Depends, sometimes the fact that an effect will wear off is an upside, not a downside...
But certainly the highest-impact duration.
A Flung Light (Worm/minor toaru cross)
But certainly the highest-impact duration.
Forget this story. I really want to read that story now. Also I think I know why Eden crash landed. She was sad that she had to leave her husbando Touma behind and didn't see the incoming planet.
Interlude Armsmaster - S Class
- Location
- Earth
Interlude Armsmaster – S Class
Friday, 29th April – Brockton Bay, Downtown – PRT HeadquartersArmsmaster finished filling the last line on the stack of paperwork, then carefully moved it onto his try labeled outgoing.
He sighed in frustration.
Then he began working on the next stack.
As had become customary the last two weeks Armsmaster was again in his office in the PRT Headquarters.
First Lung's arrest and subsequent escape, then the arrest of Krieg, Victor and Othala in Mental Out and BiriBiri's debut. The revelation of how badly the Empire had infiltrated them. Mental Out expertly applying social pressure to get them to aggravate Lung by going after one of his brothels. Even though it was a good dead, such missions demand more preparation in case of enemy cape intervention. Then Mental Out leaked the Empire's involvement with Medhall to the media. Sophia's breaking of her probation. And finally the arrest of all but Hookwolf and Purity of the Empire not even a week later when they tried to rescue their captured members. An entire gang that had gotten their hooks into Brockton Bay for decades. Oh, and sometime before that those two managed to recruit a third member.
All of that within two weeks.
They needed to completely vet their staff, ensure sufficient guards were available for the captives, investigate Medhall, rework their entire vetting procedure because of how much they missed, get at least some of the captives transferred at best yesterday. Because they did not actually have enough cells rated for all of them. He had to post double guards and some capes as guards to have them adequately guarded despite that. Personnel which was now missing for patrols and missions. At a time it was already short due to some failing their vetting. Which was why he had to redo the patrol schedules as well. Then there was the biotinker creation that had tried to murder Mental Out which had Director Piggot on a war path. Her past involvement in the disaster that was Ellisburg might be classified, but not classified enough that he hadn't managed to find out.
Oh, and he had to entirely redo their threat assessments as well.
Their last showing was substantive, at least he finally managed to narrow down the commonality of who she could or couldn't control.
Alabaster. Temporary control, broke out with every reset.
Bakuda, all of the Undersiders, Othala, Victor, Krieg, Kaiser, Stormtiger, Cricket, Rune, Crusader, Fenja, Menja, countless mundane gang members, control success.
Purity, control failure.
Hookwolf, control failure.
Fog, control failure.
Night, control success strangely.
It took further thought to match the last one in his model of Mental Out's power, but eventually he did. Night's switch into her breaker state was involuntary. She got caught outside of it then Mental Out made sure someone was always watching her.
Together with the analysis of his sensor readings, which he always had running just in case, of the capes she controlled he finally had his answer.
Fine control of cerebrospinal fluid. What a roundabout way of achieving a master effect. But powers often lacked efficiency.
It'd inform who they'd send if there ever was conflict, though he did not consider that too likely.
He still designed and built a module for his helmet to protect him. The considerable electrical currents will keep her from controlling him. It was better to be safe than sorry where mind controllers were concerned.
He hoped the three would slow down for now.
He knew better.
They went at it with the haste and impatience of youth.
They already saw the first ripples of their actions. The Merchants were growing bold against the remnant of the Empire with Purity likely still not recovered from her injuries and Hookwolf nowhere to be seen. The ABB was moving against the Empire as well, though for now without involvement of their capes. Legend had sent him a warning that the Teeth cell in New York suddenly went quiet. They had history in Brockton Bay and might see opportunity in the sudden vacuum the absence of the Empire heralded.
The ring of his phone took him out of his analysis of the future trouble.
Unknown number. That shouldn't be the case. Though technically connected to the public phone network the number of this phone was not given out externally.
The most efficient way to find out was to answer so he did. Right as he started to trace the call as well, just in case.
"Hello-hello. Am I speaking to Armsmaster?" Mental Out's voice greeted him.
"Armsmaster speaking. How did you get this number?" He needed to know despite dreading the answer. It heralded more paperwork for him.
"Dear Coil here does keep exacting files on every piece of information he extracted from the PRT," her tired sounding voice answered. "Though you might know him better as Thomas Calvert."
He hated being right. Thomas Calvert currently served as a paid consultant for New York, Brockton Bay and Boston after his honorable discharge following Ellisburg, though his file was classified beyond his ability to access. More pertinently he was on the short list of potential interim or even replacement directors. What a disaster if true. Which it was barring Mental Out being fooled. She would not lie about something like that.
His computer signaled the arrival of a new email. "As has become customary, the list of moles should've just plopped up in your emails," she went on.
He would've loved to argue against the customary, but he truly couldn't.
The list of personnel and which hook was used to get them to betray their oath scrolled across his monitor.
Some of them were doing the vetting.
He barely suppressed a groan. He'd have to restart the vetting from the beginning once again.
The sound of screeching metal forced his attention back to the phone call.
"What was that?" He asked with growing dread.
"Oh that? Just a member of the Travelers they haven't advertised. High-level brute," she sounded so tired, "though that's the least of the trouble."
Wasn't she in Coil's bas-? He must've hired them as patsies like he did with the Undersiders. Quick commands on his computer brought up the Traveler's profiles. All high-level parahumans, all dangerous.
He stopped on Genesis' page.
"Genesis. She was the construct that attacked you," he made the connection.
"Mhm. Noelle is somewhat miffed at my taking control of her teammates," she continued conversationally over the sound of something heavy and metallic thundering down onto concrete, "more troublesome is her capability to make evil clones of anyone who touches her. Oh, and if they're parahuman they'll have a variation of their power too."
He considered the implications of that over the sound of lasers firing through the phone.
He shuddered.
That was a challenge for an entire Protectorate team. One that could easily go awry especially if they didn't know about it.
"I'd say she's an A-class threat on her own, and a couple unlucky clones away from an S-class threat if they synergize," she went on with admirable calm. What had happened to her to shape her so? It couldn't have been pleasant. "Now normally I'd say I still have that under control. I got a whole base of mercenaries and an entire high-level cape team to deal with her after all," she kept to the idly chattering tone she had used the entire time to his ever growing dread. This wasn't the worst of it?
He sent a text message to Miss Militia to come to his office instantly, and prep a PRT team for deployment as well.
"But then I found out they escaped the Madison containment zone," he froze while she blithely went on while in the background something broke the sound barrier followed by a crash and an inhuman roar, "Trickster remembers you. He saw you walking with Myrddin, heard him say if the Simurgh's the one answering questions, you don't want the answers. So.. considering her involvement I am mostly waiting for the other shoe to drop."
He remembered that. That was a bad day, they had lost that fight despite Scion's early intervention.
He put another command into the computer, calling Dragon.
"Dragon, I am granting you access to the last few minutes of audio and video data of this room," he interrupted her before she could say anything, "Forward it to Watchdog as well, suspected Simurgh involvement. Priority Access declared on my authority."
He transferred the calls to his suit, grabbed his halberd and was already moving as Miss Militia opened the door to his office.
"We are moving out," he went through his list of available heroes. He shouldn't bring anyone reliant on close combat unless he was certain they could be put down if cloned. Many needed to stay to guard the prisoners anyway. "Divert Dauntless from his patrol route and contact New Wave as well. We'll need their ranged capabilities."
"If you need further verification, some searching should find records that one Noelle Meinhardt and a Luke Casseus were admitted to St. Mary's hospital, though Coil did his best to have that investigation buried," Mental Out chimed in again over the crack of lightning, "Krouse, er- Trickster did escape with Noelle from the hospital despite Myrddin's attempts to arrest them. He did ask him if he could open doors between worlds. Unsurprising since they got taken from Aleph."
Great. The Haywire act has been broken as well. Just great. He barely suppressed the groan due to years of PR training.
He sprinted down the stairs towards the garage and jumped on his motorcycle with Miss Militia frantically giving commands over radio right on his heels.
"Watchdog has appraised the situation," Dragon informed them. "Eleventh Hour says he gets swinging results between five and twelve. Appraiser swings between purple, purple-velvet and velvet-black. Hunch says it's bad. Precognitive interference detected. Simurgh protocols demand assumption of worse results. Threat level S confirmed. Activating S-class roster. Dragon Suit Cawthorne deploying, ETA five minutes. Legend deploying, ETA one minute. Alexandria deploying, ETA two minutes. Eidolon, Chevalier, Myrddin and Rime deploying via Strider, ETA three minutes."
Velvet-black. Fuck. That was only the case for some of the worst Endbringer attacks.
"Dauntless, ETA two minutes."
"Miss Militia, ETA four minutes."
"New Wave, ETA ten minutes."
"Armsmaster, ETA two minutes," he sped through the streets of Brockton to the sound of sirens.
He cut through the metal fence without slowing down as he arrived at the construction site.
Legend was already floating high in the sky on over-watch. Good. Him getting cloned would be a disaster.
Mental Out, BiriBiri and the temporarily named Apport were climbing out of a metal hatch at the unfinished sky scraper.
Coil, Trickster, Sundancer, Ballistic and an unknown girl sleeping in a wheel chair were with them.
Dinah Alcott was clutching at Mental Out's left arm. The other held her remote.
Coil's mercenaries were retreating with them in good order, keeping their weapons trained on the metal hatch.
The mercenaries and Travelers were eerily quiet. No barked orders, no screams, no mutterings at all unlike BiriBiri who was cursing colorfully enough to earn herself mandatory lessons with PR if she were a Ward.
Mental Out was looking at him and Legend, not her controlled.
Lack of sight lines did not seem to impede her at all once she had established control.
It was strange to have the master on their side.
Dauntless arrived with his boots trailing a white crackling energy.
A crack in the air signaled Alexandria's arrival.
"Report," she barked in her no-nonsense tone.
"She's close behind," Mental Out told her as the sleeping girl woke up, "she keeps regenerating her legs no matter how often we managed to cut or burn them off and does it fast enough she doesn't get slowed down much. I kept her from catching anyone, so she's still on her own."
Scrap on the construction site kept being replaced by more mercenaries whenever Trickster glanced at it. Despite him being unable to see inside the base.
She was evacuating the base. Orderly and in such a way to deny the brute any victims.
She managed an adequate holding action until reinforcements arrived.
"Miss Militia, contain the area. Evacuate civilians," Armsmaster barked into his radio.
"There are other exits at Tower Street, Winter Street and Park Street," Mental Out warned him. "She also can smell parahumans, so the presence of new ones won't be a surprise to her."
Loud rumbling put an end to any further discussions.
"Give them back," the mass of flesh and mouths broke through the metal hatch.
He had seen uglier.
She was met with lasers, Alexandria put a lamp post right threw her center, lightning hit it and lit her up from the inside, she lost a leg because an iron plate appeared side-ways through it.
It didn't kill her.
She struggled through the lamp post and ripped herself free, her wounds healing behind it again.
Armsmaster kept his distance for now, but readied himself to hem her in should their ranged fighters fail.
Noelle stormed forwards only to be met by Myrddin. He pointed his staff at her. "Begone," he demanded and she vanished in a cloud of mist.
They were all well familiar with his power and its limitations, he'd have to release her before long.
No matter.
By the time New Wave arrived the fight was long over. The threat contained.
A/N.:
Unlike the Undersiders, Nozomi is not considered a Villain so her word has more weight with the Protectorate. Especially since she found out about the Simurgh involvement which the Undersiders didn't (or at least did not report that to the PRT; Coil definitely knew) and gathered enough details to convince Armsmaster about that which immediately ensured Eidolon and Rebecca/Alexandria wouldn't downgrade the situation to an A-class despite it being less dire than in canon.
Because the PRT/Protectorate does not play games when the Simurgh is even tangentially involved.
This was the heroes dropping the hammer.
Also a few people have brought up BiriBiri learning from Manpower.
I don't think anyone has brought up Dauntless?
Now, can you people notice all the incoming trouble with the people present right now?
Well Mental Out's reading a surprising number of Cauldron member's minds right now, while Glory Girl might not have the discipline to stay away from Noelle.
edit: Hookwolf's still in the base as well, isn't he?
edit 2: missed that the threat was contained in the last line. Probably the Cauldron issue.
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- Location
- USA
I do believe Nozomi may do something rash after getting a peak into certain people's heads. Just a feeling I have.
Wow, that was epic!
Nozomi containing this without a fuss, giving them all the info they need to process it, honestly if everything goes right then this should be how govt agencies/PRT dealt with crisis.
I can't help but compare this to how Taylor would handle this though to be fair to her, she is adaptable to the situation even if it far more chaotic which leave the heroes taking losses and cleaning up the mess in a ragged way.
Mental Out is going to get huge amount of points for this, hope Armsmaster gave her all the intel about the coming gang movements and Nozomi crush Lung once and for all instead of leaving the shithead alone planning stupid cruel things.
I think the thing that most annoys me is her not taking Lung out sooner, I mean he last that long against the Empire and there's a reason ABB is a two cape gang unlike other gangs.
Nozomi containing this without a fuss, giving them all the info they need to process it, honestly if everything goes right then this should be how govt agencies/PRT dealt with crisis.
I can't help but compare this to how Taylor would handle this though to be fair to her, she is adaptable to the situation even if it far more chaotic which leave the heroes taking losses and cleaning up the mess in a ragged way.
Mental Out is going to get huge amount of points for this, hope Armsmaster gave her all the intel about the coming gang movements and Nozomi crush Lung once and for all instead of leaving the shithead alone planning stupid cruel things.
I think the thing that most annoys me is her not taking Lung out sooner, I mean he last that long against the Empire and there's a reason ABB is a two cape gang unlike other gangs.
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Which brings up the unfortunate thought that Noelle may have run his "stuck to the floor" ass over and copied him during her exit-rampage, so they may find two hookwolves down there. Or just one, since the clones do get kind of "murder my original" happy.
- Location
- England
I've wondered on occasion, if you clone someone who is extremely suicidal would the clone keep the original alive to spite them?
Nozomi and Co probably just got tons of brownie points with the PRT and a bunch of high level heroes in general. While there are supposed to be more S class threats that get nipped in the bud in canon, independent heroes making that happen probably isn't very common. Piggot is also going to once again be a combination of furious and grudgingly grateful. I also loved how Myrridin just immediately solved the situation.
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- Pronouns
- Zug
Emotional support Tsundere clones
I'm not forcing you into therapy because I want you alive you dummy!
Or some of the protectorate capes possibly even the triumvirate do something stupid in a conscription and or hide cauldron attempt Armsy's previous interlude already said they were going to do it when things had calmed down after all and now he's worked out how mental out works and which capes are immune to it.
Canon had many issues including Lisa having lost Taylor as her pet project playing stupid games and mouthing off, the prt lowballing the threat lv for dumb reasons, Trickster probably by Ziz bomb influence betrayed them and suddenly fought on Noelle's side busting her out of the contained state she was in and gifting her key capes which I think included Vista, Eidolon twisting things around to set up him alone facing Noelle because the danger has him be closer to his peak and he thought he could train his way back to it which ended in him losing and getting cloned, said clone blabbing Cauldron secrets, Alexandria also got captured somehow and so did a new york ward self duplicator.
Another part of it was that Noelle got convinced via Ziz influence to go along with it and rampage since she is actually a really smart strategist only really let down by the power's berserker like influences plus when she got stuck she her power took over a few times which was full berserker no intelligence but more raw physical power. In the end the main things that led to her defeat were Weld's selective manton limit thing meaning she couldn't absorb or clone him so he could get on her back and dig people out, the power enforced rage means Noelle was willing to accept releasing Eidolon in exchange for recapturing Taylor who she hated and couldn't tell it was a trick which meant she released him only to run into a clockblocked wire that cut off her top half.
That part was important because in regrowing it from the waist up Noelle lost some of her surety of self of it not being effected by her power which led to her rampaging more and being willing to hand over the reins to her power which in turn pushed things far enough for Sundancer to conclude it wasn't Noelle anymore and that it was better to put Echidna down in memory of Noelle which she was able to pretty effortlessly do with Alexandria pinning her in place albeit at the cost of reducing Alexandria down to her weird metallic underwear which exposed her identity.
Maybe. Maybe not. Might not matter though. Legend can probably be read as long as he isn't in his breaker state. He doesn't know as much. Eidolon as long as he doesn't have a power up to defend himself from the reading would also be vulnerable.
Alexandria... probably no, her mind is in another dimension. Maybe... she could read her mind as it was when she got her powers because her body froze in that state.
Legend... yes... if not in breaker state.
Eldieon... depends on his abilities. Depends on whether or not he has anti-thinker ability up or not. I would assume with a human master around and the battle over, he would be using one.
Of course that depends on if and when Mental Out tries to read their memories.
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I think she can be read. She became brain dead because of not getting enough oxygen. Meaning her brain wasn't completely Time locked like the rest of her body. So Nozomi should be able to at least read her mind and memories if not Control her outright.
I'm REALLY grateful for this synopsis. I haven't read Worm and I don't plan to. So I'm really thankful for getting a surprise synopsis of an arc like this. Especially the Echidna arc which somewhat flipped the board in canon Worm. Now all I need is someone posting a synopsis of the Slaughterhouse 9 arc. I'm really curious about how Taylor and Brian got away from Bonesaw. Especially since Taylor got the lower part of her body replaced with Tentacles or something.
- Location
- The Beach
That wasn't from the S9 arc. IIRC, Bonesaw had paralyzed Taylor and Brian, with Bonesaw planning on doing some open brain surgery on Taylor to mess with her power. Brian second triggered, and they got rescued I think.
The part you talking about happened during Gold Morning, with post-semi-reformed Bonesaw giving everybody emergency healing packs, so after Scion blew up everyone on the oil rig, Taylor was cut in half and Bonesaw healing thing activated. Because it was Bonesaw, it was horrifying but basically made her like half spider and survived long enough to get pulled out and Panacea to rebuild her lower half.
But yeah, I kinda doubt the S9 would come to BB in this continuity? They showed up in part because every group was weakened and recovering from the Endbringer attack. At the very least, they'd have a harder time just showing up and having like a week of free reign before deciding to announce themselves. Seems like the Teeth are coming early instead.
Honestly I couldn't really do that without getting a lot wrong (mainly the order of events) and or missing because it's a pretty big thing and occupies more than 1 part of worm since just to start there's a few chapters dropping hints they are there then one for each the 9's selected members being nominated or rather attempted to be nominated since Crawler doesn't actually make it to Noelle to nominate her before it really starts.
I can tell you though the Bonesaw thing so basically the undersiders and travellers had tried to do an ambush by themselves on the nine since Hookwolf socially wrecked and dominated them and managed to set it up so they were excluded from the anti s9 truce since they weren't willing to do the standard ceasing of criminal activity and claiming of territory since it would lose them their progress and lose the window where the other groups couldn't do anything to stop them.
This basically consisted of sticking to range while manoeuvring things to bait away the dangerous members, hit them, capture Cherish and bail. It did technically work however because of Cherish's sensing and Jack's shard cheating the nine knew about them before they atked. That meant while they did get away with Cherish Brian wasn't able to escape and they captured him. When they invaded the nine's base to free him they found out that Bonesaw and Mannequin despite the extremely short window had splayed him open and unfurled his insides along a room exposing all his nerves too. Bonesaw then did tinker nonsense to disable Taylor, got her on the table and started monologuing about powers and all the fun experiments she could do. That second triggered Brian fortunately before she could actually do anything so now his smoke formed and spread quicker but it was less dense and he also copies the powers of any capes inside it but without all the shard assistance in their use. That meant due to Crawler's he started healing and the nine had to flee from his copy of Siberian.
Mostly correct but it wasn't Bonesaw who gave out the packs it was Lab Rat who gave out the transformation thing it also wasn't half spider and nearly killed her because it had an inbuilt aggression thing so Taylor got stuck in the position of being driven to atk scion but being able to get to him and being unable to retreat but knowing at any point it could wear off and she'd lose her lower half again and die.
I also wouldn't count the nine out just yet since they have a lot of standing interest in the bay what with Labyrinth for Burnscar, tinkers for Mannequin, Amy for Bonesaw, Jack's history with the city and dislike of it being the nine's only real defeat, Regent for Cherish and Lung for Crawler.
She became brain dead because she believed she needed oxygen, and the copy of her mind running in shardware was shut down as a result to maintain the simulation. Her lungs, like the majority of her body, are time locked, and thus would not transmit oxygen into her bloodstream anyways. Any metabolic functions required by the small part of her brain that was partially non-locked would be handled by the shard, not her lungs.
Why would I say that her brain is also at least mostly time-locked? She does rapid acceleration/deceleration frequently in the series, pulling the equivalent to G-forces that would turn a normal brain into a thin jelly if exposed to them. Arguing that no, her lungs must also be non-locked would just mean that the first time she went from zero to the other side of the country, she left her lungs behind as a fine mist settling across several states due to the compression they experienced inside of her chest cavity being enough to break the bonds between the molecules in the cells that they were made of.
His smoke spread slower and was more inky/tendril-like, reducing its use in the role of instant cover, but other than that it sounds about right.
Timelocked is fanon and body in stasis can mean her biology is not normal (or not biology at all like Case 53s). She's more like a statue/Case 53 made of materials so hard that no conventional force in the setting was able to damage her, added to how she can be thrown around instead of being like a fixture in space that pretends to be affected by gravity like Siberian, who was able to gouge out Alexandria's eyes yet pops when touching Clockblocked objects. Adding to that, when Alex died during Gold Morning, the fragments of her body were described to be more like pieces of a statue.
If you want to see a back and forth argument on this, go here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/s/KK9acEgVjr
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Things have been going by pretty quickly.
Props to him for figuring out how Mental Out works.
Brockton has gotten really hot lately due to the gang's actions.
Yeah it's a really big deal. Also Mental Out has earned the trust of at least Armsmaster.
Noelle's powers are the kind of things that could escalate into a nightmare scenario.
Simurgh is really scary so anything even vaguely aligned with her is a big deal.
Colin is like it keeps on getting worse.
Most Masters are villains so it would be very strange.
When the Heroes go all out and don't pull any punches and bring all their guys stuff gets crazy and the people who rosed the sleeping giant get wrecked.
Looking forward to seeing that. Mental Out is going to get a huge reputation boost from this.
Hand't thought about that maybe not all of them since she probably isn't going to be able to read Alexandria's mind but enough that she'll know that conspiracy stuff is going on.
Depending on how Alexandria's power works, she may be immune to Mental Out (I'd be inclined to say that because her memories are perfect, it implies that they at least are offloaded to her shard. She also had the enhanced processing and learning, so a lot of that is probably offloaded, which is why she is immune to the Simurgh. The processes left to her meatbrain are probably a bit more basic, but that means less interesting to Mental Out).
Legend is kept specifically out of the loop on a lot of the shadier stuff, so he isn't a major target for Mental Out (though he does know that Alexandria is RBC).
Eidolon is probably entirely vulnerable unless he has some power running that protects him (and many shard based nullifier powers may not work, because a lot of those are just one shard saying "Hey, stop looking at this info" to another shard).
However, the one who was mentioned that I think might be most interesting is Chevalier. He has his power sight, so he can tell that whatever is going on with Mental Out is abnormal, and Biribiri and Apport have no shard. That may produce some interesting conversation.
Legend is kept specifically out of the loop on a lot of the shadier stuff, so he isn't a major target for Mental Out (though he does know that Alexandria is RBC).
Eidolon is probably entirely vulnerable unless he has some power running that protects him (and many shard based nullifier powers may not work, because a lot of those are just one shard saying "Hey, stop looking at this info" to another shard).
However, the one who was mentioned that I think might be most interesting is Chevalier. He has his power sight, so he can tell that whatever is going on with Mental Out is abnormal, and Biribiri and Apport have no shard. That may produce some interesting conversation.