A Flung Light (Worm/minor toaru cross)
Letter
- Location
- Earth
Letter
Monday, 25th April 2011 – Brockton Bay, Winslow High SchoolI opened my locker and a letter fluttered right towards me.
I fumbled to catch it, but Keiko was faster.
"Oh, a love letter," she looked in delight at the open letter, "how romantic!"
I scowled at it. Only a coward couldn't even ask in person.
"She wants to meet after school behind the old sports facility," Keiko smiled.
"She?" I eyed the chicken scratch suspiciously.
"You shouldn't throw stones in your own glass house," Keiko teased my own handwriting.
"Hey, it's gotten much better!" I insisted. Truthfully even. It wasn't that hard with so many choices to learn from.
She had no reason to look at me with a raised brow.
"You should go," she insisted.
I didn't want to. I was way too busy already. The Protectorate hadn't managed to beat the Nazis in the last decade, they wouldn't manage it now either. I was still working my way through Bakuda's grenades. I still had to find someone decent enough I could trust with power in the off-chance whichever one they gained would allow me to save Mother.
I didn't have time to date.
"Nozomi. Come on, do it," Keiko continued her wheedling.
Damn it. She wouldn't let that go.
I sighed. "Let me find out who it is first." I was so sick of surprises.
I probably could find it out by rifling through what everyone in school was thinking right now, but I actually did have a different option in this case.
I had a function that allowed me to read the memories of an object. Somehow. Unlike the other functions of Mental Out which worked strictly on water and brains this one was more.. esoteric was the only word that fit.
The function had ten different blocks which were strangely interlinked with each other, using the input of one or several others to produce the output for one or several others. I had no idea why it worked. The first input block was only connected to a single other block, but that one was already connected to three others, two of which were connected to three others in turn and the last even to seven.
It was an interconnected mess that eventually ended in a single exit-block.
But it worked. And like code it worked even when the one using it didn't understand why.
I took the letter and ran the function.
A room drowned in the smell of alcohol. Scratches on paper. Hastily done. Dark circles under the eyes, purple eye shadow ruined by dried tear tracks. A ring twitching on a nose scrunched up in anger.
I carefully folded the letter up.
"You were right about a girl writing the letter," I admitted to Keiko, who was grinning.
"No, I shall not run into Yan's ambush," I told her.
"Oh," the grin slid from her face.
Yan had not looked well in the vision. I didn't think she took her failure to find me that hard. It wasn't hard for me to evade her. Mental Out vs her friends with phones wasn't a contest, it was a slam-dunk. Half-way through the week I became annoyed enough with the need to keep moving I developed a little Notice-Me-Not field. The real effort in that was ensuring it didn't give anyone my starry eyes. Aside from that it was merely some scanning, filtering and removing any conscious notice anyone made of me. Trivial.
It didn't stop her searching, but it rather literally caused her and her posse's eyes to simply glance past me unseeing.
A quick check on her mental state right now showed that she was.. distressed. Somehow she convinced herself if she couldn't even assert her superiority over me she'd get kicked out and put to work in one of the brothels…
Which wasn't the case. Most people had completely forgot about our little confrontation a week ago. They had much more interesting news to gossip about.
Oh well, it wasn't my problem. She could futilely lay in wait while I sifted through the gossip.
Unsurprisingly the two new capes that had their debut this weekend were a hot topic for the entire school.
The Hitler Youth was not enthused. Rather worried as well.
It had been a while since any of their capes got arrested, let alone three. A lieutenant among them.
Rifling through Rune's memories showed that Kaiser was furious. And scrambling while pretending he wasn't. Word was out for any scrap of information about BiriBiri and me to make it to Kaiser, no matter how insignificant.
Sucked to be him. There wasn't much information to be gathered; we were too new.
Purity was bedridden and likely to remain for months without a form of parahuman healing. I smiled in vindication. I knew getting rid of the healer was a good choice. She'd be troublesome to deal with for me.
She was also not the only one hurt. Stormtiger got cut up some courtesy of Oni Lee that day and many of their goons got various degrees of injuries from bruises, cuts and burn wounds. Which all had to heal the slow way now.
Usually Othala at least took care of the more serious cases as a reward for the meat shields, er, I mean courageous warriors.
Taken together this has caused some rumbling in the gang. They are quite motivated to get a piece of me.
For now Kaiser kept their eyes on the breakout during the transport he was planning though. Something Rune was assured they'd get the routes and date from their moles.
Either Kaiser hasn't noticed the PRT knowing of them yet, or he kept it back from the gang. Either was possible.
Something to keep an eye on.
On the ABB side the opinion was more mixed. They did applaud the arrest of the Nazis, but the rescue of the girls and women the ABB had tried to force into brothel work had made it clear I wasn't an ally of them either.
Which was a small part of the point of doing that.
It showed in the general non-gang population. We were rather positively seen by them. BiriBiri more so than me, but that was always the Master's lot.
It was a reputation I could use though.
They crowded around a dark-haired girl right outside their class room.
They were entirely unconcerned about any intervention by teachers and rightfully so for the most part.
Roughly half a dozen girls. Four of them were slinging the typical teenage insults, two hung back – watching the show. The insults were aimless. If not for the amount of them their victim would've completely shrugged them off. But there was something about being outnumbered that just made things sting that otherwise wouldn't.
I sped around another corner on my way to intervene. The timing had to be right.
The girl had long given up trying to leave. Any attempt to do so in the past was met by shoves from the track star, Sophia Hess.
It had taken me an embarrassingly long time to realize that the girl they previously bullied was Skitter. Talk about bullying a dragon. I had thought her persecution complex entirely unfounded. It wasn't a pleasant realization that it wasn't entirely so. Not that it excused her terrorizing innocent bank customers.
With her gone wherever Legend squirreled her away to, they were in need of a new target to keep their old social dynamic. It took Emma and Sophia roughly a week to decide on whom, mostly to make sure Taylor was truly gone.
To add extra spice to the situation Sophia was a Ward. Shadow Stalker, specifically. I only met the other heroes briefly, and didn't have too high an opinion of them besides, but they wouldn't stand for what she was pulling here. Something to bring up with them.
Principal Blackwell thought otherwise. So Sophia wasn't likely to get into trouble easily from the school.
If only there was someone who could get around that...
I turned the final corner in a confident stride. "Hey Charlotte, there you are," I kept walking through the girls around her who backed off a little from surprise alone and shamelessly grabbed onto Charlotte's hand.
A slight cough from the redhead reminded the girls they were supposed to bully Charlotte, not back away from the unknown interloper.
"We aren't done with her yet," she stated with faked confidence. Damn, was her mind a mess.
"But we are so done with you," I put a decent fake smile on my face, "I'm not letting you ruin my arts grade." There were some people who did their arts project in pairs. It wasn't the case for Charlotte and me, but none of them shared that class with us, so they wouldn't know.
"No one cares about a loser like her," Madison said, "I'm sure you can find a much better partner."
Charlotte looked away, already resigned.
"It's obvious to everyone you're padding your bra, Mads," I fake-whispered to her.
She reeled back like I had slapped her while the other girls tittered in amusement.
That was way too easy with Mental Out laying bare their every vulnerability.
I turned to another girl. "Julia is only faking her friendship to you," I told her sympathetically.
"Hey! That's untrue," Julia screamed. Which wasn't a lie, but it wouldn't help her.
"Come on, you've seen her do it before with Taylor." Just like that I placed another crack in their group. Christine did stutter out that of course she believed Julia, but it rang hollow to everyone. Because she doubted. Because she knew that Julia played Taylor for a fool for months. Once a liar, always a liar.
When words failed Sophia stepped forwards hands raised ready for violence, which was why it was important to get the timing right.
"What is going on here?" demanded Mrs. Knott.
A chorus of scrambled "Nothing"'s greeted her.
A fuming Sophia took a step back, mouthing "later" at me.
It didn't take long for everyone to clear out.
Charlotte and I sat down in one of the abandoned alcoves I normally shared lunch with Keiko. Who wasn't present because I didn't want to overwhelm Charlotte too much.
She fidgeted with her sandwich. Unsure.
Unsure why I went out of my way for her.
"There is no arts project," she whispered.
"There isn't," I agreed easily.
Now how to best segue this into "I can grant powers and want you to have one" without sounding creepy?
Not that there was much of a risk for me. Worst case, if she took it particularly badly, I'd rewrite her memories and get a talking to from Keiko.
"Why did you..?" help me when all she did was watch. That's what she stopped herself from asking.
"Because you regret it," I told her thinking about the gun Bakuda told me to shoot the Undersiders with.
I had said yes and meant it in that moment.
It mattered that I regretted it.
"You didn't have to make it your problem. They won't let it go."
I did not smile, I merely showed teeth.
"It won't take me more than an afternoon to take care of that. I'll start with a nice visit to Emma's mother," I mused, "I'll have a nice talk about how Emma's been falling in with bad influences lately and she really needs an intervention. Show her some of the videos the other girls made of their bullying." Including the one where Emma mocked Taylor with the death of Taylor's mother. That shock ought to do it. "That'll remove their social linchpin."
"Sophia…"
"Oh, don't you worry. I know who to talk to about her as well," I answered as I removed my lenses. Any of Armsmaster, Miss Militia or Battery would work. "But now I do have an offer for you."
She looked up from her lunch in confusion and froze once she met my eyes. "Do you want superpowers?"
- Location
- Brazil
It's kinda funny, but i really hope Yan doesn't trigger. Yeah, it looks like she will, but it would be interesting to see a somewhat neutral/bitch, who doesn't deserve this much (i think), become incredibly fucked up while the Master doesn't care. It would make some interesting conversations between her and Biribiri about it. Also, pretty interesting to see a mind reader actually doing usefull things with it, and all the mundane aplications of it. I still prefer A certain Mental Out, but this has been pretty good so far.
I could see it working story wise but logically it really shouldn't since it's 1 in a few thousand people who have powers or the potential to trigger and between the protag, Taylor, Sophia and sort of Rune (since she's from the Herren clan) Winslow is more than covered statistically. Then again worm being what it is there are options for it due to the how the only Asian cape from the bay is Lee and not really an explanation why so story reasons like she's a 2nd gen off a now dead pre lung Asian cape could work or a shard from the same picking a new host after their old one died.
- Location
- Earth
Nozomi used to be pretty average at the social game, then she got Mental Out to use as a cudgel. She sees no problems in using it to make her life easier in the gang-infested hellscape that calls itself a school.
It's, uh, a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but Nozomi brought a machine gun.
So yeah, Yan isn't having a good time, not that 'zomi cares.
The canon numbers are 1:8000 for urban areas and 1:26000 for rural areas.
With the US being roughly divided 80:20 Urban:Rural this ends up with ~33.800 parahumans total in the United States.
Also the canonical explanation for the lack of Asian capes besides Lung, Lee (and Bakuda) is that only Lee bent the knee when Lung took over while the others left or got killed.
Nozomi is not a second generation cape. Her shard also did not have a single other host before her.
Ever.
Not even in a previous cycle.
Make of that what you will.
To clarify I was meaning that given those numbers Winslow has about as many capes as you'd expect it to when you remember that shards prefer young people so the numbers will practically speaking be a lot higher when talking about how many a high school would have especially since I was including people who can trigger but haven't yet.
I also was discounting Lung and Bakuda since they aren't from the bay but that given their conditions you would expect some to appear between Lung's appearance and when canon leaves the bay especially with all the stuff the Asian population goes through and was saying there are story reasons Yan could be given to justify the odds of her triggering such as having a shard from a previous Asian cape either as a 2nd gen or just it choosing a new host after the old died.
To be expected when trying to make a pan-asian gang, I wonder if he actually tried that deliberately or whether he tried to join a Chinese/Japanese gang and had to take over because they wouldn't stop picking on the half they aren't
NIce to see that the damage is long lasting.
Yeah she landed a pretty potent blow against the nazis.
Masters don't have a good reputation on Earth Bet for good reasons.
Interesting to see the MC's pov given that she's read everyone's minds.
Yeah that was a really important moment for the MC and likely colors her opinions and views on various things.
Interested in seeing what she gets.
Nozomi is pretty good at it all things considered but Mental Out is bullshit good at social stuff, with time she'll get better at social stuff and using Mental Out for it.
That's a really big deal since it means it's only had the MC to shape it.
Omen
- Location
- Earth
Omen
Monday, 25th April 2011, afternoon – Brockton Bay, PRT HeadquartersArmsmaster was for once not in his workshop.
He itched to get working on the new idea for the stabilizer gyros – inspired by the ones on Mental Out's bicycle – he had, but it was too busy a week to do more than the necessary maintenance.
Instead he sat inside his seldom used office in the PRT Headquarters while he went over the latest message from their newest parahuman in the Bay.
At first glance it was a problem way beneath him. Schoolgirls throwing mean words at each other, stealing an unknown girl's homework, some shoving at its worst.
Troublesome, truly. But something the school should deal with, not something worth spending a hero's time on.
If only a single participant in the bullying wasn't. If only there wasn't a hospital stay.
Not that Mental Out made any mention of Sophia, she did not even single her out in specific. Instead she mused about how Winslow High School would benefit from a nice "Bullies suck"-speech from the Wards.
There was no way she did not know. He sighed. It'll be troublesome to get her to sign a NDA, but protocol demanded it.
He decided to delegate it after a moment. Of all the Protectorate members who met Mental Out, she had sniped at Battery the least so far.
The incident itself would be harder to handle. This amount of misbehavior shouldn't have passed by her handler without notice.
He had decided to search through Sophia's phone, the one she thought he did not know about, to get a clearer picture. Usually he would not be allowed to do that without good reason, which this only might qualify for. But she was under probation. He did not need any reason to search her phone whenever he wanted.
He sighed at what he found there. Sophia and Emma gleefully goaded each other to escalate ever further on their bullying campaign against one Taylor Hebert… Damn it, he knew that name.
She was Skitter, and currently Legend's problem. Though soon to be Director Armstrong's problem.
Mental Out had helpfully added a news article about Miss Hebert's hospital stay. Which also hadn't mentioned the girls name.
A quick check on the system showed that an investigation had been started by the police, then quickly been taken over by the PRT without telling the police why. Internally it was marked as due to proximity to a ward.
An attempt was made to interview Miss Hebert, but she was still unresponsive.
The attempt wasn't made because of the investigation, but because their community outreach program flagged her as a possible trigger event.
Nothing further was done for months.
This.. was not how this should've been handled.
This was bad.
A, now all but confirmed, trigger event happened under their watch, possibly causes by one of their own, and instead of duly investigating it someone had swept it under the rug.
Heads will roll, Sophia's handler foremost of them.
No, this was good.
The wards were not his responsibility. Director Piggot had taken it over soon after she arrived, officially because the wards could not be expected to always make the trip out to the rig.
Any problems that were missed ultimately fell on her.
His, ill-considered in hindsight, handling of Lung's arrest had left him in a troublesome spot. There was a possibility he would not be the leader of Brockton Bay's Protectorate by the end of the month. If the situation wasn't as volatile as it currently was, he might've been recalled already due to.. failing to warn the PRT of Skitter.
There was a difference between being the only one with a reprimand and being one of many.
With Director Piggot busy taking care of her own problems he'd have a chance.
A chance he most likely would get during the upcoming prisoner transport. The E88 had to contest it. They couldn't afford to lose that many capes.
One of the many many spinning plates they now had to keep in the air thanks to Mental Out and her partner.
Arrested E88 Capes, Medhall directly implicated in money laundering, moles inside the PRT, Coil playing games with a deniable cape team, a bloody nose towards the ABB.
The mayor himself was pressuring them to take more direct action against Coil due to him being the prime suspect in the abduction of his niece.
He had to rearrange their entire patrol patterns, keep at least two capes back at the PRT base to guard the prisoners at all times. At least Legend came through for them with the Medhall investigation. Personnel from the New York branch arrived via red-eye flights.
The girls had managed to earn the attention of every major gang in the city already.
They went at it with the recklessness and lack of consideration for consequences that only teenagers still had, bolstered by their early successes.
He hoped they'd survive the inevitable storm they had sown.
He'd pick them up in the aftermath.
High-powered capes were always desired and there was finite but significant leeway for mistakes made in youthful enthusiasm.
And Mental Out was high-powered indeed. Master 8, Thinker 6, Tinker 4. All tentative. He had noticed that she not only spoke all the rescued victim's languages, but spoke it with the exact same accent they did. They didn't know the extent of her thinker-aspect. With the revelation of their moles she was unlikely to share anytime soon.
Her partner was a still respectable Blaster 5, speculative Tinker with a possible specialization in electricity. Her questions about Battery's power revealed a level of knowledge way beyond any high-school girl's on the topic.
There was a chance they were a cluster due to the timing of their trigger, but if so it seemed to be one of the more stable arrangements so far.
For all their carelessness they did desire to do right. He had worked with much worse, he only needed to look at Assault or Clockblocker. Or more pertinently right now Shadow Stalker, though she had managed to exhaust her leeway with what he had discovered.
His decision made he entered the information into the system – and dropped the hot potato on Director Piggot.
She wanted control over the ward's team, she can deal with their problems as well.
Monday, 25th April 2011, afternoon – Brockton Bay, defunct Bowen Dockyard, Workshop
Charlotte didn't know what had ridden her.
Here she was in the part of town her parents had told her to always stay out of.
Following after a girl she hadn't known for a day.
Who had in the short time she was active done more against the E88 than the Protectorate.
The Medhall investigation was in every newspaper right alongside CEO Anders promises to assist the investigators and bring all malfeasance to light.
The girl was a bit eerie. It had taken her a bit to nail down why. She moved without pause, like she knew exactly where she wanted to be. Without even checking her surroundings, not even when she stepped into traffic.
Her demeanor was controlled, unfailingly polite and severe.
Because you regret it. The girl had looked regretful herself. Charlotte didn't dare ask what about.
She was a coward.
She followed the girl past the factory gate and the clutter right past it at her invitation.
Further in the abandoned look gave way to a surprisingly cozy couch, a couple of lockers, a lot of laboratory equipment and.. why was there a cage big enough for a human?
"Oh, that's BiriBiri's Faraday cage. She uses it to practice her abilities without frying my laboratory equipment," Mental Out stated nonchalantly.
Charlotte looked away from her. Of course there was a good reason for it, what was she thinking?
This chance was not something she deserved.
"Let me tell you a secret," the starry eyes bore into hers like she saw right through her, "no one deserves the power they get. We get them anyway."
She gestured toward the seat in front of her.
This was her last chance to back down. Tell her she didn't want it.
Once she had powers she knew she wouldn't be able to stand aside.
Not because she would be forced to. Mental Out had made it very clear what the price was. It wasn't her joining their team, or even becoming a hero.
Mental Out's mother was caught in one of Bakuda's time-stop fields. If her power turned out to be useful for rescuing her, she would help.
It was such a light price.
But it wasn't why she accepted.
She thought back to every moment her mother clutched her closer. Every moment she avoided another dark alley. Every moment she switched to the other side of the street when a guy with an eagle tattoo came towards her.
The time their synagogue was burned down. Her grandfather almost hadn't made it that day.
She sat down, fidgeting with her phone all the while.
Mental Out placed her hands on Charlotte's head as if she was trying to surround her brain.
Perhaps she did. Powers were supposed to originate there.
It started with a tingling in her fingers.
Suddenly she knew her phone weighed exactly 162.1 grams. It was 16.3 centimeters long, 7.82 centimeters wide and 0.95 centimeters thick.
Then it was gone and a thud drew her attention towards the couch.
Where her phone was.
Behind her the girl she had never seen smile suddenly started laughing, happy and relieved.
Monday, 25th April 2011, early morning – Brockton Bay, "abandoned" Endbringer shelter in downtown
Coil sat in his office safely in his base.
The acquisition of his pet should've been the beginning of his road to success. Instead though successful, it came with complications.
The Undersiders were lost to him.
It was not a massive loss, if not for the specific manner in which they were lost to him. The Travelers were more than an adequate replacement.
It had taken him days to even find out how. He had to go so far as to arrange for the kidnapping and enhanced interrogation of Deputy Director Rennick to gain his answers in a now abandoned timeline. All the while his mercenaries and the Travelers had to hold an increasingly aggressive Protectorate at bay.
He had long given up on trying to torture any information out of Director Piggot.
She did not break.
What he found out was infuriating. Bad luck had seen one of the many victims of Bakuda trigger.. and deliver both her and his Undersiders to the PRT.
New York's PRT where his influence did not reach.
Skitter had promptly squealed what little she knew, not that it mattered.
The new trigger was a mind controller and had gained crucial pieces of information from Tattletale. Which were promptly spilled to Legend personally.
Now he was the prime suspect in his new pet's abduction instead of the disappearance without clue he had planned for.
His strategic position could hardly be much worse.
If not for the upcoming gang war between the Empire and the Protectorate Mental Out had also kicked off he'd be hard-pressed.
Though that came with increasing scrutiny of his moles in the PRT due to the discovery of the E88's ones. They hadn't caught onto his so far, but it did prevent him from making use of them.
As it was his position was merely precarious.
But he had all the tools necessary to guarantee his success.
After a short talk with Mr. Pitter to assure him his pet was ready he entered her room.
The frail girl was dressed in white, gently sleeping on her cot.
"It's morning, pet," Coil woke her.
He laid down two pictures on the only desk in the room, one of Mental Out and one of her partner BiriBiri as his pet rubbed her eyes.
Before he could ask his questions she looked at the pictures.
"Oh. It's her," Dinah said pointing at a picture of Mental Out, "she's the one who makes everyone die."
A/N:
The Protectorate's assessment of Mental Out and BiriBiri are made with the information they have available. They are hilariously wrong.
Nozomi hits the jackpot in the power lottery as far as she's concerned.
Coil gets an ominous prediction.
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Sounds like we're in for a good time.
TFTC!
Shit is gonna get real, I wonder she can more or less control liquids on a small scale right can she bloodbend ?
- Location
- Earth
She can control water in a very small scale, specialized into the specific impurities that Cerebrospinal fluid has.
The further away you go from that the harder it is for her.
Which means she can't meaningfully affect blood.
She'd be rather interested in analyzing Hemorrhagia's power (Blood control, but only her own) if they ever met though.
(the only thing other than cerebrospinal fluid she has put work into is ice)
I'm looking forward to the speculation what Dinah's prophecy is about
NHO
Dumb is a state of existence
- Location
- ᓚᘏᗢ
In order of escalation:
1. Mental Out just murders everyone in Coil's base. "Your brain warranty has expired!"
2. Endbringer encounter! Simurg is salty there's another, wide-range telepath, and she's subverts Mental Out!
3. Sion was mis-contacted, grew angery before it's time.
1. Mental Out just murders everyone in Coil's base. "Your brain warranty has expired!"
2. Endbringer encounter! Simurg is salty there's another, wide-range telepath, and she's subverts Mental Out!
3. Sion was mis-contacted, grew angery before it's time.
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
Sounds like Nozomi is the one who sets off Scion instead of Jack.
I'm looking forward to the speculation what Dinah's prophecy is about
I'd guess her shard has either detected something off with them or latched on to them as a way out of Dinah's current situation because something was off in it being able to set up Trainwreck's intervention earlier given the timeframe and canon limits of her power.
Coil is too OP in this story. He squirreled away an entire Endbringer right under the nose of the PRT. Next thing you know he's got Scion on speed dial.
- Location
- Earth
Right. Fixed, missing word added.
Mental Out knows the dirty laundry and that's not a good thing for them.
Colin is many things stupid is not one of them.
The good old pass it up the ladder.
That's a pretty interesting view to hold and an accurate one in my books.
Looks like it'll be helpful in freeing her mom.
Piggot is a stubborn badass like that.
Looks like she's replaced Jack Slash as the most likely cause of the apocalypse.
Nozomi isn't wrong with that belief.
Aminadab_Brulle
Decimus Computator
That's Kamino's version of teleportation, if I'm not mistaken?
- Location
- a Far and Sunless Land
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Complicated
These are some absurd proportions for a phone, I think? Thirty inches wide?
Crash_0537
Waifu Appreciator
Yoooooo
Coil getting L+Ratio
Anyways sorry for not commenting back then
Coil getting L+Ratio
Anyways sorry for not commenting back then
At that size and mass, this phone is actually a nearly shoe-box sized block of particularly light styrofoam. The good news is, it's still slightly denser than air, so unless it's windy out, it won't float away while she's trying to make a phone call.
I think you may have missed a decimal place or two, and really meant 16.3cm x 7.8cm x 0.95cm, which is a bit longer than my current cell phone, but otherwise about the same.
- Location
- Earth
It is a version of teleportation, though not Kamino's precisely.
Yes, I placed the decimal dot in the wrong place. Thanks for pointing it out.