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Knife o kinesisHelp resolve my eternal confusion. Did Jack Slash actually make knives stretch really long and poke people, or did he use some kind of knifo-kinesis to be slashy at range?
Knife o kinesisHelp resolve my eternal confusion. Did Jack Slash actually make knives stretch really long and poke people, or did he use some kind of knifo-kinesis to be slashy at range?
The later, pretty much, although I must admit "knifo-kinesis to be slashy at range" is a...unique description.Help resolve my eternal confusion. Did Jack Slash actually make knives stretch really long and poke people, or did he use some kind of knifo-kinesis to be slashy at range?
If I lived in Worm I'd get a job at the PRT, writing up villain dossiers.The later, pretty much, although I must admit "knifo-kinesis to be slashy at range" is a...unique description.
Help resolve my eternal confusion. Did Jack Slash actually make knives stretch really long and poke people, or did he use some kind of knifo-kinesis to be slashy at range?
10.6 said:"His power isn't all that, I don't think," Grue spoke, slowly, as if considering the words as he spoke. "Space warping effect, so any blades he's holding have an edge that extends a horrendously long distance, all with the optimal force behind the swing. Swings his knife, cuts through an entire crowd. Doesn't make sense that he'd be able to murder everyone on Earth."
This also costs a lot of time and money. I don't think it would be a likely policy until a few Calvert-type scares come to the public attention, and even then every six months seems prohibitively costly to me.
This could be curbed if some Tinker on board can make devices like the one Number Man uses on Taylor without much trouble. Much easier to have someone go through your staff once a year and wand everyone.
Scion was first sighted in 1982, and parahumans came to public knowledge in 1987 (hinting that they there had been parahuman activity before that, but it was uncommon enough that it took a while for it to be acknowledged as a "thing".
I can't find a quote for when the PRT was founded in a quick search, but late 90s sounds about right for the time line.
Edit: Your point is still valid, of course, I just figured I'd put the right other numbers up since I remembered where the quote was.
Edit2: The Worm Timeglider actually has the formation of the PRT as being formed near the beginning of 1993 (with the Protectorate being made official at the same time), but I have no idea where they're getting that from.
Edit 3, edit harder:
Protectorate was made official on January 18th, 1993. The PRT was formed at the same time as or earlier to this date.
Help resolve my eternal confusion. Did Jack Slash actually make knives stretch really long and poke people, or did he use some kind of knifo-kinesis to be slashy at range?
He isn't morphing the metal so it appears to cross the room, no. The extension is quite invisible. More importantly, one of the reasons his power is so good is that he can use a small, fragile, but very sharp knife to great effect since his power doesn't dull the blade. Still, size and mass is probably a factor, which is why he uses a broadsword and Hookwolf later on.
I always thought he was able to project his blades?
That he could " broadcast" his hands or anything he held in them?
Jack can use his power with stabbing motions too. His range is at least far enough that he can act like a sniper.14.07 said:"Hear me out. Their only real long-range attacker is Jack, right? If I'm flying, the others won't be able to touch me."
"You think."
"I think. But if Jack's at the location, I'd be able to sense him before he got a bead on me. If that's the case… I can just attack without exposing myself, and I can alert you guys."
"Assuming he's not two steps ahead of us and waiting at some vantage point somewhere nearby," Grue said.
"He functions like a sniper," Tattletale said. "Ignore the fact that he slashes and stabs, he's a long-range combatant with a good sense of what the enemy is doing and how his teammates move on the battlefield. He stays out of the way and makes surgical strikes, then relocates to another vantage point. The only thing that keeps him from doing that all the time is how he has to stay involved with his team and keep them under control. Can't make it look like you're in charge if you're not there. With less teammates to manage, he's liable to go on the offensive."
So Jack's range is at least a "horrendously long distance."10.6 said:"His power isn't all that, I don't think," Grue spoke, slowly, as if considering the words as he spoke. "Space warping effect, so any blades he's holding have an edge that extends a horrendously long distance, all with the optimal force behind the swing. Swings his knife, cuts through an entire crowd. Doesn't make sense that he'd be able to murder everyone on Earth."
"Unless he somehow cuts the planet in half," Tattletale mused.
That was disquieting.
"No," Dinah spoke. "He doesn't."
Part of this is just to have a sword that Golem can't use his power on, but unless this is purely for show, having a big-ass super-sharp sword also plays better with Jack's power.26.a said:Jack emerged, and he wasn't holding a knife. He held a sword, nearly four feet long. A claymore.
[snip]
Jack let the sword swing, and Golem tensed. The blade didn't come anywhere close to pointing at him, but Jack's power cut shallow gouges into the surrounding brick, stone and pavement.
[snip]
"No. It's very, very real, Theodore," Jack said. He paced a little, letting the sword drag on the ground. The blade was white, Golem noted. White, exceptionally sharp.
Mannequin-made?
Or was this Jack an illusion? Nyx could imitate voices. She could create the gouges in the walls by way of the illusory smoke.
26.a said:A shadow emerged. Jack, riding atop a massive six-legged beast.
As Jack approached, he became more visible, and the nature of the beast became clear. He stood on Hookwolf's back, between the creature's shoulders.
Other shadows appeared in the mist, and they, in turn, clarified as they approached. Crawlers. Mannequins. Crimsons. Others.
Done in by my dad's lieutenant, Golem thought. No way he was walking away from this.
"I suppose we'll kill you," Jack said. "And you'll just have to take me on my word when I say I'll find something suitably horrific to do as punishment for your failing our little game."
Theo raised a hand as a shield even before Jack used his power in conjunction with Hookwolf's. A hand of pavement, struck by a thousand slashes in a matter of a second, whittled to nothing. Then he had only armor, and that, too, started to come apart.
The cuts that followed parted flesh.
I see no inconsistency here.Though we also get the painful inconsistency that he needs to swing blades to make the effect work... and then when he rides on Hookwolf, he can just make Hookwolf constantly project cuts in flagrant contradiction of this limitation. Consistency!
Hookwolf can move all his blades like a blender. Jack puts his power through the blades, and the blades are being swung.8.5 said:A slash of Leviathan's tail brought down two of the stuffed entities, and Hookwolf tackled him to ensure the Endbringer didn't get a moment's respite. Leviathan caught Hookwolf around the middle with his tail, flecks of blood and flesh spraying from the tail as it circled Hookwolf's body of skirring, whisking blades. Leviathan hurled Hookwolf away.
More showing of Jackwolf in action. Also much stronger evidence that the quality of the blade Jack is using and how hard it is being swung matters.Interlude 26b said:Hookwolf's storm of blades had been augmented to an endless range, the strength of the cuts, thrusts, slashes and stabs augmented a fraction by Jack's power. It didn't make the cuts more severe, but only extended the strength and severity of the cuts to the peak point in the blade's movement. Heavy armor plates were scarred, cut and torn away. The wounds to Golem's face, arms, chest and legs were different, the pain oddly delayed, as if it took time to sink in.
[snip]
Golem couldn't see, but he felt it as Jack struck him. Not Hookwolf's blade, but that damn sword. It hit him in the side, shearing through the metal of his armor, stopping at the reinforcing struts and spider silk armor beneath. The force of the blow was enough to flip him over onto his back. He was left gasping.
Better yet, imagine a setting rewrite in which the Major Crimes Unit vs. Barksdale/Greek/New Day/Stanfield Crew type of conflict takes precedence over cape fights... but they all still have powers.Continuing on my 'I watched The Wire' imagine an alternate universe where Danny was forced (perhaps with threats) into helping smuggling operations as a Dockworker[1], and paid for it (partially to keep him loyal, and partially because then if he tells the police, he's an accomplice selling out his partners, rather than an upstanding citizen), and then Taylor somehow discovered this.
[1] He'd be well placed for it, frankly. The Dockworkers probably don't do a lot of business, that's sorta the point, but all it takes is losing a can [Shipping Container] or two that just *happens* to be filled with drugs or guns or whatever...
Part three of the Worm/The Question crossover 'QUERY', which I'm getting a more and more solid idea about.
1 :: 2 ::
QUERY. 3
The Tattletale angle was a bust. My source had told me she was a free agent, maybe even the leader of her gang, but she'd torn that theory up when she'd mentioned her boss. I didn't know if it was a genuine slip, or if she was playing me. For all I knew she'd designed the whole conversation to steer me in the direction I was going now, but I couldn't start second guessing myself. If I really was that deeply tangled in her web, then I was trapped no matter what I did.
There was something else, something nagging at me. I'd seen something in her eyes when I'd mentioned the game being run in the mayor's office. There'd been a spark of recognition, maybe even fear. She'd made a connection that I'd missed, and it led to something that scared her. She might even know who was behind the state of the city, but who? What thread had she followed, where had it led?
It could have been the Empire Eighty Eight gang, the local neo-nazi chapter. They were organised enough, well funded, and had the connections to pull it off, but I couldn't see my way through to their motive. All out war between the Merchants, Empire and ABB would do irreparable harm to all of them.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Empire had a secret weapon—someone who could even stand up to Lung, but if that was it, why not go for a pre-emptive strike? Why the long game? That wasn't the Empire's style. I was looking for a lower-case-t thinker, someone who liked to play chess with people's lives.
There was only one other group whose roots ran deep enough to manage a manipulation this long and this complex. A hive of inefficiency, bureaucracy, and pandering stuffed suits, led by woman who might have been just bloody-minded enough to try something like this. I swore I'd never come back, but this particular mountain wouldn't come to Muhammad.
I walked up to the front desk, drawing stares and making the guards edgy. The tourists in the lobby were shooting glances, probably thought I was a cape. The foam turrets were tracking me, probably thought I was dangerous. The receptionist was staring at me with perfect professionalism, she probably thought I was a hero. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
"Hello," I said, smiling through the false-skin of my mask. "I'd like to speak with Director Piggot."
The woman kept her calm admirably. I almost wondered if she was a robot. "And who should I say wants an appointment?"
"That's The Question," I said. I suppressed a smile at the joke. It was self indulgent, my little vice.
Her expression wavered then, confusion. I didn't speak, she didn't deserve for this to be easy. I had no memory of this woman in particular, but I knew the type: confident, aspirational, driven, and completely ruthless in pursuing her career. She may have only been a receptionist now, but she saw it as a stepping stone to a higher place in the bureaucracy, and woe to anyone who got in her way, or made her look bad.
"Please take a seat," she said politely.
I politely acquiesced. The waiting area was off to the side of the lobby, with plastic chairs and a table of magazines. I picked one up, it had a picture of Armsmaster on the front.
"Are you a hero!?"
I turned to look. A little boy was sitting next to me, maybe eleven or twelve.
"No. Just someone who asks a lot of questions."
"Like what?" He asked, spinning on the chair to face me, cross-legged.
I looked around for his mother, who was absent. Children his age shouldn't be left alone.
"Like why the PRT looks more like a public relations operation than a crime-fighting body," I said, idly scanning the waiting area for microphones. "Like why a fifth of the personnel in this building have media or marketing degrees and no police qualifications. Like why, in four years of serious parahuman gang violence, nobody in this building has made any move on the villains' civilian identities, or pursued any of their purely human criminal interests."
"Ooh," the boy said. The kid's eyes roved desperately to the magazine in my hand. "Armsmaster's my favourite hero!"
I looked down at the glossy photo. "Did you ever wonder why his helmet leaves his mouth uncovered?" The boy shook his head. "Theory: his teeth have been replaced with microtechnology which reads human thoughts. Possibility: the technology uses his mouth as a resonance chamber to detect and amplify sub-vocalisations."
"Cool!"
A man cleared his throat to my left. "Actually it's to make me less intimidating to the public." Armsmaster. He'd arrived so quickly he must already have been in the building. I probably wouldn't rate a visit from the local Protectorate head otherwise.
I stood to face the hero, silently forming words in the back of my throat. "[That might work on them. I know the truth.]"
Armsmaster did nothing to give away his unique sensory equipment. "I got a call that a new cape showed up and asked to speak with the director. Protocol for prospective heroes is to speak with a Protectorate representative."
"That's not why I'm here. I need to ask the director some questions."
"An interview? Who are you working for?"
"No one. I'm investigating a crime that I believe the director might be involved in, or is tacitly allowing to continue."
Armsmaster stared at me for a moment. "You're telling the truth."
"[Always.]"
"The director's busy. If you're willing, you and I can talk for a few minutes."
I nodded and dropped the magazine. I'd come for the director, I wanted to look her in the eye when I asked the question, but that didn't look like it was happening. The local Protectorate leader was a good enough runner-up prize. There were questions I'd been saving for him as well.
Armsmaster turned and started to lead me towards where I knew the ground-floor interview rooms were.
"Wait. You need to find someone to look after the kid."
Armsmaster turned and tilted his head to look behind me. "What kid?"
I turned. The waiting area was empty. "My mistake. His mother must have found him. Lead on."
Armsmaster led me down a narrow corridor, and into one of the small, cold rooms where witnesses, victims and sometimes even unpowered criminals were interviewed. The rooms had a unique, unforgettable smell. Some faint combination of ammonia from the concealed containment foam capsules, and vending machine coffee. Being back in the cramped room was like being thrown back in time, and I could almost feel the lock engage as the door closed. It felt different now that I was on the other side of the table. I imagined the unmanageable weight of stupidity pressing down on me from the floors above, and shivered at the thought of being at the mercy of a building full of near-fascist bureaucrats.
"All right," Armsmaster said, settling back into the steel chair. "Start from the beginning. Tell me what you think you know."
"You're not ready for what I know, but I will tell you about the house of cards being built on Captain's Hill."
He isn't morphing the metal so it appears to cross the room, no. The extension is quite invisible. More importantly, one of the reasons his power is so good is that he can use a small, fragile, but very sharp knife to great effect since his power doesn't dull the blade. Still, size and mass is probably a factor, which is why he uses a broadsword and Hookwolf later on.
I enjoyed the Wire series, but I prefer the Ghost in the shell series more because even though the system is corrupt, the heroes are expandable pawns in the war on crime and the bad guys are replaceable.... but at least the real bad guys get what they deserved.Better yet, imagine a setting rewrite in which the Major Crimes Unit vs. Barksdale/Greek/New Day/Stanfield Crew type of conflict takes precedence over cape fights... but they all still have powers.
The slow-burn investigation of Coil - with actual stakeouts! - in Cenotaph was the absolute best part of the fic IMO and something that has very rarely been attempted since.
Razor sharp wit
Now I can't stop seeing Cedric Daniels playing Coil.Better yet, imagine a setting rewrite in which the Major Crimes Unit vs. Barksdale/Greek/New Day/Stanfield Crew type of conflict takes precedence over cape fights... but they all still have powers.
Let's add Jack Otaku to the Jack Slash AU list. He has spiky hair and carries around a massive sword.
I have a question, just how scary is Mannequin? Compared to all other S9 members, I feel like he's the weakest. Compared to hax like Bonesaw's bio-hax, Crawler's adapto-hax, Siberian's lolnope-hax, and Jackslash's social-hax, I don't see anything that terrifying from him.
She sought out the other clone, finding him at the far end of her lab. He was a boy, narrow, with long blond hair and a very worried expression. A complex pyramid of beakers and glass measuring cups was arranged around him.
He was muttering to himself, "Wall them in. Wall myself in. Wall them in. Wall myself in."
"Come on, A.G.," Bonesaw said. She reached through the structure and took his hand. "Out through the door."
"Not a door. Trap. Safest way to ward off attackers. Used my hair, made a tripwire, tying ends together. Maximum devastation if intruder breaks perimeter."
"Through the window, then. I'll wall you in. Promise."
He nodded. With excessive care, he climbed on top of the jars that were precariously balanced on one another and slipped out through another aperture in the arrangement, higher up. He stumbled as he landed.
"This way. We'll wall you in."
you're looking at someone who spends every minute of the day buried alive, and loves it.
It really put me into Mannequin's head when I first read it, and the thought of my fondest wish being to just get bricked up in a wall somewhere and forgotten about made me really uncomfortable. That's a horror story for most people, but for Alan Gramme being entombed alive is his happy ending.
After he went crazy, he still had to deal with living exposed in this vast world beneath an infinite sky, so he literally cut out each of his organs and imprisoned them in plastic. We think 'cyborg', but that's not how he experiences it at all. When you look at not-very-scary-Mannequin walking around, you're looking at someone who spends every minute of the day buried alive, and loves it.
Better yet, imagine a setting rewrite in which the Major Crimes Unit vs. Barksdale/Greek/New Day/Stanfield Crew type of conflict takes precedence over cape fights... but they all still have powers.
The slow-burn investigation of Coil - with actual stakeouts! - in Cenotaph was the absolute best part of the fic IMO and something that has very rarely been attempted since.
I can see that. Kind of a Wormverse Akatsuki, minus the grand plan. Expostfacto, we can look at the current and past members of the Nine and say there are a bunch of "and I must scream" spooky types, like Chuckles and Mannequin, who probably couldn't do massive damage but were just scary in their own right. There were also members who were horrifying in concept, like Skinslip. But like you said, that's not how they're introduced. He does seem lacking and out of place in the initial S9 arc.When I first read through it, the Nine gave me the impression of this scary group of individuals, each very powerful and can affect the entire the city with their power.