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Ancient Legos [Worm/Stargate]

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This is a Crackfic, meaning the story is not intended to be taken seriously. Ancient Legos is written for laughs and humor. A Self Insert story, Weldon is a teenager living in Brockton Bay on Earth Bet. Somehow without triggering, he starts getting... Ideas. Features Lego Spaceships. (FF.net rating T because of light, Worm-style swearing and a comfy chair joke.)
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Chapter 1 - Legacy
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    • Ancient Legos
    Chapter 01
    Legacy​

    Captain's Log, Earth Date: February 6th, 2011

    I don't remember my trigger. Most parahumans do. The only ones that don't are Case 53s, and I am not monstrous in any way or form. I am not sure what happened to me, to be honest.

    Not sure at all…

    All I do remember is that one week, everything was going fine. The next week, that hadn't stopped, but I started getting…

    Sigh. Ideas.

    Odd ones, honestly. It's as if something inside me is telling me that I can make things, incredible things. All kinds of spacecraft, technology like you wouldn't believe. Even stuff that makes what the Tinkers of our world come up with these days look like calculators.

    But none of that can be right, because it tells me I can make these things with Legos.

    Legos. The children's toy bricks that can be used to construct models. Colorful, varied, but mostly rectangular plastic.

    I have many craft constructed in my bedroom now. Even as I compose this log, I'm messing around, or as my brother and sister say, 'Stupid Tinkering', with my smallest craft model. Something that looks like a cylinder with a sloped top and bottom. It even has a little window on the front.

    But something is missing. All my projects have that problem.

    Not to mention, it's clear to me now that I haven't actually triggered. I'm not a Tinker. No amount of Tinker bullshit can make Legos do something. My parents are disappointed, not in me but for me. They've seen how much this means to me now. They've even followed my pleas for random, esoteric Lego pieces that haven't been made for decades.

    Thankfully I haven't needed many of those. They aren't exactly cheap, especially after Leviathan sank a large part of Japan, wiped out a portion of the East Asian coastline, and the most relevant, brought international shipping to a halt.

    Well, the product and stuff kind. The pairing kind has only escalated in response.

    Anyways… I'm disheartened. If I indeed have powers, they're cruel. They fill my mind with visions of fantastic space battles, spacecraft flying through the sky, advanced alien metropolises and even flying cities.

    Yet they relegate me to reproducing these designs with frakking Legos.

    Oh, and they don't actually do anything, either. At least if they did I could actually help my city. Might look kinda stupid but at least my powers wouldn't be useless.

    End Log.




    I sighed, placing my laptop down next to me on our porch swing couch. It'd been two weeks since I 'triggered'. Models of ships were filling up my bedroom. But no matter what I did, nothing came of it; just more Lego models.

    Is that what I was? The world's lamest Tinker? Someone with a specialization so bad that I had eclipsed Leet? Frakking Leet, the guy who could never build anything twice and had most of his creations explode in his face?!

    I was done with this shit, frankly. I abruptly found myself standing up, growling. My anger rose fast.

    "It's not fair!" I yelled to the sky.

    Nobody answered.

    They hadn't the last six times, either.

    With one last look of disgust, I turned back from my yard and started to enter my house. In a final fit of anger, I threw the model of the little shuttlecraft over my shoulder as hard as I could. If they wouldn't do anything for me, well…

    I was done indulging whatever power I might have.

    FWOOMPH

    A huge displacement of air slammed into my back. It rattled the porch, set our swing chair moving, and slammed the screen door I'd just opened shut in front of my face.

    Thankfully my laptop was decently heavy, so it only moved an inch. My heart rate began to come down from the beat of a hummingbird's wings it had so helpfully decided to emulate.

    What in the hell?

    I spun back around to try and see what happened. What I found made me stand there, stunned.

    What the frak.

    What. The. Frak.

    No seriously. What.

    My brother came out of the screen door, initially looking at me. "What happened?" he asked. "We heard some kind of boom!"

    I just put my hand on his shoulder and slightly turned him. My brother was confused for a couple of seconds until his eyes landed on what I was looking at too.

    "Bro," he asked, "what the hell?"

    My jaw worked up and down, trying and failing to speak. "I… It was just a Lego model. In my hand," I finally managed to get out.

    My brother looked at me again. "How did you turn a Lego model into that?!"

    "I just… I threw it over my shoulder," I stammered.

    "You threw a model over your shoulder and it turned into a spaceship," he deadpanned.

    I gulped. "Ye-yeah."

    My sister exited the house next. "Guys, what's taking you so lo-" she started, but cut herself off. "Woah."

    Our parents were last, having followed my sister out. "Son," my dad asked, "Why is there a spaceship on the lawn?"

    My mouth was dry. The implications of this were… staggering. Absolutely incredible. "I was working on my shuttle model, got pissed at how useless my apparently completely real powers seemingly were, turned to go back into the house and threw it over my shoulder," I explained. "Then… that." I raised both hands in the direction of the craft, shaking them for presentation.

    "Your powers are bullshit, bro," my sister said it all for us.




    Of course I became a Ward. I wasn't remotely interested in the Villain shtick. And while I could have made it well as a rogue, I'd rather help the guys trying to fight against the bad guys, thank you very much.

    That doesn't mean that I wasn't massively entertained when I uncloaked my shuttle in front of the PRT building. Or the reaction of the Director when she interviewed me.

    "You're a Tinker," Piggot stated flatly, "who makes things out of Legos, and then somehow brings them to life?"

    I looked between the assembled capes and my family. They all were wearing chagrined disbelief on their faces. I looked back at Director Piggot and nodded. "Uh, I think so?" I cautioned.

    At her unimpressed lol I hastily contributed. "All I know is, I've got plans in my head, need to make them into Lego models, and somehow one of those models turned into my shuttle when I threw it over my shoulder."

    Piggot stared at me for a good thirty seconds. "Weldon," she said evenly, "I've met a lot of Tinkers. You have just managed to eclipse them all in your severe levels of complete, total, and utter bullshit."

    I grinned. "Thanks?"

    She sighed and rubbed her nose. "What else can you conceivably build? Do you know your specialization?"

    "I'm decently sure it's ships, Director," I announced.

    She let her hand hang, a now entirely, completely disbelieving look sent my way.

    "Ships?" Armsmaster asked.

    "Yeah. Like spaceships," I confirmed.

    Now everyone was staring at me with even more disbelief. "What?" I asked.

    "Your Tinker specialization is just as much bullshit as your power itself," Assault grumbled.

    "How big are these… Ships?" Miss Militia asked, looking like she really didn't want to.

    "Uh… They vary? I mean, if you want the biggest one's dimensions, the Cityships are like… Five kilometers square and one tall," I informed them. "I think, anyways."

    More disbelieving stares. "What?" I asked again, confused.

    "I take it back," Director Piggot said. "Your power now holds the record for bullshit, period, Tinker or no."

    I grinned widely. "I've got a really cool battlecruiser in my pocket. Want to see it?" I looked more at Assault than the director as I said this.

    What? I'm a cape geek. I knew he'd appreciate the joke.

    "Hah!" he exclaimed. "Are you happy to see me?"

    "I don't know man, you might have problems keeping up," I fired off.

    The guy's eyes widened and he grinned back. "Please, please join the Wards," he almost begged. "I need someone besides Clockblocker with a sense of humor!"

    Battery punched him on the shoulder, facepalming with her free hand. He barely reacted beyond the clearly exaggerated wince and the expression of mock pain that would win him one of my school's drama awards. "Don't encourage him," she complained.

    I shrugged. "Hey, I want to join the Wards. If the PRT thinks they… you, can handle my apparently unique levels of bullshit, I'm game."

    A stern glare from my mom brought me back down to Earth again. "And, y'know, if my folks agree."

    They agreed. After making me promise to fill out everything as payment for that comment.

    ...

    Paperwork sucks.




    I met the current leader of the Wards just outside the conference room.

    "Aegis!" I greeted him, happily shaking his hand. I had a lot of energy now that I'd realized my powers really existed.

    "Hey," he responded. Despite the shock in his eyes at my display, he weathered through it. "I wanted to welcome you to the Wards, Will. I've also been asked to take you to see the Wards themselves while the adults finish up in there."

    I pumped his arm one more time and grinned. "Sounds good. Gotta admit, full disclosure; I'm a big fan of yours."

    He snorted. "Not the first and won't be the last. Come on, the elevator's this way."

    Aegis led me to the obviously Tinkertech elevator on the other end of the building from the one my family head taken from the lobby. "So what's your specialty? I know we have you pegged as a Tinker, but your power ratings didn't mention it."

    I grinned widely as the elevator doors interleaved closed and the metal box started to move downwards. "Spaceships."

    Aegis' eyes shot wide open and he looked straight at me. "You're joking."

    I shook my head. "Nope. I also have this odd Breaker/Striker power that makes my creations real, but I don't really have a solid handle on activating that yet," I explained. "Just a hunch."

    The elevator arrived at the Wards floor far faster than it should have. Tinkertech indeed. As we walked out, Aegis raised his eyebrows. "Why do you need to make them real? I mean, you build spaceships, right?"

    I snorted and shook my head. "Yes and no. I build Lego models of my ships, and the second power turns them into fully functional, full size ones."

    Aegis stopped dead. When he looked at me again, his face was a mask of disbelief.

    "Yeah, that's how the entire room looked when I announced my powers."

    The leader of the team I'd just joined blew out a breath. "Dare I ask how big your spaceships get?"

    "The Cityships are five by five by one kilometers," I revealed.

    Aegis tripped over his own feet.

    "You okay dude?" I asked him, feeling concerned.

    He got up shakily, groaning. "I'm fine. They must have redone the floors in this hallway when I wasn't looking."

    I smirked at him as we arrived at the end of the hall, a heavily reinforced door with an obvious eye scanner rig next to it. "Suuure," I snarked.

    "You, of all people, don't get to say anything about belief, mister I make spaceships," he shot back.

    I grinned at him. He'd gotten over the surprise fairly quickly. "That's fair."

    Aegis scoffed. "At least we've got another heavy hitter on the team," he managed, sending me a somewhat stable grin.

    I gave him a thumbs up. "It'd be a pretty lame specialization if I didn't get big honking space guns out of it."

    That one cracked his grump. He laughed, rolling his eyes. "Good point. Anyways, let's go in." He held his eyes down slightly to the wall mounted eye scanner. Two little beams of green light flashed out, traced his eyes, and disappeared. A mellow alarm started chiming softly.

    At my raised eyebrow, he explained. "There's a thirty second delay so that anyone who needs to mask up can do so before someone comes in."

    "Ah," I nodded.




    "Wards," Aegis boomed, "I'd like you to meet our newest member."

    "Hey guys," I waved. "I'm Weldon, but I go by Will. Don't really have a costume or cape name yet."

    "That's fine. Good to meet you, Will," Gallant said. "I'm Gallant. Or Dean Stansfield on the street."

    Well no shit, hard to miss that particular armor design.

    Also, score one. Though it didn't really count because of Glory Girl being as subtle as the brick she flew.

    Kid Win was sitting at what I recognized as the infamous Console. He turned to look at me, but didn't get up. "Hey," he greeted me. "Kid Win, or Chris."

    "Hey Chris," I nodded to him. Internally, my eyes were wide. Not necessarily in surprise, more with glee, because Chris being the Ward meant I won the betting pot. That Tinker pudding would be mine!

    "Sup," Clockblocker said, approaching me with an offered hand. "I'm Dennis, or Clockblocker in costume."

    ...Wat.

    Oh hell no. They were both Wards?! MY PUDDING!!!

    I noticed Vista approaching out of the side of my eye while I peered at Dennis' hand disbelievingly in order to cover up my internal turmoil. I was sure Dean was getting an eye full but he at least seemed to be considerate enough to not mention anything.

    "Dude. I'm a cape geek. I frequent PHO. I'm not falling for that."

    Dennis frowned. "Damn. Well, nice to meet a fellow forum troll," he smirked.

    "Likewise," I grinned back.

    "Vista, or Missy when I'm out of costume," the resident space warper introduced herself, shaking my hand.

    "Nice to meet you, Missy," I greeted her.

    Well, she was technically in the running... but she didn't go to my school. Our school, I guess, since I was in the room with several classmates. Anyways, she wasn't really a priority target.

    Also, it hit me that I wouldn't actually be able to collect my wins because it would violate the conflict of interest thing that my friends and I had set up.

    But I also couldn't not participate because that would blow my cover faster than I already thought it was going to be!

    ...On reflecting, that policy was so obviously a logic trap just in case any of us became a Ward and didn't want to tell the group that it was obscene.

    When nobody else approached me, I turned my head with a raised eyebrow to Aegis.

    "Browbeat and Shadow Stalker are currently out on patrol," he informed me.

    "Ah," I acquiesced. I was about to turn fully around when he took his helmet off.

    "I'm Aegis, though you already know that," he grinned. "My name is Carlos out of uniform."

    SON OF AN ICEBERG! IT'S ALL THREE OF THEM!!!

    "Nice to meet you, Carlos," I said, shaking his hand again. Dean was starting to send me weird looks and if I kept cursing my cape geek friends and myself in my head he'd probably eventually say something.

    I resolved to try and calm down and deal with the fact every single one of the schoolmates my group had pegged as Wards were in fact exactly what we thought they were.

    Also that their ability to keep a secret identity really, really sucked.

    "Alright well, since you've been introduced to everyone, and given you seem to be up to date on our powers given your statement about PHO," Aegis said, knocking me out of my thoughts, "would you mind telling us about yours?"

    I saw that grin. "You already know them, Carlos, you just want to see who faints from shock," I accused.

    "I reserve the right against self incrimination," he smirked back.

    "Cape nerd!" Dennis coughed under his breath.

    I mean, he was right, but I wasn't going to let the class clown of Arcadia one to me. Especially not as a fellow Ward.

    "Just for that, Dennis," I said, "you're gonna be the one who learns about them first."

    He widened his eyes and grabbed his chest in mock pain. "Woe is me! Will is going to turn his terrible powers upon my lowly self!"

    Vista scoffed, did something incredibly uncomfortable with spacetime, and smacked him.

    "Hey!" Dennis protested.

    "Stop being such an idiot," she complained.

    "So I can be a little bit less of an idiot and that's fine?"

    Turning to me and ignoring him, she smiled. "Go ahead, Will."

    I nodded to her. Then I allowed the glee I felt for my powers to reach the surface, smirked, and crossed my arms. "I'm a Tinker with a rather interesting Breaker/Striker ability." Kid Win, Chris, sat up and paid attention. "Yes Chris, that means we can both nerd out over tech at some point."

    Several of the Wards chuckled as he blushed. Carlos barely managed to remain straight faced.

    "However, you might not be very compatible with me. It's not you, it's me. I need to figure some things out," I joked.

    Dennis took a second to realize what I'd said… then he busted up laughing.

    "In all seriousness, I'm a Tinker. I was told I'm a Tinker 10," I announced.

    Dead silence. Chris dropped his pen. Even Dennis cut off his laughing fit. I guess the info was shocking, or something?

    Carlos crossed his arms. "You didn't mention that," he scowled.

    "Oops?" I sheepishly offered.

    "What the hell can you build that made them give you a Tinker 10 rating?!" Chris bristled.

    "My specialization is spaceships," I revealed. "Carlos already knew that."

    Every face except our team leader's paled. Even he was a little… put off base is probably the best term, shuffling back and forth on his red clad feet.

    "Like…," Dean spoke up, "Star Wars, Star Trek spaceships?" he asked hesitantly.

    I shook my head. "No. My ships pretty much make those look like kid toys. They might not be as big as some of the 'Wars ships, but they are so much more advanced the difference is akin to that between an Abacus and Dragon's Tinkertech mainframes."

    Chris gulped. Carlos eyed me speculatively.

    "Okay, well, even if you can build really powerful spaceships, they must cost a ton and take a lot of material, right?" Dennis asked, half smiling.

    In response, I pulled one of my spare Shuttle models out of my pocket. "Nope."

    Missy blinked. "Is that Lego?" she asked.

    "Yup."

    "You make Lego spaceships," Chris drawled.

    "Uh huh."

    "They gave you Tinker 10, for Legos," he repeated.

    To respond to that, I eyeballed the open space in the middle of the Wards room. It looked like enough area. "Watch and learn," I grinned.I turned around, held the model over my shoulder, and tossed. I also nearly prayed, hoping this was the right way to trigger my bullshit powers.

    It was.

    FWOOMPH

    "Holy shit!" Chris yelled.

    Various screams of shock and alarm erupted from the other Wards as the wave of air slammed into us. Papers on the tables flew into the walls. Chairs shuddered, and Missy's hair blew out of shape.

    Oh she was gonna be maaad when she finally looked in the mirror. She looked like she'd been in a hurricane.

    "You weren't kidding," Carlos breathed, staring at the huge gray shuttle sitting on the rug.

    "Told ya," I grinned, moving towards the ship. It'd spawned with the back end facing me, just like the one on my lawn had earlier that day. I located and hit the external button for the back hatch, noting the other button right below it that looked like a tilted cross made out of red Lego pieces.

    My other shuttle was sitting in the PRT garage. I hadn't managed to find a way to make it return to Lego form, if that was even possible. If it was, I was even more bullshit than before, and it was possible that button was what did it. I must've missed the red X on my other craft.

    I'd have to test that later.

    The back door shifted down, touching down on the rug with a solid sounding thunk.

    "Anyone wanna come in?" I asked. Not waiting for a reply, I strolled up the ramp, through the cargo compartment, and into the pilot cabin.

    The clear crystalline dashboard caught my eye first, much like my other shuttle's had. It lent credence to my idea that all ships of a given class I created would be identical.

    I sat in the pilot's chair, on the left, and sighed as the incredibly advanced gel padding conformed to my body.

    "Oh that feels good," I groaned. My eyes closed and I escaped into ergonomic bliss for a few moments.

    The sound of short heels on the metal floor brought me out of it. "What feels good?" Missy spoke up.

    I opened my eyes at her, grinning. "These chairs. They're super comfy. Feel free to grab one," I offered.

    She raised an eyebrow, but did as I suggested. She took the copilot's chair. She was positively groaning when she felt the gel kick in.

    "Oh my God," she breathed. The chairs were that good.

    "Nice, right?" I asked her.

    "Will, you're giving me one of these," she declared.

    "They come with the ship, Missy," I apologized. "Otherwise I'd have put these in my house before we got here."

    "I was talking about the ship," she corrected me.

    I opened my mouth to protest, but jumped when an annoyance entered the cabin. "What's all the groaning about in here?" Dennis grinned. "Nobody's getting it on inside the ship are they?"

    "Shut up and sit down, Dennis, before I make you just fit that comment," Missy ordered, understandably rather annoyed.

    I subtly edged away from the girl in the copilot's chair. "Uh, Dennis," I asked, then shook my head and sighed. "Nevermind. Missy, are you alright? I've never had anyone else sit in one of my chairs and they are tinkertech so..."

    "I'm fine," she responded, relaxing. "These are just really, really nice chairs. Other than being really comfy I don't feel anything off."

    Dennis directed a joking glance my way. I had the sinking feeling that he was about to do something stupid. I subtly shook my head to warn him off of it, but it was useless. This was the guy who'd named himself Clockblocker on live TV.

    "Are you sure they're not really nice chairs? I mean, you were groaning-" he started to ask.

    Abruptly the girl sat up, blushing to her toes. "Not a word, 'Clockblocker'," she declared, "or you'll find your home suddenly Non-Euclidian." Then she glared at me, almost physically daring me to join in with Dennis.

    I gulped and raised my hands. "Hey, don't look at me. This is all him." I turned to look at the dashboard, ran out of resistance, and teasingly muttered, "Still… damn."

    Missy must've heard me, because her face went even redder. Dennis spared me from her wrath though. "So," he grinned, wiggling his eyebrows, "Really good chairs, huh?"

    Why was he still trying?!

    Missy was mortified. "DENNIS!" she shrieked. Space warped, Missy's shoe suddenly planting deep in his groin.

    I winced and instinctively curled in on myself. "Damn, Missy. You didn't have to do that."

    As Dennis lay whimpering on the floor, she shrugged. "He deserved it," Missy replied.

    "Uh huh."

    "...Why is Dennis on the floor?" Carlos asked, walking into the cockpit.

    Missy and I looked at each other.

    She raised a challenging eyebrow.

    I sighed in defeat.

    "He deserved it," we both repeated Missy's earlier words.



    "Your powers are bullshit," Chris remarked. He'd repeated that and only that whenever I tried to say anything to him since I'd summoned the shuttle. Dean informed me that it was his power that was jealous, not Chris himself, and given Dean's power set I was inclined to believe him. I'd give Chris the time he needed to soothe his power's rear end from the kicking mine gave it.

    That by no means prevented me from teasing the ever living shit out of him by offering to let him take a look under the hood of the shuttle. The first time his face lit up like a kid at Christmas.

    The next seven times earned me scowls after he realized the technology was complete gibberish to him.

    Dennis and I tag teamed the poor guy. We'd hit it off well, even with Missy crushing his groin because of his jokes about my shuttle's chairs.

    I mean, she didn't actually do any damage because she knows how to hold back and Dennis is a drama queen, but still.

    Once we'd all had a chance to check out the inside of the ship I hustled everyone out and closed the back door from outside. After the hermetic vacuum sealing was finished, I hesitantly placed my hand on the red Lego X below the back door button.

    A moment later, I had my Lego model of the shuttle sitting in my hand again.

    CRACK

    "OUCH!" I yelled. Damn it, that felt like thunder going off in front of me!

    "CAN ANYONE ELSE HEAR THEMSELVES THINK?" Missy asked.

    Carlos glared at me. "NO MORE DEPLOYING SHIPS INSIDE!" he declared.

    I gulped, nodded, and put the ship away in my pocket. "LET'S GO TO THE ROOF! I NEED TO GET SOME AIR!"

    "SOUNDS GOOD!" Dennis yelled.

    That's when the alarms went off. Our ears started ringing, so we evacuated the Wards room.

    We went to the roof.

    Several PRT officers passed us, offering greetings. They also ran away when faced with six yelling Wards.




    "Ahh," I breathed in, "Non-thundered air."

    We were standing on top of the PRT building's roof. It was more like a patio than a proper roof, basically just another floor of the building with some railing around the outside to keep non fliers from falling off.

    "Like the view?" Missy asked, walking up to lean on the rail beside me.

    "Not bad," I agreed. "Needs something, though."

    Missy quirked her lips, amused. "Oh? Like what?"

    I eyed the Bay itself, calculating distance in my head. "The Bay's bigger than five by five kilometers, right?"

    Missy had an instinctual sense of distance, something I'd learned came with her power on the walk up. "It's almost eight by ten," she corrected me.

    "We could totally plop a Cityship right in the middle, then."

    Missy's eyes widened. "You mentioned Cityships before. What are they?"

    I grinned at her and sighed happily. "Imagine a giant metal snowflake, gleaming silver and reflecting light off thousands of skyscrapers, floating on the surface of the water," I began describing. "The central tower dwarfs the others in height. Every other skyscraper is unique, somehow managing to also look themed. A Cityship can house over five million people in the residential towers, has space for hundreds of thousands of science labs, and the top of the central tower even contains a Gate." I'm sure my eyes were twinkling after that.

    Missy's eyes were wide with awe this time. "Wow. But that just sounds like a city from the future. Where does the -ship part come in?"

    I grinned sideways at her. "It flies."

    Her mouth dropped open. "You're kidding me."

    "Serious like a heart attack," I refuted.

    "How? The power requirements must be enormous!"

    I mimed holding a Potentia in both hands. "Crystalline power source. Contains an artificial region of subspace. Extracts power from that, but can't be recharged except by a station that sits inside a star. A Cityship can technically fly on one, but they're designed to run on three."

    Chris yelled at me from the other side of the roof. "Your power is bullshit!"

    Was he ever going to stop?

    Missy eyed me warily. "How much power does one of those contain?"

    I screwed up my face for a moment. "Well," I finally answered her, "rupturing one would take a good sized chunk out of the planet, even if it was only 1% charged, so use that for your answer. I don't think I can really express their total power capacity in human energy terms, it's just too much."

    Missy's face was white. Carlos spoke up from behind me. Apparently he'd been listening.

    "You are not to construct one of those without authorization," he almost growled at me.

    I turned around and leaned back on the railing. "Which? The Cityship or the Potentia?"

    He looked confused for a moment. "Is Potentia the name for that crystalline energy source you just talked about?"

    "Yes."

    "That. Do not build that," he declared.

    I shrugged. "It's fine. Cityships can be powered by anything from coal to lightning, it won't be too hard to find a replacement," I reasoned. "But they won't be able to fly without a Potentia."

    "You can save the flying five kilometer square city for when you get clearance for these 'Potentia'. Just keep it non flying for now. I'm sure it'll be difficult to resist, but you must resist the thrill of danger," he semi joked.

    I was just glad he wasn't upset with me.

    I grinned at him. "Sure thing, Chief." I even gave him a mock salute.

    "Hey, Will?" Dean approached.

    "Yeah?"

    "What's a Gate? You said the central tower of a Cityship contains one," he asked.

    My eyes lit up. "Ah! Sorry, Gate is short for Stargate. Their proper name is Astria Porta."

    I was getting dumbfounded looks again. "What? Why do people keep looking at me like that?"

    "What," Carlos sighed, "is a Stargate?"

    "Stable wormhole generator that allows near instantaneous travel between itself and another Stargate, no matter where in the galaxy they are," I explained. "Uses about the power output of a decently advanced fusion reactor for each connection, unless you want to reach another galaxy. Generally you need a Potentia for that. It has a ridiculously impressive capacitor built in, so one could easily use lesser energy generators to just charge it up slower. Either way, they're designed to be plopped down on millions of planets, and they utilize a glyph system and seven glyph addresses, almost like telephone numbers, for locating the target Stargate. Eight glyphs for another local group galaxy, nine for special hardcoded addresses like Cityships or extragalactic distance research vessels have."

    Every Ward had come over to me as I spoke. Now they were standing around me and just staring. Their mouths were all gaping, no exceptions.

    "What? Why is this so surprising to you guys?"




    I was back in Director Piggot's office again. This time with all the Wards on the base present behind me.

    They'd just finished giving a rather panicked rundown of what I'd 'revealed' on the roof. I honestly didn't understand why they were so concerned. Rupturing a Potentia was hard. It was so much easier to destroy a planet with a Naquadah fusion bomb than to destabilize the crystalline batteries.

    Of course when I told them what Naquadah was and how it magnified explosions, that the Stargates contained vast quantities of the material, plus the multi-teraton yield of the bomb I'd mentioned, that was when they lost their cool and marched me down to the Director's office.

    "Weldon," Piggot asked testily, "why didn't you tell us any of this?" She gestured to the nervous Wards behind me.

    I blinked and tried to sit up. "Uh, you never asked?" I ventured.

    She scowled. "When a cape has the ability to create multi-teraton nuclear bombs out of thin air, it's incredibly important they notify us about that," she seethed. "Ignoring the dangerous aspects of forgetting to do so, we have treaties in place about this kind of thing!"

    I looked around at the gathered faces and swallowed. "Oh," I sheepishly said. "Sorry."

    Piggot sighed, clasping her hands together above her desk. "Anything else Earth-shattering you'd like to share with us today about your abilities?"

    Dennis and I both smirked, but her scowl tightened. "That pun was unintended. Focus. What else can you make that is dangerous as hell?"

    I twisted my lips slightly as I thought, my head worlds away. I tried going over all the things I could build. Tried to see if anything registered as dangerous to me.

    There were a few devices and sciences that came to mind. Galactic Scale Matter Manipulation, and the Wave Generators that emanated the effect, Stargate Destroyers, Singularity or Wormhole bombs, Supergates, even that one idiot Janus' experiments with time travel, Hyperdrive/Subspace band blocking and the failed Arcturus project. A few people believed the experiment with sentient nano-mechanical life had also been dangerous and a failure, something I did not agree with, but those who thought like me had been outvoted, and so our children died.

    Screaming.

    I shuddered in remembrance. They did not deserve what the Council had decreed.

    Regardless, all of those could be, if not handled, at least contained by my civilization. We hadn't lasted hundreds of millions of years after all for no-

    Wait.

    My eyes widened to their maximum. "Ooohhhh, I see it now," I mumbled.

    I wasn't an Alteran. I hadn't spoken up against the destruction of the Asurans. I didn't answer to a Council. I never lived on Atlantis.

    I was human. And so was my civilization. But apparently I happened to have memories of an Alteran in my brain.

    Now I could see why my teammates had been freaking out. Okay, look at it from a human point of view, seal up the Alteran memories and psyche for later review.

    How much was dangerous?

    …

    Oh.

    …

    That's… that's a lot of stuff.

    "See what?" Armsmaster demanded, snapping me out of my headspace.

    "Okay, so," I began, glad I'd finally fixed the little (huge, not going to tell them that though) problem I'd just found. "I apparently have a different Tinker specialization than we thought."

    Everyone raised their eyebrows. "Explain," Piggot said.

    "It's not just ships. I have the ability to build anything a certain civilization made, at any point in their several hundred million year history," I admitted.

    "You've gotta be kidding me," Chris complained. "First spaceships, now you can access an entire civilization? Goddamnit, Will."

    "What kinds of items did this civilization manage to create?" Armsmaster asked.

    "And do any others violate treaties?" Piggot added.

    "Uh, way too many to list, Armsmaster," I answered him first, "and for the Director, uh… Like, sixty percent of it. Probably. I don't know treaties that well, so I'm probably overestimating it."

    Piggot ground her teeth. "Give me an example," she demanded.

    "Alright. Uh… off the top of my head, all 'modern' Alteran craft, that's the name of their civilization by the way," I trailed off slightly, "are armed with Drones. These are golden squid like objects about… yea big," I held out my hands to indicate something twice the size of a football, "that are essentially incredibly smart, hunter killer missiles. They have their own drive units, work in space, and phase through shielding and hull until they can detonate in crucial components of an enemy ship with the force of a small nuke. Their passage actually emits a crapton of heat, so they can be sent through ships for multiple passes until they run low on energy, then explode," I explained.

    Piggot was pale. "That certainly violates a few treaties," she grumbled, "though they sound like a fantastic weapon."

    Carlos spoke up. "Wait, you said all Alteran craft?" he asked.

    "Yeah?" I sent back, curious as to why he was asking. "At least the modern ones."

    "Including the 'shuttles' you can make? One of which is currently parked in the PRT building, one of which you deployed in the Wards common room?!" His voice was steadily raising.

    "Well, yeah. Pretty sure each shuttle is loaded out with thirty in each magazine for a total of sixty," I confirmed.

    Chris stared at me. Armsmaster stared at me. Piggot glared at me. Carlos looked defeated. He even made this catlike mewling sound.

    "Are you telling me that you have sixty nuclear level, intelligent, guided, and countermeasure defeating weapons sitting in our parking garage, and the ability to summon more from your pocket?!" Director Piggot shrieked.

    I shrugged. "I guess so."

    Dennis, Dean and Missy were basically catatonic at that point.

    Several seconds went by without anyone saying anything. The continual focus on me and my powers was starting to actually get to me. I began to curl in on myself, stopping only once I realized it wasn't my fault.

    "We're going to need to revisit your power ratings," Piggot bit out, finally.

    I winced and continued with one of the things I thought might also infringe upon some kind of treaty. There must be an anti-teleportation one, surely? "It's probably worth mentioning that every ship I can make above the shuttles, including Cityships, have beaming arrays borrowed from an Alteran ally race built in," I hesitantly mentioned.

    Armsmaster sighed. "And what are beaming arrays?" he sounded like he'd rather just forget I even existed.

    I fidgeted and lowered my head. "Uh… planetwide range, from geosynchronous orbit, connectionless, nearly unblockable matter transporters?" I half asked, half told.

    Piggot's head hit the desk.

    "Goddamnit, Will," Carlos said.

    Missy started sobbing. Gallant was holding her, rubbing soothing circles into her back.

    Chris glared at me. "I hate you. You know that, right?"

    I grimaced. "Sorry?"




    Tinker 20+.

    Blaster 10.

    Mover 10+.

    Breaker/Striker 7.

    Those were my new ratings.

    I had no idea that my stuff was considered that powerful by PRT standards.

    They'd flat out told me that they added 10 levels to the Power Scales just for my Tinker rating. And then realized it wasn't enough. Thus, Tinker 20+.

    I hadn't even told them about personal shields, nanites, constructors, or the computers themselves.

    Or the devices which even the Alterans thought dangerous.

    Shit, they'd probably just slap 20 all across the board if they found out about those.

    To tell or not to tell. That is the quest-

    No, wait. Do I want my friends, the Wards, safe?

    That is the question.

    "Hey Carlos?" I spoke up from my spot on the couch.

    The team leader froze in the middle of taking a step. He took a deep breath, visibly tried to relax, and then spun to face me. "Yes Will," he asked.

    "How would you, the Wards, and the PRT feel about impenetrable energy shields that are emitted from a cell phone sized amulet thing that sticks to whatever you're wearing via the Coulomb effect?"

    Carlos sighed a long suffering sigh. "You can make those?" he asked respectfully.

    "Yeah. Just need a few standard Lego pieces for each one," I confirmed.

    "And what about maintenance?" he asked. "That's the primary problem with Tinkertech, only the Tinker can keep it from breaking down."

    I blinked, surprised. "Maintenance?" I asked. I kept mouthing the word to myself.

    My Tinker specialization didn't know the meaning of the word. Literally.

    Seeing my confusion, Carlos sighed and growled at the same time. "Let me guess. Your stuff doesn't need maintenance," he deadpanned.

    "Alteran stuff lasts for millions of years without any kind of wear, tear, or charge loss," I confirmed.

    "Of course it does." He just walked over to a couch and collapsed into it. "Nope. We'll deal with your crazy extinct alien civilization bullshit tomorrow. I'm done."

    "But-" I tried to speak up.

    "I'm done! Go home! Take your unholy bullshit with you!"

    I went.

    I walked into the PRT garage, opened my shuttle, went inside, closed it, fired up the gravitational inertia engines, and slowly inched the craft out of the garage.

    Once I was in the open air I accelerated, not feeling a single thing as I did. Even the high velocity air tricks I did up above Brockton Bay didn't affect me.

    I did eventually actually go home. Landed on the lawn, walked out of my shuttle, closed the door, touched the red Lego X that I had confirmed was also on this craft, collected the Lego model, and went into the house to greet my family and go to bed.

    After all, it'd been a long day. And I became a superhero, even if I was kinda driving the PRT insane with my capabilities.

    Ah well, they'd get used to me.

    After all, what could possibly go wrong?
     
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    • Chapter 2 - Tests
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    • Ancient Legos
    Chapter 02
    Tests​

    Captain's Log, Earth Date: February 7th, 2011

    Day two of being a superhero. It's much more boring than I thought it would be. I mean, you're always hearing on the news about the Protectorate heroes' latest adventures, or captures and whatnot, usually with support from at least one of the Wards.

    Speaking as a Ward, that's apparently… not quite reality.

    My meetings with Glenn Chambers, a PR specialist they flew in from New York, and the PRT PR department have painted the true picture.

    A superhero doesn't spend most of their time battling the forces of evil in the form of a Villain or teams of minions.

    No. We fight the everlasting war against the great demon Paperwork, who draws power from every crossed t, dotted i, and paper cut.

    Seriously, I thought I was done after filling out the application for the Wards. But nooo, I had to learn how to fill out AARs, after action reports, in triplicate.

    Those things are ten pages long. And that's just the first kind of form I needed to learn.

    The less said about the absolute disaster that was the PR department's attempts at naming my superhero identity, thinking up a costume, and trying to shove public etiquette lessons down my throat, the better.

    Round two is scheduled for Saturday, the 12th of February, 2011. I've gotta say, I'm rather looking forward to it.

    Of course, this time I'll be a level 20 rated Tinker. I will be the decision maker, not Glenn frakking Chambers.

    I mean, seriously? Tie-dye paint jobs and The Shipper as a name? I'm not a tween girl who reads crappy fanfiction about sparkly vampires.

    You have no idea how relieved us PHO forum goers were when we found out that book series is hated on Aleph too.

    Anyways, school was nice. Got to indulge my scientific and linguistic know-how that came with my powers in an academic setting for the first time ever. The work was so offensively and pathetically easy I had to actually answer a couple wrong so I didn't jump from Bs and Cs to perfection in a day.

    That is one of the guidelines in the Newbie Cape's Handbook On How To Out Yourself In Three Easy Steps, after all.

    Anyways, that's it for today. I'm on my way to the PRT building at the moment, so I'm signing off. Got hero stuff to focus on!

    End Log.


    I relaxed back into the pilot's seat of my shuttle. As the gel conformed to my body shape I sighed, smiling. A quick thought and the shuttle sent my new Log off to my home computer system for storage and transcription.

    My life was going great. I'd become a superhero yesterday, finally let the reigns on my education-specific knowledge loose, leading to a massive boost to the grades I received, and was currently on my way to the PRT for my 'after-school elective' as Arcadia called it.

    In my invisible, undetectable, gravity defying, space capable, nuclear-equivalent weapon equipped shuttlecraft, flying a decent distance above the skyline.

    I glanced at the speedometer, or at least what passed for one, to double check the ship was following my instructions. Mentally directed and incredibly smart the shuttle systems may be, but they were no AI. It was prudent to make sure the craft was working correctly. It would do no good to go above the speed of sound; destroying the windows of Brockton Bay's skyscrapers would not be a smart beginning to my hero career.

    A small part of my mind needled me about the fact that no Alteran would ever think about any of that, much less do so. With my human mentality back in full force I was becoming quite cynical about the race whose technology I'd essentially inherited. As much as I wished otherwise, that part of me was right.

    The Alterans, intelligent and powerful as they were, simply did not have common sense. It would shock me if they had a term for that in their language.

    …

    Of course not. Common Sense, Maintenance, what other concepts would I learn the Alterans didn't comprehend?

    …

    -I cut my power's linguistics section off before it could answer that. I really didn't want to know.

    Being on the other side of the nearly nonexistent PR wall of Parahumans was quite the experience. I'd always thought it strange that so many kids had after school electives. Much like my classmates, I'd also wondered why, when a new student transferred in, so did at least two others that looked just like them. A lot of people believed that it was to confuse theorists like I used to be, or Thinkers, from figuring out who the Wards were.

    I now knew that rumor to be completely accurate. Thankfully I didn't need to worry about doppelgangers of me running around, as I had already been enrolled in Arcadia for two years.

    School had been absolutely amazing now that I knew who was really a Ward.

    I still hung out with my friends, of course, and we were all a bunch of cape geeks. The speculation didn't stop because I suddenly became a Ward. Nor should it have, as they didn't know that there was a new one, much less that they were me.

    I was laughing internally every time they formed theories on who they, we, might be. That morning in the shower I'd had the terrifying thought that I might have to run interference to prevent my friends from hitting the truth like a miner who struck gold.

    I needn't have worried.

    Amazingly, nobody even came close. And that's saying something, because Dean and Victoria 'Vicky' Dallon didn't tone down their PDA at all.

    Seriously, it was freaking public knowledge Glory Girl and Gallant were dating. How Dean wasn't unmasked for the world still escaped me.


    When I arrived in the PRT parking garage I had a greeting party waiting for me.

    The moment the shuttle touched down and decloaked, Armsmaster banged on the hull.

    I lowered the rear ramp, exited, closed the ramp, and before Armsmaster could walk around the shuttle, hit the red X.

    A moment later and with a crack of thunder, the Lego model was in my hand.

    "Sup, Armsmaster?" I greeted him cheerily. I was in a really good mood.

    "Will," Armsmaster growled.

    I stopped walking towards him. Was something up? "What's wrong?"

    "What's wrong is that you took an untested piece of nuclear armed Tinkertech for a joyride above the city last night!" he yelled. "And then, you used it to get to Arcadia, left it lying around all day ready for absolutely anyone to find and steal, then flew it directly here after leaving the school for an 'after school elective', something which some people think is a cover story for the Wards! Which it is!"

    I opened my mouth to respond, found nothing, closed it again, then went with the less obvious question. "I wasn't supposed to take it to school?"

    I could see him visibly taking a chill pill. "No," he seethed. "It was going to be moved to a lab where we were to study it."

    I raised my eyebrows. "Oh," I said intelligently.

    "We are going to that lab. You are going to deploy this 'shuttle'. And then the Director, Aegis, and I will be going over the rule books with you," he declared.

    I sighed, preparing for a boring day. "Lead on, party pooper."

    The sound of him grinding his teeth was music to my ears. I could even vaguely hear laughter coming from his helmet.

    He must've been in a call with someone. Rude.


    Halfway to the PRT testing lab I was intercepted by a tiny, female, green costumed missile which decided I was the perfect target for lamprey behavior.

    "Oof!" I grunted, bracing myself against the hallway wall.

    "Thank you," a young girl's voice squeaked from inside my jacket.

    I glanced down to see a head of blonde hair emerge from the confines of my upper body coverings. "Hi, Missy," I greeted her with a smile. "Not that I'm complaining about getting hugs from a cute girl or anything, but why are you hugging me?"

    She squeaked and bounced away from me, cheeks flushing red. "H-hey," she stammered, "it's not like that!"

    I crossed my arms and smirked. "Oh so you just spontaneously hug everybody then?" I countered teasingly.

    Missy stamped her foot and tried to frown, but she was still too young to look anything but cute no matter what she did. "No!" she shot back indignantly, "I get to use my powers to help test yours today!" Her grin tried to turn feral, a manic look in her eyes at the clear belief she was getting back at me.

    I brought one hand to my chin and started rubbing, leaving the elbow cupped by my other hand. "Hmmm…," I mused.

    Her face fell. "What?"

    I abruptly snapped my fingers with an 'oh snap' gesture. "Nope, even your menacing is cute."

    Missy's eyes flared. "I'm not cute!" she refuted, smacking the back of my head through time and space.

    Me being built like a brick shithouse, this of course did absolutely nothing.

    "You totally are," I shot back, grinning mercilessly.

    "Are not!"

    "Are too!"

    "Not!"

    "Are!"

    "NOT!"

    "ARE!"

    "CHILDREN!" Armsmaster bellowed, apparently having arrived at the argument after his inattention lost track of whether I was still following him or not.

    I turned a disbelieving eyebrow on him. Missy scowled.

    I heard the woman who was apparently still connected to his helmet say something.

    Armsmaster growled. He obviously attempted to reign in his temper and apologize. It was hilarious. Equally obvious was how much he hated it. "Sorry, Wards. Will you please stop your petty squab-" another burst of female speech, "-disagreement, that is, so we can get to testing?"

    I grinned at his discomfort and merely nodded.

    Missy snapped to something resembling attention. "Yes Sir!"

    "Thank you," Armsmaster bit out through mashed teeth.

    I winced externally, but internally I was laughing my head off. This day was going to be a nightmare for Grumpy McStickInTheMud. Serves him right for making me read a rulebook of all things at some nebulous point in the future.

    Yeah, it's petty. Shut up.

    He turned around on the spot and resumed his walk towards the elevators, not bothering to ensure we were following him. I spun around, gave Missy a sarcastic flaunt of a salute, and jogged to keep up with his long strides.

    Missy just scowled, warped space to be next to me, and smacked me on the head.

    I shoved her shoulder.

    She kicked my shin.

    I whacked her thigh.

    This silent match of Rock'Em Sock'Em Wards continued until Armsmaster turned around to make sure we went into the elevator. We barely had enough time to bring our hands back to our sides and plaster innocent, angelic smiles on our faces.

    I rated Missy's an A+. Mine barely mustered a passing grade.

    I could feel Armsmaster's narrow eyed glare on my back the whole ride down. It was accompanied by an orchestra of synchronized giggles coming from his helmet, muffled, and the little girl next to me in stereo.

    Stupid cheating little girls with overwhelming cuteness and adorable features. Damn you, Missy, damn your cute face to hellllll!


    "Weldon!" was the exuberant, expectant cry I was greeted with when the lab door opened.

    My eyes shot wide open and I began engaging in a tactical withdrawal. Coming at me was a nerd with glasses, a white lab coat, and an actual pocket protector.

    "I'm too young to become a scientist!" I cried out loud, trying not to trip as I walked backwards.

    Missy giggled, which was always good in my books. Operation: Get Missy to Embrace her Cute Side was on schedule.

    No I didn't just make that up.

    …

    You have no proof, extrauniversal entity in my head!

    "Weldon," Armsmaster stated flatly, his voice booming.

    I gulped and turned around. I'd instinctively stopped my backward walk just in time to avoid ramming my head on the guy's armor.

    "Yeees, Armsy?" I asked lightly.

    Missy and the entire testing team snickered. I felt the heat of Armsmaster's glare as if it was a physical thing.

    If looks could kill, my seat in the Underworld would have been assured.

    Knowing me though, that seat would probably be the throne.

    "We are here to test your abilities," he flatly declared. "Deploy your shuttle in the marked area and assist the testing team with anything they might need." He leaned in close, the semi transparent part of his helmet almost touching my nose. "Do you understand?"

    I gulped and nodded. "Yes sir."

    "Good," he seethed. He straightened back up and addressed the scientist I'd mentally labeled Nerd Alert. "You are clear to test anything with him that does not violate treaties the United States is required to uphold. Director Piggot has also banned anything that might pose a threat to any portion of the planet's crust above 0.00015%. Is that clear?"

    Various kinds of disgruntled agreement arose from the team.

    "I have other matters to attend to. After he is done, please send him to the Wards' Common Room." With that and without so much as another glance at me, he strode out of the lab.

    If I didn't know better I'd say the doors slammed closed behind him, but they had an automatic pressure system straight out of Star Trek. I highly doubted that could be changed on the fly just because Armsmaster wanted to be a drama queen.

    Not because any Tinker who made them wasn't that petty, but because Director Piggot wouldn't allow it.


    I spun back around and clapped my hands, abruptly rubbing them with anticipation. I hammed up the manic smile on my face to the maximum level I could sustain without throwing up.

    There is only so much cliché I can take, you know.

    Then I laughed. "Mua ha ha ha! Much fun will be had todaaay!"

    Missy scoffed and whacked me on the head again.

    "Hey!"

    "No manic laughter in the testing chamber," she scolded me.

    "Oh come on!"

    "It's a rule," a scientist spoke up.

    That brought me up short. "Seriously?"

    She nodded. "Yeah. These two idiots," she thumbed over her shoulder to indicate Nerd Alert and the third scientist, someone I could only nickname Captain Neckbeard, "kept doing it when testing the powers of prospective Protectorate or Ward capes. It scared them."

    "Hey! It's not our fault!" the two refuted.

    "Yes it is," Missy agreed with the only other girl in the room.

    "It is entirely your faults," a third woman's voice said.

    Okay, not the only other gal in the room. I spun around looking for the third one. "Either I'm hearing things or something screwy is going on," I announced.

    A screen on a robotic arm extended from the wall to face me. The static on the monitor cleared and I was looking at the image of a woman.

    The image was clearly digitally generated, and kind of average all around, but it was impressive nonetheless.

    Then it, she, spoke again.

    "Hello Weldon," she said with a slight grin, "I'm Dragon."

    I immediately connected her with the voice that had been in Armsmaster's helmet. And, of course, with the most famous Tinker in the world besides the late Hero.

    Dragon was talking to me.

    Dragon wIas going to test me.

    Dragon was projecting herself into the same room as me.

    I may have squeed a bit.

    "Dragon!" I squeaked, trying and failing to pave over my voice cracking. "Uh, hi! Why are you here?"

    I immediately facepalmed. Meet the most famous living Tinker in the world and what do I do? I ask her why she was present in the power tests of another overpowered Tinker.

    I was batting well below my average today.

    She must have seen my realization and taken pity on me. The other four people in the lab sure didn't, they just snickered endlessly. "I'm providing remote assistance and advice for your power tests, Weldon," she explained, smiling at me. "And laughing at your impressively effective efforts to irritate Armsmaster, but that's just a side benefit."

    Missy's jaw dropped. "Wait, you were doing all that on purpose?!"

    I grinned.

    "God damn," Captain Neckbeard said. "You and Clockblocker must get along swell."

    Missy groaned, hiding her face in her hands. "You have no idea," she complained.

    "I believe the most accurate phrase to describe their collaboration would be 'like a house on fire'," Dragon commented.

    I crossed my arms and scowled. "Screw both of you! You're just jealous you can't pull spaceships out of your pockets!"

    More snickering rang through the room. My face fell. "Whaaat?"

    Nerd Alert grinned at me. "Is that a battlecruiser in your pocket or are you just happy to see Leslie?" he asked, sniggering.

    I sighed. "I knew the joke I told Assault in front of Piggot and Armsmaster was gonna come back to me at some point," I complained, "I just didn't expect it to be this soon. By the way, who's Leslie?"

    The female scientist raised her hand. "Leslie Davis, Power Testing Director," she introduced herself.

    I grinned at her. "Well, nice to meet you. And yes, I do have a battlecruiser in my pocket. It's just a battlecruiser."

    Leslie rolled her eyes and sighed. "Boys," she muttered. "Anyways, shall we begin testing? Or do you need further preparation?"

    I rubbed my hands together and opened my mouth to start cackling.

    My head was whacked from behind. "No manic laughter!"

    "Stop whacking me!"


    "Alright, first things first, let's get your… shuttle deployed," Leslie announced.

    I pulled the model out of my pocket and rolled it around in my fingers. "Where do you want it?"

    "If you could please place it in the blue lines?" Dragon asked.

    I looked around for the destination. Sure enough there was a section of the pretty much unbroken concrete floor pattern outlined with softly glowing blue highlights. It was surrounded by all kinds of equipment, some on carts, some big enough to have its own wheels, and even a couple mounted to robotic arms that extended from the ceiling.

    I walked over and eyed the space critically. "Is all this equipment wind resistant?" I asked.

    "Why?" Captain Neckbeard asked.

    "Because when I summon things, they seem to displace the air of their volume near instantly," I explained.

    The testing team quietly conferred among themselves for a few moments. Dragon's robotic arm monitor joined their little huddle shortly after it began.

    Almost as one they turned back to look at me with an answer. It was creepy how synchronized they were.

    I was under no illusion that the creepy factor wasn't intentional.

    "All the equipment should be fine," Dragon informed me.

    "It's rated for much more abuse than a windstorm," Leslie elaborated.

    I shrugged. "Aight. Don't blame me if you're wrong," I acquiesced. I walked to the middle of the short side of the rectangle on the floor nearest me. I had to make sure I was positioned juuuust right or it wouldn't be in the blue lines.

    With a last look of contemplation, I tossed the shuttle model over my shoulder.

    FWOOMPH

    Everyone but Dragon flinched, their hair being blown back. Missy, Neckbeard, and Leslie's hair, all of them wearing it down and long, didn't survive the blast wave without remodeling. Even I flinched, still not quite used to the sound my manifestation power created as it treated the atmosphere like a punching bag.

    Missy scowled. "I forgot it would mess up my hair," she grumbled.

    Leslie blinked several times, patted down her hair, and stared at the shuttle. Well, from my perspective she was staring behind me, but I knew the shuttle was what she was looking at.

    Captain Neckbeard… just kinda shrugged, pushed his hair behind his ears, and returned to what I swear was watching the testing screens in awe.

    "Sweet, huh?" I grinned.

    "Cool guys don't look at explosions…" Captain Neckbeard started humming, still not tearing his gaze away.

    "Thank you!" I exclaimed. "Someone finally referenced that!"

    Dragon was staring at me, not the shuttle. She was visibly dumbfounded. Such a look was pretty interesting on a 3D character, let me tell you.

    "T-That's not possible," she stammered.

    I raised an eyebrow her way. "What's not possible?"

    Dragon's 3D avatar gulped. That surprised me. Why would you code such a thing into a remote interaction program? Something smelled fishy about that, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was, exactly.

    "Weldon, all the equipment around you is sensor and reconnaissance equipment. From what they're telling me, that shuttle didn't show up instantly," she started explaining. "Somehow your power drew atoms from nothing, enough to synthesize the shuttle from scratch, in a shorter timespan than the human eye can see."

    I raised both eyebrows. That wasn't possible, but not for the reasons Dragon thought. "I'm sorry, what? You're telling me this craft," I banged my hand against the rear hatch to both to provide emphasis and prove to myself that it was real, "was assembled out of nothing?"

    Dragon shivered. "Yes."

    "But that's impossible!" I refuted.

    Leslie managed to get a grip on herself at that moment. "You're telling me. Making matter out of nothing isn't possible. Even Changers draw it from somewhere else-"

    I held up a hand, interrupting her. "Oh no, that's not the impossible thing. The beaming arrays on my ships can do that with enough energy. It's the fact that this shuttle is made out of a high amount of Naquadah that's bullshit. You flat out cannot convert energy to Naquadah. It just can't be done."

    "What," Dragon stated.

    "Naquadah is essentially impossible to synthesize," I continued explaining. "It's too dense for any kind of matter assembly system to create."

    Leslie, Nerd Alert, Missy, and Dragon all kept staring at me, dumbfounded.

    I sighed. "I know that look. What did I say now?"

    "You… you have access to technology capable of assembling matter from nothing but energy," Dragon carefully asked.

    I tilted my head back and forth, waving my hands in a 'so-so' manner. "Yes and no. The shuttles don't have beaming arrays. I'd need to create a battlecruiser at the least to get the arrays. But they are capable of synthesizing any element or combination thereof up to the 131st element of the Periodic Organization." Realizing what I said, I corrected myself. "Sorry, I mean Periodic Table."

    More stares.

    "There are only 118 elements in the Periodic Table, Weldon," Dragon said.

    I blinked. "Uh, what? Naquadah is number 145," I refuted.

    Leslie and Dragon leaned in, suddenly looking very interested. Well, the latter woman moved her monitor forward a bit, but it accomplished the same effect.

    Namely making my hair stand on end.

    "You know more than 118 elements?" Leslie excitedly asked me.

    I sighed. "Yes. Off the top of my head, Trinium is 128, Neutronium is 140, Naquadah as I've already said is 145 and its much more volatile cousin, Naquadriah, sits one up the table at 146. There's a total of 160 elements known. The Alterans theorized that it could go up to 210, but that was never proven. Beyond that is degenerate matter which doesn't belong on the table due to a lack of protons or neutrons."

    The looks of glee everyone except Missy in that room were wearing told me I wouldn't be getting out of there anytime soon.


    "Kid Win is right," Missy said. "Your powers are bullshit."

    Dragon recovered from our impromptu 'make-Will-say-ALL-the-elements' session the quickest. "As fascinating as learning of over fourty new elements is, and as much as I hate to rush through our tests, I recommend immediately building one of these 'battlecruisers' as you call them. That way you can synthesize some samples of the new elements. Or at least the ones your beaming technology is capable of creating."

    I blinked at her. "You do know this ship is massive, right?" I asked, gesturing to my pocket. "Like, way, way, way bigger than a shuttle?"

    Dragon nodded at me. "That's actually why I requested Vista's presence. Creating the ship, that is, I certainly wasn't expecting to do actual, non-Tinker science today. She can extend this room far enough for the ship to materialize. We have plenty of Lego pieces by the wall in bins over by the entry door-"

    I cut her off by removing a model from the same pocket I'd indicated that was half the length of my arm. "I actually already have the model finished, not just with me. It's apparently fully operational. I figured it would be a good idea to have a battlecruiser I could deploy at any moment. You know, just in case some villain tried to kidnap me," I sheepishly admitted.

    Leslie sighed. "Of course you do. I think I'm starting to understand why your team leader refused to be here. I'm already getting a headache."

    "We're not!" Nerd Alert and Captain Neckbeard piped up. They were over by a few tables with tons of scientific-looking machines, and at least five different computers. Nerd Alert seemed to be going over the results of my shuttle summoning in detail, while Captain Neckbeard was furiously writing notes on a tablet.

    Missy shook her head. "Will, I don't know of any villain that's insane enough to try and kidnap someone who can pull spaceships out of their pockets."

    I smirked at her conspiratorially, wiggling my eyebrows. "Just because you don't know about them doesn't mean they don't exist. Who knows, there might be a huge shadow organization running the world from the shadows," I narrated with a spooky voice.

    ...

    Huh.

    For a second there I could have sworn I heard someone inhale quickly. Oh well.

    Missy crossed her arms. "A shadow organization from the shadows?" she scoffed. "Really?"

    I shrugged. "Hey, I calls em like I sees em."

    Dragon coughed lightly to get our attention. I immediately turned to look at her robotic monitor and grinned. "Yes, Dragon?"

    She sighed. "As interesting as that idea is, we have a spaceship to spawn," she gently reminded me.

    My eyes brightened and I actually smiled. "Right! Vista, could I please get a…" I trailed off as I tried to find the dimensions of the Aurora Class Battlecruiser in my head. Instead the answer seemed to come to me from the Lego model in my hands. "Uh, three by half a kilometer space?"

    Missy scowled. "That'll tax my powers a lot, Will," she declared.

    I shrugged. "I'm sorry, I can't help it. The battlecruiser is just that big, according to my powers. And that space is leaving less than an inch on each side as room for error."

    She sighed. "Alright, alright. I'll try."

    She turned to face one of the walls of the testing lab, holding both hands spread in the air as if bracing against a wall. She breathed in, breathed out, and suddenly I could sense something absolutely immense pushing on the fabric of reality.

    I didn't get a chance to contemplate how it was possible for me to sense such a thing, given how I was staring dumbstruck as the wall flew away from us. It expanded on each side too, but not nearly as much.

    In less than five seconds, a cavern of spacetime dickery existed where a simple concrete wall was before.

    "Daaamn," I whistled. "Color me impressed."

    Missy stumbled, but caught herself before I could finish racing over. She leaned over slightly, hands on her knees, and breathed hard.

    "Are you okay, M- I mean, Vista?" I asked, only barely catching myself and using her hero name in the presence of non-Wards.

    She glared at me for my near slip, but nodded. "I've just gotta catch my breath," she explained.

    I shrugged. "If you're sure," I warily said, hesitating to leave her.

    She just waved me off and focused on her breathing.

    "Whenever you're ready, Weldon," Dragon said.

    I casually strolled over to the midpoint of where the wall used to be, cradling my battlecruiser model in my arms. Lego gets surprisingly heavy when the models reach a certain size. "I'm in position," I announced. Suddenly an idea occurred to me, and I figured it was better to ask than get in trouble later.

    "Dragon? Leslie?" I called out.

    "Yes, Weldon?" Dragon respectfully asked.

    "We have permission from Piggot to do this, right?"

    Leslie, Dragon, Nerd Alert and Captain Neckbeard all looked at each other.

    Each of them, one by one, shook their heads in a 'don't look at me' sort of way.

    Once all of them had shown they hadn't mentioned it to the Director, Dragon sighed. "I'll call her," she lamented.

    The sound of a phone ringing took over her speaker output for a couple of seconds. Someone picked up, and I heard a groan as the person on the other end learned who was calling.

    "Yes, Dragon?" Piggot began, her tone touchy as hell. "What has he done now? It's only been two hours."

    Missy giggled in between her deep breaths, the science team joining her with snickering. The two guys only started chuckling when I flipped them off.

    Dragon sent me a tight smile and answered the Director. "So far we've discovered his beaming technology can apparently synthesize matter from energy, that it can do that up to the 131st element of the Periodic Table, that there are actually 160 elements in said table, and that the one just above Naquadah is a form of it several hundred times more reactive and powerful than its predecessor he calls Naquadriah."

    Piggot sucked in a breath. "Did you say 160 elements?"

    "That is correct, Director."

    "131 of which he can materialize out of thin air?"

    "His beaming technology supposedly is capable of doing so, yes."

    Piggot inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. "Great. Another thing I'll have to brief the Chief Director and the President on."

    I wisely kept my mouth shut. As fun as antagonising Piggot was, it must be really serious if those two were demanding briefings from her.

    "At least he can't create Naquadah or this Naquadriah, Director," Leslie spoke up.

    "Yes, what a small mercy that is. Is there anything else, Dragon, or did you just call to report?" the Director finally asked.

    I didn't have the heart to correct their assumptions. Dragon frankly should have realized the implications of my Tinker power's database crossed with the second power, the one that caused things to become real. Hell, for all I knew she did and was covering for me to keep me from being sent to the Birdcage.

    After all, I needed exactly three standard Lego bricks to apparently materialize a Naquadriah bomb capable of wiping out five sixths of the solar system.

    My Alteran self was keeping up a constant cry of 'Bullshit!' in the back of my head. My materialization power was world breaking.

    Literally.

    And that's saying something, because the Alterans had some pretty insane shit. For it to seem off to my memories from one of them? Yeah… big, bad, explosive.

    On another note, eat your heart out, String Theory. Your moon destroyer has nothing on me.

    Frak, now that I thought of it, Galactic Matter Manipulation Wave Generators could wipe out the entire galaxy.

    I shuddered. I hoped I'd never need to build anything like that, for any reason. But much like Einstein before me, I knew I'd eventually have to put my foot down with a massive explosion of some kind. There were too many monsters in the world to believe otherwise, and that was just on Earth.

    "We were going to go ahead and have Weldon spawn his battlecruiser for us. Originally I just wanted to compare the two, but with the revelation of the beaming technology's matter assembly abilities I would like to have him create samples of every new element he can. Vista has already provided an expanded space big enough for the ship."

    Piggot mused on that for a few moments. "Very well. You have a go. But do not bring any weapons online. I'm not dumb enough to think something with the word battle in the name is weaponless. If it's a proper analogue to the Navy's battlecruiser, the ship will have a lot of them."

    "Very well Director, we will leave all offensive systems we can offline," Dragon agreed. "Right, Weldon?"

    "Right!" I happily agreed, tossing her a thumbs up. I had no idea how to actually do that, but hey it's not like they could tell whether the guns were online without them firing and I had absolutely no plans to do that anytime soon.

    "Good luck, you'll need it," she shot back. Then she hung up.

    Dragon focused on me again and smiled grimly. "You can go ahead and spawn it, Weldon, but please try and follow the Director's requests," she pleaded.

    Dang it, she asked. Nicely, too. I couldn't shut them off prematurely, but the Throne probably could do it. So, I shrugged. "We're underground. It'll be deploying in an incredibly tight space. Even if the weapons do come online, the shields won't, and we can get to the bridge fairly quickly to turn them off."

    "Very well," Dragon acquiesced. "We have a go from my end."

    "Sounds good," Leslie agreed.

    "Sensors are monitoring," Nerd Alert announced.

    "Hit it!" Captain Neckbeard said.

    I nodded. "Spawning now," I reported. I lifted the ship model up with one of my hands, aimed, and heaved it over my shoulder as hard as I could.

    I spun around just in time to see it fall into the black abyss that was the unlit cavern Missy had created.

    Seconds passed.

    Nothing further happened.

    "Uh," Captain Neckbeard asked, "so... where is it?"

    Suddenly an almighty boom rocked through the building.

    FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

    The earth shook, the PRT building along with it. Missy fell to the ground with a scream. Dragon's monitor cracked. The science team only stayed standing due to clinging to their desks, and I held onto the rattling wall of the lab for dear life so I wouldn't fall into the cavern.

    Five seconds passed, the quake and the boom still continued.

    -OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

    Ten seconds, the shaking began to taper off.

    -OOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM-

    Fifteen... and the boom finally stopped.

    -MMMMMPPPPPH

    Silence, stillness, for the first time in what felt like forever. My head was ringing something fierce. From the groans and complaints of the others, they weren't doing so hot either.

    "What the hell was that?" Leslie demanded.

    "I don't know," came Dragon's voice, distorted. The speakers of her monitor assembly must have been damaged.

    "Uh, guys? Where's the ship?" Nerd Alert asked, staring along with me at the decidedly still empty cavern.

    I opened my mouth to respond.

    And that's when the lighting turned red, an alarm began to chime, and the wail of the Endbringer Sirens erupted across the city.
     
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    Chapter 03
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    ♦ Topic: (Locked) Power Ratings Now Go Up To 20
    In: Boards ► Places ► North America ► United States ► Brockton Bay
    Bagrat     (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Posted On Feb 6th 2011:
    Some of my contacts in the PRT have mentioned that they might be increasing the scale of Parahuman power levels by 10 soon. This is not unprecedented, Labyrinth of Faultline's Crew is a Shaker 12, but it worries me.

    What could have possibly made them officially add 10 levels to the Power Scales? They've held off on doing so their entire history. Not even Labyrinth, again someone confirmed to be officially rated Shaker 12, got them to do it.

    Is it a new Parahuman? I don't know. For once, I don't have any idea. The PRT is being super hush-hush about everything involved in this.

    What do you all think?

    (Showing page 3 of 3)

    ►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 6th 2011:
    This is so not good. If they're raising the scales to 20, it's because they met a Cape that matches that level. I can't think of any Power Rating I'd want someone to have 20 of. Not even Brute. That's more than Alexandria.

    ►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior)
    Replied On Feb 6th 2011:
    Thanks for the heads up, Bagrat. I'll wait for the official announcement to update the Wiki though. No offense.

    ►Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Valkyr none taken. I hope my sources are wrong this time.

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    It's spaceships. I'm calling it right now. They're gonna make all the other Tinkers look like idiots.

    User has received an infraction for this post.
    Void Cowboy, you know the rules. I'm not repeating them again. -TinMother

    ►TinMother     (Moderator)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I am locking this thread to prevent unwarranted speculation before a PRT announcement, if indeed one is coming.​

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3

    ■​

    ♦ Topic: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!
    In: Boards ► Places ► North America ► United States ► Brockton Bay
    Bob     (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
    Posted On Feb 7th 2011:
    HOLY-

    So THIS just appeared above the PRT building. It was accompanied by a sound like thunder that vibrated my bones and a windstorm that blew people standing outside over. It lasted for 10, maybe 15 seconds? The ground was shaking too, like an earthquake. Probably from that ridiculous thunder sound.

    I should know. I'm standing on the sidewalk I just ate. With my face! I also can't hear much right now, my ears leaked a little blood. My hearing better not be permanently damaged from this!

    Then the Endbringer sirens fired up for a minute or so. I could only barely hear them, but I got the memo once I saw people further away from the thing start running. Once whoever runs the sirens realized the thing wasn't doing anything but sitting there in the sky, they turned them off. Looks like some people are still running to the Shelters even so.

    I can't even see both ends! It's massive!

    EDIT: People are saying it looks like a spaceship. Can't say I blame them.

    EDIT 2: Think a Tinker is behind it? Whoever they were upping the scales for? As much as I hate to see Void Cowboy be right, I can see Tinker 20 being a spaceship builder.

    (Showing page 4 of 35)

    ►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    That is one big machine. If it even is a machine, it looks like a weird building, only flying and horizontal.

    ►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Welp. I suppose we now know the new level 20 Cape is a Tinker. Moreover we can be reasonably sure that thing showing up was unexpected given someone hit the Endbringer sirens, even temporarily.

    ►Winged_One (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I cannot see this spaceship you're all saying is there. What are you talking about?

    ►Chaosfaith (Cape Groupie)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    A FUCKING SPACESHIP?! ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? I know Tinkers are bullshit, but GOD DAMN.

    ►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    If that thing is what we immediately assume at first glance, Tinker 20 is underselling the new Cape.

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    HAH! I told you! I told you ALL!

    Finally a spaceship Tinker! It's about time a cape made something from scifi!

    ►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    No. I refuse to live in a world where Void Cowboy called something.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    That is definitely a spaceship. A three kilometer long spaceship. Holy shit.

    ►L33t (Verified Cape) (Villain)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Guys, I just sent my flying camera drone up to take a look at the ship.

    That thing is not a civilian ship. It has guns.

    Big. Fucking. Guns.

    Take a look at this, these, and those. And this area, if my Tinker senses are tingling correctly, is a series of some kind of projectile weapon deployment port.

    If the Heroes have this kind of firepower now, Uber and I might switch teams.

    ►GstringGirl (Cape Groupie)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    O.O​

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ... 33, 34, 35

    (Showing page 5 of 35)

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    ...

    Those cannons, and I can only describe them as cannons, have a caliber of 40 meters, or 131~ feet.

    The largest gun barrel in the world, the Schwerer Gustav railway gun from Germany, only has an 80cm caliber. That's 0.8 meters. 2.6~ feet.

    Holy fucking shit.

    ►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Someone must have looked at the guns on a Star Destroyer from Star Wars and decided they just weren't big enough. The ship's way smaller, but holy shit those guns.

    ►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I have been told from on high that since the cat is clearly severely out of the bag, I am allowed to release some basic info on our new Wards member.

    We are tentatively calling him Shipyard. He is a Tinker. As some have speculated, it is he who we have increased the Power Scale's maximum level for.

    He is the world's first Tinker 20+. Yes. PLUS.

    Why so highly rated? He creates spaceships (he says they're starships, nobody is very clear on the difference). Not builds, mind you, creates. He has some kind of secondary power which allows him to make the things he builds out of Lego (yes, you read that correctly) into real objects.

    Armed objects in the shape of spaceships.

    I've been cleared to reveal that because after letting it out, the higher ups are decently confident nobody is going to be stupid enough to attack or otherwise hurt him. To any villains thinking otherwise, he can summon spaceships from his pockets, spaceships which have weapons on board equivalent to small nukes.

    He got our PR department, including Glenn Chambers, to capitulate to his costume idea and name. Think about that.

    ►Acree
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    ...In the immortal words of Clockblocker, that's bullshit.

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Yeah, that's what I said when he showed us his powers. My new teammate is bullshit personified.

    ►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Clock, be nice to Shipyard. He can't help his power's absurd levels of bullshit and you know it.

    ►Kid Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Fucking Tinkers.

    ►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    But Kid, you are a Tinker.

    ►Kid Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    He summoned a shuttle bigger than a car in the Wards common room with a fling of his arm, from a Lego model. What's more, I can't understand his tech at all.

    Fucking. Tinkers.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Aww, does Kid Win have Tinker envy? :)​

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ... 33, 34, 35

    (Showing page 6 of 35)

    ►Kid Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Shut up, AllSeeingEye, nobody asked you.

    ►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Roughly 10 minutes after the ship appeared, a white and blonde blur was seen flying towards it from the ground. I'm assuming for now it was Glory Girl, but I can't be sure.

    The Cape got within a certain distance of it, passed some kind of threshold, and a glowing barrier appeared around them. It seemed to stretch around the ship in a bubble. The Cape didn't make it much farther, though, because the barrier showed up again as they fell out of it like a ragdoll and kept going towards the ground. I managed to get a video, here.

    From the dust cloud I can see from my apartment, they must have hit terminal velocity before impact. I sure hope it was Glory Girl, and that whatever interfered with her flight didn't also knock out her invulnerability.

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    :O IT HAS A SHIELD TOO?!

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    It's a shield. God damn it, not only is it a massive spaceship with huge guns, but it's shielded too?! And it looks like that shield interferes with Parahuman abilities, at least ones dealing with flight. Why else would Glory Girl fall? She looked unconscious too. I hope she's okay.

    ►Glory Girl (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I'm fine guys, whatever hit me only turned off my flight and knocked me unconscious. Hitting the ground woke me up. I didn't get hurt though.

    ►GstringGirl (Cape Groupie)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Whew. That's good.

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I wonder why the ship's shield stopped Glory Girl from flying. She should have just bounced off if it registered her as a threat.

    ►Panacea (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Vicky's not telling the whole truth. She got bruised. Badly. I'm lucky I got to her in time.

    Whoever Shipyard is, you need to apologize to Vicky.

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Ooooh @Shipyard, she's calling you out!

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Panacea I am truly sorry for your sister's injuries, but I did not make her fly up and attempt to breach the shield of my battlecruiser. Please do not allow her to do so again, I am not yet on board the ship and it's anti-intrusion systems are active.

    This goes for anyone else, too. DO NOT BREACH THE SHIELD. I'm on my way to a shuttle right now so I can get on board and put it in Peace Mode.

    I REPEAT: DO NOT BREACH THE SHIELD. If the ship senses too many attacks in a certain timeframe it will automatically engage Defense Mode and start wiping out threats to it or my safety.

    Also I'm pretty sure Director Piggot is going to have me on monitor duty for weeks because of this.​

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ... 33, 34, 35

    (Showing page 7 of 35)

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    It has a Defense Mode. Great.

    Please tell me L33t's camera drone won't trigger that.

    That ship's weapons probably make an Endbringer look tame. I'm also a little concerned that you described it as a 'battlecruiser' implying it is not, in fact, a dreadnought class ship.

    What the hell else can you build?!

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @AllSeeingEye provided Leet keeps his drone outside the shield, he should be fine. As for what I can build; I'm going to go with not giving any more details given Vista is currently whacking me from across the shuttle. A lot.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    ...You can make bigger things, can't you.

    Oh god.

    ►L33t (Verified Cape) (Villain)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard No worries I am going to keep my drone far, far away from your ship.

    Side note, how do we go joining the good guys' team?

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @L33t I'm not sure. I showed up at the PRT HQ with a cloaked shuttle and uncloaked it in front of the doors. Let's see here...

    Okay, I've contacted the PRT. They should be getting in touch with you about turning yourselves in.

    @AllSeeingEye Shhhhhhhhh, don't get me in trouble with the Bosses.

    ►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    ...And somehow Shipyard makes two villains switch sides within moments of his debut. What is even going on right now?!

    ►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @L33t I've messaged you privately about, as you said, 'joining the good guys'.

    ►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    A much smaller dark gray ship just flew out of the PRT's garage doors, turned in the air on a dime, and flew up to the 'Battlecruiser'. It bypassed the shield without any kind of effect and flew into a large door on the bottom of the ship that opened when it approached.

    I saw at least six others like it on the inside through my binoculars.

    @Shipyard, any comment?

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Yeah, that was my shuttle. I've landed in the hangar bay and am currently booking it to the Bridge. Hopefully I can turn the automatic defenses off because some idiot tried hitting the shuttle window with a sniper bullet or something. The ship is not happy about that.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    ...God damn it, is he trying to get us all killed?!​

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 ... 33, 34, 35

    (Showing page 8 of 35)

    ►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard thank you for replying. Out of curiosity, are those more 'shuttles' I saw?

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Bagrat Yeah, the Battlecruiser's main hangar fits like 30 of the things. Neat, huh?

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard Your ships are so cool! Can I get a ride in one sometime?

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Void Cowboy, that would require you telling me your identity. Right now though I need to stop browsing the forums on my phone, I've reached the Bridge.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Of course you have 30 more shuttles. I shouldn't be surprised at this bullshit anymore.

    Wait, how did you get from the hangar to what I think is the Bridge?

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @AllSeeingEye The battlecruiser has a network of transport booths to many locations across the ship.

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    :O
    :O

    O_O

    YOU HAVE TELEPORTERS?!

    ►Winged_One (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    A hidden craft that can stop Parahuman powers?

    No, this will not do.

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Winged_One ... Huh.

    Gotta admit, I didn't see that one coming.

    Why are you posting on the forums, Ziz, and how can you speak English?

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    OH SHIT.

    ...

    Guys, he's not kidding.

    He's not wrong.

    Winged_One is the Simurgh.

    FUCK.​

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ... 33, 34, 35

    (Showing page 9 of 35)

    ►Winged_One (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Interesting, little ship builder. How have you tracked me?

    ►GstringGirl (Cape Groupie)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    She didn't even deny it.

    ►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I've alerted my superiors. This is a big problem.

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    You are not as subtle as you think you are, Endbringer. My ship's sensors cover the entire solar system and far beyond.

    And don't think I can't see your real body. The Alterans were nothing if not interested in different dimensions and other realities.

    ►Winged_One (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Well, then. I will simply have to come deal with you.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    OH. FUCK.

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard THIS IS NOT FUNNY, MAN.

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Clockblocker Sorry Clock, but it's true. My sensors show her leaving orbit right now.

    I imagine Dragon is yelling at me, but I'm too integrated with the ship right now to hear her.

    Welp, guess it's time to see what the might of the Alterans can do to a hyperdimensional construct.

    @Winged_One COME AT ME, MOTHERFUCKER!

    ►Winged_One (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Challenge accepted.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    He just challenged an Endbringer to a fight. Directly.

    I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Guys the Endbringer sirens just started up again. They haven't stopped.

    ►Aegis (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard GOD DAMN IT, SHIPYARD.​

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 ... 33, 34, 35

    (Showing page 10 of 35)

    ►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    What look like engines on the back of the Battlecruiser just lit up. It's starting to move upwards into the sky. I think the guns on it turned to point up too.

    ►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    For anyone still reading this and those who haven't gone to the Shelters, this is legit. The Simurgh is on route for Brockton Bay. Get off the forums, go to a shelter, RIGHT NOW!​


    "Oh shit," Greg Veder said, as he bolted out the door with his family. He didn't even log out of his PHO account.
     
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    • Chapter 4 - Flight and Fight
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    • Ancient Legos
    Chapter 4
    Flight and Fight​

    Captain's Log, Earth Date: February 7th, 2011

    So.

    Things have happened.

    Um.

    Okay, quick summary then given how I'm currently flying a highly advanced warship on course to tackle the most bullshit of the Endbringers.

    Said warship didn't spawn where we thought it would. It popped up above the PRT building, in full view of everyone, and let out an immense pressure wave.

    I got chewed out by Piggot, Armsmaster, and even Miss Militia.

    Then all the Wards.

    Then Dragon.

    I had to attend an emergency PR meeting. Glenn Chambers tried his Shipper idea again. Needless to say after the 'discussions' I'd undergone with the aforementioned people I was not in a very good mood.

    I may have pulled an Alteran energy weapon out of my pocket and implied that if the PR team didn't let me choose they'd be stunned in short order.

    Dragon de-escalated by offering me Shipyard as an idea provided the meeting ended without anyone unconscious.

    Anything to get me out of that torture chamber was good with me. So now I'm Shipyard.

    I was being chewed out by Piggot, again, when the Hyperion (that's the name of this particular Aurora class) mentally connected with me and gave me an alert.

    Collateral Damage Barbie had decided my ship was a good idea to Directly Damage.

    Thankfully she didn't actually attack the ship. That would have been all kinds of disastrous. She breached the shield barrier and instead fell out of the sky.

    Regardless,     the Hyperion started counting down to an initiation of it's Defense Mode, something that is probably not a good idea to let loose above a city full of villains.

    After telling Piggot this, the fact I was the only one who could fix it, and that I had to be on the Bridge to do so, Dragon's suit picked me up and ran through the PRT building to the garage. As the only one who could keep up currently present, Vista came with us.

    Even at their fastest I had enough time to review and even reply to the thread about the ship on PHO that Dragon told me about. Clockblocker had posted and pinged my new account about Collateral Damage Barbie's sister Panacea calling me out.

    I apologized, but also covered my ass. The PRT wasn't nicknamed the Public Relations Team for nothing after all. I figured that I should at least try to give an excuse.

    When we got to the garage I deployed the shuttle, we got in, and I punched it out of the way too slowly opening doors.

    I might have left a sonic boom in my wake but that wasn't really that important given, y'know, actively arming itself warship above the city I live in.

    The shuttle easily connected to the internet so I could watch the PHO thread to see the panic level. It wasn't that bad, to be honest, which was nice. Seems people were taking my warning seriously. And I apparently got the duo of gaming villains to turn over a new leaf by way of implied potential for Sufficiently Impressive Firepower, so there's that. I almost spilled information about how big my ships could get to somebody who was an Eye? And saw everything? Usernames are weird. Anyways, I almost spilled it to them but Missy smacked me via spacetime dickery from across the shuttle.

    I blamed her for my silence in the post, as is my right.

    Everything was going to plan right up until some fucking idiot shot at the shuttle.

    Directly at the spot my head would have been hit.

    Hyperion really didn't like that. The time to Defense Mode activating dropped like a stone.

    So I panicked and put the shuttle into overdrive. Ignored the collapse of Vista as she cried out except to mentally log it for examination and possible apology later. Ignored Dragon trying to get my attention, just pointed her to the medical supplies. Flew into the hangar bay, landed, waited the seemingly agonizingly long seconds for the ramp to descend, and fucking sprinted to the nearest transport booth.

    Was able to actively participate on the PHO thread too, thanks to my mental link with the Hyperion's computer systems. Comms system access wasn't enough to stop the countdown though.

    Got to the Bridge, nearly threw myself into the Control Throne, laid back, and interfaced.

    Defense Mode Activation stood down. Thank fuck.

    Oh yeah, and then I traced a surprisingly high number of active dimensional signatures the ship had picked up.

    Found out all Parahumans had a pair of trans-reality portals in their heads, including me.

    Found out that Dragon wasn't actually in her suit and due to the shield's active counter-surveillance systems, couldn't be remote controlling it.

    World's foremost Tinker is actually an AI. Good to know. As soon as I knew that I made damn sure that no transmissions of any kind could reach her.

    What? I'm not stupid. We had the Terminator movies on Earth Bet. Even if her creator hadn't built in shackles or a kill switch, someone else probably had.

    Oh yeah, and my latest screw up; finding out about the forum account of a feathery death machine, then directly challenging The Simurgh.

    On PHO.

    Publicly.

    Have I mentioned how much below my average common sense I'm batting today?

    Shit, there she is!

    End Log.


    I watched the sensor readout as the Endbringer came through by the cloud cover. She flew down toward my ship like an avenging angel, all her wings spread out to the sides and angrily fluttering. Her travel speed was slow and arcing. No doubt this was to add to her psychological impact. Behind her trailed thousands of meteors like a hailstorm of fire. Space debris. She must have wanted a dramatic entrance.

    I had to admit it was an awesome scene.

    All the main cannons on the Hyperion turned and locked onto her. Drones were loaded into their chutes. Shields drew immense amounts of power from the Potentia the ship had spawned with to reinforce themselves. Point defense beam arrays deployed, ready to intercept all that burning wreckage that was no doubt intended for my ship.

    I mentally made a note to apologize to Aegis, I'd accidentally broken the promise about not making one of the crystalline super batteries.

    If I had been sitting up or had my eyes open, I would have screamed a war cry at her. With how I was essentially asleep in the Chair Throne, I decided to use the ship's external sound projectors instead.

    On second thought I made sure to start recording this and capturing any video others managed to get. Added the video of the Simurgh's spectacular entrance too, it was only fair to the effort she'd clearly put into it. Maybe I could make a little action video out of the footage.

    "AND SO I SAY UNTO THE FALSE ANGEL OF DEATH AND DESPAIR; COME AT ME, ZIZ!"

    Her normally impassive and blank face curled into a snarl.

    I grinned.

    She thrust her arm forward, the hell storm of space debris rocketing towards the Hyperion. It screamed through the air, sonic winds buffeting everything which could listen. My point defense arrays opened up, destroying a lot of the projectiles. Even with them going full speed though there were still just too many individual objects for the limited number of beams to intercept.

    They didn't seem like they'd be a danger to the shields. I suppose that's why Alterans didn't give the Aurora more than a small loadout of the point defense emitters.

    Oh well.

    I charged the primary cannons. The entire deck hummed under my feet, vibrating my body down to the bones. The readouts of the cannons reached 100%, and I fired.

    The initial volley of bright blue light, so radiant they shined like a star in one's eyes, exploded out of the barrels of the sixteen cannons which had lock on of the Simurgh. The other sixteen were on the underside of the ship and she wasn't yet in their firing arcs. I intentionally had them spread out so some would hit her if she stayed where she was and others would intercept her if she moved. I knew she had precognitive capability, but knowing something is coming and being able to dodge it are two different things. This way, given the travel speed of the blasts, she would be hit by at least one.

    I had a decent hunch that she couldn't predict me when I was inside the shield given her PHO statements about being unable to see the ship, but I was hedging my bets regardless.

    She didn't react at all until the blasts cleared the shield. It confirmed my hunch about the shield, at least, but I wanted to see how she fairs against the blasts now that she could see them.

    The remaining distance only gave her a second of warning time.

    What did she do? Did she dodge or attempt to intercept the blasts with her space debris?

    Nope, she let the main cluster hit her.

    Ear shattering booms ripped the surrounding airspace apart. Flares of bright blue light and explosions eclipsed the feathery death machine from visual view. My sensors could still see her inside the cloud of near star-level heat and pyroclastic miasma that surrounded her.

    Or what was left of her, anyways.

    Most of her wings were gone. Half her body was vaporized. Only a very large wing and the upper left side of her body, including her neck and face, were still present.

    What the fuck. In one go I'd done more damage to an Endbringer than ever before. I knew Alteran weapons were powerful, but nothing brought the resounding truth of the concept home quite like seeing it firsthand.

    Even my Alteran memories didn't really prepare me for their destructive potential.

    But even more than that, I was shocked at the Simurgh's behavior. Why did she do that? I didn't even really notice the drumming impacts of her debris against the shields with how surprised I was.

    To be fair, neither did the shield strength. It just dipped a single tenth of a percent.

    She shouldn't have let those hit her. I wasn't really willing to buy the idea that she didn't see them, they were visually quite present if nothing else. She should have dodged into one of the single boxing in blasts, not allowed the main cluster to hit her!

    When the last of the explosions from our first volleys finally cleared, over a minute and a half later, I got to witness an expression I'm sure nobody has ever seen on an Endbringer.

    The Simurgh was surprised.

    What little of her face and lips remained told me that.

    How? She should have known what electron stripped plasma blasts the size and power this ship could produce would do to her.

    She turned her gaze on the bridge, narrowing her one remaining eye. Suddenly the speed of regeneration quintupled, her body and wings regrowing from the remaining piece in a few seconds.

    Okay. I guess she stopped holding back.

    Alerts started popping up all around the ship's shield. Close examination found that something was twisting the very air in hundreds of places around the bubble into vortexes, siphoning gallons of air a millisecond. Out of the tips of those vortexes came spouts of plasma, impacting the shield like primary cannon blasts.

    But they were beams.

    The Hyperion's shield matrix started dropping percentage points. 99%. Ten seconds later, 98%.

    Well then. She'd stopped sandbagging.

    My physical lips smirked. My turn.

    Every drone port on the Hyperion spiraled open. The entirety of the ship's Drone stores was dumped into their chutes. I turned the ship so that all the primary turrets could target her, ignoring the plasma vortexes for now.

    "ROUND TWO, BITCH!" I projected.

    All the cannons fired in sequence. One after the other, the drum of the booms of Alteran war sounded out, bursts of light rocketing towards her. Like before she had only about a second's warning before the continual barrage rammed into her. Explosions bloomed all over her body, wings included, as her regeneration fought with the destructive energies unleashed.

    She started doing the only thing she could do; dodging. Or trying to, anyways. My turrets were all on automatic at that point, instructed to set up situations where she'd be hit by at least one blast no matter where she went.

    Provided she didn't try breaking the sound barrier, anyways. Either she wasn't that desperate yet or she couldn't.

    I was going with 'not desperate' given her telekinesis should easily be capable of it.

    Oh well. It was my job to make her desperate.

    When the blasts had guided her towards the front of my ship, I let loose Wave Two.

    Out of each the thirty two drone tubes onboard a thousand golden lights spilled forth. Like undulating streams of light they extended into the atmosphere around us. They formed into arcs of blinding light, going away and out from my ship, then closing on the Simurgh with deadly accuracy.

    "My god," I heard Dragon say, "it's beautiful."

    I got to see another expression on the Simurgh's face that day. One nobody had ever seen even more so than surprise.

    Her porcelain caricature was paralyzed, eyes wide, and face somehow paler than ever.

    It was fear.

    "THIS IS FOR EVERYONE YOU'VE EVER KILLED, MONSTER!" I screamed at her.

    And then, she showed something that shocked me out of my rage.

    Acceptance.

    Just before the lights hit, she bowed her head and closed her eyes. I was surprised to see a peaceful, relieved smile on her lips. A monster like her shouldn't have been capable of making such an expression.

    Before I could reconsider, hundreds of phase shifted nuclear level weapons hit her in a single second. Hundreds more the second afterwards. And even more hundreds the second after that. For a good half minute, the light, heat, and energy that erupted out from the Simurgh's body was cataclysmic. The atmosphere for five miles around us turned to plasma. The shields struggled under the strain, dropping a solid two percent per second. The ship rocked and bucked in the firestorm like a bronco, the inertial stabilizers not fully capable of countering the turbulence even at maximum.

    But eventually, it cleared.

    Thank the gods and my own sense that I'd engaged her far, far above Brockton Bay, because otherwise there wouldn't be an Eastern Seaboard anymore.

    All the Drones were gone. They'd either been shielded from the apocalyptic explosion by their phase shifting until they hit the Simurgh and exploded or simply were overcome. My ship was scarred by charred swaths of areas where the shields hadn't been strong enough to prevent all that energy from getting through. Almost all the turrets were down or exploded. They'd just kept firing, as I'd told them to, and overloaded because of it.

    At the time I gave them that instruction I was throwing everything at the Simurgh just to see what would finally take her out. Everything went to hell before I could countermand the order.

    I took a glance at the shield readout, despite not really wishing to see how close I'd come to death.

    The red three sent shivers down my spine.

    Right. So. I scheduled in a good few hours later on where I could ponder my existence and release the immense panic attack I was actively suppressing.

    I just fought and beat an Endbringer on my second day as a superhero. 'Panic Attack' doesn't really describe what I was going to experience when I finally let go of my emotional control.

    A quick upload of the footage I'd gathered of my fight with the Endbringer was posted to the PHO forums. As shaken as I was, the rest of the human race deserved to know the good news and see how one of our destroyers had been silenced. Today would be a good day for everyone else.

    I was feeling guilty on top of the panic. Immensely so. I had a nagging suspicion I'd just killed a person. A person who was doing evil things, yes, but against their own will. There was no other explanation for why she'd been peaceful and relieved at the end.

    The Hyperion, picking up on my thoughts, brought up the results of a new scan. I sagged into the Control Throne with exhausted relief.

    I was wrong. I hadn't truly killed her. If I'd been anyone else… well, that would be terrifying. All the firepower I'd hit her with and it still hadn't killed her. It just made my guilt evaporate instead.

    The only thing left of the Simurgh was a small ball of hyper dense matter within which a trans-reality portal latched into this spacetime. It was cracked and certainly had a compromised integrity, given I could scan the inside of it, but it had survived nonetheless. Even now it was starting to emit new mass, supposedly to recreate her body.

    With a smile I directed my beam arrays to scoop it up. The core, for that's what it was, of one of humanity's terrorizing monsters and possible coerced, forced, or maybe even enslaved siege engine disappeared in a white light. I directed it to rematerialize in one of the science labs. It relieved me when the rate of mass creation stopped. Apparently she was content to sit there in the lab until I could get to her.

    Her portal was still active, so it wasn't that she was incapable of regenerating. But given the data I now had like the portals in Parahuman brains, the fact Glory Girl couldn't fly inside the shield, the lack of the Simurgh's precog ability working inside the same shield, and the emotions I'd seen on her face before she 'died'...

    Something smelled fishy in Wonderland.

    The fact she stopped regenerating and hadn't attacked me once her core was inside the shield was just more proof.

    Something from another reality was providing powers and probably the control signal for Ziz, if indeed she was being controlled like I suspected.

    Before I could handle the shitstorm all that implied, though, I needed to deal with my two other guests. They'd found the Bridge right around the time I started firing on the Simurgh with the main cannons a second time. Now they were standing in front of me.

    I set the ship on course for Brockton Bay again and got up from the Control Throne.

    I opened my eyes to see an irate Dragon suit and a certain cute Ward clinging to it's side as if she would fall. Missy was paler than she should be, with dark circles under her eyes, and Dragon seemed to be shaking.

    They were also both clearly torn between being pissed at me and in awe.

    "Oh hey gals," I greeted them. "How's it going?"

    My response to their dark scowls was to grin ear to ear.
     
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    • Chapter 5 - Skynet? But She's So Nice!
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    • Ancient Legos
    Chapter 5
    Skynet? But She's So Nice!​

    It took two whole minutes for them to respond.

    "Will," Missy nearly whispered, "did you just kill the Simurgh?!"

    I locked eyes with the young heroine. I had a choice here. I could lie, say I had defeated the Simurgh...

    To anyone else that statement would seem like confirmation despite it not being so.

    No, Ziz, I corrected myself, not 'The Simurgh'. She's a victim. Most likely. Gods I hope I'm right.

    Or I could tell them the truth.

    …

    Given I'd been plagued by a lack of common sense so far that day, going with the opposite of my initial gut-reaction fueled idea was probably a prudent, if cautious, course of… well, action.

    "My ship defeated the Simurgh," I neutrally answered my fellow Ward.

    Missy's eyes widened and she shuddered. "How?"

    "Lots and lots of Drones," I snarkily responded.

    Missy abruptly smiled, her eyes taking on a wet sheen, and she sighed with relief. "Yes!"

    The look of awe on her cute face left me with even more guilt to add to the slowly evaporating pool I'd received when I thought I'd killed Ziz. Regardless of my feelings I pumped a fist in the air. "Hooray!" was my contribution to the celebration.

    "Weldon," Dragon interrupted us, "something's wrong with Vista."

    My tiny little good mood evaporated. "What." I flatly growled. Now that I was paying attention again, she did have a far paler complexion than she should. She was also shaking and, as I'd previously noticed but become distracted from, holding onto Dragon's suit leg with a death grip.

    "Vista," I sharply said with a commanding tone, forcing her to straighten up as much as she could, "Report."

    Hey, unlike a certain clock-based co-worker of mine, I did read the PRT manuals. In the absence of a Protectorate or Wards superior, the eldest member of either was the boss, with Protectorate obviously winning out by default due to the minimum age of eighteen. Dragon was a Guild member, not Protectorate, and thus didn't count.

    I was four years (ish) older than Missy. That made me The Big Boss even if my level of experience was peanuts to hers.

    "S-sir," the shaking space warper stuttered, "My powers are gone. I can't balance. My entire sense of space is gone. And…," she trailed off with a wince, "I'm pretty sure I've got migraines."

    A mental command caused the Hyperion's internal life detectors to focus all their sensors on the young girl. What I found made me pale. I rocketed out of my seat. No time for pleasantries.

    "Dragon," I snapped out, "will you take orders from me without any kind of even a guarantee of an explanation?"

    Her suit's head inclined slightly as if she was astonished at my audacity. "You are not a government official. You do not have that clearance."

    Then before I could reply she jumped a little, shock clear throughout her suit. Three seconds passed.

    She stared at me.

    I stared at her.

    Missy looked confused.

    Dragon growled at me. "How did you figure it out?"

    I opened my mouth and raised a finger as if to respond before realising something. "Out of curiosity exactly what do you think I figured out?" As I said this, I discreetly had the Hyperion beam a certain device to my other hand, the one behind my back.

    I really didn't want to have to use it, but if I had to do so to save Dragon's life from the no doubt observing watchdog program embedded within her code, I would. If it was there, all it would take is my acknowledgement of Dragon's state of being for one of the many potential triggers a Skynet fearing programmer could have made to go off.

    After all, an AI that self destructs when someone learns it's an AI is totally within the paranoia profile. It's what I'd do.

    If I was a racist prejudiced against digital beings, of course. I wasn't. I was just really, really good at putting myself in other people's mindsets to then develop a counter for their counters.

    If I happened to be wrong and there wasn't an external or internal killswitch for her?

    Meh. I'd apologize later.

    After healing Missy.

    Who was watching the whole exchange between us like a fan at a football game.

    On another horrifying thought, I shut down the Porta Relay built into the shield. I did not need whatever gave powers relaying a signal to Dragon. If there really was such a thing. Better to be paranoid and safe than sorry, right?

    The relay shutdown had the both lucky and unlucky side effect of making Missy collapse. Lucky because Dragon cut off her glare at me to look down and try to catch the girl.

    Unlucky should be self explanatory.

    I took the split second her attention was off me to fire my 'weapon'. A conic wave of blue energy erupted out in a cone from five inches in front of my hand. It expanded as it traveled, getting just enough area to include the entirety of Dragon's suit.

    She froze, all the lights in her armored form fading entirely.

    I pulled the barrel of the gun-like emitter up to my mouth and blew imaginary smoke off it.

    I'd always wanted to do that.

    "Will!" Missy shrieked. I peered around the dark green 'body' of Dragon to see her. She was angry.

    Why was she angry?

    I glanced between my emitter and Dragon several times before it dawned on me how this appeared.

    I'd just shot a world famous Hero in front of her on my second day as another one.

    You say I'm not world famous? PHO and the fact I'd just soloed an Endbringer like a mid game farming boss disagree.

    Back on the 'just shot Dragon in front of teammate' note…

    Whoops.

    "Uh…," I tried, "I swear, this is not as bad as it looks."

    My teammate gaped at me for a good ten seconds. Then she continued yelling. "IT LOOKS REALLY, REALLY BAD!"


    "As I've already told you, Missy, she's an AI," I repeated for the umpteenth time, trying to drag said AI's ridiculously heavy suit towards the transport booth right outside the Bridge.

    My fellow young hero was watching me like a hawk to ensure I didn't, as her abrupt yelling session accused me of, 'do anything weird' to Dragon. The Cute Ward has a set of lungs on her, no question.

    And the idea that she's innocent?

    HAH.

    Let's just say the PR machine of the PRT must be really good at their jobs. The only other explanation is that Missy has a lot more self control when she's not giving me a thorough lesson on how expansive her vocabulary is.

    I'm not sure which option is more terrifying, to be honest.

    "And I still don't believe you," she shot back. The poor girl was taking every step next to me very carefully, to keep both her accusing glare on me and her balance.

    Almost there. I saw the transport booth doors open as they detected our presence. "How can I prove to you that I'm telling the truth?" I sent her way.

    Just five more muscle cramping tugs to go. Come on, Will! You can do this!

    My internal cheerleader wasn't really helping at the moment, but A for effort.

    Missy narrowed her eyes at me. "You can't. Dragon never leaves her base, wherever that is, and so you can't."

    I knew this, of course, just like most cape geeks (and I guess capes too? Huh. Possible opponent threat assessment or worldwide dick measuring contest?) knew it. But that actually made it easier for me to prove it to her than any other idea.

    "Okay, Missy, let's say you're right," I began, humoring her while shoving the still fucking heavy Dragon suit into the transport booth. "If you are, then Dragon must have been remote controlling her suit up until I disabled it, yes?"

    How was I going to do this? There wasn't enough room in the transport booth for a suit and me, much less with Missy squeezed in alongside us. Just her and Dragon could barely fit uncomfortably in the rather large cubicle that was the booth.

    "Right. Dragon remote controls her suits. Everybody knows that," Missy agreed. She was still glaring at me, even if her face had become thoughtful.

    Apparently she liked to debate. Who knew?

    "What's your point?"

    "My point, Missy, is that Dragon was incapable of controlling her suit remotely ever since we breached the shield of the Hyperion," I explained absently, only a small part of my mind in the mostly useless discussion.

    "What are you talking about and what is Hyperion?"

    I opened my mouth to respond, realized something, and spun around. "You don't know what the Hyperion is?" I asked, confused.

    The Cute Ward brought her cuteness factor up another notch by crossing her arms and furrowing her eyebrows. Frak, no wonder the PR team made her so… cute and adorable as a superhero image. She really didn't have the disposition or mannerisms to offset her raw cuteness.

    It was like watching a puppy try to look mean. I had to resist my instinctive urge to cuddle her up in my arms and snuggle my face into her hair, as I was quite sure such action wouldn't be appreciated at that moment in time.

    Later…? Meh. I'd try and get the other Wards in on it too so she couldn't rain her wrath down upon me alone.

    "No, Will, I do not know what 'The Hyperion' is," she growled.

    I blinked, even more confused. "Why not?"

    "Because you probably think you told me and didn't," she offered, a smirk gracing her lips.

    My eyes widened and I let out an embarrassing "Ah." Yeah, now that she brought it up, I'd only thought of the Hyperion in my own head and written it into a log I composed from the Throne Chair, neither of which were necessarily verbal communications methods. I cleared my throat awkwardly and gestured to the deck below us. "Yes, well. Sorry about that. The name of this ship is the Hyperion."

    Missy's glare only lessened a tiny bit. "Uh huh. Great. Can we get back to the fact you shot a hero in the back now please?!"

    I rolled my eyes at her melodramatic tone. "Fine. Like I said, ever since we breached the Hyperion's shield, Dragon could not possibly have been remote controlling her suit."

    "Why not." Uh oh. Missy's patience was starting to run out.

    Dennis had warned me that if I ever heard that tone from her I was to either apologize or run the hell away.

    Option A was out because I didn't do anything wrong and B because she could just warp spa-

    Wait.

    Could she do that now that whatever was providing powers was blocked?

    "WILL!" she yelled, her face coming back into abrupt focus right in front of my face.

    "Gah!" I cried out, jumping back.

    Several things happened in the next five seconds.

    I hit Dragon's precariously balanced suit in the very open transport booth doors.

    It lost any semblance of stability I'd managed to coax out of the inactive servos.

    We both collapsed to the floor outside the booth, Dragon's incredibly heavy suit on top of me. The limbs of it that met the floor expressed their irritation with me by letting out several ear-splitting CLANGs.

    The Hyperion, sensing I was in danger, automatically used the Asgardian Beaming Arrays to move the inactive suit off me and to the floor next to me.

    Missy jumped back and got into a wobbly combat stance at the sudden light and sound.

    I groaned on the ground, brought a palm to my face, and banged my head against the floor.

    I'd completely forgotten about those.

    "Will!" Missy called out.

    "I'm okay!" I called back, coughing a little at the damage my ribs had received from the momentary collision between a several hundred pound mech and my vulnerable body. Those were gonna need a patch job. "I'm also an idiot!"

    "Why?"

    "I just remembered that the Hyperion has beam arrays. We don't need to use the transport booths!"

    I expected her to be happy, or even relieved.

    I did not expect the Tone of Death, another warning Dennis gave me.

    "WHAT."

    Uh oh.
     
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    • Chapter 6 - Diagnosis
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    • Ancient Legos
    Chapter 6
    Diagnosis​

    The whine of the Asgardian transporter sounded out in one of the larger rooms of the Hyperion, accompanied by it's signature white aurorae, and deposited us.

    I had bruises. Lots of bruises. Most of them were on my ribs from the gigantic freaking Dragon suit landing on me, but several were my irritable teammate's fault.

    Turns out Vista, The Cute Ward, can really throw a punch. Who knew?

    Certainly not me, that's for sure.

    The Medbay of the Hyperion was primarily a long rectangular room with the trademark high ceilings of the Alterans. Unlike those of Atlantis, it wasn't designed to be super pretty, just functional, and so didn't have partitions or sections. The only doors out of it besides the standard entryway were to three isolation rooms and their attached observation rooms.

    Lined up like pre-built townhomes were about thirty medical beds. Very high end technology that was invented right as the Wraith War was turning bad. A completely accurate physical scanning system and a guided set of healing tools, including a toned-down version of the Regeneration Cube, were the new and differing features over something, say, like the Atlantis medical floor would have. City dwellers that aren't weird like my Alteran memories said I, they, were, were usually much more hands on. Especially if they were in the 'hate on Asurans' camp. No sentient or even close automation here, no siree.

    Nevermind that Destiny was sentient and a massive frakking troll. Oh no, our civilization hasn't been nailing synthetic intelligence for dozens of millions of years or anything, let's just regress because a people we made didn't want to fight!

    "Fucking hypocritical, dicknugget bastards," I mumbled under my breath as I dragged the still very heavy Dragon suit to the far end of the Medbay.

    There were two machines there. One was normally present in Warship Medbays, a Synthetic Manipulation Table. Thing allowed Alterans to get into and modify any technology they put on it. Nanites are wonderful, aren't they?

    The second machine was not supposed to be here at all. I would have to investigate why a full spectrum Genetic Manipulation Device was present later. Don't get me wrong, there should be a Genetic Manipulation Device in the Hyperion's Medbay. It just shouldn't be one of the ones that can manipulate absolutely everything about you. Those were closely guarded secrets by my race, and I only knew about them because Janus showed me his back on Atlantis.

    No! Bad Alteran! I said to myself, separating those memories from where they'd unexpectedly clung to me. Back in the 'open if needed' box you go!

    Now how do I get this heavy-as-frak suit on the Table?     I asked myself, studying the rather high height off the floor it's top extended to.

    I couldn't help but feel I'd forgotten something important though.

    "Will!" Missy hissed from right behind me.

    Ah yes. My teammate.

    I jumped about six feet in the air as my heart rate shot into the stratosphere. When my vision came back from the near heart attack I'd suffered I put a hand to my chest, breathing heavily, and spun around.

    "You know that if I die of a heart attack you'll be stuck on the Hyperion with a deactivated heroic AI Tinker and a brain tumor that's going to eat you with no way off, right?" I sarcastically asked her, rubbing my chest.

    Missy froze. Her face morphed into one of terror.

    I tilted my head, confused. "What'd I say?" I asked, genuinely unaware.

    The smolest Brockton Bay Ward unfroze and growled. "Tumor. Head. Eat me!" she summarized succinctly, her eyes glaring at me more and more each time.

    I blinked, raising a finger in confusion. "Didn't I mention that?" I asked. I could've sworn I did, but then again... maybe not.

    "NO! YOU DIDN'T!" she yelled, exasperated.

    I blinked again, opened my mouth, closed it, found my focus again, and shrugged. "Oh. Well. You have two brain tumors in your head our world calls the Corona Pollentia and Gemma, they're what give you your powers and normally have two inter-reality portals in them, and with the shield on full isolation mode those portals can't exist. That apparently means your Coronas start mutating and growing like tumors, who knew?"

    I went back to trying to shove Dragon up onto the Table while Missy gaped at me.

    I'd just managed to get a single one of her arms onto the table (how much does this suit even weigh? Gods damn it!) when Missy's smaller hand grasped my shoulder and her fingers dug into it like steel.

    I froze, just a tiny bit concerned now.

    "Will," she flatly declared.

    "Y-yes, M-Missy?" I stammered, trying and failing to sound calm.

    Her fingers tightened their grip. "Explain. Now."

    "Fingers off first!"

    Her fingers tightened even more in an threatening manner before slowly retracting. I turned around, carefully not making any sudden moves, and gulped when I saw her face.

    I am so dead.

    She raised one of her eyebrows. Waiting.

    I coughed lightly into my totally not clenched fist to attempt and ground myself around my nervousness. "Parahuman powers come from portals linked to our Coronas," I began, mentally pulling up the ship's scan history. "The Hyperion's sensors made short work of the frankly amateur attempt at dimensional obfuscation after I detected Ziz and took a look at what was on the other side." I pointed at Missy's head, bobbing my head back and forth. "Yours is some huge biomechanical construct sitting on another version of Earth. Bigger than the U.S."

    Her eyes deadened and she looked at me with complete disbelief.

    "You can choose to believe me or not, but it's the truth," I defended my ship. "My own seems to be rather new, I guess, even though the carbon decay shows it's got significantly smaller, older sections. When the shield went into full lockdown mode it was still expanding. Trying to build a space bridge between that Earth and that Mars, I think."

    Missy set her mouth in a flat line. She definitely didn't believe me.

    I shrugged. "Like I said, believe me or not, that's the truth. Now can I please fix Dragon?" I pointed back over my shoulder at her… body.

    Missy screwed her face up in incredulity at me. Her mouth hung slightly open and her eyes were narrowed. Complete and total bewilderment. "Where do you come up with this bullshit?!" she asked. "Not even Dennis is this bad!"

    "Reality," I grinned, spinning around to work on Dragon again. "And it's not bullshit."

    "BULLSHIT!"

    "Nope, all true," I repeated yet again. I held out my hand and instructed Hyperion to assemble a Synthetic Interface Device in it. Asgard beams chiming for a few seconds netted me a cylindrical object with a white-blue emitter at the end and a tablet for viewing the results or interacting with the linked Synthetic.

    "Weldon, you're claiming that superpowers come from some kind of… alien computers!" Missy shrieked.

    I cocked my head to the side and snorted. "Huh. Alien computers. Yeah, that's actually a lot more accurate of a description than what I was using in my head."

    "WHAT?!"

    "Well I was calling them Biotech Shardlings, given their similarity to something the Alterans encountered a few dozen million years ago," I conversationally continued.

    Missy was silent for several seconds. The Hyperion showed her jaw-dropped stare at my back kept going the whole time.

    Wave the Interface at Dragon's body to find the primary processor… Ooooh, clever girl, you have multiple core processors.

    Eventually she just sighed, dropped her head, rubbed the bridge of her nose, and shook her head. "Just… just get rid of this headache, Weldon," she told me, sighing again. "Please. And try not to make it worse."

    "Righto!" I agreed heartily, already barely paying attention to her. "Hop on one of the medical beds and the Hyperion will start scanning you, see what we can do."

    Missy sighed in defeat one last time before trudging over to the closest bed, and as I'd asked, hopped on. Her eyes widened with surprise, presumably at how comfortable they were, and she laid down with a contented sigh. "These are nice," she commented.

    Well done young one, not many of your kind figure that out this soon in your life, I thought at Dragon. Not that she would hear me. Hmmm, well, just link the fifteen of her cores together with the Interface… yes, there we go, now how about her code?

    Wow, I thought to myself, momentarily breaking me out of the fugue I was just in.

    Oh, wait, did Missy say something? Hyperion!

    Ah.

    "So much better than the Atlantis ones, I know," I agreed again.

    "Atlantis," Missy deadpanned, then sighed. She was doing that a lot for some reason. "I'm not even going to ask until you get rid of this headache."

    "Capital city of the Alterans. One of the first functional cityships. Was used as a template for the others that followed her," I succinctly explained.

    Missy groaned, rolled her eyes, and banged her head against the bed cushion. "Not. Asking!"

    Hyperion, please start scanning her.

    While the various arms and scanning devices unfolded from the bottom of Missy's medical bed, I took a closer look at what the Synthetic Interface had managed to figure out so far.

    Dragon's code was…

    Simply put, she was beautiful. The Alterans had gone for modularity with creating the Asurans and their earlier cousins the Constructors, but Dragon eclipsed them both. Instead of using lots of modular pieces running the same programs to create emergent sentience, whoever created her had built code to do the same thing.

    In a vastly more elegant manner.

    I almost didn't want to touch any of it. She was a work of art. To modify her would be like… like defacing the Mona Lisa to fix the little bit that looks like a mole under her nose. Like fixing the alignment of the Tower of Pisa. Like adding heavier weaponry to Atlantis. Fixing problems, yes, but somehow losing the works of art and culture they'd become.

    Dragon should be declared an Eighth Wonder of Earth Bet, and I was going to have to edit her very being to save her.

    Because within this work of art was… darkness.

    That's all I could easily describe it as. The matrix of beautiful, flowing code contained a small section -invisible to the rest of it and without the Hyperion, me- that was…

    To use my earlier comparisons, it was as if someone had taken a smear of fully light-absorbing paint and nicked the Mona Lisa in her hair. Well hidden, but if you found it… sickening.

    Gods, at least my race had only wiped out the Asurans when they didn't do what some of us wanted them to. This… this was malicious. Evil.

    Ori.

    Iron Maiden. Ascalon.

    Two rather uninteresting names for something that would have had the creator executed by us.

    No, not us! I thought, catching myself. A shake of my head sent the personality back into its box.

    Those programs would have the creator executed by the Alterans.

    I was just really, really fucking pissed off.

    "Missy," I spoke, leaning on the table with both my hands and looking down, "Who created Dragon?"

    She jumped a little, sat up, and glared at my back. Thank you, Hyperion. "Her parents, you moron!" she snapped. "She's not an AI!"

    Gods damn it, Missy. I whirled around and held up my tablet towards her, tapping it repeatedly in the matrix of code. "Oh really? Then how come I'm looking at her code right now?!" I shot back, glaring at her with a dare of contradiction in my eyes.

    Missy kept her gaze locked on mine for several moments in defiance. Then she relented and looked down at the tablet. Maybe due to her exhaustion or maybe due to being curious. Her eyebrows rose at what she found and she locked her gaze on mine again. "What's that?" she asked in a challenging voice.

    I narrowed my eyes at her and pursed my lips. "You know what it is. I already told you."

    She narrowed her own eyes. "I refuse to believe Dragon is an AI, Weldon!"

    Yeah, I was already pissed, and this was not helping. "Well then what would convince you, Missy? I already asked you that and you said that nothing I could do would convince you. What about if Dragon herself confirmed it? Then would you believe me?!" I was almost yelling at a teammate and not proud of it, but my patience was nearly gone.

    She swallowed as I began to wail on her, her gaze turning into a heated glare. "No!" she yelled back.

    That snapped me out of it. The pure lack of logic, of sense, brought me back to reality. "What?" I asked.

    Missy blinked as well, shaking her head. "No! I mean, maybe. Yes?" she sounded as if it was a question at the end. "I don't know, Weldon! My head kind of has a fucking migraine at the moment that you still haven't fixed!" She slapped the sides of her head and let out a little whine of pain.

    The first I'd heard.

    Well shit.

    "Okay, okay," I agreed, with a healthy amount of sheepishness, "lemme take a look."

    I put the tablet down next to Dragon's prone suit and walked the short distance to Missy's medical bed. A thought to the bed brought up a holographic display panel of all her readout and the results of the few scans that had completed, including the full body one the Hyperion took on the bridge and the one the bed's scanner just finished.

    I couldn't help myself; my face fell.

    Missy gulped, a worried look sent my way. "Will?" she asked warily.

    I tried to put a grin back on my face, but a slight grimace and dead eyes were all I managed. "So!" I faux-cheerily asked, "how do you feel about becoming a normal human for a while?"

    Missy narrowed her eyes tiredly at me. "What are you talking about Will?"

    I drew in a deep, solid breath, then let it dissipate through my nose. "You want me to try bedside manner or just lay it out?"

    "I get the feeling I don't have a lot of time. Give it to me straight."

    I grimaced again and nodded. "Alright. I can either not treat you and let your tumors consume your brain or I can remove your Corona Pollentia and Gemma," I explained succinctly.

    Missy blinked at me several times, her look dumbfounded, before she collapsed back into the medical bed's cushion. "Of course you have the technology to take someone's powers away. I shouldn't be surprised at this point," she complained.

    I chuckled and nodded. "No you should not," I agreed, actually managing to grin at my own joke despite the somber situation.

    Missy sighed and stared up at the ceiling for several long seconds. Just as I was about to start fidgeting she spoke, quietly. "Will it hurt?"

    "Less than your brain exploding," I deadpanned.

    She bodily shuddered and shook her head, then slammed her eyes closed and brought a hand up to her forehead. She groaned miserably. "Ugh, note to self; do not shake head with migraine."

    "Generally a good idea, yes," was my commentary.

    Missy opened her eyes and rolled them at me. "Will my powers come back?" she wearily asked, her eyes and voice begging me to say yes.

    I wished I could tell her definitively one way or the other but I truly had no clue. "I don't know, Missy," I revealed. "The tumors would be gone. Whether the… alien computers need them present to connect or can regrow them, I can't say."
    Missy sighed again. "It's my only choice, isn't it," she morbidly discerned.

    "Pretty much."

    My teammate, though that might not be the case for much longer grit her teeth and closed her eyes. "Okay. Do it."

    I abruptly grinned and winked at her, not that she could see the wink. My voice definitely sounded like I was grinning, though. "It's not that easy Missy, I gotta have the medical bay operate on your brain with Nanites. You're gonna have to be knocked out."

    "Do. It," she pressed.

    "Alright," I hesitantly agreed. A thought brought up the medical bay's Neural Configuration systems. "You sure?"

    "Yes." Her face was set, a thin grimace on her lips. She looked up at me and tried to smile. "I don't really know what most of what you say means, but I trust you. Not to do the safe thing but definitely the right thing," she spoke, conviction clear in her voice. "Just… make sure I wake up, okay?"

    Her voice wobbled a little.

    I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Okay Missy, I will," I agreed. I huffed then and shook my head. "Way to be dramatic. This tech is perfectly safe," I mumbled under my breath.

    Missy rolled her own eyes and laid back down, staring at the ceiling. "Just do it, wise guy."

    "Yeah yeah," I chuckled. The system engaged and a white light fired out of one of the instruments surrounding the medical bed. It hit Missy and sent her into a dreamless slumber.

    Hyperion, I instructed my ship, remove the tumors. And give her body a full checkup at the same time.

    As the ship proceeded to do that, various tools on articulating arms roving over Missy's unconscious body, I turned back to my much bigger problem.

    "Now what to do with you?" I asked Dragon rhetorically. I glanced down the tablet in my hands and scowled at the darkness in her code.

    I looked back up at her body.

    And I had an Idea.

    "It can't be that simple, can it?"


    My fourth check of my possible solution finished just as the Hyperion slipped into a parking position above Brockton Bay's PRT Building.

    Now that the ship was stationary I could begin repairs. Apparently my own alien computer decided to be nice and create the materials I'd need to repair fifty Aurora class or build five more along with the ship in its cargo bays.

    Was going to have to send it a gift basket or something.

    Anyways, the Constructors were assembled via the onboard repair bays and released to begin fixing the ship, copying themselves as needed, and I turned my attention back to the solution for Dragon's little issue.

    It should work.

    It would freak her the hell out, yes, but it should- no, would work.

    Ascalon, the activator, and Iron Maiden, the darkness, were for some reason… almost added on as an afterthought. As if Dragon's creator had built most of her in one go or a series of bursts and only realized later on they wanted a way to control her.

    Huh.

    Was Dragon Tinkertech?

    That would explain so, so much. Including how our civilization was capable of creating a True AI at the time of Dragon's birth.

    And why the darkness was added on. Fugue for the majority of her code, brilliant but nonetheless human programmer for the darkness.

    Yup. It explained too much to be anything else.

    Including why she had a soul.

    My only worry now was whether that soul would follow her code, her arguable body, to its new home.

    On another table I'd had the Hyperion beam in nearby lay a young woman. She had a kind smile on her face and her eyes were closed. I'd based her off of one of the few physical descriptions I'd found of Dragon's remote interaction program (or what I now knew to be a highly sophisticated avatar program).

    Turns out Armsy is very thorough in his reports.

    All his reports.

    Aaanyways, to most it would appear the woman was just sleeping.

    Fully clothed, of course, in the rather bland default Asuran clothing.

    I'm not cruel, thanks. Except for my sense of fashion… which is entirely nonexistent.

    Meh, she could always change it later if it was boring.

    This body was of course not human. She was made up of Nanites.

    Took a crapload of my Neutronium stores to create, but saving the best Tinker on the planet was totally worth it.

    I'd made her all the way back at my first run through of this possible solution. Worst come to worst I could just reclaim the material. Best case, she would become Dragon's new body.

    I just had to make sure the darkness didn't come along for the ride through the conversion process and that her soul did.

    That was what I just finished checking for the fourth time.

    The darkness wouldn't survive the conversion. It wasn't as tough as Dragon's other code. Hell this was only possible because of her code's frankly bullshit levels of redundancy and error repair.

    But her soul? Even Hyperion's massive number crunching capacities couldn't tell me for sure.

    It really depended on how she saw herself. Did she see her code as 'her', or did she see whatever physical machine she was operating on as 'her'?

    Only one way to find out.

    I might need to apologize profusely after this.

    And wipe a significant section of the original Dragon's memory of this ended up cloning her and making a new person entirely, otherwise Iron Maiden would activate.

    Whoo boy. I did not join the Wards to make heavy decisions like this!

    I pursed my lips as I looked down on her unconscious suit.

    Screw it.

    I hit the mental button to start the transfer and conversion.

    Her hardware's hacking protections were breached just as easily as I had previously to actually look at her code, and the process started.

    Thirty minutes.

    …

    What the hell am I going to do for half an hour?!


    It occurred to me several minutes in that hey, I am also a parahuman, which means I also have tumors, which means I might also be close to dying right now.

    So I urgently hopped on a medical bed and had it scan me.

    A couple of minutes later, I had my answer. I did indeed have the tumors, but they were not behaving remotely like Missy's had been. No enlargement.

    In fact, they looked like they'd shrunk a little, given the tiny amount of space between the rest of my brain and their structures.

    What the hell.

    I needed more information, because this made no sense. Why would Tinker Coronas shrink when cut off from their computer but Shaker ones did the polar opposite?

    I stood up from the bed and tried to think. I didn't have a headache, my Coronas were shrinking, why? Why why why?

    I mean, it's not like Missy and I were any different-

    Wait.

    My eyes shot wide open as things began occurring to me.

    Exhibit A: I flew a Puddle Jumper. Uh, wait no, a shuttle. Why the hell did I think it had multiple names?

    Exhibit B: I used the Throne Chair on the Hyperion's Bridge.

    Uh oh.

    I brought up the Hyperion's Life Sensors and turned them on the Medical Bay.

    ...Exhibit C: I could control the Hyperion mentally.

    I gulped and, very very worriedly, looked at the detailed Lifesigns Type list.

    Two Synthetic. One Human.

    And one Lantean.

    I gulped again, a spark of shock jolting down my spine.

    Frak. Me.
     
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    • Chapter 7 - Happenings Elsewhere
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    • Ancient Legos
    Chapter 7
    Happenings Elsewhere​

    Of the multitude of beings upon Earth Bet capable of truly simulating the future, five stood above all.

    One lived in orbit, an engine of conflict and destruction leashed to an unknowing controller.

    Another, the instigator of this world's troubles, flit across the planet saving, rescuing, and otherwise improving the lives of the native species in an attempt to find what he was missing.

    The leader of a group of the native species, hiding his assembly of temporal monitors in a cave in parts unknown.

    A woman in body, but girl in mind and soul. A veritable slave to one of the only functional weapons against The Rescuer, and by choice. She who wears a fedora.

    And the last, a young girl who could ask questions and get the likelihood of events occurring.

    On the morning of February 6th, 2011, their steadfast visions, paths, and predictions of the future… glitched.

    An undetectable phenomenon was interfering with their ability to understand the universe.

    The Orbiter would learn the answer to her query a single planetary rotation later. But she didn't know that. She was patient, however, and so settled in to observe. To figure out exactly what was disrupting her plans. And when she figured it out?

    Well, her unknowing controller's deadline was soon upon them. She would simply have to eliminate the problem herself.

    The Rescuer stopped mid-flight. He too took notice of the disruption. He had no more idea than the Orbiter what was causing it. But, he was not an intellectual type, like his deceased mate. As such he deemed it beyond his purview, merely logging the incident in his memory before continuing on his original course.

    His advisor would be most unhappy if he allowed one of the volcano eruptions caused by the first conflict engine to kill a high number of the planet's native species.

    The temporal monitor's leader had a very different reaction. His reliance on the data of the time was so great that his consciousness was knocked offline. He would not wake in time to prevent future changes.

    And his daughter?

    She would be out for blood.

    Fedora girl, even as dependent on her ability and her passenger as she was, did not actually actively interpret time. She took snapshots, possibly even rapid snapshots, but it was not constant. Due to this small difference, when the disruption occurred, she was unaffected. Beyond her ability to determine the path forward, of course, but she remained conscious. She would proceed to call an emergency meeting of a conspiracy named after a witch's brewing tool.

    And the little girl? She was already having headaches, the result of trying not to use her new abilities. Due to this disruption those headaches became migraines. A day later, just as a battlecruiser rose into the sky in an attempt to defeat The Orbiter, her parents would rush her to the hospital.

    One thing was certain. Something had entered the playing field. And nothing would ever be the same again.


    Rebecca Costa-Brown was not having a good day.

    It started normally enough. She came into work, as Director Costa-Brown, and began going over the various things she had to sign and review as her position demanded.

    Then she got a high priority call from Brockton Bay. Directly from Emily Piggot's office.

    She hadn't been completely on board with the idea to use Brockton Bay as an experiment in the first place. Every single time she received a high priority message or call from that den of chaos, it just reinforced her belief that the entire thing was a bad idea.

    Regardless, she had a job to do. It was with no small amount of hesitation that she pressed one of the buttons on her desk and allowed the incoming connection. The image of Emily Piggot, in full dress blues and sitting behind her own desk, flickered into existence above Rebecca's desk. The live video was being displayed by her office's holographic emission system.

    It was one of the few personal gifts she still had from her old friend, her deceased- no, murdered- teammate. Her brother in all but blood. Hero.

    "Hello Emily," she greeted the Director of the Brockton Bay PRT. It wasn't very often that Rebecca thanked her powers' stasis like effect upon her body. At that moment it received gratitude for the fact that she couldn't cry.

    "Director Costa-Brown." That was it. A curt greeting, a slight nod of acknowledgement. Lady wasn't known as an old warhorse for nothing, after all. Even with her body in the state she refused to allow Panacea to repair she was still a force to be reckoned with.

    Not even Nilbog could take that away from her.

    "Emily," Rebecca said, giving her own nod of respect. "This is a high priority call. What happened?"

    No more pleasantries. If the call have been a lower priority, Rebecca would've probably pressured Emily once more to let Panacea heal her. But there might be no time for that.

    Emily sighed, long and hard. For once, the wear and tear of her body showed on her face. "It's not an emergency, but it is vitally important," she began. The blond woman took a moment to wipe a hand down her face and sighed once more. "We have a new Tinker 10."

    That got Rebecca's attention. "Specialization?" she demanded.

    Emily set her mouth in a grim line, rolled her eyes, and blew a breath out of the side of her mouth. "Spaceships."

    It took several seconds for Rebecca to do anything but stare at her subordinate like she'd gone crazy. "Would you repeat that?" she requested, though it sounded more like an order.

    "Spaceships," Emily instantly repeated. "Ships that fly into and through space."

    Rebecca let out a long breath of her own and settled back into her comfortable office chair.

    "Yes, that was my reaction as well."

    Fuck, she thought. If Zion learns of this...

    That was a thought, and a problem, for Cauldron. And for later. Right now, she had to get as much information out of Emily as possible. And see how accurate the specialization was. Given the Brockton Bay PRT had rated this new Tinker a level 10, it was entirely possible they weren't remotely wrong. There had only ever been one Tinker 10 before besides the Simurgh, and he could have had that specialization. Easily.

    His was Waves.

    Something just as powerful, as all encompassing, as Spaceships.

    She idly noticed that her brother was showing up in her thoughts a lot these days.

    "It's confirmed?" Rebecca questioned Emily, raising an eyebrow. "The rating, that is?"

    Emily shook her head and grimaced. "We haven't tested him yet, no," she admitted. Then she got a hard look on her face. "Though I'm not inclined to doubt him. He announced his presence and intent to join the Wards by uncloaking, in his words, a shuttlecraft in front of our building."

    Both of Rebecca's eyebrows raised at that. "He's a minor?"

    Emily confirmed her assumption with a short nod. "Attends Arcadia. Triggered two weeks ago."

    "At least he's of the heroic inclination," Rebecca lamented, rubbing her face with her hand. It didn't actually relieve her headaches, what few she got, but it was a helpful psychosomatic gesture for a reason. Even without head pain, rubbing faces, nose bridges, temples, or eyebrows eased mental anguish.

    Emily scoffed. "Doesn't keep him from being aggravating." She sighed and shook her head. "The things he says he can do, Director… The things he says he can summon. I'm concerned that someone will try to get at him."

    Rebecca raised her eyebrows at that. "Why? I understand Spaceships is a very powerful Tinker specialization, but isn't it also the most expensive? I remember a briefing on the costs of the Shuttles before NASA shut them down," she pointed out.

    Her subordinate Director scoffed and shook her head. "He doesn't have those drawbacks, Director," she informed her. "He also has a secondary power. We're assuming Shaker/Striker at the moment. And it's…" she trailed off, putting her fingers to the side of her head, "it's fucking insane!"

    "Oh? Shaker/Striker? Those ratings are usually mutually exclusive," Rebecca commented curiously.

    "He can build models of ships from Legos, throw them over his shoulder, and summon them full size," Emily deadpanned, staring straight at Rebecca.

    The national PRT Director and secret Triumvirate member was dead silent for several long, tense moments as she searched Emily's eyes for any sign of deceit.

    "C-Come again?" she finally choked out, unable to believe what she'd heard despite her perfect memory proving it to be accurate.

    "You heard me correctly. Lego models to full size spaceships," Emily repeated herself, massaging her own head and wincing.

    "You're joking."

    "I wish I was. Then I wouldn't have this headache."

    Alexandria stared at Emily Piggot for another minute. Literally. She was subconsciously counting the seconds.

    Finally she spoke up. "That's bullshit."

    It was all she could say.

    "Correct. Yet it seems to be true," Emily agreed and countered.

    Rebecca Costa-Brown leaned over her own desk and stared Emily Piggot straight in the eyes. "I want that boy tested yesterday, Emily, and not a word of this can go outside the PRT."

    She would also have to have Contessa pay a visit to their troublesome asset in Brockton Bay. This new Tinker, Shipyard, held far too much promise to allow a timeline simulator with delusions of grandeur to interfere.

    "He's with the Wards right now," Emily informed her. "I'll push to get him into the testing labs as soon as I can."

    Rebecca sighed with relief and subtly relaxed. "Good. Thank you for being so on top of this and bringing him to my attention."

    Director Piggot nodded her head and snapped off a curt salute. "It's my duty and… not so much pleasure, given the subject of this conversation," she began to agree, then tried to find further words. "But at least informing you of his abilities spreads the headache he causes around."

    That was a joke. Emily had said it with a straight face, but it was definitely a joke. Rebecca Costa-Brown smirked slightly and nodded to Emily to indicate she'd seen it. "Please call me once you have further information."

    "Yes ma'am," Emily said. Then she hung up the call.

    Rebecca managed to hold herself together for a good few seconds before standing up and shouting at nothing. "SPACESHIPS?! WHAT THE FUCK!"

    She clenched her fists for several more tense seconds, wishing desperately to be able to smash something. But she couldn't blow her identity as Alexandria in her own office.

    And so, she said the magic words that would start several temporal balls rolling.

    "Door me."


    Alexandria stepped out of the hexagonal orange-lined portal back into her office at the Los Angeles PRT. The rather quick meeting had been a den of chaos. Legend was even involved. This new situation was too big, and the fact it appeared Shipyard interfered with the Path was extremely worrying. They didn't really know what to do. For the first time in a long time Cauldron had been caught with their pants down by a new trigger.

    And to a person, they hated it. Not to mention the possibility that Zion would come down on Shipyard like a sack of bricks for having the ability to help the Entity's test subjects escape their petri dish of a planet. This had all the potential of kickstarting the apocalypse.

    Alexandria was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't notice what, or rather who, was standing in her office. Before she could get even a foot further into the room her assistant addressed her. His voice was extremely tense.

    "Ma'am, a situation has developed."

    The assistant who should not be able to access her office when it was sealed.

    She would be looking into that quite soon.

    Alexandria glanced at him, then the closing portal, then him again, before raising an eyebrow.

    "I'm paid too much to see things, ma'am," he refuted. "You're good at your job, no matter who you are." He then snorted and shook his head. "Not to mention I've known for years."

    Alexandria grimaced, then nodded. "Right, we'll deal with... this, later," she stated flatly, beginning to remove her costume. "What's wrong?" She started to replace it with her normal Costa-Brown dress blues at the same time as she removed it, piece by piece.

    "Ma'am, this is urgent. The new Tinker down in Brockton Bay, Shipyard, directly challenged The Simurgh on her PHO Account three minutes ago. She accepted and is headed for Brockton Bay as we speak. He left for his battlecruiser in what I'm told is one of his shuttles accompanied by Dragon and Vista. We lost all communication with them when they entered the battlecruiser's shield. One minute ago, Shipyard posted on PHO that he was at the bridge of his ship. The battlecruiser then ascended into the sky. It is currently straight on course for The Simurgh."

    Rebecca Costa-Brown stopped changing, stopped walking, almost stopped breathing. She stared at her assistant in jaw-dropped, eyes-wide shock. The look of disbelief on her face was priceless.

    "This is not a joke, ma'am," he assured her.

    "I was only gone for HALF A DAY!"


    Revel stood in the Chicago Protectorate HQ. She was watching a national news broadcast with her lips set in a firm line.

    Someone had killed the Simurgh.

    Her relaxing day had been pulled out from under her before it even truly began.

    As second in command of the Chicago Protectorate, and unofficial 'wizard'-keeper, it was now up to her to get her teammates and the Wards both to the HQ and into costume in preparation for whatever they might be needed for.

    It was with a heavy heart she began dialing phone numbers.

    An hour later everyone except her direct superior had arrived.

    "Has anyone seen Myrddin?" Revel asked.

    Campanile, her seven foot tall future teammate and gigantic barrel of a boy, chimed in. "Yeah, he was drawing runes of protection or something on the elevator on my way up." He was both serious and joking, stating the truth but with a smug grin and a teasing tone. The leader of the Wards seemed incapable of being pulled down. Something quite rare in their world.

    It happened to be that same tone and imperviousness that used to drive her up a wall. Until she got used to it.

    And he was only going to continue growing. She already had to crane her neck to look at his face. How the hell tall was he going to get?!

    "Very well," she sighed. "I suppose we shall wait-"

    The door to their meeting room swiveled open before she could complete the sentence. In strode her direct superior, leader of the Chicago Protectorate, Myrddin. The only cape on Bet who'd chosen Magic as an explanation for their powers and carried the theme through to its full conclusion.

    Case in point, the billowing, stereotypical mage robe ensemble he wore even now, face-darkening hood included. A gnarled wooden staff completed the image. The fact the face darkening was achieved via a visor was the only compromise to modern cape costumes he'd allowed.

    "Hail, friends," he greeted. Myrddin might be a few cylinders sort of a full engine, but even he could sense the solemn mood in the room. She was so serious and grave that even Campanile had failed to brighten everything up.

    "Myrddin," she greeted her superior and nominal friend, "thank you for coming."

    "Think nothing of it, my dear," he said, waving her gratitude off. "I am sorry for tarrying but I had to refresh the intent wards in our direct travel elevator."

    Having made his excuse, Myrddin made a beeline for one of the open chairs and sat. With that, she could call the meeting to order.

    Instead of doing any introduction, as time may very well be of the essence, she used the remote in her hand to turn on the projector in the room. Behind her a video of a gigantic spaceship fighting, injuring, and inevitably killing the Simurgh began playing on a loop. "At roughly 1630 hours Boston Time, the Brockton Bay Protectorate's newest Ward, a Tinker 20, yes, 20, codename Shipyard, took his spaceship into high atmosphere and engaged the Simurgh in combat. A few minutes later, he killed her," she summarized.

    Their reactions were varied. Campanile looked like he initially believed she was pulling a fast one on him. Shuffle, her own second in command, was watching the video with rapt interest. Grace scoffed, Annex looked even more laser-focused than Shuffle, Tecton had a grim, flat line for a mouth, and Raymancer was grinning like a loon. Wanton was the only one with a relatively normal expression, and that's only because he was paying more attention to Myrddin for cues as to how he should react.

    But it was her team leader's reaction that puzzled her. He looked like he'd seen a ghost. His face was white, his hand gripping his gnarled staff so hard his knuckles stood out. He mumbled something that she barely heard, along the lines of 'ankh he ate us', then stood up abruptly.

    "I am sorry my friends, I must leave you for now. Revel, you are in command until I return," Myrddin announced, already turning around. He swept to the door and waved a hand, as he'd done many times before, which caused the door to swing open without him touching it.

    Door telekinesis was one of his lesser known and not very useful powers, but Revel had to respect her team leader's ability to showboat with it.

    What she didn't respect was him ditching them. "Myrddin!" she yelled after him, protesting.

    "You will be fine, Revel," he called back to her, already in the hallway outside. "You are more this team's leader than I have ever been anyways. I however have to greet this… Shipyard."

    Revel's eyes widened. He'd never acknowledged it before.

    And he was already gone, flying down the hall if the swish of his robes was any indication.

    Revel turned back to the shellshocked Chicago Protectorate and Wards, frowning.

    "It's not like this is any fucking stranger than what he normally does," Grace piped up.

    "Hey!" Wanton intruded, offended at her mocking the hero he idolized.

    Revel sent a stern look Grace's way and sighed. The impertinent Ward just shrugged and grinned.

    This was going to be a long day.


    Director Piggot was calling her. For the second time that day.

    She answered. Calmly and respectfully. Anyone who claimed she scrambled for the call answering button and almost flew towards it would be fired with prejudice.

    "Emily," she greeted the incoming caller, looking up from her desk. Then the great Alexandria… paused.

    The Brockton Bay Director looked like hell.

    "Rebecca," she wearily greeted Costa-Brown in return. She sounded…

    Defeated.

    Rebecca's eyebrows rose at that. Emily never called her by her first name, and it took a lot to rattle her. Then again, her brand new ward engaging the Simurgh and having to deal with Endbringer preparations for her city were valid reasons to look like you were ages older than you actually were.

    "Is this about Shipyard engaging the Simurgh, Emily?" Rebecca asked gently, slightly leaning forward. She stared straight into Emily's eyes through the video call separating them.

    "Turn on the news, Rebecca," she stated.

    ...Emily had just called her by her first name.

    The Lady, the old warhorse of the PRT, the legendary Ellisburg survivor, never did that.

    Rebecca Costa-Brown swallowed nervously. "Why?"

    "Just… just do it."

    Rebecca was beginning to get worried. Cauldron knew it was pure stupidity to do as Shipyard had. Face and engage the Endbringer that regularly uses Tinkertech with Tinkertech, alone, without backup? Dragon and Vista didn't really count given the distances involved. She would barely count.

    Rebecca searched Emily's eyes for a few more moments, seeing the wear and tear on her soul reflected there, and acquiesced. "Okay, Emily."

    A few commands to her desk pushed Emily's video call to the side for another window to pop up. She tuned into one of the national news organizations. She figured if it was big enough for the Brockton Bay Director to say 'the news' vaguely, then it would be on all the channels.

    She dearly hoped it wasn't 'Simurgh lands in Brockton Bay'.

    The stream loaded up and began to play.

    And Rebecca Costa Brown, Alexandria, felt her jaw drop.

    On loop on one of the biggest national news channels was a video, seemingly recorded from Shipyard's vessel, of the engagement with the Simurgh.

    And it showed him beating the pants off the winged Endbringer.

    "Emily-" she began to ask, leaning backwards into her chair as if the impossibility on the news could eat her.

    Emily didn't look at her. She was staring at something offscreen, clearly rubbing her hand against it if her upper arm muscles were any indication. "Where are you at?" she asked.

    Rebecca turned her attention back to the news just in time to witness most of the Simurgh's body vanish in a series of bright blue flashes of light. "Shipyard just took out the majority of her body in one volley," she stated, disbelief clear in her tone and her tense body language.

    Emily nodded, almost agreeably, and scoffed. "You're not even to the good part yet," she faux-cheerily said.

    "Emily, what the fuck?"

    "No, no, shhh," her subordinate interrupted, chuckling. She didn't even seem to notice that she'd just patronized and shushed her superior. "Keep watching."

    Rebecca would've called her on her behavior if she wasn't so keenly aware of Emily's mental state. So she instead kept watching.

    She saw the Simurgh's regeneration skyrocket.

    Her blood ran cold. Psychologically anyways, as her body was timelocked, but it felt similar.

    She saw the air vortexes and realised what exactly was worrying Emily so much.

    The Simurgh had stopped holding back.

    More to the point; she'd been holding back before.

    And yet still Shipyard didn't quit. His ship began firing with wild abandon at the winged Endbringer, forcing her to dodge. Rebecca saw what he was doing; herding her towards the front of the ship.

    And when she reached it, Alexandria witnessed something terrifying… and beautiful.

    Thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of golden lights erupted from Shipyard's vessel. They arced over and around towards the Simurgh, hit, and erupted in what looked like nuclear fire.

    The next few minutes were just a maelstrom of energy and turbulence as the ship rocked in place. The shields were easy to see failing as streams of the destruction outside them slipped through, scarring entire sections of the vessel. And through it all, the cannons on the ship kept firing at the Simurgh's previous position, until one by one, they burnt out. Rebecca was getting worried that she was about to witness someone's death.

    Eventually the maelstrom cleared, though. The ship still stood, burnt, scarred, and limping in the sky, but whole.

    And Rebecca couldn't believe what she was seeing.

    "E-Emily," she stammered, turning to look at the Director of the Brockton Bay PRT.

    Her subordinate and pseudo-friend saw her look, nodded, and then took a swig of the bottle in her hand. The thing she'd been rubbing before was a beer flask. "My brand new Ward just killed the Simurgh, Rebecca," she announced. She looked down at her flask again and frowned. "What the hell do I do?"

    Rebecca had no answers for her. She was in too much shock herself to even contemplate an answer.
     
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    • Chapter 8 - Celebrate Good Times
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    • Ancient Legos
    Chapter 8
    Celebrate Good Times​

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    ♦ Topic: One Down (Verified) (Sticky) (The Simurgh Is Dead)
    In: Boards ► Announcements
    Shipyard     (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Posted On Feb 7th 2011:
    That's it.

    It's over.

    I'm... I'm not going to say a speech, or beat around the bush.

    The Simurgh is defeated. I... man, this is just as unreal for me as it is for all of you. But I've done my job, my duty, as a Ward, as a Hero. She won't threaten our world ever again. I...

    No more capped cities. No more time bombed people. It's over. And to be respectful to the gone, even if she was a monster, I included her admittedly epic entrance in my proof.

    Here. A complete video record of my battle with her and my victory.

    I have a lot of repair work to do on the ship now. She stopped holding back after my first volley.

    Gods. My shields were at 3% when it was all over. I..... yeah, I'm gonna need therapy, I think.

    Anyways. You're welcome, everyone, I guess.

    As my new friend Clockblocker would most likely say, cue the party.

    Also, sorry to the mods about bypassing the forum security to post this in Announcements.


    ​
    (Showing page 1 of 12451)

    ►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Holy. Fucking. Shit.

    ►Nondeceptive
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Gasp Bagrat just swore!

    On topic; oh my god.

    ►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    ...

    She's... she's gone. The Simurgh is gone.

    I- I have to tell my wife!

    ►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior) (Wiki Moderator)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    This is real, right? PLEASE tell me this is REAL!

    ►Miss Mercury (Protectorate Employee)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    We're in chaos right now, I can't verify anything at the moment, and Reave just left the building at a dead sprint.

    ►DapperJumpingHat (Unverified Cape)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Good riddance. She's responsible for my girlfriend's pain.

    ►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I'm on my phone in a bunker right now. Is it real? Nobody down here knows, we're just waiting to be domed.

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    ...Bro

    Did you just-

    This better not be a joke, man. Coming from me. I'm the one saying this. Did you really-?

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Clockblocker Yeah. She's gone.

    ​
    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 12449, 12450, 12451

    ​
    (Showing page 2 of 12451)

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard You.

    You glorious bastard!

    Of course it's real. You're that much bullshit.

    ...I'm just gonna sit down for a while and let it sink in that the guy I tried to timestop yesterday just beat an Endbringer, kay?

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Clockblocker you do that. I've got things to do on my ship before I can come back out. We should be arriving back above the Bay soon, though.

    ►Aegis (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Wards Leader)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard Ship, you're going to have the mother of all debreifings once you get back. And you can forget patrolling anytime soon.

    But if this is real? You take your damn time. That's an order. I'll deal with Piggot if I have to. You've earned it.

    And Ship? I'm proud of you.

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Aegis Yes sir.

    ►SpecificProtagonist (Verified Shipper)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Aww! Aegis x Shipyard confirmed OTP!

    ►Brilliger (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @SpecificProtagonist This of all times is not the place for that.

    With that said, given the rest of us forum PR people seem to be running around with no heads, it's up to me to do this.

    Shipyard, don't worry about hacking the forums.

    Because you weren't lying. This is real. Let me repeat; THIS IS REAL!

    Our Thinkers have gone over the footage, and we've had a couple of jets go through the area. There's nothing left of the Simurgh. She's dead. Those jets also corroborate Shipyard's story about the shields. His ship doesn't look very good.

    I can now pretty much confirm that the footage of Shipyard and The Simurgh getting into a high powered slugfest straight out of a science fiction movie is legitimate. The Simurgh lost, but not before almost erasing Shipyard's ship, and he, Dragon, and Vista with it.

    I'm putting Verified on this thread until I'm told to do otherwise. I don't give a damn if I'm fired for releasing this before the higher ups cleared it and could put together a PR spin.

    Because the God Damned Simurgh is fucking DEAD!

    ►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior) (Wiki Moderator)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

    ►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I JUS TOLD EVRYON AND THE ENTRE BUNKER IS CHERING. I'M CRYING RIGHT OW I CAN BARELY SEE MY PHOEN

    ►Black Honey Badger
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I can hear the cheering from Boston!

    Oh no wait, THAT'S JUST THE ENTIRE CITY OF BOSTON CELEBRATING!

    ►Lost Angel
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Los Angeles reporting in, the party is in full swing since the news announced it. I can't find a dry eye anywhere, not even me. The streets are filled with people!

    ​
    End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 12449, 12450, 12451

    ​
    (Showing page 3 of 12451)

    ►Good Ship Morpheus (Moderator) (Not a Ship)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Washington here. We were hit by Leviathan, not the Simurgh, but it doesn't matter. Shipyard, you've given us hope again. Thank you.

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    You're welcome.

    ►Feychick
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    London, from outside the dome, reporting in! Someone broke the mandatory quarantine and broadcast into the dome. They told them.

    The cheering must be amplified by the dome or something because I can hear it from my house!

    ►Brilliger (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Please take the worldwide party discussion to the appropriate thread, here: Worldwide Celebration

    In other news, I'm not fired yet! But only because Reave is MIA, Miss Mercury apparently triggered, the east coast is in chaos, and the whole world is cheering.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Holy shit. He actually did it. The bastard challenged an Endbringer... and won.

    This isn't that known, but I'm actually a cape. Sorry @Bagrat for sharing your spotlight with my super Thinker powers.

    I'm also under threat of death to work for a villain. This is gonna sound cliche as fuck, but after seeing this and Uber and L33t's team change...

    @Shipyard help me Obi-Wan Shipobi. You're my only hope.

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @AllSeeingEye are you actively under threat? If not, head to the PRT HQ. I'll discuss this with you when I arrive.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard Now that I've spoken out, I will be quite shortly. I don't know if I can make it to the HQ.

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @AllSeeingEye send up a signal I can see from the sky. I'll beam you to the ship.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard ...I'm not even surprised anymore. I have a flare gun, I hope that's enough.

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @AllSeeingEye Should be. Fire when ready, I'm above the city now, definitely in range.

    ​
    End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 12449, 12450, 12451

    ​
    (Showing page 4 of 12451)

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Shipyard You're kilometers above the city and that's "in range."

    Okay. That's definitely a Thinker headache.

    I'm heading outside to fire the flare gun now. It's red.

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @AllSeeingEye Roger that. I'll search for red light.

    ►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Did that really all just happen? What am I asking, of course it did. This is Shipyard, the Simurgh Slayer.

    @AllSeeingEye Also, I always knew that you knew far too much!

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Update post for the previous rescue. I got her.

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    That's three capes in a single day. And an Endbringer.

    Jeez man, leave some for the rest of us!

    (I'm totally kidding, if you feel like converting every villain in the world and taking out the rest of the Endbringers at the same time I'm totally on board with this)

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Clockblocker I can't help it, I'm just awesome.

    ►Kid Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Awesomely bullshit.

    ►Shipyard (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Oh hey Kid! Where've you been?

    ►Kid Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Watching your cannons gave me a few ideas. I may have gotten carried away. I kinda need to eat right now though so bye

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Same old Kid Win.

    ​
    End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ... 12449, 12450, 12451
    ​
    ■​

    ♦ Topic: Worldwide Celebration
    In: Boards ► Earth
    Brilliger     (Original Poster) (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
    Posted On Feb 7th 2011:
    This is the thread to talk about the worldwide party currently going on! Also we have a new Board for things that affect the whole world like this.


    ​
    (Showing page 1 of 30252)

    ►RushinRollout (Verified Ruskie)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    There's fireworks going off in Moscow! Tonight we celebrate the death of the bitch of feathers. DRINK, MY FRIENDS!

    ►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Japan thanks the Master of Ships. He has engaged in honorable combat and ended our destroyer's sibling.

    ►Mac's Dual Rocket Propelled Grenades (Verified Redneck)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Texas has guns going off everywhere! People are shootin' at the sky and daring it to come get 'em! THE PSYCHIC CHICKEN IS DED!

    ►Aloha
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Oahu, Hawaii checking in. Maloha Shipyard! The ships in Pearl are firing their guns in honor of you!

    ►Kernel Panic
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Kentucky. KFC just announced their new special, Fried Psychic Chicken, and I couldn't be more proud of my state's stereotypes than I am right now.

    ►Bob (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I'm still alive! Brockton Bay is cautiously exiting our bunkers. For those of us in the know though, we're starting up the celebrations!

    YOU'RE FORGIVEN FOR BLOWING OUT MY EARDRUMS EARLIER, SHIPYARD

    ►Grace (Verified Cape) (Wards Chicago)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Fuckin' hell, one of those assholes is finally dead. I don't think I've ever heard the city this loud.

    ►White Fairy (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Netherlands here. This party is danke, yo.

    Okay now that I've stopped stereotyping my own culture, we're fresh outta clogs. Too many bought in celebration.

    ►Narwhal (Verified Cape) (The Guild)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Vancouver is awesome right now. I'm even making a light show with my fields!

    ​
    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 30250, 30251, 30252
    ​
    ■​

    ♦ Topic: To Boldly Go
    In: Boards ► Earth
    Iblis     (Original Poster)
    Posted On Feb 7th 2011:
    Now that the Simurgh is dead space is open again. And we have our resident spaceship Tinker to thank for it.

    Do you think we can get back out there again? Start exploring space properly? Especially given Shipyard's existence?


    ​
    (Showing page 1 of 3)

    ►Buzz Newyear (NASA)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    NASA Orbital Monitoring tech here. I'll speak for those of us left at the space agency here in Florida.

    We want to. God, do we want to. But it'll be up to the President and Congress as to whether we get to. We're gonna need a lot more funding than what we have now. For the record, I don't begrudge our superiors for cutting most of what we had before The Simurgh showed up. With her in orbit, nothing we sent up was viable.

    But she's gone now, and I know we're gonna petition the President to get back out there. Our buddies in the fledgling European Space Agency are on board with joint operations and we've even talked to the Cosmodrome. We are ready and raring to go.

    Also, literally all of us are excited at the fact Shipyard claims his ships are starships. Most people probably don't remember the difference, but here it is in a nutshell:

    The Space Shuttles were spaceships.
    Starfleet's Enterprise was a starship.

    If his ships can really go interstellar, we're gonna have some really interesting times ahead of us.

    ►GstringGirl
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Ooh! Someone from NASA!

    Do you play Space Opera?

    ►Buzz Newyear (NASA)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Yes, actually. It's a decently fun game to waste time with while you wait on the scans of orbit to finish.

    ►GstringGirl
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    What's your username? If you wanna play, anyways. I'd sure love to!

    ►Buzz Newyear (NASA)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    I tossed ya a PM with it. Sounds fun.

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Hey, don't leave me out of it!

    ►ArchmageEin
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Back on the original topic!

    I think we should start exploring space again. At the very least, Behemoth and Leviathan aren't on other planets. And we desperately need a second home for Humanity if and when some insane Tinker's virus, bomb, or creature escapes containment or blows up the planet.

    ►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Oh come on, we're not that crazy. All Tinkers are intimately aware of just how dangerous our creations are. Not even String Theory, miss 'blow-up-the-moon', would've actually done it.

    ►Kid Win (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    You're not a Tinker, Procto.

    That said I am totally on board with space travel again. I may not be able to understand my bullshit teammate's technology but I'll help as much as I can!

    ​
    End of Page. 1, 2, 3

    ​
    (Showing page 2 of 3)

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    With space open again, I wonder if science fiction will kick back up into overdrive?

    Also from what I can understand of Shipyard's technology, interstellar is underselling it.

    ►Space Zombie
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Space Zombie Hey, why haven't you been online?!

    ►Space Zombie
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @XxVoid_CowboyxX Because I've got space for brainz.

    ►Buzz Newyear (NASA)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @AllSeeingEye What exactly do you mean when you say interstellar is underselling it?

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    @Buzz Newyear My ships have a form of FTL called Hyperdrives. When powered by the generators I am capable of creating, they can go intergalactic.

    ►Buzz Newyear (NASA)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    WHAT.

    ►Shipyard (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE) (Simurgh Slayer)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    Woops, I wasn't supposed to say that. Alexandria is yelling at me now.

    ...Huh, her voice patterns... Nope, I'm not making this mistake again.

    ►AllSeeingEye (The Girl in the Know)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    And I'm not stupid enough to say it either.

    ►Buzz Newyear (NASA)
    Replied On Feb 7th 2011:
    You're both massive teases. Do I have to come to Washington? My boss is ready to send me there to talk to you if he has to!

    ​
    End of Page. 1, 2
    ​
    ■​

    ♦ Topic: PRT Director's Open Letter (Press Release: The Simurgh) (LOCKED)
    In: Boards ► Earth
    Director Costa-Brown     (Original Poster) (Moderator: Protectorate Main) (Verified PRT Director)
    Posted On Feb 8th 2011:
    From the desk of Director Costa-Brown, dated February 8th, 2011, 0031 hours:

    There have been many rumors and statements flying around the internet in the past few hours. Partially due to the nature of this communication network, and partially because of some members of our organization releasing information before it was fully confirmed without a shred of doubt.

    They will not be penalized for their actions.

    At 1625 hours Eastern Standard Time on Februrary 7th, 2011, one of the Protectorate East-North-East's new Wards, Shipyard, unearthed the fact that the Simurgh, the Third Endbringer, was posting on Parahumans Online. We are not yet aware of how she was accomplishing this. We did not know that she could understand our language, nor that she was even truly alive.

    We still are unsure about those two points.

    But regardless, Shipyard detected this. He proceeded to antagonize The Simurgh by revealing her presence to the world. This lead to her choosing Brockton Bay as her, and the Endbringer's 3 month attack cycle, new target.

    Shipyard will not be penalized for his actions either.

    The former because of their overwhelmed state in the wake of Shipyard's proceeding actions. The latter because of what he proceeded to do.

    Risking his own life and that of Dragon and Vista, by mutual agreement, Shipyard heroically challenged The Simurgh directly.

    She accepted.

    The three of them took Shipyard's battlecruiser into the upper atmosphere to intercept The Simurgh, a task which the three of them believed would most likely end up with them dead or twisted into time bombs. But they did it in order to save Brockton Bay. They would try to use the ship's weapons systems to drive her away, but they were prepared to sacrifice their lives by detonating the ship's power core right in her face if they had to.

    Thankfully, such an extreme solution proved unnecessary.

    At 1629 hours, after engaging and testing the limits of The Simurgh, Shipyard proceeded to bombard her with enough ordinance to almost entirely devastate her body. He did more damage to an Endbringer than we have ever seen.

    And he forced her to reveal that she had been holding back.

    We are investigating the possibility that all our previous fights against the Endbringers, the times we did enough damage to drive them off, may have been nothing more than a ruse. This is a major upset if true, but also valuable intelligence on their capabilities.

    But even when she revealed her true power, still Shipyard did not falter. At precisely 1631 hours, he brought the full might of his battlecruiser to bear against the winged Endbringer.

    And. He. Won.

    The Simurgh is dead. This is not a plan, or a convoluted series of events. She is not hidden. She did not survive.

    The Third Endbringer is gone.

    We are attempting to do all we can to make sure the, as I have heard it described, "Worldwide Party" proceeds without damaging anything and with minimal casualties. Protectorate and PRT forces are coordinating with the resident militias of as many nations as we can to ensure everyone goes home after tonight. Or after this week, if what some people are saying proves true.

    Please, celebrate responsibly. We have just defeated an enemy of Humanity with absolutely no loss of life and minimal damage to our infrastructure. It would be foolish and embarrassing for us to damage ourselves after such a victory.

    And to Shipyard. I have already told you this privately, but as this is an open letter;

    Thank you. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

    The world owes you a debt we can never repay. I only hope you can pull off your miracle twice more and permanently end the other two monsters. Also, I am publicly extending my earlier invitation to you to come to Washington D.C.

    We have a meeting with the President.

    And, to any Villains reading this; pay very close attention to the following sentences.

    If you so much as scratch Shipyard, whatever is left of you after his technology has finished decimating your corpse will be handed to the various Protectorate parahumans to do with as they wish. After they are finished, the PRT agents will have their go. Then you will be hung up in the proverbial town square and flight tickets will be provided to whoever so wishes to come desecrate your mangled, broken remains.

    There are a whole lot of people worldwide who see Shipyard as a new hope Alan Gramme could have only dreamed of being. As the true successor to our sorely missed friend Hero. We will not accept another demise like his. I sincerely recommend treating Shipyard as if there is a reverse Endbringer Truce upon his person, where if you break it, the entirety of the Protectorate and many independent teams will come down on you like a sack of lead bricks.

    God knows I can't stop them. More to the point, I won't even try.

    -Director Costa-Brown

    ​
    ■​

    ♦ Topic: Boat Graveyard Tinkertech Spiders
    In: Boards ► Places ► North America ► United States ► Brockton Bay
    XxVoid_CowboyxX     (Original Poster) (Verified Idiot)
    Posted On Feb 8th 2011:
    Guys I was walking back to my house from the bunker and I saw a silver spider on a boat in the Boat Graveyard. It looked like metal and Tinkertech. What's going on?


    ​
    (Showing page 1 of 1)

    ►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    I saw one too! It was standing on the roof of the Library!

    Void's batting two for two in the same amount of days. How is this possible

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Original Poster) (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    Hey!

    ►Acree
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    The entire world is partying after The Simurgh was killed and you're worried about a couple of Tinkertech bugs? Probably some new trigger from the maelstrom that spanned the sky of the East Coast.

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Original Poster) (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    I don't know I just wanted to speak up in case they turn out to be some Simurgh plot or something.

    ►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    Thank you for the report, Void Cowboy.

    (I never thought anyone would be thanking Void for anything, but it's pretty much a brand new world out there.)

    I've logged it in our system. Please keep an eye out for any more. You too, Brocktonite.

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Original Poster) (Verified Idiot)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    Yes sir! o7

    ►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    Okay, will do.

    ►FluteGirl
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    They're probably nothing, just like Acree says.

    ​
    End of Page. 1
    ​
    ■​

    ♦ Topic: Anyone Seen TinMother?
    In: Boards ► Staff Forum
    Good Ship Morpheus     (Original Poster) (Moderator) (Not a Ship)
    Posted On Feb 8th 2011:
    I haven't been able to get in touch with her since yesterday. She's been offline for over 24 hours. Since when is she ever offline that long?


    ​
    (Showing page 1 of 1)

    ►Brilliger (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    I'm sure she's just celebrating along with everyone else. Though her unusual downtime is concerning. We'll just have to honor her tireless efforts by taking up the slack.

    ►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior) (Wiki Moderator)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    Uh... Okay, A; why can I even see this forum

    And B; since when am I a Mod?! Even if it says Wiki Mod, what the heck?

    Oh, and uh, yes, that is somewhat concerning. She's never been offline no matter what time I tried to message her.

    ►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    I'm fine guys, thanks for your concern. I was just indisposed by all the celebrations, but I'm back now! ^_^

    Thanks for picking up my duties. And Valkyr, I figured you deserve the title after all you do for the Wiki.

    ►Brilliger (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    They're not just your duties Tin. You just keep beating us to the punch :p

    ►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior) (Wiki Moderator)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    Good to hear you're okay, TinMother! And thanks for the Mod position, I guess. I don't really need it, but if you think it's important, I'll give you this one.

    ►Logs (Moderator)
    Replied On Feb 8th 2011:
    Welcome back, TinMother!

    ​
    End of Page. 1
    ​
    ■​
     
  • View discussion
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    Ship Classification List
  • View content
    • I am going to state my views on spaceborn warship classifications, I hope that they are helpful.

    Destroyers: the lightest type of capital ship, these vessels are purely escorts, completely unsuited for individual front line combat. Destroyers are exclusively used in multi-ship formations, or wolfpacks, usually escorting heavier ships. They have excellent weapons and speed, but lack heavier defenses or powerful sensors.

    Frigates: frigates are the eyes of the fleet, usually found escorted by destroyers. They might occasionally be detached on their own or as escorts for cruisers. They have moderate weapons, speed, and defenses, but they have truly excellent sensors for their size.

    Cruisers: cruisers are the jacks of all trades, masters of none. They have a balanced mix of systems, and if your universe has starfighters, then a cruiser will be your lightest fighter carrier. Cruisers will also be used as the final true escort class.

    Battlecruisers: these vessels are the first ships, (outside of destroyers), that cannot be found in singletons, they will always have escorts. They are optimized for the wall of battle, but still have the ability to operate with only an escort fleet and no other battlecruisers.

    Battleships: where there is one, more are sure to be more in the area. These vessels will never be alone, always attended by escorts, and attached to at least one dreadnought, they are mountains of defenses and guns. No lesser starship can match them for firepower or sheer durability save for the dreadnoughts themselves.

    Dreadnoughts: these are the command ships of the fleet, they are a rare sight, never seen without at least a division of battleships, dreadnoughts are the best in all areas while sacrificing any semblance of grace or stealth. Slow and cumbersome, it can never be understated just how powerful a dreadnought is.

    Special Classifications:

    Battlestar: for those universes with a reason for starfighters, they can act as cruisers, but carry a similar fighter wing as a assault carrier, often the size of a battleship.

    Assault Carrier: these vessels are small and almost totally unarmed, often the size of a cruiser.

    Fleet Carrier: a larger version of the assault carrier, fleet carriers are the size of battleships.

    I don't believe that true starfighters will be feasible, making the battlestar and carrier rather useless, but this is just my opinion.
     
  • View discussion
    • Chapter 9 - Evolution
  • View content
    • Ancient Legos
    Chapter 9
    Evolution​

    Two minutes and thirty six point five seconds.

    That's how long I stared at the Lifesign Type list in my head.

    I'm Lantean.

    I tested the thought out once more, just to see if it made any more sense than it had for the last two minutes thirty six and a half seconds.

    ...Aaand nope. It still smelled like bullshit.

    "I'm Lantean," I said out loud, chuckling. "Yeah right."

    To counter this insane proposition the ship was attempting to get me to believe, three pieces of evidence stood as my pillars. One; I was born to human parents. Two; I had been human my whole life. No doctors had ever found anything wrong with me in that respect, and it was pretty much guaranteed some of the Tinkertech scanning devices they used at Brockton General would notice if I had an entirely different set of genetics.

    The final, third point was the real kicker, though. I didn't have any Alteran powers. And, heh, everyone knows that Alterans had powers. From pretty much a single year after being born. It was one of the most well known pieces of information about the Alteran species.

    Healing. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Long Life.

    Then the more high level abilities that were Zero Point Energy Manipulation and, eventually, Ascension.

    The only powers the Alterans didn't have were the more body-focused ones. They were very much a product of their brains and their souls. Not their physical forms. An Alteran wouldn't be able to go toe to toe with one of our world's most famous Flying Bricks, Alexandria, but they'd definitely be able to mindfuck her into unconsciousness.

    Only in extremely, extremely rare cases did someone not manifest some of those eventually. There were a grand total of three, three! Alterans that never developed abilities in the hundreds of millions of years they'd existed as a civilization.

    Three.

    I had exactly none of those abilities.

    Even the mental control for my ships was provided by the ships themselves. Reading my brainwaves and inserting information. I was the receiver, not the sender in that particular set of relationships. Even Humans could conceivably control Alteran craft if they had the synthetic locking gene.

    Which meant some really frakking janky stuff was going on.

    I turned my attention away from my mind's eye to yell at the ceiling. "OKAY, VERY FUNNY! I DON'T KNOW WHAT OR WHO YOU ARE, BUT YOU CAN STOP PRETENDING TO BE MY SHIP NOW!"

    I waited. Listening for a response, mental or otherwise.

    None came.

    "Fine," I growled. I once again tuned into the Hyperion, or whatever it really was, and forced the Lantean override to get into its systems.

    If this thing was going to falsely claim I was Lantean, I was gonna exploit the shit out of that.

    I dove into its very being. Searched for anything and everything odd. I noticed the sloppily integrated Asgardian technology, but I'd already used it so I was aware of its presence. There were some other irregularities in the structure of the craft. Namely, it was bigger than what an Aurora should be. That extra space was filled with redundancies, drone manufacturing systems, and other things Alterans never would've thought to include-

    Wait a second, that's not an Alteran hyperdrive!

    What the hell was a foreign hyperdrive doing grafted to the systems of an Alteran battlecruiser?

    I had literally never seen the design before. Well, of course I hadn't, but neither had my Atleran memories.

    And what the fuck is that top speed?!

    It… actually kinda, sorta, shared some power distribution properties with the Asgardian Transporter Beam Arrays, but… it was much, much more advanced.

    What the hell had those tall gray butts been up to!?!?

    Like, shit guys, the hyperdrives we left you weren't fast enough? Damn speed demons, the lot of them! This abomination of a hyperdrive was magnitudes faster than a cityship's Stardrive, which were renown for their speed in the first place!

    To put it in perspective, Alteran hyperdrives of the size needed for an Aurora had a top speed of 300ly/s, which could skyrocket to a grand 900ly/s if fed directly from a Potentia. They could make the trip between Avalon and Pegasi in 11 hours at normal speed, and a third that time if you plugged them into the Potentia. The Atlantis cityships and their Stardrives made those look tame.

    But the Asgardians had apparently decided that still wasn't fast enough.

    Anyways, aside from the insanity that was the Asgardian (presumably) hyperdrive, nothing truly felt off about the Hyperion. For all intents and purposes, the VI software of the ship was vanilla. So vanilla in fact that it was suspicious due to just how ordinary it appeared. There were no customizations. Zero. Naming it the Hyperion was literally the only change from baseline, and that was something that I had done.

    No amount of checking unearthed any abnormalities in the suspiciously ordinary software, either.

    What the hell. It was like someone had taken the idea of an Aurora and the software of most Alteran craft and… fixed all or most of the idiosyncrasies inherent in Alteran designs, then shoved in a bunch of Asgardian tech. Hmmm… I wonder whether this was the fault of that Shard I'd located in another reality, hooked up to my own head-

    My mind snapped back to what had caused this in the first place. If the Hyperion wasn't lying to me and was in fact just a beefed up, more-or-less vanilla Alteran ship...

    OH FUCK I'M A LANTEAN HOLY FUCKING WHAT

    SHIT SHIT SHIT

    I panicked. I fully admit it. That is why I didn't fully think through my actions.

    First I scanned my house and my family.

    They were human.

    Then how the fuck was I a gods damned alien?!

    I had the memories of one, sure, but that was weird power shit. Actually having my physiology changed, especially into Alteran biostructures, WAS A MUCH BIGGER PROBLEM.

    I sprinted for the Genetic Manipulator. Got in. Turned on the containment field. Called up its mental interface. And set that damned thing on the deepest scans I could.

    If you're paying decent levels of attention, you might have spied the point where I totally and completely screwed this series of decisions up.

    I'd examined the code of the Hyperion.

    Not the Genetic Manipulator. The one that shouldn't have been there in the first place. The extremely potent device that I'd basically run into and practically offered myself to.

    Yeeeaaaaahhhhhhhh.

    I found my control of the machine abruptly taken from me. I could still observe what it was doing, but a program hidden inside some of its deepest code had woken up and seized total control of every aspect of the device.

    The device with the active containment field.

    That I was trapped inside.

    I am not ashamed to admit I panicked even further. I started slamming my fists into the containment field, screaming at the top of my lungs.

    I knew what these things could do to you and I was not okay with having fifteen tentacles grow out of my face, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

    But it didn't matter. No matter how much I screamed or banged, Missy was unconscious, Dragon was offline while she transferred to her new body, and the Hyperion couldn't do anything without also leaving me a smear on the wall as a side casualty.

    So I slumped backwards, leaned against the containment field, and watched with dread as the genetic sequencing hologram extended from the top and bottom of the device to surround me.

    I observed the program and noted what it was doing. The rogue system was commanding the Genetic Manipulator to do an extremely deep level scan of my genetic code.

    That's… wait, that's exactly what I'd initially asked it to do.

    Huh?

    Then the program backed that scan data up in hundreds of different locations, even tossing some to the Hyperion for it to store.

    Well, at least I could be happy that whatever had put the rogue program into this Genetic Manipulator didn't want me disfigured into a horrible freak of nature without a way back.

    The program finished its backup and then opened a copy of my genetic code for modification.

    Okay… that's- that's very good. It wasn't going to totally overwrite me with some foreign DNA. Modification had limits, even in such a device as this one. I'd have bipedal locomotion at the very least.

    Also, that was definitely Lantean genetic code. I'd recognize it anywhere. My Alteran memories had been taught it in school, after all.

    I also recognized what was being done to it. Specifically because it was a project in the aforementioned school that my Alteran memories had been made to do.

    Unlock all higher Alteran abilities via genetic tampering. A passing grade if you succeeded. Full marks if you managed to do so stably.

    Guess what my Alteran memories didn't manage to do? Yeah, both of those. She failed that project.

    Yes, she. I had the memories of an Alteran female bouncing around in my head. The only reason that didn't give me a whopping huge torrent of gender dysphoria is because Alterans were kinda… sex-ambivalent. Oh sure, they acknowledged the physical differences, the downsides and advantages of the two sexes, but they proceeded to do nothing else. Sex, the action, for them was just reproductive in nature with a side effect of being particularly enjoyable. Sex, the chromosomal arrangement of their cells, was a descriptor. Like eye color or hair color.

    Plus there'd been female gendered people in male sex bodies, and vice versa, ever since the Alterans evolved. Unfortunately the lack of caring came much later on. Genetic Manipulators were partially at fault for the Alteran's viewpoints on the gender of the self, to be fair. Given they allowed sex swapping if you really wanted to, it would be pretty impossible as a civilization to care about gender or the physical sex of your body anymore. They discovered that gender was a mind/soul thing and had about as much link with your body as games of chance had with the concept of fate.

    Linked only if you squinted or had blinders worthy of a horse on you.

    I momentarily freaked out at the possibility those thoughts had brought up and checked to make sure that the program wasn't flipping my chromosomes. Hey, my Alteran memories were sex-ambivalent. I wasn't!

    Thankfully     the program seemed far more competent than my memories were. It was successfully unlocking pretty much all the abilities an Alteran could conceivably have in my genetic code and securing stability about 80% of the way to where I could Ascend. While keeping me male, even!

    The reason these hyper-advanced Genetic Manipulators never really took off was because beyond that 80%, people tended to accelerate their evolution on their own. The mind overtook the body.

    You either Ascended or you died, burning up as your soul seared your atoms from the face of the universe. Or, very rarely, managed to shunt yourself back to your original form in the split second between when you achieved that higher state and you ceased to exist.

    All of that navel gazing was to distract myself from what was going to happen. I knew it wasn't just modifying my genetics like this for nothing.

    I was going to be transformed into a full-fledged Alteran Mage.

    Just like my Alteran memories had always wished she could become. Legendary like Moros, infamous like Janus. A pioneer of the Mind like Atheles or a connoisseur of ZPEM like Ganos.

    Yup, there it was. The program had finished. It error checked the modifications, something I was immensely thankful for, and when the multiple passes came back clean, it fed the new code into the Manipulator's emission systems.

    I sighed and closed my eyes to prepare myself. A change this big was not going to be pleasant.

    A moment later the pain hit and I could only scream.


    I woke up on the floor. With what felt like Mount Everest splitting my skull in half.

    Ugh, what the hell hit me? I wearily thought, trying to get my bearings.

    I was sprawled on something hard. Metallic. My head was lower than my legs, and I was staring at an oddly familiar ceiling.

    Huh, isn't that the standard hull pattern of an Aurora class? I asked myself absently.

    Then my brain kicked back into gear.

    "HOLY FUCK!" I screamed out loud, hastily backpedaling to get away from the Genetic Manipulator my legs had been lying in. I patted down my body rapidly. I was trying to find out if the process had gone wrong, if I now had deformities or something else horrifying.

    One full body check later and I determined that no, I didn't look any different. And I didn't really feel that different either.

    Whew. I let a relaxing breath escape me and closed my eyes with relief. I was okay.

    Probably a fully blown Alteran Mage now, but okay. More superpowers I could deal with. Eventually.

    Face tentacles, very much not.

    I opened my eyes and found the Genetic Manipulator sitting there, powered down, and with such an innocent look about it I could almost see the sheepish, angelic face it was trying to give me.

    I narrowed my eyes at it and proceeded to trace the path of my glare with two fingers. "I'm watching you," I informed it warningly.

    The Genetic Manipulator did nothing. A few seconds later I felt rather silly.

    Brain damage or overflow from the traumatic experience of being force-evolved? On further thought, definitely overflow.

    Alright, I need to find out how much time has passed, I thought. With that goal set, I attempted to contact the Hyperion mentally so I could see the ship's clock.

    What I received wasn't exactly a gentle amount of 'contact'.

    The Hyperion reached out with the entirety of its systems for my perusal. I momentarily lost any awareness of my own body as it felt like I was the ship. It drew me in and held me fast, almost exactly the same as when I'd sat in the Throne Chair to fight Ziz. Unlike that time, though, I was able to pull myself to a lighter level of integration after a minor amount of struggle and freaking out. The awareness of my own body came flooding back and the awareness of the ship fled until they were both about halfway present.

    Huh. So this is what Mages described as True Integration. My Alteran memories led me to almost squeal out loud at the fact I'd managed this until I got a handle on them.

    Right, so, another point in Alteran Mage being my new existence. Yay.

    I decided to get the next test over and done with so I could start handling the rest of my reality without the question in my head. I turned towards one of the tablets I had been browsing Dragon's program on and held out my hand. I then tried to… beckon it with my mind.

    Hey, it's not like my Alteran memories were remotely helpful in this area. The Mages never really made any instruction books on the topic. Which is why instead of leisurely floating over to my hand, the tablet zipped through the air and whacked me right in the face.

    "OWW!" I exclaimed, holding my hands to my now bleeding nose. "Gods fucking damn it!"

    Okay. Definitely gonna need more practice at this. Mage status confirmed, though!

    And my nose was broken now. Great. I'd have to have one of the Medbay's automatic healing systems deal with it.

    Unless… hmm...

    "Can I heal myself?" I idly wondered out loud.

    That was supposed to be one of my new abilities.

    With the decision to at least attempt it, I tried to push… myself through my hands and center the feeling of peace and repair in the area around my nose.

    Golden light flared from my hands and my nose cracked back into place. The bones sealed over. I was healed.

    Well at least I can do THAT right!

    Alright, no more testing until I can do so in a safe environment. Now how much time passed!

    Five minutes.

    Five.

    I blinked with surprise and just a tiny bit of awe. It had taken the advanced Genetic Manipulator five minutes to force evolve me so far I gained superpowers.

    Those things are fucking broken, holy shit.

    Okay. Time to get my head in the game and proceed to the things further down my list than making sure my teammate has her brain cancer cured and one of the world's most renown Tinkers gets her issues solved.

    ...What the hell was I doing before all of this?

    …

    Yeahp, I got nothing. Oh well, might as well check PHO.

    …
    …
    …

    That is a lotta comments. Shit.

    Okay, okay, ass covering time while also fulfilling my duty as a Hero! and inspiring hope. Let's see, reply there, respond to thanks with you're welcome, chat with teammates… hey wait a second, AllSeeingEye is a cape?

    I took a moment to consider that. In hindsight, it was so obvious that I felt incredibly stupid.

    She's a cape and is asking for my help because of another evil cape. What the fuck do I do? Yeah I just 'killed' an Endbringer but that doesn't mean I can help her!

    Get it together Will, you can do this, I tried to reassure myself.

    Step one, refer her to the PRT. They can take care of her until I can oversee her hero conversion.

    I think.

    Send that off and-

    Oh, she replied immediately. She can't make it.

    Now what?!

    Uhh… Well, I did have this fancy new ship with Beaming Arrays on board. I wonder…

    Ohhhh, she has something to help with that. A flare gun. Thank you AllSeeingEye, that is SO not fucking helpful! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY FIREWORKS ARE IN THE SKY RIGHT NOW!!
    Calming down. I was calm. I could make this work.

    What… color is this flare gun?

    Red.

    I grimaced and stared daggers at the wall of the Medbay.

    Red. One of the primary colors of flame.

    Like those aforementioned fireworks.

    Fine. I'd just have to have the Hyperion scan for abnormal launch vectors. Tell her it's fine though because can't spook the potential new Protectorate member, no siree!

    She said she'd sent the flare off. Time for the Hyperion to cry as it has to sift through a bunch of scan data for one specific variation of a firework.

    How the frak did Brockton even get this many fireworks? The evening sky above the city looks like it's glowing!

    And so what if it only took the Hyperion a couple of seconds. Bite me. It was still extra work.

    Grumble grumble. I should probably be at the beam in site. Given Asgardian Beams basically designated 'anywhere' as a potential beam in site, I got to choose the location.

    It had to be somewhere suitably impressive and definitely somewhere a decent distance away from the unconscious forms of Missy and Dragon. No way was I putting her beam in site anywhere near Ziz, either. Didn't want any signals piggybacking the array. In either direction.

    The Bridge it is!


    I sat in the Throne Chair and commanded the Hyperion to beam her up. Put her somewhere in front of me, facing out the window, I directed further.

    Like a gleeful puppy my ship proceeded to do just that. The white streams of light and signature chiming sound of Asgardian Transport rang out from about five feet in front of me. A couple of seconds more and AllSeeingEye flared into existence, stretching slightly from the top down until she was fully materialized.

    She was clad in a purple, skin-hugging suit. Her long blonde hair spilled out from her head. The costume, for that's what it was, apparently didn't have any helmet or hood. I could barely see the edges of a purple eye mask on the sides of her head. Her fists were clenched, along with other body parts, and that is the only reason my attention was drawn to her finely shaped posterior for more than a couple of seconds. I swear!

    Five more seconds went by without her unclenching and I finally managed to tear my eyes away. She was cringing, her chin hunched into her neck, and a cursory look with the Hyperion's sensors showed she had completely shut her eyes and was scrunching them as hard as she could.

    Also, I recognized her.

    "Tattletale?!" I burst out, jaw dropping. Tattletale was AllSeeingEye?!

    ...Actually, no, yeah, that kinda makes sense. She's supposed to be some kind of Thinker and wears a costume with the Egyptian Eye of Ra on it, so AllSeeingEye as a username fits her shtick and her penchant for being a smartass.

    Tattletale wasn't currently being a smartass. Polar opposite, more like. In response to my addressing her, she jumped a little, obviously quite scared. I wasn't sure why she was so terrified but something was doing it. It couldn't have been me, I wasn't scary, so maybe it was my ship?

    Regardless, her clenching slowly subsided and she risked opening a single eye to take a look at her surroundings.

    Then both her eyes shot wide open and her own jaw dropped. She ran up to the Bridge's forward window. The purple-clad villainess seemed to have totally forgotten about whatever scared her in favor of staring in awe down at the cloud cover above Brockton Bay that we were steadily approaching.

    I sighed, reluctantly got up, and joined her side at the window. "Nice view, isn't it?" I asked nonchalantly, staring along with her.

    "Wow," she breathed under her breath, face still pressed to the window.

    I spared a glance sideways at her face. She did have a purple mask on, as I'd assumed beforehand, which thankfully helped me still be inside the Unwritten Rules. What I could see of her face was truly attractive in a hot-girl-next-door way. Her body's curves under her figure hugging costume didn't disagree with her face, either, nor the well kept and almost… shiny? long blonde hair she sported.

    I suddenly blinked, something occuring to me. Her facial structure, that hair, her curves… they were tickling something in the back of my mind. Had… had I met her before?

    ...HOLY SHIT. It clicked in my head, the memories coming to the fore, and I couldn't help myself. I knew where I'd seen her before.

    My coffee bestie was TATTLETALE?!

    "LISA?!" I gasped, eyes widening.

    She stilled and I abruptly got a dose of the next of my new Alteran powers. Oh shit, she thought.

    She whipped her piercing green eyes towards me and glared. "How the hell do you know that name?!" she asked, before she registered my face.

    ...I then realized I wasn't wearing a mask. I didn't really even have a costume. In my rush to stop the Hyperion from destroying all the villains and threats to my safety in Brockton Bay, then the charge on the Winged Endbringer, I'd completely forgotten to fabricate anything. Not even a rudimentary mask.

    Which meant she could see my face perfectly fine, no guessing required.

    "Weldon?!"
     
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