Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
One of the advantages of using Devices to fuel template creation is that the cooldown drops to two weeks.
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
- Location
- Canada
Here we go, the penultimate story in my series. Ugh, this one fought me so hard. Between work, holidays, family, and miscellaneous, I had to continuously shift the finish line for completing this, currently at "Before Silently posts a new chapter". Saw that the 1st post had been updated today so finally did the last few touch-ups. Still not fully satisfied, but I think it's good enough now.
Sovereign: Infinite
In a darkened warehouse, a crowd of people listen to a speech from a man atop a large crate. The sound of shattering glass rings out from all around them as a mass of forms pour through the windows. The small amount of light from above vanishes as screams and gunshots ring out, muzzle flashes the only remaining illumination as the swarm engulfs the crowd. The man atop the crate attempts to ward them off, but finds his thoughts sluggish and his arms slow to rise. He then collapses, the back of his neck sliced open, and falls into the churning morass of bodies below. As the commotion grows quieter, a figure floats down from a skylight, giggling as the carnage spreads on the floor below her.
Lacey felt that being mugged was just par for the course after the last month. First Danny drops everything in his life because Taylor had never come home and was still missing, with absolutely no leads and a heartbreakingly lack of effort by the police. Then the DWU building was completely demolished due to Parahuman actions and resulted in several casualties. Without Danny at the helm, everyone who survived hadn't had the heart or the drive to rebuild the organization, leaving them all struggling to scrape by and find new sources of income. Lacey had gotten a cashier job while Kurt was leveraging the few connections he had to be considered for a position on a construction crew. Getting yanked into an alley by a man with a knife on the way home from work was yet another hurdle Brockton Bay was throwing at her.
"Gimme any money you got, bitch, and I won't hurt ya." The man snarled, jabbing the knife in her direction. Lacey slowly crouched, laying her grocery bags on the ground before reaching for her back pocket, hoping to reach her can of Mace before he lost patience. Dropping her gaze downward as she reached into the pocket and prepared to spray, Lacey missed the orange orb impacting the man's head and rendering him unconscious. Pulling the can before her and spraying, Lacey threw her body sideways while listening for the cursing and screaming from the mugger. Her ears failing to hear the sounds of pain from the man, she glances up to where he had been to behold a woman in a skimpy costume standing above the prone man, a fireball hissing before her and a smirk on her face.
"Nice move. Would've probably taken him out if I hadn't done it first." The cape said, striding towards Lacey and extending her hand. "Calamity Witch, nice to save you."
"Ah, Lacey." grasping Calamity Witch's hand in a firm handshake, Lacey mentally shook off the encounter. "Sorry, are you going to call the police?"
Calamity Witch looked back at the would-be mugger, "In a few moments, first I'll make sure you're alright." With a gesture, Lacey's spilled groceries began floating and inserting themselves back into the bags, before the bags themselves floated up towards Lacey.
"Oh, thank you very much." said Lacey with a smile, taking the bags. Only to frown as a mental voice rang through her head <Can you hear this?>
"Did you say something?" Lacey asked Calamity Witch. The cape narrowed her eyes, and the voice spoke again in Lacey's mind <Say Sovereign if you hear this.>
"Sovereign?" Lacey said confusingly. "Is this you speaking in my head?"
"You can hear my telepathy!" Calamity Witch bounced up and took Lacey's hands in her own. "Oh this is wonderful. Sovereign wishes to meet with you."
"Miss, thank you for saving me, but I can't just…" Lacey trailed off as her vision was filled with bright orange light, which faded to reveal a dimly lit metal room. "Where the fuck are we?!"
"Sovereign!" Calamity Witch chirped as she released Lacey's hands to skip towards a figure on a darkened throne. "This lady here can hear my telepathy! So I brought her to you, just as you've ordered!"
"Well done, Calamity Witch." Lacey shivered at the voice, a deep, masculine tone combined with that of a girl. "Resume patrols while template installation commences."
"Yes, my Sovereign!" Calamity Witch said with a curtsey, before orange light enveloped her and she vanished. Lacey stomped towards the figure on the throne, who was slowly getting to their feet.
"Alright, what the hell is going on here!?" Lacey snarled at the figure. She then gasped as the person moved into the dim light. She was wearing an intimidating set of armour, the dark metal edged with intimidating ridges that radiated outward to the limbs from a blue jewel in the person's chest. But the main reason for Lacey's shock was the face of the person, framed with a menacing helm that branched upward into a crown-like structure. "Taylor!?! Oh sweetie, it's me, Lacey! Your dad has been looking for you for weeks, he's worried sick! Did these people kidnap you?"
Lacey's questions trailed off as the armour lit up, a circle on every limb and the lower torso glowing blue as light flowed from the crystal in Taylor's chest along the ridges in the armor. A blue beam shone out from the gem and moved up and down Lacey's body before focusing on a point in her chest. "Linker Core Detected. Commence Template Installation." Lacey felt her body seize up, unable to move a single muscle, as a blinding glow built up within the jewel. Lacey tried to fight, to call out Taylor's name, but could do nothing but watch as the blue light discharged down the beam and into her body and….
….Infinite Enhancement looked upon her Goddess, the conqueror of worlds and pride of Galea, and felt nothing but bliss in her heart. She fell to the ground, supplicating herself before her deity, ashamed that she had not yet fulfilled even one of her Goddess's orders. She would not fail her divine master any further.
Victor adjusted his position and peered through the scope. Rumors had spread that Lung, Oni Lee, and a supposed third chink cape had been taken down. This prompted Kaiser to take Hookwolf, Stormtiger, Krieg, Rune, and Menja & Fenja; and lead a probe deep into ABB territory to either garner a reaction or claim the area for the Empire. This left Victor to run Hookwolf's largest dog fighting ring and keep watch for trouble during cleanup. He wasn't expecting any, but with the entire underworld structure being upended, anything could happen. Victor frowned, concentrating.on..what...was….that….just….a….blur….what's….purple….thing….gone….now….watch….men.
Victor shook his head, suppressing a yawn. That's what he got for covering Brad's nighttime duties. He glanced down to where the night's earnings were being loaded up for transport and flinched. All the men that had been working were gone, replaced by chinks fearlessly handling all the money the Empire had rightfully earned. He hurtled a flashbang down at them, taking glee in their screams and panic, before taking aim and emptying his rifle's magazine into the snivelling gooks. Rappelling down from his perch, he proceeded to take out the remaining survivors with his pistols and some martial arts he had ironically stolen from ABB members, leaving them all dead. He stood up from the last body and surveyed the area for his missing men, then looked back down at the bodies and froze. Because they were those of his fellow E88 members, all of them now dead by his hands.
Victor felt a sharp object pierce into his back and slash upwards, throwing him to the ground with a spray of blood and in severe pain. His last sight was two blood-splattered outlines transforming into a boy with a knife and a silently laughing woman before everything went black.
Growling, Brad hung up the phone after his report. His initial thought that Bitch had killed Victor was rejected by the lack of destruction to the building and that the dogs hadn't been taken; their cages had merely been opened and they'd been left to fend for themselves. Still, she might be made the scapegoat for Victor's death, as the E88 was both on the warpath and extremely confused. There were no survivors from the attack, no one was claiming credit, and the Empire's reliable informants in the BBPD and the PRT said that there was nothing conclusive from their organizations either. And then several of their secure and secret supply depots had been robbed, with their defences negated, no survivors remaining, and absolutely nothing of value left behind. Which implied it was someone high in the E88 who was doing this. Cursing under his breath, Brad got back in the car with Tiger and Cricket. "Kaiser says nothing yet. All the others got fuck-all at their spots, so we're to sit tight and freeze our asses off. We're to "question" this asshole if they show up here." Cricket snorted from the back, while Stormtiger just nodded and kept his head near the window.
After another twenty minutes, Stormtiger straightened up. "Someone's coming, one person, heading straight for the stashhouse, smells….like dog. Nothing else I can make out." The three hustled out the car and prepared to intercept the person; Hookwolf with blades poking from his skin, Stormtiger with swirls of air around his fists, and Cricket twirling her kamas. As they were about to rush their opponent, a strange not-light washed over the three and the limited colors of the night faded even more.
"What the shit was that?!" Brad shouted, checking himself over. He then noticed there were only two of them remaining in the alley. "Cricket! Tiger, let's get this fucker!" Seeing a nod, he launched himself forward, his human form vanishing beneath a bladed mass of metal shaped like a wolf. Stormtiger would follow from the air and force them to fight by blasting their escape route. Turning the corner, Hookwolf lunged, his bladed arms spinning to tear his enemy to shreds. Only to find a sword parrying his blows and directing him face first into a wall. Pulling his head out and snarling, Hookwolf saw his enemy turn towards Stormtiger whose wind claws were ready to blast them. Only for the flying cape to barely juke out of the way of a blur plummeting from above and impacting the street hard enough to form a crater and throw up a cloud of dust. Stormtiger shot multiple air blasts into the cloud, while Hookwolf pushed off from the wall with a roar and charged into the fray. A spear extended from his arm and thrusted towards a blurry silhouette in the cloud, only to stop dead upon contact with the figure. Hookwolf felt his feet leaving the ground as he was lifted by his weapon and used to try and swat Stormtiger, only for the aerokinetic to dodge and Hookwolf to push off from the spike before he could be slammed into the ground. Gesturing for Stormtiger to come down to him, Hookwolf watched the settling dust cloud warily.
"Tiger, where are the men!? This safehouse was full of guards, and there's no way they'd have missed what's going!"
With a furrowed brow, Stormtiger replied, "Wolf...I can only sense three other people out here. The house is completely silent. I can't hear any traffic or background noises either. It's like the whole city is dead." Both of the men tensed as the air cleared and they got the first good look at their opponents, who were revealed to be two women arguing with each other. One was tall and spindly, with long limbs, a long face, and skintight exercise clothing over whipcord muscles. She was holding a golden sword with a strangely rounded point. The other was large and burly, bulging muscles restrained by leather biker clothing, the left side of her face a mass of scars from eye to mouth. She was carrying in one hand a hammer the same size as a truck's grille resting on her shoulders. But what really drew the men's eyes was the dog ears emerging from the woman's heads and the tails protruding from their pants.
"You seeing these freaks?" Hookwolf muttered up at Stormtiger. "What are they chatting about?"
"They're deciding who gets to kill us." Stormtiger replied with anger in his voice. "Think you can keep em' busy while I deal with their third? They're on the roof behind them, so probably the one keeping us in this world since they ain't out here fighting."
"Yeah, I'll keep them pinned." said Hookwolf, his lupine form growing and shifting, new metal and blades erupting from his core to form a new shape, one he felt would better allow him to deal with their opponents. Stormtiger rose into the air again, primed to fly over their heads the moment that Hookwolf engaged them. The two dog-eared women glanced over at them before the one with the hammer took a crouched sprinter's position, and the one with the sword leapt onto her back on the other side from the hammer. Hookwolf and Stormtiger both tensed as a purple aura enveloped the two women, and then in a blink of the eyes, the two appeared directly in front of Hookwolf. A spear shot from his body to ward off the giant hammer arcing towards him, and he caught a glimpse of the swordswoman jumping unnaturally fast up towards Stormtiger, when…
BBOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!
His head still spinning and his vision blurred, Hookwolf came to with the enormous hammer pinning him within a brand new crater in the street. He flexed and twisted to throw it off and escape, only to find its weight far greater than he could lift. He tried to shift his core to the edges so he could separate from the trapped metal and reform, but it was too centralized under the massive head for him to escape that way. The woman was glaring down at him and snarling, so he lashed out at her with a free limb, only for his blades to fail at even penetrating her skin. She glanced up as the other woman came into view, wiping a cloth up her sword.
"He's pinned good. Other one dealt with?" The hammer-wielding woman said with a growl.
"See for yourself." The other spoke loftily, gesturing behind her with her head as she continued to clean her sword. Hookwolf twisted his eyes so he could look where she indicated, and bellowed in fury when he beheld Stormtiger's severed head sitting atop a pile composed of his dismembered body.
"I'll kill you!!!" Hookwolf roared as he resumed his struggles with renewed fury. "I will rip you bitches apart for this!!! You're fucking dead!!!..."
"Ugh." The swordswoman stepped closer to her companion next to Hookwolf as he continued straining to escape the hammer while shouting threats and curses at them, as well as ineffectually swiping at the two women standing above him. "So noisy. May I finish him off?"
The other woman grunted, waving her hand dismissively down at Hookwolf. "May as well. He wasn't all that interesting to fight." Prompting further curses from the trapped gangster.
"Very well." She raised her sword with both hands and rotated it so it was pointed towards Hookwolf. Before his eyes, the sword split into multiple segments, and with a hum, they began to rapidly spin into a golden blur. The now-chainsaw was then thrust into his body, where he felt it begin to grind away at the metal. He responded by spinning the blades in that area and attempting to counteract the chainsaw, but to his growing horror he could actually feel his body growing weaker through some unknown means. In desperation, he once more tried to throw everything he had into escaping, fighting harder than he ever had before to save himself. But he was trapped, his armor weakening, his death imminent….
[AGREE-...] CRUNCH!!!!
An interdimensional connection was interrupted by a giant hammer reducing a wolf-shaped metal figure surrounding an organic orb into an almost monomolecular smear on the ground.
The Empire sentry gripped his weapon nervously and continued peering through his field glasses. He had reported the person approaching the house, but before the guards could prepare for an assault the person had vanished. Attempt to contact the on-site capes had proven futile, so a call went out to the ones further afield. He shouted at the sudden reappearance of not just one, but three people in unfamiliar costumes, as well as two sets of heavily ravaged remains. The man swallowed hard as he recognized the detached head of one and the metal remnants of the other. In a nearby alley, a pile of ashes began to scatter in the midnight wind.
"Everyone's here sir. Ready when you are." At Krieg's words, Kaiser turned away from viewing the sunrise through the tinted window and took his seat at the head of the table. Sitting before him were the Parahumans of the Empire Eighty Eight, weary from the previous night but in costume and awaiting to hear what the urgent meeting was about.
"As you're all aware, last night we set up ambushes at all our essential stashes and safehouses, to deal with the people who have been raiding us and who killed Victor." Kaiser paused to allow Othala to stifle a sob, rubbing at her reddened eyes. "Myself and Rune received a distress call from the one Hookwolf was guarding, and we arrived to find the stash cleaned out, the on-site team dead, and the bodies of Hookwolf and Stormtiger left in the street."
Othala burst into tears with his statement, and Fenja, who was sitting next to her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders in sympathy. Menja tightened her grip on her spear, while across from her Crusader mirrored her actions with his own. Kreig and Rune were both aware of this information, so they continued pulling up the information he'd requested of them. It was Alabaster who asked about what Kaiser hadn't mentioned.
"So what the hell happened to Cricket?" he snarled, clenching his fists tight enough to draw blood before resetting. "Is she dead as well or what!?!"
"We didn't find her body anywhere on site." Kaiser answered him. "Our current hope is that she is indeed dead."
"You….hope she's dead?" Othala asked weakly, still in Menja's embrace. "What do you mean by that?"
Kaiser glanced over at Kreig before replying. "We suspected the recent attacks have been due to a leak in our organization. Up until this point, there were several people who would have had sufficient information to disable all the defences at the raided areas. Last night's strike makes the suspect all but confirmed as the only person connected to all of the locations at a high enough level was Purity." Kaiser let the sudden outcry of denials, curses, and threats fill the room.
"Bullshit!!" Crusader shouted, slamming his hands on the table. "Purity would never betray us! She's dedicated and loyal to the cause! There's no way!"
Kaiser waited for Crusader to calm himself before speaking again. The man had always carried a torch for Purity after all. "For those of you unaware, Purity has recently given birth to our daughter, and so she asked to step away from the day-to-day operations of the Empire while still operating independently so she could focus on motherhood while still helping our cause. I respected her decision and allowed her this courtesy." Unsaid was she had forced divorce papers on his civilian identity and threatened to demolish the Medhall building if he came anywhere near her or their daughter. "A while back, my son called to say that she had gone missing and had left our daughter unattended, which immediately raised my suspicions she had been waylaid by enemy action. I set guards on her apartment and began a quiet search for her whereabouts, only for a woman, whom my son swears was Purity, to come to the apartment, kill all the guards, and take both Aster and everything of value." Amidst the new swell of angry questions, Kaiser turned to Rune and asked, "Have you found what I asked of you?"
"Ah, yes sir. Putting it up on the screen." Rune sat down at a computer station and pulled up a set of pictures on a screen. They were different photos of a woman wearing a black jacket, miniskirt, and hat combo while carrying a staff-like object.
"This is Calamity Witch, a supposedly independent hero who appeared at the same time Purity went missing. She uses fireballs and can fly, and her staff has some form of storage dimension in it. When she was implied to be involved with the removal of all the ABB's capes, I had Kreig make deeper inquiries into her identity to see if she could be beneficial to our cause or if we'd have to take steps to curtail her." He gestured to the man to explain what he found.
"Facial analysis of the few photos available revealed an 80% match to Purity." Kreig said, to another outcry. "We attempted to make contact with her, but she failed to respond to any of the normal signals, and honestly seemed confused when we used her civilian name."
"Our current assumption is that Purity has fallen under the control of a powerful Master." Kaiser continued on from where Kreig left off. Based on her gear and the change in her powers, this Master must have a Tinker and a Trump under their control as well."
"So when you said you hoped that Cricket was dead…" Crusader inquired.
"Better her dead than captured, Mastered, and then sent back against us with new powers and Tinkertech, yes." Kaiser said. "The raids on the stashes show that they keep their memories, so we'll be assuming anything that Purity or Cricket were involved with is compromised and scrubbing it."
"Hang on, I know Purity was aware of everyone's civilian identity, why wouldn't this group have gone after us more directly?" Alabaster asked.
Kaiser frowned. "So far, this unknown enemy has acted like they only had intel on locations and defences, not anything about our identities. I had hoped it wasn't Purity, so I neglected to consider what information she would have given them." Standing up and beginning to pace, Kaiser continued. "While the raids may have given them supplies and currency, the way they were hit… It was designed to hinder our ability to identify the mole. Before tonight there were at least five people it could have been. And once I figured it out, then I'd..." Kaiser froze "I'd call all of us together to explain my findings. To plan out our change in strategy. And in doing so gather all of us in one place for a major attack!"
As if waiting for his cue, a wave of not-light swept over the room, and the tense empire capes sprang in preparation for an attack. Rune called out, "I've got no signal on my phone." to a chorus of similar responses from the others checking their own. Kreig tried the landline and in-building intercom, with no response from either. Then Alabaster pointed out the window and shouted "What the fuck is that!?!"
Kaiser spun to find the view, which previously was filled with the rising sun over the ocean, was completely filled by a massive thing towering over the building and coming straight towards them. "Endbringer!!" Kaiser yelled. "Othala!" He turned to find Othala and Fenja in the grip of an enlarged Menja, who was moving towards him rapidly. Too slow. Kaiser pulsed his power and spikes shot from his armor into the floor, walls, and ceiling moments before the giant thing crashed into the building and everything began to break.
Kaiser groaned as his wits returned to him. He felt a small trickling from his hairline, and his body ached all over, but other than that felt fine. Extending his senses, he searched past the indiscriminate metal components surrounding him until he located a mass void that was likely the exposed surface of the debris field. He began pushing himself in that direction while thinking about who would have made it. Menja would have been invulnerable, and Othala and Fenja were with her, so they were probably unharmed. Alabaster would be fine, but was likely buried and would have to be found. Krieg's field had helped him survive a smaller building's collapse, but the sheer size of both the thing that attacked them and Medhall itself made his survival less certain. Crusader and Rune were the most likely to be dead, Kaiser unable to think of a way their abilities would allow them to survive the building's collapse. Sensing the lack of resistance, he split his metal cocoon apart to reveal the open sky, the sun shining down directly above him. Quickly looking around for other survivors, he paused upon realizing that the sun was still barely above the horizon. So what was….?
The column of plasma filled the space that was once occupied by the Medhall headquarters, turning the shattered remains of the building into a sea of white-hot lava. The pillar of fire continues streaming downward, the air surrounding it igniting from its intensity, before the beam shrinks down and disperses. High above, a figure holding a staff slumps into the arms of another next to them.
Outside a still-pristine Medhall, several people notice the appearance of two floating figures supporting one another in the sky above the building. No one noticed the several clumps of ashes that appeared far beneath the building's foundation.
Sovereign: Infinite
In a darkened warehouse, a crowd of people listen to a speech from a man atop a large crate. The sound of shattering glass rings out from all around them as a mass of forms pour through the windows. The small amount of light from above vanishes as screams and gunshots ring out, muzzle flashes the only remaining illumination as the swarm engulfs the crowd. The man atop the crate attempts to ward them off, but finds his thoughts sluggish and his arms slow to rise. He then collapses, the back of his neck sliced open, and falls into the churning morass of bodies below. As the commotion grows quieter, a figure floats down from a skylight, giggling as the carnage spreads on the floor below her.
Lacey felt that being mugged was just par for the course after the last month. First Danny drops everything in his life because Taylor had never come home and was still missing, with absolutely no leads and a heartbreakingly lack of effort by the police. Then the DWU building was completely demolished due to Parahuman actions and resulted in several casualties. Without Danny at the helm, everyone who survived hadn't had the heart or the drive to rebuild the organization, leaving them all struggling to scrape by and find new sources of income. Lacey had gotten a cashier job while Kurt was leveraging the few connections he had to be considered for a position on a construction crew. Getting yanked into an alley by a man with a knife on the way home from work was yet another hurdle Brockton Bay was throwing at her.
"Gimme any money you got, bitch, and I won't hurt ya." The man snarled, jabbing the knife in her direction. Lacey slowly crouched, laying her grocery bags on the ground before reaching for her back pocket, hoping to reach her can of Mace before he lost patience. Dropping her gaze downward as she reached into the pocket and prepared to spray, Lacey missed the orange orb impacting the man's head and rendering him unconscious. Pulling the can before her and spraying, Lacey threw her body sideways while listening for the cursing and screaming from the mugger. Her ears failing to hear the sounds of pain from the man, she glances up to where he had been to behold a woman in a skimpy costume standing above the prone man, a fireball hissing before her and a smirk on her face.
"Nice move. Would've probably taken him out if I hadn't done it first." The cape said, striding towards Lacey and extending her hand. "Calamity Witch, nice to save you."
"Ah, Lacey." grasping Calamity Witch's hand in a firm handshake, Lacey mentally shook off the encounter. "Sorry, are you going to call the police?"
Calamity Witch looked back at the would-be mugger, "In a few moments, first I'll make sure you're alright." With a gesture, Lacey's spilled groceries began floating and inserting themselves back into the bags, before the bags themselves floated up towards Lacey.
"Oh, thank you very much." said Lacey with a smile, taking the bags. Only to frown as a mental voice rang through her head <Can you hear this?>
"Did you say something?" Lacey asked Calamity Witch. The cape narrowed her eyes, and the voice spoke again in Lacey's mind <Say Sovereign if you hear this.>
"Sovereign?" Lacey said confusingly. "Is this you speaking in my head?"
"You can hear my telepathy!" Calamity Witch bounced up and took Lacey's hands in her own. "Oh this is wonderful. Sovereign wishes to meet with you."
"Miss, thank you for saving me, but I can't just…" Lacey trailed off as her vision was filled with bright orange light, which faded to reveal a dimly lit metal room. "Where the fuck are we?!"
"Sovereign!" Calamity Witch chirped as she released Lacey's hands to skip towards a figure on a darkened throne. "This lady here can hear my telepathy! So I brought her to you, just as you've ordered!"
"Well done, Calamity Witch." Lacey shivered at the voice, a deep, masculine tone combined with that of a girl. "Resume patrols while template installation commences."
"Yes, my Sovereign!" Calamity Witch said with a curtsey, before orange light enveloped her and she vanished. Lacey stomped towards the figure on the throne, who was slowly getting to their feet.
"Alright, what the hell is going on here!?" Lacey snarled at the figure. She then gasped as the person moved into the dim light. She was wearing an intimidating set of armour, the dark metal edged with intimidating ridges that radiated outward to the limbs from a blue jewel in the person's chest. But the main reason for Lacey's shock was the face of the person, framed with a menacing helm that branched upward into a crown-like structure. "Taylor!?! Oh sweetie, it's me, Lacey! Your dad has been looking for you for weeks, he's worried sick! Did these people kidnap you?"
Lacey's questions trailed off as the armour lit up, a circle on every limb and the lower torso glowing blue as light flowed from the crystal in Taylor's chest along the ridges in the armor. A blue beam shone out from the gem and moved up and down Lacey's body before focusing on a point in her chest. "Linker Core Detected. Commence Template Installation." Lacey felt her body seize up, unable to move a single muscle, as a blinding glow built up within the jewel. Lacey tried to fight, to call out Taylor's name, but could do nothing but watch as the blue light discharged down the beam and into her body and….
….Infinite Enhancement looked upon her Goddess, the conqueror of worlds and pride of Galea, and felt nothing but bliss in her heart. She fell to the ground, supplicating herself before her deity, ashamed that she had not yet fulfilled even one of her Goddess's orders. She would not fail her divine master any further.
Victor adjusted his position and peered through the scope. Rumors had spread that Lung, Oni Lee, and a supposed third chink cape had been taken down. This prompted Kaiser to take Hookwolf, Stormtiger, Krieg, Rune, and Menja & Fenja; and lead a probe deep into ABB territory to either garner a reaction or claim the area for the Empire. This left Victor to run Hookwolf's largest dog fighting ring and keep watch for trouble during cleanup. He wasn't expecting any, but with the entire underworld structure being upended, anything could happen. Victor frowned, concentrating.on..what...was….that….just….a….blur….what's….purple….thing….gone….now….watch….men.
Victor shook his head, suppressing a yawn. That's what he got for covering Brad's nighttime duties. He glanced down to where the night's earnings were being loaded up for transport and flinched. All the men that had been working were gone, replaced by chinks fearlessly handling all the money the Empire had rightfully earned. He hurtled a flashbang down at them, taking glee in their screams and panic, before taking aim and emptying his rifle's magazine into the snivelling gooks. Rappelling down from his perch, he proceeded to take out the remaining survivors with his pistols and some martial arts he had ironically stolen from ABB members, leaving them all dead. He stood up from the last body and surveyed the area for his missing men, then looked back down at the bodies and froze. Because they were those of his fellow E88 members, all of them now dead by his hands.
Victor felt a sharp object pierce into his back and slash upwards, throwing him to the ground with a spray of blood and in severe pain. His last sight was two blood-splattered outlines transforming into a boy with a knife and a silently laughing woman before everything went black.
Growling, Brad hung up the phone after his report. His initial thought that Bitch had killed Victor was rejected by the lack of destruction to the building and that the dogs hadn't been taken; their cages had merely been opened and they'd been left to fend for themselves. Still, she might be made the scapegoat for Victor's death, as the E88 was both on the warpath and extremely confused. There were no survivors from the attack, no one was claiming credit, and the Empire's reliable informants in the BBPD and the PRT said that there was nothing conclusive from their organizations either. And then several of their secure and secret supply depots had been robbed, with their defences negated, no survivors remaining, and absolutely nothing of value left behind. Which implied it was someone high in the E88 who was doing this. Cursing under his breath, Brad got back in the car with Tiger and Cricket. "Kaiser says nothing yet. All the others got fuck-all at their spots, so we're to sit tight and freeze our asses off. We're to "question" this asshole if they show up here." Cricket snorted from the back, while Stormtiger just nodded and kept his head near the window.
After another twenty minutes, Stormtiger straightened up. "Someone's coming, one person, heading straight for the stashhouse, smells….like dog. Nothing else I can make out." The three hustled out the car and prepared to intercept the person; Hookwolf with blades poking from his skin, Stormtiger with swirls of air around his fists, and Cricket twirling her kamas. As they were about to rush their opponent, a strange not-light washed over the three and the limited colors of the night faded even more.
"What the shit was that?!" Brad shouted, checking himself over. He then noticed there were only two of them remaining in the alley. "Cricket! Tiger, let's get this fucker!" Seeing a nod, he launched himself forward, his human form vanishing beneath a bladed mass of metal shaped like a wolf. Stormtiger would follow from the air and force them to fight by blasting their escape route. Turning the corner, Hookwolf lunged, his bladed arms spinning to tear his enemy to shreds. Only to find a sword parrying his blows and directing him face first into a wall. Pulling his head out and snarling, Hookwolf saw his enemy turn towards Stormtiger whose wind claws were ready to blast them. Only for the flying cape to barely juke out of the way of a blur plummeting from above and impacting the street hard enough to form a crater and throw up a cloud of dust. Stormtiger shot multiple air blasts into the cloud, while Hookwolf pushed off from the wall with a roar and charged into the fray. A spear extended from his arm and thrusted towards a blurry silhouette in the cloud, only to stop dead upon contact with the figure. Hookwolf felt his feet leaving the ground as he was lifted by his weapon and used to try and swat Stormtiger, only for the aerokinetic to dodge and Hookwolf to push off from the spike before he could be slammed into the ground. Gesturing for Stormtiger to come down to him, Hookwolf watched the settling dust cloud warily.
"Tiger, where are the men!? This safehouse was full of guards, and there's no way they'd have missed what's going!"
With a furrowed brow, Stormtiger replied, "Wolf...I can only sense three other people out here. The house is completely silent. I can't hear any traffic or background noises either. It's like the whole city is dead." Both of the men tensed as the air cleared and they got the first good look at their opponents, who were revealed to be two women arguing with each other. One was tall and spindly, with long limbs, a long face, and skintight exercise clothing over whipcord muscles. She was holding a golden sword with a strangely rounded point. The other was large and burly, bulging muscles restrained by leather biker clothing, the left side of her face a mass of scars from eye to mouth. She was carrying in one hand a hammer the same size as a truck's grille resting on her shoulders. But what really drew the men's eyes was the dog ears emerging from the woman's heads and the tails protruding from their pants.
"You seeing these freaks?" Hookwolf muttered up at Stormtiger. "What are they chatting about?"
"They're deciding who gets to kill us." Stormtiger replied with anger in his voice. "Think you can keep em' busy while I deal with their third? They're on the roof behind them, so probably the one keeping us in this world since they ain't out here fighting."
"Yeah, I'll keep them pinned." said Hookwolf, his lupine form growing and shifting, new metal and blades erupting from his core to form a new shape, one he felt would better allow him to deal with their opponents. Stormtiger rose into the air again, primed to fly over their heads the moment that Hookwolf engaged them. The two dog-eared women glanced over at them before the one with the hammer took a crouched sprinter's position, and the one with the sword leapt onto her back on the other side from the hammer. Hookwolf and Stormtiger both tensed as a purple aura enveloped the two women, and then in a blink of the eyes, the two appeared directly in front of Hookwolf. A spear shot from his body to ward off the giant hammer arcing towards him, and he caught a glimpse of the swordswoman jumping unnaturally fast up towards Stormtiger, when…
BBOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!
His head still spinning and his vision blurred, Hookwolf came to with the enormous hammer pinning him within a brand new crater in the street. He flexed and twisted to throw it off and escape, only to find its weight far greater than he could lift. He tried to shift his core to the edges so he could separate from the trapped metal and reform, but it was too centralized under the massive head for him to escape that way. The woman was glaring down at him and snarling, so he lashed out at her with a free limb, only for his blades to fail at even penetrating her skin. She glanced up as the other woman came into view, wiping a cloth up her sword.
"He's pinned good. Other one dealt with?" The hammer-wielding woman said with a growl.
"See for yourself." The other spoke loftily, gesturing behind her with her head as she continued to clean her sword. Hookwolf twisted his eyes so he could look where she indicated, and bellowed in fury when he beheld Stormtiger's severed head sitting atop a pile composed of his dismembered body.
"I'll kill you!!!" Hookwolf roared as he resumed his struggles with renewed fury. "I will rip you bitches apart for this!!! You're fucking dead!!!..."
"Ugh." The swordswoman stepped closer to her companion next to Hookwolf as he continued straining to escape the hammer while shouting threats and curses at them, as well as ineffectually swiping at the two women standing above him. "So noisy. May I finish him off?"
The other woman grunted, waving her hand dismissively down at Hookwolf. "May as well. He wasn't all that interesting to fight." Prompting further curses from the trapped gangster.
"Very well." She raised her sword with both hands and rotated it so it was pointed towards Hookwolf. Before his eyes, the sword split into multiple segments, and with a hum, they began to rapidly spin into a golden blur. The now-chainsaw was then thrust into his body, where he felt it begin to grind away at the metal. He responded by spinning the blades in that area and attempting to counteract the chainsaw, but to his growing horror he could actually feel his body growing weaker through some unknown means. In desperation, he once more tried to throw everything he had into escaping, fighting harder than he ever had before to save himself. But he was trapped, his armor weakening, his death imminent….
[AGREE-...] CRUNCH!!!!
An interdimensional connection was interrupted by a giant hammer reducing a wolf-shaped metal figure surrounding an organic orb into an almost monomolecular smear on the ground.
The Empire sentry gripped his weapon nervously and continued peering through his field glasses. He had reported the person approaching the house, but before the guards could prepare for an assault the person had vanished. Attempt to contact the on-site capes had proven futile, so a call went out to the ones further afield. He shouted at the sudden reappearance of not just one, but three people in unfamiliar costumes, as well as two sets of heavily ravaged remains. The man swallowed hard as he recognized the detached head of one and the metal remnants of the other. In a nearby alley, a pile of ashes began to scatter in the midnight wind.
"Everyone's here sir. Ready when you are." At Krieg's words, Kaiser turned away from viewing the sunrise through the tinted window and took his seat at the head of the table. Sitting before him were the Parahumans of the Empire Eighty Eight, weary from the previous night but in costume and awaiting to hear what the urgent meeting was about.
"As you're all aware, last night we set up ambushes at all our essential stashes and safehouses, to deal with the people who have been raiding us and who killed Victor." Kaiser paused to allow Othala to stifle a sob, rubbing at her reddened eyes. "Myself and Rune received a distress call from the one Hookwolf was guarding, and we arrived to find the stash cleaned out, the on-site team dead, and the bodies of Hookwolf and Stormtiger left in the street."
Othala burst into tears with his statement, and Fenja, who was sitting next to her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders in sympathy. Menja tightened her grip on her spear, while across from her Crusader mirrored her actions with his own. Kreig and Rune were both aware of this information, so they continued pulling up the information he'd requested of them. It was Alabaster who asked about what Kaiser hadn't mentioned.
"So what the hell happened to Cricket?" he snarled, clenching his fists tight enough to draw blood before resetting. "Is she dead as well or what!?!"
"We didn't find her body anywhere on site." Kaiser answered him. "Our current hope is that she is indeed dead."
"You….hope she's dead?" Othala asked weakly, still in Menja's embrace. "What do you mean by that?"
Kaiser glanced over at Kreig before replying. "We suspected the recent attacks have been due to a leak in our organization. Up until this point, there were several people who would have had sufficient information to disable all the defences at the raided areas. Last night's strike makes the suspect all but confirmed as the only person connected to all of the locations at a high enough level was Purity." Kaiser let the sudden outcry of denials, curses, and threats fill the room.
"Bullshit!!" Crusader shouted, slamming his hands on the table. "Purity would never betray us! She's dedicated and loyal to the cause! There's no way!"
Kaiser waited for Crusader to calm himself before speaking again. The man had always carried a torch for Purity after all. "For those of you unaware, Purity has recently given birth to our daughter, and so she asked to step away from the day-to-day operations of the Empire while still operating independently so she could focus on motherhood while still helping our cause. I respected her decision and allowed her this courtesy." Unsaid was she had forced divorce papers on his civilian identity and threatened to demolish the Medhall building if he came anywhere near her or their daughter. "A while back, my son called to say that she had gone missing and had left our daughter unattended, which immediately raised my suspicions she had been waylaid by enemy action. I set guards on her apartment and began a quiet search for her whereabouts, only for a woman, whom my son swears was Purity, to come to the apartment, kill all the guards, and take both Aster and everything of value." Amidst the new swell of angry questions, Kaiser turned to Rune and asked, "Have you found what I asked of you?"
"Ah, yes sir. Putting it up on the screen." Rune sat down at a computer station and pulled up a set of pictures on a screen. They were different photos of a woman wearing a black jacket, miniskirt, and hat combo while carrying a staff-like object.
"This is Calamity Witch, a supposedly independent hero who appeared at the same time Purity went missing. She uses fireballs and can fly, and her staff has some form of storage dimension in it. When she was implied to be involved with the removal of all the ABB's capes, I had Kreig make deeper inquiries into her identity to see if she could be beneficial to our cause or if we'd have to take steps to curtail her." He gestured to the man to explain what he found.
"Facial analysis of the few photos available revealed an 80% match to Purity." Kreig said, to another outcry. "We attempted to make contact with her, but she failed to respond to any of the normal signals, and honestly seemed confused when we used her civilian name."
"Our current assumption is that Purity has fallen under the control of a powerful Master." Kaiser continued on from where Kreig left off. Based on her gear and the change in her powers, this Master must have a Tinker and a Trump under their control as well."
"So when you said you hoped that Cricket was dead…" Crusader inquired.
"Better her dead than captured, Mastered, and then sent back against us with new powers and Tinkertech, yes." Kaiser said. "The raids on the stashes show that they keep their memories, so we'll be assuming anything that Purity or Cricket were involved with is compromised and scrubbing it."
"Hang on, I know Purity was aware of everyone's civilian identity, why wouldn't this group have gone after us more directly?" Alabaster asked.
Kaiser frowned. "So far, this unknown enemy has acted like they only had intel on locations and defences, not anything about our identities. I had hoped it wasn't Purity, so I neglected to consider what information she would have given them." Standing up and beginning to pace, Kaiser continued. "While the raids may have given them supplies and currency, the way they were hit… It was designed to hinder our ability to identify the mole. Before tonight there were at least five people it could have been. And once I figured it out, then I'd..." Kaiser froze "I'd call all of us together to explain my findings. To plan out our change in strategy. And in doing so gather all of us in one place for a major attack!"
As if waiting for his cue, a wave of not-light swept over the room, and the tense empire capes sprang in preparation for an attack. Rune called out, "I've got no signal on my phone." to a chorus of similar responses from the others checking their own. Kreig tried the landline and in-building intercom, with no response from either. Then Alabaster pointed out the window and shouted "What the fuck is that!?!"
Kaiser spun to find the view, which previously was filled with the rising sun over the ocean, was completely filled by a massive thing towering over the building and coming straight towards them. "Endbringer!!" Kaiser yelled. "Othala!" He turned to find Othala and Fenja in the grip of an enlarged Menja, who was moving towards him rapidly. Too slow. Kaiser pulsed his power and spikes shot from his armor into the floor, walls, and ceiling moments before the giant thing crashed into the building and everything began to break.
Kaiser groaned as his wits returned to him. He felt a small trickling from his hairline, and his body ached all over, but other than that felt fine. Extending his senses, he searched past the indiscriminate metal components surrounding him until he located a mass void that was likely the exposed surface of the debris field. He began pushing himself in that direction while thinking about who would have made it. Menja would have been invulnerable, and Othala and Fenja were with her, so they were probably unharmed. Alabaster would be fine, but was likely buried and would have to be found. Krieg's field had helped him survive a smaller building's collapse, but the sheer size of both the thing that attacked them and Medhall itself made his survival less certain. Crusader and Rune were the most likely to be dead, Kaiser unable to think of a way their abilities would allow them to survive the building's collapse. Sensing the lack of resistance, he split his metal cocoon apart to reveal the open sky, the sun shining down directly above him. Quickly looking around for other survivors, he paused upon realizing that the sun was still barely above the horizon. So what was….?
The column of plasma filled the space that was once occupied by the Medhall headquarters, turning the shattered remains of the building into a sea of white-hot lava. The pillar of fire continues streaming downward, the air surrounding it igniting from its intensity, before the beam shrinks down and disperses. High above, a figure holding a staff slumps into the arms of another next to them.
Outside a still-pristine Medhall, several people notice the appearance of two floating figures supporting one another in the sky above the building. No one noticed the several clumps of ashes that appeared far beneath the building's foundation.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
If it helps, the update was just me putting in the changes/benefits Cat Sith receives from Sarah's MCA. I, uh, still haven't started work on the chapter yet.
Partly because of work and RL stuff, partly because my muse has been hammering me with ideas for Spells in Silence.Nazis, the absolute best target for Ragnarök. I approve.
- Location
- Canada
Well you say that now, but things can change. Looking forward to whatever comes out first, as both stand to be massively entertaining. I was mainly using the threat of your chapter coming out here as motivation to heave myself over that final writing hurdle, as once your chapter comes out, there'll be a vote, and discussion, and I am morally opposed to such massive derailments as a giant omake right in the middle of such events.If it helps, the update was just me putting in the changes/benefits Cat Sith receives from Sarah's MCA. I, uh, still haven't started work on the chapter yet.
Ragnarök AND the Giant Summon.Nazis, the absolute best target for Ragnarök. I approve.
For when you just need that toxic ideology wiped off the face of the Earth.Actually had some questions based on elements I used in my story.
Would a Gravity Hammer (or a Gravity Sword) be a possible weapon that Tim could build, where it can reduce the effect of gravity for ease of transport and increase it for a power strike downward? And would a Chainsaw Sword work with Shredding Claw similarly to Samantha's chain whip, where the spinning blades would continuously stack the weakening effect?
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
I did say "yet"! I'm hoping to work on it maybe late next week. Currently working night shifts, which are just the worst times to try to write anything.
Huh. No reason it COULDN'T be done, I suppose. Especially if you find a way for Tim to create absurdly hard materials to protect the gravitic generator within the head/blade.
Yeah, it could.
- Location
- Georgia
Once the Endbringers are gone, we should send Nidhogg to the dinosaur Earth, and hold planet wide contests to create things for him to fight, as an outlet for the conflict drive that won't be going anywhere with how much of Bet's population can't get the 'get out of shard free' card without a linker core. Of course, the first thing to be built and sent over needs to be Mecha-Godzilla, then maybe get Panacea to make a King Kong. Pay-per-view would pay for the contest all on its own.
- Location
- Canada
Perhaps there's an equivalent over in Earth Zayin, just waiting for us to poke the
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Only one way to find out
There are a few worlds Tailor has visited that are worth more exploration. Hint hint.
Realign 14.24
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
[] Plan kamkong
Realign 14.24
«Well?» you ask the rest of your team after a moment so you can all consider Alpha's question. «Anyone have any ideas?»
"Which cape was it that had the electric sword?" Sarah asks in a thoughtful voice, her eyes drifting to you. "You said one of them did. Flimmern, I'm guessing."
"That's the one."
"I'll go to the office, then. Cat Sith, too," she adds after a moment. You presume from the faint grimace and the mild glare her Guardian Beast is sending her that her quick correction was due to a telepathic prodding from the latter more than anything else. Looking back at Alpha, she explains, "I have lightning-based abilities as well, so I should be able to take her hits better than most of us."
"And we're tough on our own, anyway," chimes in Cat Sith.
Laura frowns, her eyes looking out to one of the targets. "I'm more worried about the construction store." Her hand rises to point at the building in question. "It looks like there is some machinery or something in a lot to the back, and you mentioned that one of them can possess machines. Sounds like a recipe for trouble."
"We can head that way, then. What?" Kayleigh asks innocently when Laura's head whips around to stare at her. "If that guy is going to possess a bulldozer or something, you can freeze it in place while I blow it up or dissolve it." She pulls her colorful revolver and her gold pistol out of their respective holsters and spin them around her index fingers. "We got this, especially if the other guys can keep anybody else in there with him off us while we're working."
That might work, you find yourself thinking, but it's still worrisome. Especially as the Wolfheads' roster contains several Brutes and the PRT force headed into that building only has one. «Sam, I'd like you to go with them. They're going to need the muscle.»
«I can handle that, but where will you be?»
"I'll join you in the office," you inform both Samantha and Alpha. "The guys going to the sporting store already have enough blasters. Your group is a little light on that end."
"More fire support is always appreciated."
Missy sighs and looks at the group that will be going to the sporting store. "I guess that leaves you guys with me. I'm not as tough as Cailleach or Samantha, but I've got a few tricks up my sleeves."
"You mean sleeve, don't you?" Delta comments with a smile and a pointed look at her armored prosthetic.
"I guess you'll have to find that one out with your own eyes."
"Chatter after, job first." Alpha punctuates her statement with a stern look at the older man, who just turns his smile on her. She might be in charge, but it is obvious that he both has seniority over her and knows it. Or maybe he is like Kayleigh and just does not let anything ever get to him.
Suddenly you are very glad that the two of them will not be left together in the same place. You can already see them being bad influences on each other.
The other groups split off, and you turn your attention to Sarah and Cat Sith. Unlike yours, her template apparently did not come with instructions on how to fly by default, or maybe it was because her Linker Core is still too small and the template has not had enough time to start whatever it does to make the Core bigger. Regardless, they are the only members of the team who do not yet have some kind of airborne mobility. «Want me to carry you down?» you ask, applying a bit of telekinesis to the older heroine to demonstrate what you mean.
With Cat Sith riding on her shoulder as a cat, it is not a terrible effort to float the pair of them down to the ground with you and sneak up on the door to the small office complex. The door itself is locked, no surprise there, but a couple of Flare Shooters set to their hottest setting quickly melt the hinges so Alpha can telekinetically lift the door outwards and set it on the ground. «Telepathic coms only. We don't want to give away the element of surprise,» she tells all of you unnecessarily.
«Yeah, yeah, mon capitaine.» You look over at Charlie, and while you cannot see his face through the PRT-standard helmets the Pentagram mages all wear, you can certainly imagine the no doubt enormous eye roll. «Let me just put away my squeaky clown shoes first.»
In fact, only Thirteenth Hour and Cat Sith are the ones to walk. The other four of you drift along silently, feet a couple of inches above the floor. The first set of rooms you enter are dark, and you are thankful that Devices can provide night vision on demand so you are not stumbling around blindly. That would be terrible for stealth.
After a couple of minutes, however, you find yourself looking at thin beams of light coming from beneath another closed and presumably locked door. Alpha holds up one hand to signal you to stop before pointing her staff not at the door but instead at the tiled floor. A casting circle spins into existence beneath her, and you cannot help but to smile to yourself at its appearance. The few times you saw them casting magic like this, it had been with a standard Galean triangular or circular sigil, but they are certainly making their magic their own.
And, you think with another glance at the five-pointed star in the circle, living up to their name at the same time.
The tiles and the concrete below them crack and shatter, and the broken materials lift up like a carpet before rolling into an oblong, almost tube-like shape. Wedges lift away from four points and twist into additional tubes with bulges at the end. The end closest to you swells and shapes itself, and that is the clue you need to figure out what she is doing. Once all the pieces are positioned correctly, the edges between them seal up to make a smooth surface. A shake of its short-snouted head, and the bulky, almost canine-looking construct pads its way to Alpha's side. She reaches down to pat its head and looks up at you with only the slightest bit of stiffness visible in her frame. «Force multipliers are always good.»
«I still say you're a monster,» Charlie says, clearly speaking to all of you despite the fact that he is addressing Alpha. «You go to the trouble of designing a hyena golem, and you refuse to make it laugh?»
«Considering you laugh enough for a whole pack of hyenas, I consider it a mercy.» She levels her staff at the door this time. «They are either in here or in a very nearby room, which means the time for sneaking around is over. Everybody ready? Okay. Three… Two… One.»
A blast of force explodes from the end of her Device, and she charges in followed closely by Sword, who pulls out a pair of long-handled knives and flicks them to make those suspicious handles expand into batons. Charlie is next, and a pair of purple daggers appear in his hands for just a split second before he fades out of sight.
You, Thirteenth Hour, and Cat Sith are not far behind. This room appears to have been a lobby of some kind before being taking over by the gang, complete with a reception desk in the middle of the room a short distance behind a staircase that leads to a balcony overhead. There are no chairs in the lobby for people to wait any longer, but a very nice padded chair sits behind the desk. Also by the desk, the blue armored figure of Flimmern has just looked up from some papers, a rather small man in a brown vest and with what honestly looks like a scarf with eye holes wrapped around his head standing next to her.
«We got her!» Thirteenth Hour yells out as she and Cat Sith charge the valkyrie, your newest teammate's brand new sword ringing as it slides away from the metal plate.
"Eindringlinge!" Flimmern shouts, grabbing her own copper blade. She has to make a hasty parry as Thirteenth Hour's sword crashes against her.
Alpha's hyena runs towards the man in the vest, and you grimace when his fingers elongate into foot-long bone claws. When Alpha showed you the picture of the man, you had focused on the bear skin he was wearing, but it is clear now that this would be Barbar, one of the Brutes the Wolfheads have on their roster. Which means you are likely also going to have to face his sister.
Sure enough, a cape in a midnight blue dress runs out of one of the doors on the balcony. White light surrounds her hands, but any appearance of softness is rapidly dispelled when Schütze flings several streaks of light towards Thirteenth Hour and Alpha.
«Sword, she's ours,» Charlie says, though you still cannot see where he vanished to.
Not a bad idea, honestly, you think to yourself. From what you understand and from talking with Missy on a number of occasions, most Blasters do not have any kind of special protection from getting stabbed. Mages like you are a glaring exception. With them attacking Schütze's weakness and Thirteenth Hour and Cat Sith countering Flimmern's strength, that leaves you and Alpha to take care of Barbar. You look down at the claws his hands have become– not to mention his now ursine head complete with fangs and a muscular tail that looks more monkey than bear – and the winning strategy becomes clear. «Think your hyena can keep him distracted down there?»
Alpha just turns her head to stare at you through her faceplate. «Why do you think I created it in the first place?»
You fly a short distance away from her, just in case Barbar somehow has a ranged attack of some kind, and call up a dozen Flare Shooters at the same time that Alpha creates or unseals a large number of honest to god shuriken. You stare at her from the corner of your eye. Is she a PRT agent or a ninja? The throwing stars start spinning around faster and faster, and you shrug. You have never seen her use any kind of Shooter spell, so maybe this is her alternative?
Almost in sync the two of you hurl your attacks. A second later, you are extremely thankful both that her weapons are undoubtedly cheap to make and that with so many, she cannot move them with as much precision as you can your Shooters. A couple of shuriken get melted just by the heat of your bullets passing by, and you have to take more direct control of them to weave through the hail of steel. If Alpha could steer her weapons the way you can, you have no doubt they would crash together even more.
Barbar's tail lashes out and sweeps a swath of shuriken out of his way, but there are too many for him to effectively dodge. The concrete hyena latched onto his leg likely does not make it any easier. The stars do not dig into his flesh, either; instead they start swirling around him so they can more easily carve long furrows into him. She plans to bleed him out, you realize. Keep him occupied with the hyena and nearly literally take him down with a 'thousand cuts'.
You can see the shapeshifting Brute give you a glare before turning his attention and his claws to the one enemy he can see, namely the golem. Great grooves are carved into the creature, but it is merely concrete, not flesh and blood. It does not care.
Flimmern shouts something in German, something that sounds even angrier than the language normally does. Another door in the back of the room opens, this time below the balcony, and an overweight boy forged from metal stomps out. Even from this distance you can see how his eyes widen at the sight of even just two of you, but with a timid battlecry he charges, growing taller with every step.
"I got this," you tell Alpha. You have been thinking off and on since seeing this cape in the drug den, and you think you know a good way to deal with him. He is obviously a coward, and while this metal form of his is undoubtedly durable, you have something that trumps it and just might put the fear of magic in him.
A blazing scythe blade erupts from the head of Perfect Storm, and your Device pulls up another bit of code without prompting. «Blitz Action ready, Mistress.»
You push the mental button and move. Gestalt might be twelve feet tall now and made of steel, but that does not matter to you. You dash forwards, the edge of your Flare Blade scraping sideways over his abdomen. A blink and you change direction, now accelerating behind him and carving a line across his back. Your enhanced speed nearly sends you into the underside of the balcony, but you hit the brakes and instead move full speed straight downwards. Your boots hit the floor a single moment before you spin around to hold your scythe between yourself and Gestalt.
Your concern that he will hit you as soon as you stop is clearly unwarranted. Gestalt screams as he pulls the stump of his right arm close to his chest. His closed fist lays on the floor, still large and metal, but despite the lack of blood he must still be able to feel pain. He does not even look at you before he turns tail and runs back into the room from which he appeared.
That is one of them dealt with, and you take a second to check on Thirteenth Hour and Cat Sith. It is their first fight with you, particularly Thirteenth Hour's first fight with her new powers, but you appear to have nothing to worry about. They have Flimmern well in hand.
Instead you return your focus to Barbar. You have the scythe out already, so it does not take much to rush past him and score another slash across his back now. Several of the whirling shuriken ping off you in the process, but they are a nothing to your Barrier Jacket. He whirls around to counter, but by then you are already out of his reach and floating ten feet away from Alpha.
It gives you the perfect opportunity to see Schütze's back explode in a burst of purple light and then for Sword to roundhouse kick her in the head and off the balcony entirely. The gowned villainess flips over the railing and tumbles end over end until she slams into the ground with a heavy thud.
"Schütze!" Barbar screams. He turns his back on you and starts running towards his fallen sister. In doing so he gives you the perfect opportunity. Six Flare Shooters fly from your hand to surround his head and explode with massive force. The orange light clears, and you watch as he stumbles around for several more feet before collapsing onto the ground.
He may be tough, and he may have claws, but that doesn't make him immune to concussions.
Your scythe powers down, and you glance up to find that Charlie has returned to visibility and stands next to Sword. They both look fine, not even a scuff visible on Sword's uniform. With them checked on, you look over at your own teammates and ask the question that has been bubbling in the back of your head since you saw what they were doing to Flimmern. "I thought capes were immune to their own powers."
"Their own powers, yes," Thirteenth Hour tells you, her sword resting on her shoulder. "That does not always mean that they are immune to similar powers. Grab-bag capes in particular have this weakness. Just because she used lightning didn't mean she was resistant to it at all."
"That's a good thing for us," Alpha agrees cautiously, "but we do need her alive."
Cat Sith looks up from her work and gives a slow, very cat-like blink. "She is alive." The Guardian Beast pulls her closed fist, which is somehow coated with a thin layer of sparking electricity, away from where it had been pressed firmly against Flimmern's back between her shoulder blades. You knew when you offered Thirteenth Hour a template that Cat Sith would gain her elemental affinity in terms of defense, but you did not know that it would also translate into attacks. Samantha certainly cannot use your Flare affinity. "See?"
No longer being constantly tased, Flimmern stops her spasming and sags into sweet unconsciousness. 'Sags' because she is unable to fall to the floor thanks to the pink circles of Ring Bind that hold her arms in the air. Nonetheless, you can see she is still breathing.
"Useful," admits Alpha after a moment. "If you're sure it will not cause any permanent injury, mind doing the same to the others?" She gestures to Barbar and Schütze. "It would be nice not having to worry about them waking up while we're still waiting for transport."
Thirteenth Hour nods, lighting zapping up her blade. "We can do that."
"We still have one last rat to deal with," you remind the others, your eyes turning to face the still-open door he ran through. "Gestalt came in to try to help, but he left… empty-handed."
"…That was awful."
Hiding a small smile, you float into the air and through the doorway. That smile fades as you consider the very real possibility that your quarry simply is no longer here. He is a teleporter, and that means he could be absolutely anywhere by now. He very much seems the type to cut and run, not stand and fight or even set up an ambush.
Turning a corner, you find yourself surprised and a little disappointed. Gestalt, rather than fleeing, is still here. More specifically, he is huddled in a corner as if hoping that if he is quiet enough you will not find him. He is made from wood now rather than metal, and interestingly in the short time since you saw him he has somehow restored his hand. You also cannot help but notice that the wood of his wrist and part of his forearm on that side are stained red rather than the brown of the rest of his body.
He opens his eyes when your feet audibly touch down on the floor, and those eyes grow wide as he gulps and stares at you and the staff gripped loosely in your hand. You still have to wonder why he is not teleporting, but… You tilt your head and look closer at him. Maybe his teleportation is more limited than you previously assumed.
Good for you; not so much for him.
You give him a smile that is all teeth and watch him squirm harder. "Good evening, Gestalt."
Well, well, well. Gestalt is the only Wolfhead cape left in this building. What do you want to do about that?
[ ] Kill him. With his teleportation powers, he will be next to impossible to hold in prison. Don't let him start this all over again.
[ ] Arrest him. He's a Nazi, and he deserves to face punishment for his crimes. The courts can figure out what to do with him.
[ ] Flip him. The Protectorate is always looking for more capes, and it doesn't seem like he's done anything too bad yet.
-[ ] Let the Protectorate do what they want with him.
-[ ] Talk to Chevalier about keeping him in Philly.
[ ] Claim him. He seems more like a scaredy cat than a monster, and his variety of powers would let him fill many roles in the Arcana… if you can trust him.
Realign 14.24
«Well?» you ask the rest of your team after a moment so you can all consider Alpha's question. «Anyone have any ideas?»
"Which cape was it that had the electric sword?" Sarah asks in a thoughtful voice, her eyes drifting to you. "You said one of them did. Flimmern, I'm guessing."
"That's the one."
"I'll go to the office, then. Cat Sith, too," she adds after a moment. You presume from the faint grimace and the mild glare her Guardian Beast is sending her that her quick correction was due to a telepathic prodding from the latter more than anything else. Looking back at Alpha, she explains, "I have lightning-based abilities as well, so I should be able to take her hits better than most of us."
"And we're tough on our own, anyway," chimes in Cat Sith.
Laura frowns, her eyes looking out to one of the targets. "I'm more worried about the construction store." Her hand rises to point at the building in question. "It looks like there is some machinery or something in a lot to the back, and you mentioned that one of them can possess machines. Sounds like a recipe for trouble."
"We can head that way, then. What?" Kayleigh asks innocently when Laura's head whips around to stare at her. "If that guy is going to possess a bulldozer or something, you can freeze it in place while I blow it up or dissolve it." She pulls her colorful revolver and her gold pistol out of their respective holsters and spin them around her index fingers. "We got this, especially if the other guys can keep anybody else in there with him off us while we're working."
That might work, you find yourself thinking, but it's still worrisome. Especially as the Wolfheads' roster contains several Brutes and the PRT force headed into that building only has one. «Sam, I'd like you to go with them. They're going to need the muscle.»
«I can handle that, but where will you be?»
"I'll join you in the office," you inform both Samantha and Alpha. "The guys going to the sporting store already have enough blasters. Your group is a little light on that end."
"More fire support is always appreciated."
Missy sighs and looks at the group that will be going to the sporting store. "I guess that leaves you guys with me. I'm not as tough as Cailleach or Samantha, but I've got a few tricks up my sleeves."
"You mean sleeve, don't you?" Delta comments with a smile and a pointed look at her armored prosthetic.
"I guess you'll have to find that one out with your own eyes."
"Chatter after, job first." Alpha punctuates her statement with a stern look at the older man, who just turns his smile on her. She might be in charge, but it is obvious that he both has seniority over her and knows it. Or maybe he is like Kayleigh and just does not let anything ever get to him.
Suddenly you are very glad that the two of them will not be left together in the same place. You can already see them being bad influences on each other.
The other groups split off, and you turn your attention to Sarah and Cat Sith. Unlike yours, her template apparently did not come with instructions on how to fly by default, or maybe it was because her Linker Core is still too small and the template has not had enough time to start whatever it does to make the Core bigger. Regardless, they are the only members of the team who do not yet have some kind of airborne mobility. «Want me to carry you down?» you ask, applying a bit of telekinesis to the older heroine to demonstrate what you mean.
With Cat Sith riding on her shoulder as a cat, it is not a terrible effort to float the pair of them down to the ground with you and sneak up on the door to the small office complex. The door itself is locked, no surprise there, but a couple of Flare Shooters set to their hottest setting quickly melt the hinges so Alpha can telekinetically lift the door outwards and set it on the ground. «Telepathic coms only. We don't want to give away the element of surprise,» she tells all of you unnecessarily.
«Yeah, yeah, mon capitaine.» You look over at Charlie, and while you cannot see his face through the PRT-standard helmets the Pentagram mages all wear, you can certainly imagine the no doubt enormous eye roll. «Let me just put away my squeaky clown shoes first.»
In fact, only Thirteenth Hour and Cat Sith are the ones to walk. The other four of you drift along silently, feet a couple of inches above the floor. The first set of rooms you enter are dark, and you are thankful that Devices can provide night vision on demand so you are not stumbling around blindly. That would be terrible for stealth.
After a couple of minutes, however, you find yourself looking at thin beams of light coming from beneath another closed and presumably locked door. Alpha holds up one hand to signal you to stop before pointing her staff not at the door but instead at the tiled floor. A casting circle spins into existence beneath her, and you cannot help but to smile to yourself at its appearance. The few times you saw them casting magic like this, it had been with a standard Galean triangular or circular sigil, but they are certainly making their magic their own.
And, you think with another glance at the five-pointed star in the circle, living up to their name at the same time.
The tiles and the concrete below them crack and shatter, and the broken materials lift up like a carpet before rolling into an oblong, almost tube-like shape. Wedges lift away from four points and twist into additional tubes with bulges at the end. The end closest to you swells and shapes itself, and that is the clue you need to figure out what she is doing. Once all the pieces are positioned correctly, the edges between them seal up to make a smooth surface. A shake of its short-snouted head, and the bulky, almost canine-looking construct pads its way to Alpha's side. She reaches down to pat its head and looks up at you with only the slightest bit of stiffness visible in her frame. «Force multipliers are always good.»
«I still say you're a monster,» Charlie says, clearly speaking to all of you despite the fact that he is addressing Alpha. «You go to the trouble of designing a hyena golem, and you refuse to make it laugh?»
«Considering you laugh enough for a whole pack of hyenas, I consider it a mercy.» She levels her staff at the door this time. «They are either in here or in a very nearby room, which means the time for sneaking around is over. Everybody ready? Okay. Three… Two… One.»
A blast of force explodes from the end of her Device, and she charges in followed closely by Sword, who pulls out a pair of long-handled knives and flicks them to make those suspicious handles expand into batons. Charlie is next, and a pair of purple daggers appear in his hands for just a split second before he fades out of sight.
You, Thirteenth Hour, and Cat Sith are not far behind. This room appears to have been a lobby of some kind before being taking over by the gang, complete with a reception desk in the middle of the room a short distance behind a staircase that leads to a balcony overhead. There are no chairs in the lobby for people to wait any longer, but a very nice padded chair sits behind the desk. Also by the desk, the blue armored figure of Flimmern has just looked up from some papers, a rather small man in a brown vest and with what honestly looks like a scarf with eye holes wrapped around his head standing next to her.
«We got her!» Thirteenth Hour yells out as she and Cat Sith charge the valkyrie, your newest teammate's brand new sword ringing as it slides away from the metal plate.
"Eindringlinge!" Flimmern shouts, grabbing her own copper blade. She has to make a hasty parry as Thirteenth Hour's sword crashes against her.
Alpha's hyena runs towards the man in the vest, and you grimace when his fingers elongate into foot-long bone claws. When Alpha showed you the picture of the man, you had focused on the bear skin he was wearing, but it is clear now that this would be Barbar, one of the Brutes the Wolfheads have on their roster. Which means you are likely also going to have to face his sister.
Sure enough, a cape in a midnight blue dress runs out of one of the doors on the balcony. White light surrounds her hands, but any appearance of softness is rapidly dispelled when Schütze flings several streaks of light towards Thirteenth Hour and Alpha.
«Sword, she's ours,» Charlie says, though you still cannot see where he vanished to.
Not a bad idea, honestly, you think to yourself. From what you understand and from talking with Missy on a number of occasions, most Blasters do not have any kind of special protection from getting stabbed. Mages like you are a glaring exception. With them attacking Schütze's weakness and Thirteenth Hour and Cat Sith countering Flimmern's strength, that leaves you and Alpha to take care of Barbar. You look down at the claws his hands have become– not to mention his now ursine head complete with fangs and a muscular tail that looks more monkey than bear – and the winning strategy becomes clear. «Think your hyena can keep him distracted down there?»
Alpha just turns her head to stare at you through her faceplate. «Why do you think I created it in the first place?»
You fly a short distance away from her, just in case Barbar somehow has a ranged attack of some kind, and call up a dozen Flare Shooters at the same time that Alpha creates or unseals a large number of honest to god shuriken. You stare at her from the corner of your eye. Is she a PRT agent or a ninja? The throwing stars start spinning around faster and faster, and you shrug. You have never seen her use any kind of Shooter spell, so maybe this is her alternative?
Almost in sync the two of you hurl your attacks. A second later, you are extremely thankful both that her weapons are undoubtedly cheap to make and that with so many, she cannot move them with as much precision as you can your Shooters. A couple of shuriken get melted just by the heat of your bullets passing by, and you have to take more direct control of them to weave through the hail of steel. If Alpha could steer her weapons the way you can, you have no doubt they would crash together even more.
Barbar's tail lashes out and sweeps a swath of shuriken out of his way, but there are too many for him to effectively dodge. The concrete hyena latched onto his leg likely does not make it any easier. The stars do not dig into his flesh, either; instead they start swirling around him so they can more easily carve long furrows into him. She plans to bleed him out, you realize. Keep him occupied with the hyena and nearly literally take him down with a 'thousand cuts'.
You can see the shapeshifting Brute give you a glare before turning his attention and his claws to the one enemy he can see, namely the golem. Great grooves are carved into the creature, but it is merely concrete, not flesh and blood. It does not care.
Flimmern shouts something in German, something that sounds even angrier than the language normally does. Another door in the back of the room opens, this time below the balcony, and an overweight boy forged from metal stomps out. Even from this distance you can see how his eyes widen at the sight of even just two of you, but with a timid battlecry he charges, growing taller with every step.
"I got this," you tell Alpha. You have been thinking off and on since seeing this cape in the drug den, and you think you know a good way to deal with him. He is obviously a coward, and while this metal form of his is undoubtedly durable, you have something that trumps it and just might put the fear of magic in him.
A blazing scythe blade erupts from the head of Perfect Storm, and your Device pulls up another bit of code without prompting. «Blitz Action ready, Mistress.»
You push the mental button and move. Gestalt might be twelve feet tall now and made of steel, but that does not matter to you. You dash forwards, the edge of your Flare Blade scraping sideways over his abdomen. A blink and you change direction, now accelerating behind him and carving a line across his back. Your enhanced speed nearly sends you into the underside of the balcony, but you hit the brakes and instead move full speed straight downwards. Your boots hit the floor a single moment before you spin around to hold your scythe between yourself and Gestalt.
Your concern that he will hit you as soon as you stop is clearly unwarranted. Gestalt screams as he pulls the stump of his right arm close to his chest. His closed fist lays on the floor, still large and metal, but despite the lack of blood he must still be able to feel pain. He does not even look at you before he turns tail and runs back into the room from which he appeared.
That is one of them dealt with, and you take a second to check on Thirteenth Hour and Cat Sith. It is their first fight with you, particularly Thirteenth Hour's first fight with her new powers, but you appear to have nothing to worry about. They have Flimmern well in hand.
Instead you return your focus to Barbar. You have the scythe out already, so it does not take much to rush past him and score another slash across his back now. Several of the whirling shuriken ping off you in the process, but they are a nothing to your Barrier Jacket. He whirls around to counter, but by then you are already out of his reach and floating ten feet away from Alpha.
It gives you the perfect opportunity to see Schütze's back explode in a burst of purple light and then for Sword to roundhouse kick her in the head and off the balcony entirely. The gowned villainess flips over the railing and tumbles end over end until she slams into the ground with a heavy thud.
"Schütze!" Barbar screams. He turns his back on you and starts running towards his fallen sister. In doing so he gives you the perfect opportunity. Six Flare Shooters fly from your hand to surround his head and explode with massive force. The orange light clears, and you watch as he stumbles around for several more feet before collapsing onto the ground.
He may be tough, and he may have claws, but that doesn't make him immune to concussions.
Your scythe powers down, and you glance up to find that Charlie has returned to visibility and stands next to Sword. They both look fine, not even a scuff visible on Sword's uniform. With them checked on, you look over at your own teammates and ask the question that has been bubbling in the back of your head since you saw what they were doing to Flimmern. "I thought capes were immune to their own powers."
"Their own powers, yes," Thirteenth Hour tells you, her sword resting on her shoulder. "That does not always mean that they are immune to similar powers. Grab-bag capes in particular have this weakness. Just because she used lightning didn't mean she was resistant to it at all."
"That's a good thing for us," Alpha agrees cautiously, "but we do need her alive."
Cat Sith looks up from her work and gives a slow, very cat-like blink. "She is alive." The Guardian Beast pulls her closed fist, which is somehow coated with a thin layer of sparking electricity, away from where it had been pressed firmly against Flimmern's back between her shoulder blades. You knew when you offered Thirteenth Hour a template that Cat Sith would gain her elemental affinity in terms of defense, but you did not know that it would also translate into attacks. Samantha certainly cannot use your Flare affinity. "See?"
No longer being constantly tased, Flimmern stops her spasming and sags into sweet unconsciousness. 'Sags' because she is unable to fall to the floor thanks to the pink circles of Ring Bind that hold her arms in the air. Nonetheless, you can see she is still breathing.
"Useful," admits Alpha after a moment. "If you're sure it will not cause any permanent injury, mind doing the same to the others?" She gestures to Barbar and Schütze. "It would be nice not having to worry about them waking up while we're still waiting for transport."
Thirteenth Hour nods, lighting zapping up her blade. "We can do that."
"We still have one last rat to deal with," you remind the others, your eyes turning to face the still-open door he ran through. "Gestalt came in to try to help, but he left… empty-handed."
"…That was awful."
Hiding a small smile, you float into the air and through the doorway. That smile fades as you consider the very real possibility that your quarry simply is no longer here. He is a teleporter, and that means he could be absolutely anywhere by now. He very much seems the type to cut and run, not stand and fight or even set up an ambush.
Turning a corner, you find yourself surprised and a little disappointed. Gestalt, rather than fleeing, is still here. More specifically, he is huddled in a corner as if hoping that if he is quiet enough you will not find him. He is made from wood now rather than metal, and interestingly in the short time since you saw him he has somehow restored his hand. You also cannot help but notice that the wood of his wrist and part of his forearm on that side are stained red rather than the brown of the rest of his body.
He opens his eyes when your feet audibly touch down on the floor, and those eyes grow wide as he gulps and stares at you and the staff gripped loosely in your hand. You still have to wonder why he is not teleporting, but… You tilt your head and look closer at him. Maybe his teleportation is more limited than you previously assumed.
Good for you; not so much for him.
You give him a smile that is all teeth and watch him squirm harder. "Good evening, Gestalt."
Well, well, well. Gestalt is the only Wolfhead cape left in this building. What do you want to do about that?
[ ] Kill him. With his teleportation powers, he will be next to impossible to hold in prison. Don't let him start this all over again.
[ ] Arrest him. He's a Nazi, and he deserves to face punishment for his crimes. The courts can figure out what to do with him.
[ ] Flip him. The Protectorate is always looking for more capes, and it doesn't seem like he's done anything too bad yet.
-[ ] Let the Protectorate do what they want with him.
-[ ] Talk to Chevalier about keeping him in Philly.
[ ] Claim him. He seems more like a scaredy cat than a monster, and his variety of powers would let him fill many roles in the Arcana… if you can trust him.
Tale Swapper
(Unverified Madman)
- Location
- Lost Among a Sea of Imaginings and Dreams
[X] Bind him, then talk to him. He doesn't seem like he wants to fight, and it'd be good to get some info on him before you decide what to do.
- Location
- Germany
This name has been bothering me since the last chapter, but I couldn't put into words why. Now I've remembered: In German it's custom to use the word stem when making a verb into a name, so it's supposed to be "Flimmer" without an 'n'. (Or alternatively "Flimmerer", someone who flickers. (Well, technically "Flimmerin", the female form, but that looks stupid. Not everything needs to be gendered.)) It's late, but could you please change it?
I resent that implication and am going to forcefeed you German Disney and My Little Pony songs until you take it back.
[X] Claim him. He seems more like a scaredy cat than a monster, and his variety of powers would let him fill many roles in the Arcana… if you can trust him.
I am a dragon. What am I supposed to choose besides "MINE!" ?
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Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
[X] Bind him, then talk to him. He doesn't seem like he wants to fight, and it'd be good to get some info on him before you decide what to do.
- Location
- Milky Way
[X] Arrest him. He's a Nazi, and he deserves to face punishment for his crimes. The courts can figure out what to do with him.
[X] Bind him, then talk to him. He doesn't seem like he wants to fight, and it'd be good to get some info on him before you decide what to do.
[X] Bind him, then talk to him. He doesn't seem like he wants to fight, and it'd be good to get some info on him before you decide what to do.
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
I want to interrogate him first, figure out why he's in with them.
If he's... Y'know... Racist...
Just kill the worthless fuck.
If he's... Y'know... Racist...
Just kill the worthless fuck.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
Then by all means, cast your vote to have us do so.
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
Can't, no write-in option.
Academic Guardian
Just an old man with a hobby
- Location
- Somewhere in the twisting Kaleidoscope
Huh I can't seem to find this Bind option in the post, is that a write in?
Though I rather not murderhobo this as much as I hate Nazis, so...
[X] Arrest him. He's a Nazi, and he deserves to face punishment for his crimes. The courts can figure out what to do with him.
Also if the Protectorate want to keep him with them, they can go through official channels. Maybe drop a hint or two to Chevalier but whether they convince him to side with the white hats is up them. Plus being in jail gives the Protectorate more negotiating power if you catch my drift
Silvereagle21
Soaring through the Sky
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Arrest him. He's a Nazi, and he deserves to face punishment for his crimes. The courts can figure out what to do with him.
[X] Flip him. The Protectorate is always looking for more capes, and it doesn't seem like he's done anything too bad yet.
-[X] Let the Protectorate do what they want with him.
[X] Flip him. The Protectorate is always looking for more capes, and it doesn't seem like he's done anything too bad yet.
-[X] Let the Protectorate do what they want with him.
[X] Arrest him. He's a Nazi, and he deserves to face punishment for his crimes. The courts can figure out what to do with him.
[X] Flip him. The Protectorate is always looking for more capes, and it doesn't seem like he's done anything too bad yet.
-[X] Let the Protectorate do what they want with him.
Yeah, this Theo (if that is who he is) can just be shuffled off to some other city and out of the story imho...
[X] Flip him. The Protectorate is always looking for more capes, and it doesn't seem like he's done anything too bad yet.
-[X] Let the Protectorate do what they want with him.
Yeah, this Theo (if that is who he is) can just be shuffled off to some other city and out of the story imho...
[X] Arrest him. He's a Nazi, and he deserves to face punishment for his crimes. The courts can figure out what to do with him.
While I wouldn't cry any crocodile tears over a dead Nazi, there's a huge difference between killing him in combat and executing him.
For one, the second one would be murder.
One should always accept surrenders; it encourages people to give them.
While I wouldn't cry any crocodile tears over a dead Nazi, there's a huge difference between killing him in combat and executing him.
For one, the second one would be murder.
One should always accept surrenders; it encourages people to give them.
- Location
- Ural, Russia, Earth
Nice, Earth-Bet Magic System is being born.
He was smarter before. Close association with Nazi leads to deterioration of decision-making capacity, who would have thought.
Maybe he needs to touch an alive tree? To travel through the Worldroots, so to say?
Or maybe he's just too scared and doesn't know where to teleport. He did try to run away from Calamity several times, but she always found him again.
[X] Flip him. The Protectorate is always looking for more capes, and it doesn't seem like he's done anything too bad yet.
-[X] Let the Protectorate do what they want with him.
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