am, okay."
He changed tack quickly: "Certainly. Once we get you fully registered as an independent hero and PRT contractor, we can arrange for you to do patrols with some of the Wards.
"Or New Wave," he added as an afterthought.
For a moment, silence filled the room. He glanced down at the fabric and muttered to himself, "I wish you'd brought four or five of these."
Arry interrupted the moment with a happy bark and hopped his front legs up on the table. He pointed his nose at the alphabet matrix:
U KNO I CAN HELP W THAT
BUT I NEED THIR FIVE K TREATS
---
"Emily, calm down, I need you to…"
Chief Director Costa-Brown felt a tell-tale buzzing in her right pocket. She reached down, pulling out a Tinkertech cell phone that never rang, and only very rarely buzzed with a text. Glancing down –
DOG NEC 4 PATH. SMOOTH IT OVER.
"… smooth things over with the Heberts and the dog. Dragon confirms there were no breaches to the Birdcage, so whatever its power is, there's no threat on that front. Play nice with them, Emily, and we'll get this to Watchdog as a code red level analysis."
"But…"
She saw Piggot's eyes dart away from the screen, a scowl forming at whoever would dare barge in on her office while yellow-level security protocols in place. It'd be Armsmaster, of course, and Emily's voice confirmed it a moment later.
"Armsmaster, what the hell…"
A tinny voice was picked up by the microphone, "He can replicate Tinkertech! Aristotle can replicate Tinkertech! LOOK!"
"Emily!" the Chief Director snapped, getting her attention back. "Play. Nice. Give them what they want and don't take any rash action. I'm sending Legend out there right now and we'll have the Watchdog first-pass in less than an hour. Don't screw the pooch on this, Emily."
Piggot made a face and before she could respond, Costa-Brown cut the line. She gave a long, slow sigh that brought neither release nor relief. Oh, that's why she gave me that look. Okay yeah so it was a poor choice of words at the end there.
But really, a dog?
A dog?
"Taylor!"
"No, Dad. I'm still mad at him. You didn't see what people were saying about him online last night. He freaked everyone out and one person even said he teleported to Ellisburg!"
Yes, Arry bobbed his head.
That caught Dad's attention. He pulled his eyes off the road for a moment to fix a sharp stare at Aristotle.
"What the hell were you doing at Ellisburg, Aristotle?!"
Head cock.
"The rumor said he was only there for a few seconds before showing up out front of the PRT building."
"Well, now I know why they sounded so frantic this morning when they called and asked us to come in early."
We rode in silence for a few minutes, each stewing in our own thoughts. Arry's tail thumped against the seat back between us as he tried to wag it at the passing sights.
"Okay, well that makes things a little more complicated. But still, we'll want to go in there with a plan."
I let a tiny huff of air out of my nose. Dad had been pestering me all day yesterday about the upcoming negotiations and I'd kept blowing him off. It was just… I never really wanted to involve him in this. This was my hero life. It was supposed to be mine. Mine alone. A place separate from school or home or the petty tragedies that made up the life of "Taylor" and where I could be someone… something… more. Instead, Aristotle and the PRT and stupid Madison had screwed everything up and I'd had to show my costume to Dad and Aristotle outed me to a girl who I'd learned was the murderer Hellhound and nothing was going right.
As if he could sense my upset distraction, Arry swooped in for a particularly frothy face-lick. Ugh. He nosed the bag resting between my knees. It'd be a pain in the ass but I could sort of do the alphabet with him in the car.
NO SAD WEAVER
"What the hell does that mean?"
U WEAVER
"I'm Weaver?"
"I like that!" Dad chimed in. "Like with your spider silk cloth, that's a great cape name. Plus, you could focus on production which will bring in money and avoid having to run around on the streets like most cape lunatics…"
He trailed off, realizing he'd just sort of implied I was a lunatic.
"Thanks, Dad."
"No, Taylor, please it's not... I didn't…
He floundered in silence for a moment. Of course this earned him an ear full of dog spit delivered via high-velocity Arry-tongue.
He laughed, trying very hard to keep his focus on the road while turning his head down to his shoulder to wipe the goop off. I took mercy on him, pulling my hoodie sleeve over my hand and wiping down his ear.
The tension completely dissolved in the solvent of saliva, he continued, "I just want you to be safe, Taylor. There's so many crazy dangerous villains out there, and I don't think I could handle it if…"
"Okay Dad."
I couldn't have this conversation now. I'd agree with him so we could get through this interview.
"Okay what?"
"Okay I won't go running around the city like a lunatic cape without making sure I can stay safe."
Aristotle gave a sharp bark and nosed the notebook.
U SAFE WITH ME
I ruffled the fur on his head and gave his neck scruff a good scratch. "I know buddy."
NO RELY W ME U IMMORTAL
I just stared at the page silently for a few seconds.
Yeah, okay, no. Nope.
Nope.
Not dealing with that sentence right now.
I quickly turned the page, hiding the existential horror of it.
"Thank you, Taylor. That really sets my mind at ease. So let's think about our plan. We'll be there in just a few minutes, so we need to outline the basics."
Ugh, he was still on the whole negotiation planning thing.
"Fine. So what does that mean?"
"The PRT is going to want things from you. They're going to want to recruit you into the Wards, get you to sign on as an affiliate, or more importantly just get information from you. We've got to decide what you want to ask for in return. So, honey, what do you want?"
"Jesus. That's a hell of a question."
He gave a condescending smile, "I know, it's one that's hard for an adult, much less a teenager. But let's think of at least three or four things we can ask for as a starting position, even if we don't think we can get them."
I blurted out in a rush: "I want to be transferred to Arcadia. And I don't want to join the Wards. I want them to leave me alone."
Arry sensed my distress and immediately poked his face right up against my glasses.
The sharp spurt of words left Dad nonplussed for a moment. "Okay, and I know I promised I wouldn't press the issue on the Wards, so that's fine. We can definitely ask them to use their pull to get you transferred to Arcadia. I think once they get a chance to test that piece of spider silk, they'll be willing to deal."
We pulled into the parking deck nestled between the PRT and municipal building. Slowing the car to a crawl, Dad once again broke the silence, "Is that it? A transfer to Arcadia and to be left alone?"
I gave him a small nod.
As we parked, a thought struck me. "Arry, can you shrink down to a little Chihuahua and fit inside my backpack?"
At Dad's look, I continued: "The kids at school have seen me with a dog at the exact moment of a 'parahuman incident' and then that same weekend a teleporting dog shows up around town, and now we're walking into the PRT building. My identity is already paper-thin, but maybe if they don't see a dog with me..."
Arry nodded and immediately turned into the smallest Chihuahua I could've imagined. He looked photoshopped. A giggle escaped. I gently placed him in the open space in my backpack on top of the folders and books and we made our way in.
-
"What were you doing at Ellisburg?"
The fat woman had fixed her gimlet stare on Aristotle's dopey face and hadn't left it for almost the entire interview. Behind her, Armsmaster could've been a statue but for the tiny movements of his head as he followed the action.
EXPERIMENTING
"On what?"
TELEPORT NEED NAME OF PLCE
TRY RNDOM NAME
ARCAD WORK
FUG BOB WRK
ELLS WRK
BIRDCAG…
I dropped the pen.
Oh... fffuck.
"Wait. Here." She heaved her bulk up and bustled out, giving some sort of signal I didn't see to Armsmaster. He turned to look at me and Dad, mouth pressed into a thin line. I could only see the bottom half of his face but he looked… weird. I don't know. Conflicted. Like part of him wanted to be angry at me, but the bigger part of him just hated this whole situation. Like a 'bit into a lemon' look.
"It's going to be a few minutes while the Director makes some calls. Let's discuss you and your situation, Taylor, while she follows up with what Aristotle just told us."
It was eerie how he could turn on the dime like that. One second, he had a world of unpleasantness surrounding him, and the next he was giving me the thousand-watt "happy hero" smile and tone. He lowered himself into the chair Director Piggot had just vacated.
Dad rallied quickly. "Yes, I think the Protectorate would be very interested in a deal with Taylor for a unique product only she can offer."
He gave a little head bob at me, pointed towards Armsmaster. He was trying so hard to take on an encouraging tone and failing miserably.
I could feel the agitation out there, with a gnat placed on the Director and more on those around her. I couldn't really hear or see through my bugs, but I could sense the vibrations. Was that agitation physical? Sound waves? I couldn't tell, but it was definitely a vibe that screamed of anxiety and tightly-leashed violence.
I opened the bag and pulled out the square of spider-silk. It was sizeable – almost three square feet – and ugly. It had the uneven sickly grey that all my work did before I dyed it. I slid it across the table towards Armsmaster.
He picked it up, giving it a gentle tug. "What's it made of?"
"Black widow dragline silk."
I heard the tiniest whine from his armor's motor-thingies as his head snapped up to look at me.
"Your control is that fine?"
"Easily."
One of the armor pieces over his forearm gave a quiet snap as a compartment opened. He pulled out a small knife-looking thing and gave a few ineffectual swipes at the fabric. He placed it flat on the table and pushed hard, finally able to damage it. With a deft flick, he turned the knife around, pommel facing the fabric. He turned slightly to the side, held the fabric dangling in front of him. A small jet of blue flame appeared on his knife. He moved it slowly towards the fabric, stopping the instant it started to blacken.
Apparently satisfied with his tests, he put the tools away.
"May I keep this for further testing?"
"Uhh… yeah?"
"Assuming you can consistently produce work of at least this quality, I can assure you the PRT will gladly buy all of the fabric you can produce. Are you able to weave it directly into a body suit?"
"Yes? I'm making my own costume with it."
He gave a sharp nod. "I'll want to personally purchase ten square yards of the material as soon as you can produce it, and pay you thirty-five thousand dollars out of my own Tinker budget."
I gave a gasp and before I could even begin to process what that meant, Dad cut in: "Two hundred thousand. She is literally the only source in the world for spider-silk woven textiles."
Holy shit Dad! He was arguing with Armsmaster!
"But not the only source in the world for meta-materials that are only obtainable from Tinkers. My budget is fixed at the start of the year, Mr. Hebert and I can't go over fifty without extended approval budgeting that takes months to clear."
Dad nodded as if this were a totally normal conversation.
"I'm not a Tinker…" I interjected quietly.
Armsmaster gave a nod down at the swatch of slightly-charred fabric, "Yes, Taylor, you are. The silk alone would merit a Tinker 1 threat rating, and I'm sure a review of arthropod species around the world will discover any number of other organics naturally produced that are otherwise impossible to craft at scale. Welcome to the club," he smiled.
Dad had apparently had an idea while we were talking. "We'll take the thirty-five for the ten square yards but you also have to provide Taylor with at least two Tinkertech devices of your own manufacture that will help keep her safe when she goes out patrolling."
"You plan to patrol?" Armsmaster asked sharply. "Why are you so adamant about not joining the Wards?"
"I just am, okay."
He changed tack quickly: "Certainly. Once we get you fully registered as an independent hero and PRT contractor, we can arrange for you to do patrols with some of the Wards.
"Or New Wave," he added as an afterthought.
For a moment, silence filled the room. He glanced down at the fabric and muttered to himself, "I wish you'd brought four or five of these."
Arry interrupted the moment with a happy bark and hopped his front legs up on the table. He pointed his nose at the alphabet matrix:
U KNO I CAN HELP W THAT
BUT I NEED THIR FIVE K TREATS
---
"Emily, calm down, I need you to…"
Chief Director Costa-Brown felt a tell-tale buzzing in her right pocket. She reached down, pulling out a Tinkertech cell phone that never rang, and only very rarely buzzed with a text. Glancing down –
DOG NEC 4 PATH. SMOOTH IT OVER.
"… smooth things over with the Heberts and the dog. Dragon confirms there were no breaches to the Birdcage, so whatever its power is, there's no threat on that front. Play nice with them, Emily, and we'll get this to Watchdog as a code red level analysis."
"But…"
She saw Piggot's eyes dart away from the screen, a scowl forming at whoever would dare barge in on her office while yellow-level security protocols in place. It'd be Armsmaster, of course, and Emily's voice confirmed it a moment later.
"Armsmaster, what the hell…"
A tinny voice was picked up by the microphone, "He can replicate Tinkertech! Aristotle can replicate Tinkertech! LOOK!"
"Emily!" the Chief Director snapped, getting her attention back. "Play. Nice. Give them what they want and don't take any rash action. I'm sending Legend out there right now and we'll have the Watchdog first-pass in less than an hour. Don't screw the pooch on this, Emily."
Piggot made a face and before she could respond, Costa-Brown cut the line. She gave a long, slow sigh that brought neither release nor relief. Oh, that's why she gave me that look. Okay yeah so it was a poor choice of words at the end there.
But really, a dog?
A dog?
- Location
- In the ocean of my heart
Spreading the insanity here huh? Also poor miss piggot.
Guardsman_Sparky
The Clueless Wonder
- Location
- Virginia
Well, they are man's best friends for a reason.
- Location
- Canada
A dog with console commands, I wonder what other things he'll get into, like maybe setting a weapons damage to ludicrious numbers, setting his/other's run speed to large numbers, or even just wandering through bakuda's bombs like some sort of terminator with what he's already got figured out.
- Location
- The moon
yeah thats about right
Anyways this is a fantastic story please make more
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
The story is hilarious, and your dog is adorable. Moar dog pics please @BreezyWheeze
I just came to the realization that Taylor + dog = OP for any fic. Considering one fic's dog is the sun goddess and another dog's fic is just a civie disguise for an Entity-lite, I dread if all three get together.
Anyway, how does that Paradog/Siberian pairing work? Because you are pairing a lady with an animal, but said lady is actually the powers of a man.
Back to the story, I don't think that's a normal dog that got ROB'd. In fact, with the knowledge of the Fallout console, I'm thinking that's the dog buddy of a game-logic Vault guy.
Anyway, how does that Paradog/Siberian pairing work? Because you are pairing a lady with an animal, but said lady is actually the powers of a man.
Back to the story, I don't think that's a normal dog that got ROB'd. In fact, with the knowledge of the Fallout console, I'm thinking that's the dog buddy of a game-logic Vault guy.
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