So Amy is a natural sensor with a long range, Assault and Armsmaster are nascent sensors, Assault knows roughly that Missy and Taylor are causing misunderstandings and finding it hilarious, and Yuuno apparently found some artifacts that (seemingly) connect to Hive, not to mention the other plot hooks in this interlude.
God I want there to be a mass update, if only to follow all them and see the resolutions. You do great work, author! I'm hooked!
Fake Edit: And Riley! Magical Girl Bonesaw! The potential hilarity! I mean it's definitely going to be a serious moment, but the potential hilarity!
... GOD DAMNIT. And suddenly it's all ashes. Yeah, things are coming up roses for Taylor and Missy. But Dinah's in hell. I don't expect her to survive this one either. Coil is going to drug her to the gills, and use her as his own personal Magic 8 Ball until she burns out completely. And no one fucking knows a god-damn thing about it.
As the battle had ended, Jack had snapped out of it and shut the computer they'd been using off. "I don't think we're going to be visiting New England anytime soon."
"But I bet she'd give me a great fight," Crawler argued.
"There are going to be far too many eyes on the place now, we can rethink things once the swell of attention on the region dies down."
Riley did her best to hide her frown. She'd seen earlier videos of Minerva in action, and this just reinforced her conclusions. No matter what people called her, Minerva was a magical girl. A modern styled one, but that still had a cute little sidekick helper that stayed out of the big fights and obviously used powerful magic that even drew fancy circle-like things around her at times. Not identical to the stories her mother used to share with her, of course, but that was to be expected. After all, every magical girl, or occasional team, had their own theme.
The interlude was probably prepared slowly over the course of the events it describes, so it was probably a "post the chapter, pull up Interlude document, post Interlude" move.
Jack's reason was probably rationalization, given how much he is usually relying on his shard-granted intuition. Said intuition is currently going "It EATS us. Let the Shards designed for hazard intervention and research handle that. We are going to stay WAAAAAAAY over here." Maybe with a side of "IT STOOD SOLO AGAINST A CONFLICT ENGINE! EVERYONE OUT OF THE UNIVERSE! FALSE VACUUM COLLAPSE MODULE, I NEED ONE!"
Well it sounds like Amy is going to become a part of the core group. Also maybe Ethan given some time. Things are starting to get very interesting. I look forward to the next chapter.
An odd thought; if the Youth Guard situation does turn out to be strictly local, what are the odds that it exists because Coil made arrangements to have them put extra pressure on the PRT long term, and the investigation could lead back to him?
On the other hand, if it isn't local, then I imagine a great many PRT directors and Ward members will be enjoying the self-destruction of the single biggest pain in their collective asses....
I'm somewhat confused by this as I haven't read Worm (read not able to read something that dark) does " Every magical girl was also a Good Girl. " have something to do with what Jack did to her?
It should've failed when the primary power system started to resonate through the ground loop, thanks to an incorrect resistor that I've swapped out for the right one. Would've been explosive, but it never got to that point. Instead the actual projection unit bypassed the protective diodes directly and spiked power back into the system backwards, which shouldn't have happened and caused a virtual short. That made the primary control board overheat, which resulted in a cascade failure that ended with the central processing stack heating to the point of failure. That shouldn't have happened, but it did, and figuring out why requires getting everything working again with some extra diagnostic equipment included."
I'm almost afraid of what this means. Since it feels like Leet's shard may have just found something... Interesting. I wonder if this will lead to Leet being able to make Mana based tech, or better yet, Mana based tech, without his normal restriction of only building things once.
Edit: I think this also gives insight into how Leet's shard works in this, or at least how it may have gathered the data it uses to make the designs Leet uses, by building things with designed failure points, then investigating the things that do something unexpected, either when they fail in some weird way, or when they don't fail.
I'm somewhat confused by this as I haven't read Worm (read not able to read something that dark) does " Every magical girl was also a Good Girl. " have something to do with what Jack did to her?
Riley is a Good Girl. Riley does what Uncle Jack tells her to do, because Good Girls do what they are told.
Jack forced Riley to trigger by repeatedly maiming her parents and forcing her to fix them. If I recall correctly, it ended up with said parents as the first two spider-bots. She literally broke, is stuck in the mentality of a 7-10 year old girl, and is obsessed with being a Good Girl, because her mother's last words were "be a good girl" or "you're a good girl" or something to that effect.
Riley is a Good Girl. Riley does what Uncle Jack tells her to do, because Good Girls do what they are told.
Jack forced Riley to trigger by repeatedly maiming her parents and forcing her to fix them. If I recall correctly, it ended up with said parents as the first two spider-bots. She literally broke, is stuck in the mentality of a 7-10 year old girl, and is obsessed with being a Good Girl, because her mother's last words were "be a good girl" or "you're a good girl" or something to that effect.
Armsmaster," Emily said, getting Colin's attention. "May I ask why Mister Calle is here?"
"I've retained him as legal counsel," Colin replied as he closed the door. "He wasn't my first choice, but my options turned out to be surprisingly limited." He then handed Calle one of the paperwork stacks from the cart.
"Of course." He then walked around the table, dropping stacks in front of everyone at the table other than Calle, though he checked each one before doing so. "These contain the paperwork suitable for each of you, so a few things are missing from some of the stacks. Included are copies of the notice of protective custody for Miss Biron, details of restraining orders against Mister Biron and Miss Hull, judicial orders suspending all Youth Guard activity in the state, and notices of lawsuits that have been filed against the Youth Guard. Mister Biron and Miss Hull also have copies of the warrants to search their domiciles, which are already being carried out by investigative teams. I provided them with Miss Biron's keys so that they wouldn't need to break any locks."
Colin looked at the man, and Hannah finally realized that he was angry. Pissed off to the point where he'd apparently circled back around to appear to be calm. Something that she hadn't known he was capable of. What the hell had happened?
Character growth.
Over a year of character growth in a matter of days.
We are starting to see the man that became Defiant from the corpse of Armsmaster.
Brought to you by Hilarious Misunderstandings that work out better for everyone involved.
Except the Youth Guard that WB created... but they suck worse than Ward does, so fuck them.
"Long story short?" Calle said. "The Youth Guard is, in this region at least, not doing their supposed job of looking out for the Wards, and are instead looking out for the parents of Wards. To the point of forcing Wards to stay in hostile home environments and apparently pushing them to the point of suicide. The judges we talked to agreed, and until things are settled they are forbidden from acting in the entire state. Should my associates elsewhere find sufficient evidence that this is happening in other states then I can assure you that they'll be shut down in those states as well."
Colin's answer was simple, to the point, and obvious in hindsight. "The PRT's lawyers aren't permitted to sue the Youth Guard by the agreements with them, at least not without inappropriately leveled fines being involved. Further, the first five law firms I approached work with the Youth Guard and didn't feel comfortable even looking at the case."
Wow. Goes to show that the 'Good' Law Firms, and those that the law can 'Count on' are about, no?
That the first Lawyer that could actually help him, and was willing to do so, was the one known for helping Villains.
"Just remember that there's no more proof than what anyone else has come up with. Based on things, though, I'm thinking that little Missy didn't try to kill herself. I can't see how Colin missed the rumors that she visited the Heberts earlier in the week, though perhaps he felt that getting past all of the watchers was ridiculous and people were seeing things? Either way, I'm betting that it was her going after a potential alternate source of power due to the Youth Guard idiocy. One that she got, and used being in the PRT building while getting it as a 'fuck you' to the Youth Guard. I can't see her wanting back into the Wards, and I have no intention of forcing her in that direction, but we can at least help protect her as she works things out. Besides, who'd suspect that she could pull things off under our noses? It's the perfect distraction from the truth."
...Of course Ethan figured it all out correctly and then acted in the most sensible manner possible, in complete contrast to the show he puts on for everyone else in the world.
I swear he HAS to be related to Wade.
Worse, if attacking the girl did work and removed her powers then there was no guarantee that she'd survive the attempt. She was positive that her lower body couldn't survive without her powers maintaining it, and if the 'depowering' was actually consuming powers without reversing the effects that they'd had then losing them would likely kill her. She'd much rather that one of the others end her life than to intentionally risk an innocent to the same effect. And then there were the other possible effects. She and Oliver had split that damned vial, so if her power was consumed it might affect him as well.
Worst of all might be the possibility that she somehow cloned the girl, apparently irremovable necklace and all, and the clone went on a rampage depowering parahumans. That could be the kind of thing that got the entire team killed, instead of just Noelle, and left an even worse situation behind. More so if Noelle was left alone, or even forced to make more clones of the girl to depower more parahumans.
And Noelle proves once again to have been the ONLY member of her team to have had ANY brains at all.
And why everyone else is sooooo desperate to get her back. The poor sods probably can't survive without her reminding them to breathe every few minutes.
Of course, going up to the cape that had just driven an Endbringer off solo to ask her questions about her status as a cape was a daunting prospect in and of itself.
Sadly, his distraction was dealt with efficiently, while the others showing up for the meeting to discuss the battle hadn't arrived yet, so he was left with his other, less flattering observations. He'd noticed early on that he was getting angry, and in particular had nearly damaged his motorcycle in said anger. Evaluating why he was angry had led to him realizing that he was angry that Minerva was keeping Leviathan away, preventing him from engaging with the Endbringer. Perhaps, even, stealing his potential glory.
Realizing that he wanted Minerva, who he believed to be a minor, to fail against Leviathan, perhaps even die so that he could prove himself against the beast? That was sobering. He didn't like that part of himself once he'd noticed that it was there, though he didn't quite feel the same about the part of himself that was annoyed that she was testing the nanothorn system against an Endbringer instead of him. That, at least, he felt he was justified in doing, given the amount of time and effort had been spent creating it. Though he was able to temper that slightly by admitting that Hal had been an immense help with multiple projects, his own implementation of the nanothorn system included.
Holy shit. Fucking hell, Colin has jumped literal years in his Character Growth.
And all it took was Vista's apparent suicide and loss of powers, followed by a single person Soloing an Endbringer.
As compared to Canon where it took the loss of all your limbs, most of your intestines, integrated circuitry that RoboCop would have looked positively on, as well as everything in your life that you cared about besides Dragon being shoved down the toilet with your boss's rotting corpse.
Riley did her best to hide her frown. She'd seen earlier videos of Minerva in action, and this just reinforced her conclusions. No matter what people called her, Minerva was a magical girl. A modern styled one, but that still had a cute little sidekick helper that stayed out of the big fights and obviously used powerful magic that even drew fancy circle-like things around her at times. Not identical to the stories her mother used to share with her, of course, but that was to be expected. After all, every magical girl, or occasional team, had their own theme.
No, the differences weren't what was important. What was important was the one thing that all of the magical girls had in common, one that her mother had emphasised on a regular basis while sharing the stories.
'Nah, it would be a wash. Crawler shows up, Minerva gets pissed, Crawler disappears... permanently and in a flash of light, possibly included was a blast of force to distract him from being teleported to an uninhabited planet on a solar system missing Mars.
For bringing it all to their attention, he'd bought the kid who'd first noticed a blinking light on the decorative item in their home an ice cream. Noticing details like that was important and to be encouraged, in his opinion.
Jack forced Riley to trigger by repeatedly maiming her parents and forcing her to fix them. If I recall correctly, it ended up with said parents as the first two spider-bots. She literally broke, is stuck in the mentality of a 7-10 year old girl, and is obsessed with being a Good Girl, because her mother's last words were "be a good girl" or "you're a good girl" or something to that effect.
And he didn't maim them, he killed them in front of her which is what made her trigger. He then proceeded to keep killing them in sequence over and over as she got more and more desperate to revive and save them, until she finally became too physically exhausted to do it anymore, whereupon her mother told her it was alright, and to be a good girl.
And that was Jack's hook into recruiting her into the 9.
Lung had been brooding for over an hour after the livestreams had ended. The girl, Minerva, had done what no one else, not even he or even Scion had accomplished.
She had stood alone against an Endbringer and thwarted it.
She had not slain the beast, but there was no doubt in his mind that she was able. That Leviathan had fled the field of battle, sacrificing his own flesh in a desperate escape confirmed that.
Interestingly, his mind turned back to his childhood, thoughts of Super Sentai and Magical Girls filling his thoughts.
"This cape, Minerva, there are ways to contact her?" he growled out.
"Yes, sir."
"Arrange a meeting. She deserves the proper respect."
Lung had been brooding for over an hour after the livestreams had ended. The girl, Minerva, had done what no one else, not even he or even Scion had accomplished.
She had stood alone against an Endbringer and thwarted it.
She had not slain the beast, but there was no doubt in his mind that she was able. That Leviathan had fled the field of battle, sacrificing his own flesh in a desperate escape confirmed that.
Interestingly, his mind turned back to his childhood, thoughts of Super Sentai and Magical Girls filling his thoughts.
"This cape, Minerva, there are ways to contact her?" he growled out.
"Yes, sir."
"Arrange a meeting. She deserves the proper respect."
Lung had been brooding for over an hour after the livestreams had ended. The girl, Minerva, had done what no one else, not even he or even Scion had accomplished.
She had stood alone against an Endbringer and thwarted it.
She had not slain the beast, but there was no doubt in his mind that she was able. That Leviathan had fled the field of battle, sacrificing his own flesh in a desperate escape confirmed that.
Interestingly, his mind turned back to his childhood, thoughts of Super Sentai and Magical Girls filling his thoughts.
"This cape, Minerva, there are ways to contact her?" he growled out.
"Yes, sir."
"Arrange a meeting. She deserves the proper respect."
I'm almost afraid of what this means. Since it feels like Leet's shard may have just found something... Interesting. I wonder if this will lead to Leet being able to make Mana based tech, or better yet, Mana based tech, without his normal restriction of only building things once.
Edit: I think this also gives insight into how Leet's shard works in this, or at least how it may have gathered the data it uses to make the designs Leet uses, by building things with designed failure points, then investigating the things that do something unexpected, either when they fail in some weird way, or when they don't fail.
Who is this guy and what is he going on about?
No seriously, can somebody translate what is happening in this fragment to something that doesn't require me to (re)watch the show?
Who is this guy and what is he going on about?
No seriously, can somebody translate what is happening in this fragment to something that doesn't require me to (re)watch the show?
Yuuno Scrya: Initially the boy who could turn into a ferret. He was involved in the Jewel Seed incident that introduced Nanoha to magic and kicked everything off the ground. He would later become head of the Infinity Library. Presumably he's acting in that capacity in that interlude.
Who is this guy and what is he going on about?
No seriously, can somebody translate what is happening in this fragment to something that doesn't require me to (re)watch the show?
Yuuno is an archeologist, one who specializes in belkan tech/magic (I think), some of which is quite dangerous, as in, world breaking. And he just found out a network of old belkan tech just turned back on for seemingly no reason.
Yuuno is an archeologist, one who specializes in belkan tech/magic (I think), some of which is quite dangerous, as in, world breaking. And he just found out a network of old belkan tech just turned back on for seemingly no reason.
It is a good indicator that Missy might have trouble catching up to Taylor's math abilities if she's doing things that the Number Man can't figure out.
Good Luck, Missy! (And Amy, and the other future recruits we've been teased with...)
Coil had been thwarted so thoroughly in this story so far that I really wasn't expecting him to pull off a success like this. Nice to see that even without his power being reliable he's a slimy schemer who will (eventually) get a comeuppance.
I'm somewhat confused by this as I haven't read Worm (read not able to read something that dark) does " Every magical girl was also a Good Girl. " have something to do with what Jack did to her?
In addition to what was already explained, Jack was able to control Riley throughout her time in the Nine by poking at her need to be a Good Girl. If she has another avenue for that specific affirmation, Jack is massively at risk of losing her loyalty.
