Arcanum - A Worm x Final Fantasy XIV Dual Insert Ft. Nihilo
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
It will be explained later IC, but it basically went.
>Have the perfect shot lined up
>Can't resist due to a mix of teenager with a grudge and whatever the fuck Shard rivalry or interfence is driving said grudge as it was mentioned to be based on power interaction
>"Aw fuk. Well, I'm going to juvie now, it may as well be for murdering him rather than just trying to."
A fair point is that she may not've had any of her broadhead arrows on hand when she was called in. But one, it is pointless because she used her power for the shot and the actual arrowhead wasn't a factor at all. Two, we can easily say that she was phoned in due to not being at the Rig or PRT HQ when the heist was reported and thus just grabbed some stuff from one of her caches.
Miho Chan
One with too many ideas
- Location
- Hummelstown
- Pronouns
- She/Her
She certainly is, considering the bullshite she continually pulled at Winslow without getting caught. In my mind, this is essentially her feeling of being invincible biting her in the ass. Because she's escaped consequence free from so many things, up to and including an actual literal murder attempt, she got cocky. It cost her. Of course, there may be other reasons she did this, but in the end, she did what she did.
- Location
- England
She didn't escape free from consequences, she was forcibly inducted to the Wards and given kiddie-rounds of tranq bolts. She's a coward at heart, as many bullies are, and pulls off shit when she's on her own or surrounded by flunkies.
idk in canon she is dumb enough to going charging off from an official patrol because she saw Skitter, chase her down and try to slit her throat with a broadhead she had on her. Plus she had on her her civvy phone which was loaded up with a ton of incriminating evidence about them bullying Taylor despite the fact that being on probation meant they had the right to take and examine her phone whenever they wanted.
She'd be at Winslow because the robbery took place during lunch of a school day that Taylor was skiving a Thursday iirc.
Sophia in canon has a very weird understanding of things and does think Piggot and the prt are intentionally covering things up for and helping her because she's effective which being fair there is an element of because they do ignore her running off during patrols and coming back with missing bolts plus the stuff like her handler going to the discipline meeting and pretty obviously not looking into the claims.
Heck just look at the canon conversation where she sees Taylor with Brian goes up to them to mess with her and flirt with him before getting rejected so she followed Taylor into a bookstore, fed the owner a bunch of nonsense then basically went back and tried to maul her and despite him seeing her do this her lies were enough to have him just throw them both out and nothing else.
Miho Chan
One with too many ideas
- Location
- Hummelstown
- Pronouns
- She/Her
While you are correct partially on both accounts, you seem to have entirely missed my point. Sophia Hess is a coward at heart. She is running from her issues and her power itself reflects this. However. She has repeatedly escaped from consequences, even after being put on probation. Especially after being put on probation. For fucks sake my dude, she was on probation when she straight up tried to murder Taylor. Because how else do you explain locking someone in a locker containing a fucking biohazard!?
Correct.
Yes. In canon, this is what happened. We'll simply say the PRT was more on the ball due to minor AU stuff, and requested she make an excuse and dip.
Yep. It honestly says more about Taylor than Sophia that Taylor eventually ends up being able to tolerate her general existence.
PAGDTenno
Verified Warmind. Probably on fire.
- Location
- South Carolina
This one, at least, is explainable as "teenage idiots not thinking past step 1". The rest, yes, absolutely. Hess doesn't think she's going to face meaningful consequences beyond a slap on the wrist. But I'm going to apply Hanlon's Razor here - stupidity offers an excellent explanation, particularly since Sophia's ongoing objective is to grind Taylor into the dirt, and I think she simply considered the Locker the ultimate humiliation.
Manslaughter, not murder. Which is a distinction with a difference, IMO.
Rough 1-I
Miho Chan
One with too many ideas
- Location
- Hummelstown
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A Special Thanks to my generous paetrons, J Frost, IridiumSky, Tale Swapper, Ttw1, G_Man_No_99, CateCat, Silva T, Omida, charlie howe, Henifataffle, Rubunny, saganatsu, Spheal lover., VerviettaVP, Logically Random, shadowSeth, Penguino, Joshua Littlesun, White57Wyrms, KenneGlitch, and Lightstorm
Your support is what enables to me to write as frequently as I am able, and means the world to me.
Welcome to the Parahumans Online Forum
You are currently logged in, Dark Green, SIR
♦Topic: Undersiders Heist, Brockton Bay Central Bank
1,2,3
► Nishiho (Kyushu Survivor)
So, you may have already heard about this on the local news, but the Central Bank downtown was just robbed, with a fair amount of hostages held by the Undersiders. Of course, as well all are well aware, the Undersiders have a reputation of treating their hostages well, and playing by the general "rules" of cape culture, so while it was more than mildly irritating to have our day interrupted by them, it was certainly significantly better for us than, say, the E88 staging such an attack.
Fucking Nazis.
Regardless, beyond the obvious stress of being a hostage, we had to deal with several other instances of, excuse my language, fucking nonsense. While it isn't being reported on yet; yes, I checked, the two "new" capes that were present at the bank weren't a part of the Undersiders like some reporters are sensationalizing. They appeared there about five or so minutes before the bank robbery in a flash of light, scaring the shit out of some of us before we realized they were just as confused as we all were.
Hell, there was an adorable exchange between the Dragon, Shèn, and a mother and son duo. It went something like:
"Mama, why is the pretty dragon lady so shiny?" "Because I take really good care of my scales, little one. My name is Shèn, what's yours?"
Of course, that was when some shouting from the back came on and the security guard made his way to the back.
Props to him for being professional about this whole thing, to be honest. I know a lot of security guards would have done something fucking stupid and gotten themselves killed.
Anyway, he comes out from the back with another woman; this one a youko, or, to use the western terms, a kitsune or foxgirl. Shèn and the fox, Miho, start speaking with each other for a while, and then step away. I started recording right after that, so everything after this point is covered in the video. I'll give you all the cliff notes because I'm nice like that. Oh, and content warning as usual for cape fights.
Oh, and because I just remembered after rewatching the clip again. @Aegis, you have competition now. Because Shèn called one of her floating eyeballs Aegis and I think it's significantly better suited for that name than you!
► Robby G (Excel, My Beloved)
…What the actual fuck did I just watch. No, like, seriously. Shèn and Miho are breaking the "rules" of capes so hard that I genuinely have no fucking idea what to say. They're both grab-bags, and seem to have nearly identical powers, on top of being recognizably human but having features that would look more at home on a C53. I'm going to watch it frame by frame and dump my regular analysis in the thread later. OP, would you mind threadmarking that if I do?
► Red Riot (Verified Cape)
Aw, fuk. Poor girl stress smiles, no wonder the press went wild. Specially with those chompers.
'S why a lot of us put on full face masks. Not everyone has Armsy's stiff upper lip.
Oi, Shèn, if you read this I can hook ya up with my mask maker! Indies should stick together!
Also, don't forget to check out Whitelist! Can't find ya there but damn if a healer with barriers wouldn't get a good deal.
► SpicSpan (Verified Janitor)
Did y'all notice how she tried to keep Grue distracted with that ramble? Sounded like a newbie dentist trying to keep a kid from freaking 'bout the drill.
I'd know, we just got a couple wet behind the ears rookies at the clinic.
Also, Greeks represent! Panakeia sounds better than Panacea and is less of a pain in the ass to write!
► Bagrat (Guy in the Know)
Huh. For once, I don't have to frantically compile a large information dump about recent events, because someone else beat me to it! Now, since I can't just post here without actually contributing to the discussion, I'd imagine based on that video that Shen and Miho are likely to get several ratings, or the PRT will throw up their hands and just call them Trumps. Then again, I don't actually know how the PRT Threat Rating system goes, so who knows!
► Nishiho (Kyushu Survivor)
>OP, would you mind threadmarking that if I do?
Not at all, so long as it's high quality enough to merit that.
► Robby G (Excel, My Beloved)
>or the PRT will throw up their hands and just call them Trumps
Nope. They don't appear to tamper with other powers or their own, so they don't merit it.
>Not at all, so long as it's high quality enough to merit that.
Challenge accepted.
► Markstave
Post removed by Moderation.
<Tin_Mom: Do not. While this isn't strictly against the rules, moderation is not stupid.>
► WhiteWarrior_32
Post deleted by Moderation.
<Tin_Mom: Do not. This is your third strike, enjoy the Permaban.>
► Tin_Mom (Moderator)
As evidently, users still do not understand that the moderation is capable of reading subtext and other red flags, @Markstave, consider this your final warning. At PHO, we follow the spirit of the rules, not the letter. You will not be warned again.
Looking away from her personal phone with a heavy sigh, Missy Brion; better known as Vista, reflected on the absolute shitshow of a day the ENE had just had. Everything, of course, had started to go wrong weeks back. Armsmaster had accepted an invitation to a visibility event in an effort to raise his and the ENE's ratings among the masses. Then, due to last minute events and some injuries that required rest yet didn't even remotely justify contacting Panacea, the entirety of the ENE Protectorate had magically been absent for the entirety of the day.
This generally wasn't an issue. However, Missy reflected, due to a recent Hookwolf rampage, most of the tools that the PRT used to solve such issues were gone. After all, while the PRT had requested assistance from the local independents, Hookwolf had gone on a rampage recently. Several indie heroes had been injured, and several more had likely died; the body count was still being tallied, given, well, Hookwolf.
This had driven the rest to keep their heads down for the rather understandable reason of not wanting to become a nugget. Though both the independents and the PRT could generally count on Panacea to fix them up, no one could blame them for not wanting to become a nugget in the first place. This translated to a fat "fuck no, not unless you add three zeroes to that figure" when asked for assistance.
Given the intermittent stream of scars going from Missy's left shoulder to her right hip when Hook'd gotten a single swipe on her, she wasn't about to bitch them out for it. Had she learned a lot of how to use her power to keep her insides where they belonged? Yes! Did she ever want to feel her guts trying to take a lie down on the asphalt again? No!
Only reason she could still fight and wasn't looking down the barrel of a FUBAR puberty was because Our Lady in White had fixed everything up, except for a tiny layer at the tippity top. She wanted to have the reminder with her… and she had stitched these up herself, she was damn well keeping the zippers and showing them off when she rocked a bikini in a few years. What she didn't want to deal with was being ten percent scar tissue by volume, much less the horror stories Jameson had about swelling and chronic pain.
At least most gangs in Brockton didn't use IEDs. Much.
Not after a manic Miss Militia introduced them to Saint Javelin.
Returning to the matter at hand, the Wards had been required to hold the fort for all tasks that required Capes today. Once more, this usually wasn't an issue. Murphy decided that that 'usually' needed some stress testing today.
Missy still wanted to throttle Aegis and Clock for their pigshit stupid idea. Who the actual fuck thought it would be a good plan to switch costumes when dealing with the goddam Undersiders, who had a Thinker. Especially when one of you was a squishy Striker, and the other was a very much not squishy BRUTE!
Thankfully for their dignity, they'd remembered right quick who was the most experienced Ward in East North East. So they hadn't needed to be dragged back to the changing room by the ears. One terse 'and what do you think you're doing?' and they'd scrambled to fix their shit before she fixed it for them.
Not that Aegis had learned jack or shit about keeping his head on straight, because the moment Stalker decided murder would be a cool thing to do in the middle of the goddamn street with nearly a hundred people watching, he froze up. What the fuck sort of leader saw that go down and just got nice and comfortable on the fence!? Sure, that dipshit on console had tried to countermand her when she took charge, but before that? The idiot should've done more than sit there playing switch.
After writing her AAR, she'd be filing some very pointed Complaints of Misconduct at both of them. Console for moonwalking from criminal negligence to active sabotage and flouting of protocol, on top of the very pointed messages Supervisor Harris'd gotten from her before she was even back at HQ. Aegis for being a failure plain and simple. At least she didn't need to lift a finger for Hess, they already chucked that psycho into a holding cell and, well.
Philip from Internal Affairs used to be Military Police and had been keeping all her formal complaints regarding Stalker roasty toasty for something like this. Although she had expected the inevitable fuckup to be more along the lines of turning a skinhead or three into fatalities in an alley after a bad day rather than stick through a clean-nosed near-merc during a hostage situation.
As for Guts 'n Glory? Rumor mill said that PR had let Legal off the leash and she was inclined to believe it. PRot always wanted to push more parahumans to their loving arms and didn't give a shit about cranking up the heat for everyone not them. New Wave's babbling about Cape accountability gave the perfect angle for the spin doctors to let the sharks go for the kill.
To keep up with the good news, if in a different flavor, the two new faces were one of those vanishingly rare kinds of indies with good fucking sense. Despite Tattletale including them in the get out of jail free card she'd negotiated, they'd just… stayed there. Cleaning up the mess, then surrendering to her custody, and while that fox woman Miho had been a bit on edge about it?
It was downright bizarre to have anyone treat her with respect like that on the first meeting. Even new troopers and cops didn't, although that was hazing from their battle buddies more than anything else. But here were these two, beelining straight for the 'pint sized sarge' without a second thought, following her orders without so much as a patronizing smile.
The closest she'd ever gotten before that was Hook calling her 'little warrior' within minutes of meeting her, then expressing his 'respect' by immediately going for the throat. It probably said a lot about her that she felt conflicted about it more than anything else. On one hand. it was nice to be taken seriously and she did learn a lot from fighting for her fucking life against him. On the other hand, serial killer with thirty six dead Capes and God alone knew how many normals at his feet just from his illustrious career in Brockton. Who was giving her praise and the odd bit of advice in the middle of trying to murder her.
PR had to work overtime to scrub anything of the sort from the public eye.
Nobody needed to know about what she'd learned to do with warped space and the knife she very definitely didn't keep hidden in her costume, ask anyone on the precinct. Much less her experiments with Klein Bottles, especially because she knew not to bring out a fucking Doom Cannon to a hostage situation, right Kid Win?
Ugh, ever since he'd built that fucking thing she had to smack him upside the head not to start teleporting it in at the first sign of trouble. Every. Single. Time.
Was it cool? It was a goddamn Death Beam, of fucking course it was. That didn't mean you brought it out for anything short of Hook or Lung! Boys.
She made a noise like a deflating balloon, slumping on her chair as she looked over the halfway filled after action report. Right, that'd been enough of a break. Cracking her knuckles, she finished turning the bulletpoint notes she had written on transport into a proper file, chucking it off to the bureaucratic machine.
Next up were the CoMs, but before that she wanted to see if Robby had hammered out that analysis yet. It'd be interesting to contrast and compare with the power testing reports she'd be getting anytime soon. It was Dr. Marigold's shift, so she'd get a copy chucked to her on the sly rather than have to wait for a proper briefing in a few days. Woman was a little crazy, but she owed to her the dimensional thresher trick, not that she was cleared to use that against anything short of an S-Class threat or an immediate and unavoidable danger to her life.
Nobody wanted to see a Ward turn someone into mincemeat, who'd thunk?
► Robby G (Excel, My Beloved)
Alright! I've lost my marbles over this, and I've reviewed the footage frame by frame about ten times over! No, I'm not joking, my eyes are so strained from how closely I've analyzed the footage, and as soon as this is done, I'm going to go get water and close my eyes for a while.
So, Shen and Miho's power analysis by an enthusiastic normie! While I won't be writing this out like a professional essay, I do have one key point.
I don't actually think Shen and Miho are capes. None of what they do seems to follow the limited rules as we understand them of how Parahumans operate, and I have a few theories on how that could be!
Now, I know, I know. People are going to call me insane! They're going to say what else could it be. But, well, unless we're willing to accept that we now have a Wizard flavored Eidolon, two of them, with identical sets of powers with slightly different visuals and, god help me, elemental effects, they cannot be Parahumans as we define them.
My first point of evidence for this, and I did actually do the research for this, is the degree to which both of our newest pair of lady capes have features belonging to something not human. While we do have capes that manifest animal-like features or mentalities, it is universally limited in nature, at least, in the exception of Case 53s, and neither Shen nor Miho qualify, given what they say in each frame.
My second point of evidence is the straight up incantations both of them are using, along with the very recognizable (yes, I checked) geometric patterns both of them use. Additionally, both of them used a set of four gemstones each. Doing some napkin analysis on them, I came up with a list, which I will lay out at the bottom of the post, of gems they both used, as they are not relevant to my point. Regardless, as far as we are aware, powers are reflexive, and generally do not require a verbal, somatic, and material component in tandem, unless we're talking about specifically built tinkertech. Now, I did contemplate that both are unpowered individuals who have contact with a cabal of hidden tinkers, but going off occam's razor that is significantly less likely than these two either being parahumans we don't have the classifications for, or them not being parahumans at all.
My final point of evidence is the verbage they use. While it was extremely hard to make out, on my fifth watch of the video in a frame by frame sequence, I was lucky enough to catch what Shen and Miho were discussing right after the Undersiders entered the bank. For those who are more terminally online, right before they start a war over scales or floof. I personally think both are just as good, but that's tangential.
They say, and I quote:
Shen: "Quartz, sapphire, topaz, emerald."
Miho: "Quartz, ruby, diamond, amethyst. Summoner, Scholar."
Shen: "Triangle and glasses?"
Miho: "Technically, a pointy hat and a book. It seems- Well, it seems we are two birds of a feather."
Some stuff happens, like Shen very visibly casting a spell (yes, I'm going to call it that when all the fucking evidence points towards actual magic existing, what the fuck) and someone calling them both Wizards indirectly.
In response, Miho says this: "Arcanist, not Wizard."
To which Shen says: "Shush, you're on glare mage duties once I bust my load on these barriers."
Miho responds with: "I'm not a White Mage, dumbass. No wonder your Carbuncles aren't Carbuncles, you filthy uncultured heathen. Che, no appreciation for the classics."
Shen then grandstands by saying this: "All clear! I considered having it clean up all the stress hormones you're stewing in, but between you and me? People get really skittish about anything supernatural that messes with their brains, even if it's just a glowing chill pill. Hell, I can see your cortisol spiking just from me talking about it."
The bold, of course, is my own emphasis.
Additionally, while I can't get angles to lip read what they're saying for most of the event, they do notably use verbiage aloud that implies all the shit they're pulling are modifiable techniques, and attached via hyperlink HERE is a gif I made of Shen modifying one of her geometric casting implements (again, calling it how I see it) on the fly. And here's her doing it again.
Anyway, feel free to fight in the comments over this. @Nishiho, if you don't threadmark this, I won't take offense, considering I'm probably about to be called insane repeatedly in the thread, and I probably just derailed it and called in the fucking Adepts of all people.
God, those bastards make my blood boil, ruining the good name of fantasy with their fucking bullshit.
Edit: I just realized I didn't actually provide analysis on their powers. Eh, I don't care. I can't stare at screen any longer, I saw my eyes in my mirror and they're fucking bloodshot.
…Okay, first of all, did this man really manage to lip read off of a window reflection in a phone recorded video? Second of all, either he was right or they were dealing with some really esoteric flavor of Trump/Tinker. They could be grab bags, but she'd dealt with the messes of cluster triggers enough to know they didn't at all behave like those headcases. As it turned out, having at least one pogrom a month had a way to make those. Then they became everyone's problem as they spun the roulette of deranged obsessions with their clustermates. She really wished the skinheads would ease up on the firebombs, pyrokinetic Shakers sucked to deal with.
At least she'd learned how to funnel stupid amounts of seawater into the mother of all sprinklers from the time the Tetrad had blown up the Boardwalk, so silver linings. Especially because it'd opened the door to a bunch of lessons from Fire Rescue, now if only PR hadn't been all over that…
Either way, she was getting off track again. There was a boy made of living metal up north in Boston and a serial reviving Pasty Pete right here in good old Brockton, she sure as hell wasn't going to discount either option. Parahuman powers got wild, and if those things were possible you couldn't really discount out of hand other nonsense flavors, brain lump or not. As far as she'd heard from Dr. Marigold, those were just control structures for a big fat 'something' and even then they could be substituted in all sorts of ways for Changers and Breakers.
► Dark Green, SIR (PRT Brat)
We still don't know what the fuck parahumans tap into to fuel their nonsense, other than they use a funny brain lump to control it and that their triggers influence what they get. You see this the most with Shakers. Landslide, geokinetic. Drowning, hydrokinetic. Etec.
Then there's Tinkertech, which often has a lot of missing bits or shit that by the numbers shouldn't at all work. As far as we can figure out, the power props these things up, with the breakdowns being this stopping.
So, to recount.
There is a source of power somewhere out there. A tiny extra bit of grey matter sure as shit isn't going to generate the power for Legend's lasers on its own, nevermind however the fuck he remains conscious when he turns into a mass of light.
These powers can be harnessed through weird structures in human brains. They can also be taken by someone with such a structure and have power pumped into tech they build or even just permanently imbued into any item. Looking at you, Dauntless.
These people are harnessing a power through what seems like crystals, incantations and whatever the funny squiggles class as. Maybe by being Thinkers able to perceive the power source and ways to make it do what they want, maybe they just rawdogged it like how people not named Dragon can still study the parts of Tinkertech that actually give two shits about physics as we understand them and figure out things like 'hey, this chemical mix makes for amazing lenses for lasers'.
► Third Eye (Verified Gossip)
The human mind cannot actually support psychic abilities.
My Source? All of these studies! You see! Completely and utterly irrefutable proof, right before your eyes!
Right @Void_Cowboy @Atomic_Mirror @Horde_Apologia? Back me up here 😛
► Void Cowboy (Turnip Brigade)
DID SOMEONE SUMMON THE COWBOY FROM BEYOND? I HATH BEEN SUMMONED. WOE, FELLOW INTERNET GOERS, CRINGE BE UPON YE.
FOR YOU SEE, COMRADES, THE HUMAN MIND IS EMPIRICALLY PROVEN TO BE UNABLE TO SUPPORT PSYCHIC POWERS BY THE VENERABLE TURNIP.COM, OUR GLORIOUS PROPHETS WHO HAVE BEEN CORRECT ABOUT SEVERAL CURRENT EVENTS EVEN TEN YEARS IN THE PAST!
YET WHAT IS THIS? FOR EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT PSYCHIC, THE GLORIOUS PROPHET SENT BY BENEVOLENT APOLLO HATH FORETOLD OF THIS DAY! HARK, MY FRIENDS, FOR THE TIME OF FANTASY IS UPON US ONCE MORE! THE TURNIP HAS BEEN PROVEN TRUE AGAIN, AS INEVITABLE AS THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SUN!
► Dark Green, SIR (PRT Brat)
I hate you all.
► Nishiho (Kyushu Survivor)
@Robby G, take this threadmark and my eternal respect. Because even if you might be wrong (and I'm personally inclined to agree with you, honestly), that level of dedication really deserves to be recognized.
Also, Inari fucking damnit @Third Eye, why?!
► Third Eye (Verified Gossip)
Teehee.
Right, that was enough internet for a hot minute.
Oh, hey, Doc had sent her the reports already! That'd scrub her brain toot sweet.
Your support is what enables to me to write as frequently as I am able, and means the world to me.
Welcome to the Parahumans Online Forum
You are currently logged in, Dark Green, SIR
♦Topic: Undersiders Heist, Brockton Bay Central Bank
1,2,3
► Nishiho (Kyushu Survivor)
So, you may have already heard about this on the local news, but the Central Bank downtown was just robbed, with a fair amount of hostages held by the Undersiders. Of course, as well all are well aware, the Undersiders have a reputation of treating their hostages well, and playing by the general "rules" of cape culture, so while it was more than mildly irritating to have our day interrupted by them, it was certainly significantly better for us than, say, the E88 staging such an attack.
Fucking Nazis.
Regardless, beyond the obvious stress of being a hostage, we had to deal with several other instances of, excuse my language, fucking nonsense. While it isn't being reported on yet; yes, I checked, the two "new" capes that were present at the bank weren't a part of the Undersiders like some reporters are sensationalizing. They appeared there about five or so minutes before the bank robbery in a flash of light, scaring the shit out of some of us before we realized they were just as confused as we all were.
Hell, there was an adorable exchange between the Dragon, Shèn, and a mother and son duo. It went something like:
"Mama, why is the pretty dragon lady so shiny?" "Because I take really good care of my scales, little one. My name is Shèn, what's yours?"
Of course, that was when some shouting from the back came on and the security guard made his way to the back.
Props to him for being professional about this whole thing, to be honest. I know a lot of security guards would have done something fucking stupid and gotten themselves killed.
Anyway, he comes out from the back with another woman; this one a youko, or, to use the western terms, a kitsune or foxgirl. Shèn and the fox, Miho, start speaking with each other for a while, and then step away. I started recording right after that, so everything after this point is covered in the video. I'll give you all the cliff notes because I'm nice like that. Oh, and content warning as usual for cape fights.
- The Undersiders come in, and make their usual demands when they rob a populated location.
- Everyone complies because we're not fucking stupid
- Shèn and Miho have an argument about which type of tail is best. It's inconclusive, but I personally agree with Miho. Fluffy tail over Scaly tail.
- Regent runs in saying the Wards are here. If you aren't familiar with why this worries them, there's about a dozen threads discussing the fact that Shadow Stalker and Grue have beef that turned near deadly once already, back when Stalker wasn't a Ward.
- As a result of the increased tension, Shèn essentially straight up tells the Undersiders she's going to put barriers on us, the civvies. The Undersiders don't object; probably because they stake their rep on being something akin to the "Phantom Thieves", and Shèn does so. Miho bulldozes her way into the deal as well after Shèn summons some floating eyeballs, and summons some adorable little shiny fox-squirrel with three tails!
- Grue and Regent go outside to negotiate
- As one of the very few people with an angle to film through one of the windows, I get an almost perfect shot of Shadow Stalker trying to fucking kill Grue. I am going to be very wroth with the PRT if they don't discipline their hopefully now Former Ward, because what the shit, did she want us to die?!
- Shèn rushes outside, and reveals herself to be a healer. Miho's pretty quick behind her, and you can see foxy dismantle Stalker with… assistance and anti-assistance? from Vista in HD.
- While Miho and Stalker are dancing, Shèn drags Grue inside with Regent assisting
- Shèn reveals that she can affect the mind. She does a rather amusing; especially to an easterner, ramble that I'm not going to be here to soften the blow.
- Shèn continues to heal Grue, Tattletale takes a phonecall with @Vista and everything looks like it'll finally resolve peacefully!
- Miho screams "Incoming!" and Glory Girl teaches us not to tempt Murphy, because apparently @Panacea was in the bank as well, and collateral damage barbie herself, being an emotional teenager, did something stupid.
- Of course, because she's an emotional fucking Master- oh sorry, right, the PR friendly version of that is Shaker, we're all blasted by her fucking aura and are unironically pissing ourselves in fear. Shèn does something and counters that effect, which has GG saying something about Masters. The only fucking Master there is her, and I swear to fucking Inari… Anyway. Continuing on.
- Vista, Miho, Shen, and Tattletale all try to talk GG down, and fail, because, again, emotional teenager.
- GG gets absolutely demolished by Tattletale and Miho, then covered in a swarm of bugs straight out of the fucking bible. Tattletale has a gun, and apparently is significantly more responsible with it than most people because, while rewatching this clip, I noticed she flicked the safety right back on after firing the only shot she did.
- Panacea goes and drags her idiot sister back to us after making sure that she won't die to a blend of poison. Apparently the Undersider's new member needs to learn the meaning of restraint, though honestly, it's pretty forgivable considering the day they've had so far.
- After all that, Vista and Tats negotiated for a while, and though I recorded it all, I cut it out from the video since nothing exciting happened after that. The Undersiders escaped, Shèn and Miho turned down leaving with them, and got brought in by the PRT, though thankfully not in cuffs. I would hate to have to raise absolute hell towards our glorious federal overlords for abusing their authority.
Oh, and because I just remembered after rewatching the clip again. @Aegis, you have competition now. Because Shèn called one of her floating eyeballs Aegis and I think it's significantly better suited for that name than you!
► Robby G (Excel, My Beloved)
…What the actual fuck did I just watch. No, like, seriously. Shèn and Miho are breaking the "rules" of capes so hard that I genuinely have no fucking idea what to say. They're both grab-bags, and seem to have nearly identical powers, on top of being recognizably human but having features that would look more at home on a C53. I'm going to watch it frame by frame and dump my regular analysis in the thread later. OP, would you mind threadmarking that if I do?
► Red Riot (Verified Cape)
Aw, fuk. Poor girl stress smiles, no wonder the press went wild. Specially with those chompers.
'S why a lot of us put on full face masks. Not everyone has Armsy's stiff upper lip.
Oi, Shèn, if you read this I can hook ya up with my mask maker! Indies should stick together!
Also, don't forget to check out Whitelist! Can't find ya there but damn if a healer with barriers wouldn't get a good deal.
► SpicSpan (Verified Janitor)
Did y'all notice how she tried to keep Grue distracted with that ramble? Sounded like a newbie dentist trying to keep a kid from freaking 'bout the drill.
I'd know, we just got a couple wet behind the ears rookies at the clinic.
Also, Greeks represent! Panakeia sounds better than Panacea and is less of a pain in the ass to write!
► Bagrat (Guy in the Know)
Huh. For once, I don't have to frantically compile a large information dump about recent events, because someone else beat me to it! Now, since I can't just post here without actually contributing to the discussion, I'd imagine based on that video that Shen and Miho are likely to get several ratings, or the PRT will throw up their hands and just call them Trumps. Then again, I don't actually know how the PRT Threat Rating system goes, so who knows!
► Nishiho (Kyushu Survivor)
>OP, would you mind threadmarking that if I do?
Not at all, so long as it's high quality enough to merit that.
► Robby G (Excel, My Beloved)
>or the PRT will throw up their hands and just call them Trumps
Nope. They don't appear to tamper with other powers or their own, so they don't merit it.
>Not at all, so long as it's high quality enough to merit that.
Challenge accepted.
► Markstave
Post removed by Moderation.
<Tin_Mom: Do not. While this isn't strictly against the rules, moderation is not stupid.>
► WhiteWarrior_32
Post deleted by Moderation.
<Tin_Mom: Do not. This is your third strike, enjoy the Permaban.>
► Tin_Mom (Moderator)
As evidently, users still do not understand that the moderation is capable of reading subtext and other red flags, @Markstave, consider this your final warning. At PHO, we follow the spirit of the rules, not the letter. You will not be warned again.
Looking away from her personal phone with a heavy sigh, Missy Brion; better known as Vista, reflected on the absolute shitshow of a day the ENE had just had. Everything, of course, had started to go wrong weeks back. Armsmaster had accepted an invitation to a visibility event in an effort to raise his and the ENE's ratings among the masses. Then, due to last minute events and some injuries that required rest yet didn't even remotely justify contacting Panacea, the entirety of the ENE Protectorate had magically been absent for the entirety of the day.
This generally wasn't an issue. However, Missy reflected, due to a recent Hookwolf rampage, most of the tools that the PRT used to solve such issues were gone. After all, while the PRT had requested assistance from the local independents, Hookwolf had gone on a rampage recently. Several indie heroes had been injured, and several more had likely died; the body count was still being tallied, given, well, Hookwolf.
This had driven the rest to keep their heads down for the rather understandable reason of not wanting to become a nugget. Though both the independents and the PRT could generally count on Panacea to fix them up, no one could blame them for not wanting to become a nugget in the first place. This translated to a fat "fuck no, not unless you add three zeroes to that figure" when asked for assistance.
Given the intermittent stream of scars going from Missy's left shoulder to her right hip when Hook'd gotten a single swipe on her, she wasn't about to bitch them out for it. Had she learned a lot of how to use her power to keep her insides where they belonged? Yes! Did she ever want to feel her guts trying to take a lie down on the asphalt again? No!
Only reason she could still fight and wasn't looking down the barrel of a FUBAR puberty was because Our Lady in White had fixed everything up, except for a tiny layer at the tippity top. She wanted to have the reminder with her… and she had stitched these up herself, she was damn well keeping the zippers and showing them off when she rocked a bikini in a few years. What she didn't want to deal with was being ten percent scar tissue by volume, much less the horror stories Jameson had about swelling and chronic pain.
At least most gangs in Brockton didn't use IEDs. Much.
Not after a manic Miss Militia introduced them to Saint Javelin.
Returning to the matter at hand, the Wards had been required to hold the fort for all tasks that required Capes today. Once more, this usually wasn't an issue. Murphy decided that that 'usually' needed some stress testing today.
Missy still wanted to throttle Aegis and Clock for their pigshit stupid idea. Who the actual fuck thought it would be a good plan to switch costumes when dealing with the goddam Undersiders, who had a Thinker. Especially when one of you was a squishy Striker, and the other was a very much not squishy BRUTE!
Thankfully for their dignity, they'd remembered right quick who was the most experienced Ward in East North East. So they hadn't needed to be dragged back to the changing room by the ears. One terse 'and what do you think you're doing?' and they'd scrambled to fix their shit before she fixed it for them.
Not that Aegis had learned jack or shit about keeping his head on straight, because the moment Stalker decided murder would be a cool thing to do in the middle of the goddamn street with nearly a hundred people watching, he froze up. What the fuck sort of leader saw that go down and just got nice and comfortable on the fence!? Sure, that dipshit on console had tried to countermand her when she took charge, but before that? The idiot should've done more than sit there playing switch.
After writing her AAR, she'd be filing some very pointed Complaints of Misconduct at both of them. Console for moonwalking from criminal negligence to active sabotage and flouting of protocol, on top of the very pointed messages Supervisor Harris'd gotten from her before she was even back at HQ. Aegis for being a failure plain and simple. At least she didn't need to lift a finger for Hess, they already chucked that psycho into a holding cell and, well.
Philip from Internal Affairs used to be Military Police and had been keeping all her formal complaints regarding Stalker roasty toasty for something like this. Although she had expected the inevitable fuckup to be more along the lines of turning a skinhead or three into fatalities in an alley after a bad day rather than stick through a clean-nosed near-merc during a hostage situation.
As for Guts 'n Glory? Rumor mill said that PR had let Legal off the leash and she was inclined to believe it. PRot always wanted to push more parahumans to their loving arms and didn't give a shit about cranking up the heat for everyone not them. New Wave's babbling about Cape accountability gave the perfect angle for the spin doctors to let the sharks go for the kill.
To keep up with the good news, if in a different flavor, the two new faces were one of those vanishingly rare kinds of indies with good fucking sense. Despite Tattletale including them in the get out of jail free card she'd negotiated, they'd just… stayed there. Cleaning up the mess, then surrendering to her custody, and while that fox woman Miho had been a bit on edge about it?
"Hey, Top Kick! Thanks for the save back there. Where to now?"
It was downright bizarre to have anyone treat her with respect like that on the first meeting. Even new troopers and cops didn't, although that was hazing from their battle buddies more than anything else. But here were these two, beelining straight for the 'pint sized sarge' without a second thought, following her orders without so much as a patronizing smile.
The closest she'd ever gotten before that was Hook calling her 'little warrior' within minutes of meeting her, then expressing his 'respect' by immediately going for the throat. It probably said a lot about her that she felt conflicted about it more than anything else. On one hand. it was nice to be taken seriously and she did learn a lot from fighting for her fucking life against him. On the other hand, serial killer with thirty six dead Capes and God alone knew how many normals at his feet just from his illustrious career in Brockton. Who was giving her praise and the odd bit of advice in the middle of trying to murder her.
PR had to work overtime to scrub anything of the sort from the public eye.
Nobody needed to know about what she'd learned to do with warped space and the knife she very definitely didn't keep hidden in her costume, ask anyone on the precinct. Much less her experiments with Klein Bottles, especially because she knew not to bring out a fucking Doom Cannon to a hostage situation, right Kid Win?
Ugh, ever since he'd built that fucking thing she had to smack him upside the head not to start teleporting it in at the first sign of trouble. Every. Single. Time.
Was it cool? It was a goddamn Death Beam, of fucking course it was. That didn't mean you brought it out for anything short of Hook or Lung! Boys.
She made a noise like a deflating balloon, slumping on her chair as she looked over the halfway filled after action report. Right, that'd been enough of a break. Cracking her knuckles, she finished turning the bulletpoint notes she had written on transport into a proper file, chucking it off to the bureaucratic machine.
Next up were the CoMs, but before that she wanted to see if Robby had hammered out that analysis yet. It'd be interesting to contrast and compare with the power testing reports she'd be getting anytime soon. It was Dr. Marigold's shift, so she'd get a copy chucked to her on the sly rather than have to wait for a proper briefing in a few days. Woman was a little crazy, but she owed to her the dimensional thresher trick, not that she was cleared to use that against anything short of an S-Class threat or an immediate and unavoidable danger to her life.
Nobody wanted to see a Ward turn someone into mincemeat, who'd thunk?
► Robby G (Excel, My Beloved)
Alright! I've lost my marbles over this, and I've reviewed the footage frame by frame about ten times over! No, I'm not joking, my eyes are so strained from how closely I've analyzed the footage, and as soon as this is done, I'm going to go get water and close my eyes for a while.
So, Shen and Miho's power analysis by an enthusiastic normie! While I won't be writing this out like a professional essay, I do have one key point.
I don't actually think Shen and Miho are capes. None of what they do seems to follow the limited rules as we understand them of how Parahumans operate, and I have a few theories on how that could be!
Now, I know, I know. People are going to call me insane! They're going to say what else could it be. But, well, unless we're willing to accept that we now have a Wizard flavored Eidolon, two of them, with identical sets of powers with slightly different visuals and, god help me, elemental effects, they cannot be Parahumans as we define them.
My first point of evidence for this, and I did actually do the research for this, is the degree to which both of our newest pair of lady capes have features belonging to something not human. While we do have capes that manifest animal-like features or mentalities, it is universally limited in nature, at least, in the exception of Case 53s, and neither Shen nor Miho qualify, given what they say in each frame.
My second point of evidence is the straight up incantations both of them are using, along with the very recognizable (yes, I checked) geometric patterns both of them use. Additionally, both of them used a set of four gemstones each. Doing some napkin analysis on them, I came up with a list, which I will lay out at the bottom of the post, of gems they both used, as they are not relevant to my point. Regardless, as far as we are aware, powers are reflexive, and generally do not require a verbal, somatic, and material component in tandem, unless we're talking about specifically built tinkertech. Now, I did contemplate that both are unpowered individuals who have contact with a cabal of hidden tinkers, but going off occam's razor that is significantly less likely than these two either being parahumans we don't have the classifications for, or them not being parahumans at all.
My final point of evidence is the verbage they use. While it was extremely hard to make out, on my fifth watch of the video in a frame by frame sequence, I was lucky enough to catch what Shen and Miho were discussing right after the Undersiders entered the bank. For those who are more terminally online, right before they start a war over scales or floof. I personally think both are just as good, but that's tangential.
They say, and I quote:
Shen: "Quartz, sapphire, topaz, emerald."
Miho: "Quartz, ruby, diamond, amethyst. Summoner, Scholar."
Shen: "Triangle and glasses?"
Miho: "Technically, a pointy hat and a book. It seems- Well, it seems we are two birds of a feather."
Some stuff happens, like Shen very visibly casting a spell (yes, I'm going to call it that when all the fucking evidence points towards actual magic existing, what the fuck) and someone calling them both Wizards indirectly.
In response, Miho says this: "Arcanist, not Wizard."
To which Shen says: "Shush, you're on glare mage duties once I bust my load on these barriers."
Miho responds with: "I'm not a White Mage, dumbass. No wonder your Carbuncles aren't Carbuncles, you filthy uncultured heathen. Che, no appreciation for the classics."
Shen then grandstands by saying this: "All clear! I considered having it clean up all the stress hormones you're stewing in, but between you and me? People get really skittish about anything supernatural that messes with their brains, even if it's just a glowing chill pill. Hell, I can see your cortisol spiking just from me talking about it."
The bold, of course, is my own emphasis.
Additionally, while I can't get angles to lip read what they're saying for most of the event, they do notably use verbiage aloud that implies all the shit they're pulling are modifiable techniques, and attached via hyperlink HERE is a gif I made of Shen modifying one of her geometric casting implements (again, calling it how I see it) on the fly. And here's her doing it again.
Anyway, feel free to fight in the comments over this. @Nishiho, if you don't threadmark this, I won't take offense, considering I'm probably about to be called insane repeatedly in the thread, and I probably just derailed it and called in the fucking Adepts of all people.
God, those bastards make my blood boil, ruining the good name of fantasy with their fucking bullshit.
Edit: I just realized I didn't actually provide analysis on their powers. Eh, I don't care. I can't stare at screen any longer, I saw my eyes in my mirror and they're fucking bloodshot.
…Okay, first of all, did this man really manage to lip read off of a window reflection in a phone recorded video? Second of all, either he was right or they were dealing with some really esoteric flavor of Trump/Tinker. They could be grab bags, but she'd dealt with the messes of cluster triggers enough to know they didn't at all behave like those headcases. As it turned out, having at least one pogrom a month had a way to make those. Then they became everyone's problem as they spun the roulette of deranged obsessions with their clustermates. She really wished the skinheads would ease up on the firebombs, pyrokinetic Shakers sucked to deal with.
At least she'd learned how to funnel stupid amounts of seawater into the mother of all sprinklers from the time the Tetrad had blown up the Boardwalk, so silver linings. Especially because it'd opened the door to a bunch of lessons from Fire Rescue, now if only PR hadn't been all over that…
Either way, she was getting off track again. There was a boy made of living metal up north in Boston and a serial reviving Pasty Pete right here in good old Brockton, she sure as hell wasn't going to discount either option. Parahuman powers got wild, and if those things were possible you couldn't really discount out of hand other nonsense flavors, brain lump or not. As far as she'd heard from Dr. Marigold, those were just control structures for a big fat 'something' and even then they could be substituted in all sorts of ways for Changers and Breakers.
► Dark Green, SIR (PRT Brat)
We still don't know what the fuck parahumans tap into to fuel their nonsense, other than they use a funny brain lump to control it and that their triggers influence what they get. You see this the most with Shakers. Landslide, geokinetic. Drowning, hydrokinetic. Etec.
Then there's Tinkertech, which often has a lot of missing bits or shit that by the numbers shouldn't at all work. As far as we can figure out, the power props these things up, with the breakdowns being this stopping.
So, to recount.
There is a source of power somewhere out there. A tiny extra bit of grey matter sure as shit isn't going to generate the power for Legend's lasers on its own, nevermind however the fuck he remains conscious when he turns into a mass of light.
These powers can be harnessed through weird structures in human brains. They can also be taken by someone with such a structure and have power pumped into tech they build or even just permanently imbued into any item. Looking at you, Dauntless.
These people are harnessing a power through what seems like crystals, incantations and whatever the funny squiggles class as. Maybe by being Thinkers able to perceive the power source and ways to make it do what they want, maybe they just rawdogged it like how people not named Dragon can still study the parts of Tinkertech that actually give two shits about physics as we understand them and figure out things like 'hey, this chemical mix makes for amazing lenses for lasers'.
► Third Eye (Verified Gossip)
The human mind cannot actually support psychic abilities.
My Source? All of these studies! You see! Completely and utterly irrefutable proof, right before your eyes!
Right @Void_Cowboy @Atomic_Mirror @Horde_Apologia? Back me up here 😛
► Void Cowboy (Turnip Brigade)
DID SOMEONE SUMMON THE COWBOY FROM BEYOND? I HATH BEEN SUMMONED. WOE, FELLOW INTERNET GOERS, CRINGE BE UPON YE.
FOR YOU SEE, COMRADES, THE HUMAN MIND IS EMPIRICALLY PROVEN TO BE UNABLE TO SUPPORT PSYCHIC POWERS BY THE VENERABLE TURNIP.COM, OUR GLORIOUS PROPHETS WHO HAVE BEEN CORRECT ABOUT SEVERAL CURRENT EVENTS EVEN TEN YEARS IN THE PAST!
YET WHAT IS THIS? FOR EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT PSYCHIC, THE GLORIOUS PROPHET SENT BY BENEVOLENT APOLLO HATH FORETOLD OF THIS DAY! HARK, MY FRIENDS, FOR THE TIME OF FANTASY IS UPON US ONCE MORE! THE TURNIP HAS BEEN PROVEN TRUE AGAIN, AS INEVITABLE AS THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SUN!
► Dark Green, SIR (PRT Brat)
I hate you all.
► Nishiho (Kyushu Survivor)
@Robby G, take this threadmark and my eternal respect. Because even if you might be wrong (and I'm personally inclined to agree with you, honestly), that level of dedication really deserves to be recognized.
Also, Inari fucking damnit @Third Eye, why?!
► Third Eye (Verified Gossip)
Teehee.
Right, that was enough internet for a hot minute.
Oh, hey, Doc had sent her the reports already! That'd scrub her brain toot sweet.
Last edited:
PAGDTenno
Verified Warmind. Probably on fire.
- Location
- South Carolina
... Okay. Please remember Vista is twelve. Very competent twelve year old? Sure. She's acting like an adult here. I won't go so far as to say "breaks SOD", but the parts of the brain that don't develop until adulthood are the parts that do things like long-term planning.
Your AU, do what you like, but this hypercompetent Missy is the only one who knows what she's doing and the boys are all fools stuff rubs me the wrong way, and feels more like she's an author mouthpiece in a story where you have two SIs to fill that role.
Your AU, do what you like, but this hypercompetent Missy is the only one who knows what she's doing and the boys are all fools stuff rubs me the wrong way, and feels more like she's an author mouthpiece in a story where you have two SIs to fill that role.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
And puberty leaves you brain damaged until you're 26.
Furthermore it isn't like she's balancing a budget or planning an operation here, either. Situation fucked, take charge. People fucked up, send the paperwork and calls for someone to sort that out.
If you want to get into the situation itself:
"Don't wear the costume of a brute if you're not a fucking brute, numbnuts"
Self evident
"Hey Shadow Salker shouldn't be trying to commit murder"
Self evident
"Glory Girl is gonna escalate everything and turn this PRECIPITOUSLY AVERTED SHITSHOW into a MONUMENTOUS SHIT-CANO ERUPTION"
Self evident
Last edited:
There is only one true answer to the clash of the tails;
Agreed especially with stuff like smacking down the costume change when she didn't in canon tho I'd also add about the pho it really seems stupidly fast for him to have watched the video so many times, managed to get their dialogue especially since it's apparently in parts from lip reading a reflection and then throwing out the they aren't capes it's magic. Plus a lot of the views are mirroring views they don't really have in canon, their understanding of cape powers is horrible since it'd be 94 at the earliest they could start studying them and they squabble over them a lot and there are totem using capes like the Trump who basically turns bits of animals they've hunted into accessories you'd expect to see in something like dnd and do things like boost eyesight when activated.
SeQuester
Novice explorer
- Location
- Russia
- Pronouns
- He/His
Tail is tail, duh.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Does this mean we have to go back to edit Amy to be more unlikeable like Wildbow did, for authenticity's sake?
Joking aside, here's how it goes:
Vista hates her family situation and avoids her house like the plague. Canon.
Vista is the most veteran Ward. Canon (well, I will cop to it being fanon if someone pulls out receipts, it is 5AM over here and I am not about to go digging).
Vista doesn't think the best of her fellow Wards for a variety of reasons. Canon (above conditions apply).
Vista would, therefore, hang out with the PRT primarily and find some adult role models there. Extrapolation.
Vista would, therefore, have an iron grip on PRT protocol and have picked up all sorts of attitudes and views from the mix of ex-military and ex-police that compose the PRT troopers. Extrapolation.
Vista, patterning after PRT trooper conduct and passed down lessons on what does and does not fly in a combat situation, would set her foot down on the cavalcade of nonsense that happened during that day. Starting with the costume swap. Extrapolation.
It does not follow canon. It follows an internal chain of logic rooted in facts provided by canon. If that is still too much divergence for your tastes I cannot speak well of your future enjoyment of the fic. Because we can and we will be modifying and outright disregarding WoG and canon events at several points on grounds of it serving the purpose of the story we want to tell in this sandbox or it simply making no fucking sense to us and being quietly swept under the rug. Because plugging something you have no understanding of the rationale of in a story only leads to either the characters needing to be lobotomized when interacting with it to avoid rising any questions about it, or it being lampshaded but somehow never followed up on.
The OP was put up before the hostages were even rounded up for a trip to PRT HQ to get checked for Mastering. Vista saw the thread well after the fact and was busy with paperwork besides.
The man got several hours to get it done.
>1994 at the earliest for studying capes
>17 years of research. 11 if you want to be more conservative
>Haven't figured out that all capes have two funny brain lumps that work hard when powers are being used, with the only exceptions being when it mutates into some sort of hardened core like Crawler's due to the particulars of a Brute or Changer power.
>Haven't put together that there is no earthly way for a human body to provide the energy for the powers, so it has to be something else
>Haven't put together that Tinkertech has areas that make no sense or are outright missing parts but working anyways. Despite Dragon and Masamune being right there doing research on this
Yeah, I don't follow your line of logic.
The one thing they're missing is a stubby tail like Kal'tsit's or Degenbrecher. That is where the sex is.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Forgot to ask and doing a double post so you get the quote ping but.
What prompted this reaction? Genuinely curious.
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
In canon, Boston is south of Brockton Bay.
Feel free to continue if your story has a more concrete geography in mind. It wasn't much of a big point in Worm to be overly bothered with locations in relation to each other with all the teleporting and portal use once things went beyond the Bay.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Huh.
This is literally the first time I hear of this. All I really know is that Salem is within a couple of hours car ride tops and this opens the door for nonsense in the Worm/FGO thing I'm writing with Omida.
- Location
- UK
Just...I think it was the general vibe of the chapter. I'm not really sure how to explain it, but the tone of the chapter seemed to come way out of left field that I was taken aback. I've also never seen a Missy quite like this one, which didn't help.
To my understanding we don't know exactly when all of the bay ward's joined other than Vista definitely joining before Sophia and iirc Kid Win's is mentioned somewhere to also be around 2 years. Vista however, is also known to be babied by the prt and hate it to the point of nearly dying because of insisting she was fine when she knew she'd been nicked and nearly bled out trying to deal with it herself in the shower resulting in her scar she wants hidden. She does try to act mature but I'm not sure if that meshes with them letting her hang out with them.
The cape research stuff is about how there's multiple civilians who go these guys are breaking all the rules of cape powers but they aren't really ironclad and all the researchers squabble a lot insisting their theories are right even on topics like 3rd gen capes when as far as they know none exist.
Plus well the general rule is 1-3 major powers or up to 6 minor ones and what they did could be explained under they have a summon projections power that needs crystals and then the projections have their own powers that they can use and let the cape use so it isn't that out there especially again with totem users known to exist or the likes of the adept that make rituals out of using powers. Masamune also isn't right there doing research btw he was one of the Sentai Elite capes and was recruited from Japan by Dragon during the timeskip which is what let her get going with the Dragon's Teeth project.
The main things with the Bay's location are that Wildbow has a pretty badly designed city map which shows the coast is on the eastern side of the city, it's known to be fairly near Boston and New York, the interlude Defiant and Dragon are hunting the nine shows their route of the towns they hit when they popped back up a bit after leaving the Bay on their way to Boston and Ward apparently says that the Bay is north of Boston and a 14 hr drive from Chicago. That means most people place it around Portsmouth New Hampshire.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
I'll leave @Miho Chan to answer that because I just had a visit from Nurgle and I do not at all feel like dissecting and countering that block of text.
I'd be more worried, but you did say you loved this Missy so I'll count it as a win.
Rough 1-4
Miho Chan
One with too many ideas
- Location
- Hummelstown
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A Special Thanks to my generous paetrons, J Frost, IridiumSky, Tale Swapper, Ttw1, G_Man_No_99, CateCat, Silva T, Omida, charlie howe, Henifataffle, Rubunny, saganatsu, Spheal lover., VerviettaVP, Logically Random, shadowSeth, Penguino, Joshua Littlesun, White57Wyrms, KenneGlitch, Lightstorm, KaneTw, Jorge Hevia, Talentless Fool, and Nicholas Munger. Your support is what enables to me to write as frequently as I am able, and means the world to me.
Shèn's estimation of the PRT was picking up steadily. They had not only treated them professionally, but some had gone as far as to commend them for their actions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the poor bloody infantry valued civilian lives over villain arrests. Not that it'd stopped them from carting all the hostages into transport vans, once a few nervously mentioned being able to think clearer or focus better after her bass boosted Esuna had hit them.
There had just been a put upon sigh from the lead groundpounder and a few calls. Plus a whole lot of apologies to both her and the former hostages, of course. Everyone knew it made no real sense for her to turn them into sleeper agents or whatever else, but protocol existed for really good reasons. Inconveniencing people was better than letting them fall prey to parahuman nonsense out of carelessness.
The trip to the PRT HQ had passed in the timeless tradition of grouching about their respective days. Clockblocker, who was sitting between them as a blatant just-in-case, had even managed to chuck in a few good zingers. Benefits of celebrity PR training, Shèn supposed. She herself just took it as a chance to ask a few questions about the Bay's gang situation.
The Empire did as you'd expect of the biggest concentration of power in the city even before you accounted for their overseas connections, doing whatever they damn well pleased so long as they didn't cross enough of a line that the Triumvirate would get called in. Given how apparently there was a lynching or firebombing at least once a week, more than a few troopers grumbled that it wasn't going to happen unless they killed a Ward on national TV.
Clockblocker very pointedly changed the topic, rather than deny anything said.
The ABB apparently had done the yakuza special, propping up businesses and protecting their territory from enemy gangs. Hence, endless bitching from the troopers that anyone with a badge was openly glared at and chased out at the first opportunity. The civilians relied on and trusted the ABB to protect them, the police and PRT were viewed as nothing but a threat to that protection.
They also had, to little surprise, more than two Capes.
Finally, there was no mention whatsoever of the Merchants as a gang. Only grouching about the combo Skidmark and Squealer made and the sheer amount of property damage they caused whenever they got a 'good idea' in their soft skulls. They were spoken of in the same breath as a potpourri of minor gangs, independent villains, vigilantes and the odd small time hero who fucked up. Some were familiar, like Trainwreck rumbling around the Trainyard bullying any Cape passing through. Some weren't, like Diesel or Ballistae.
Well, it figured, highest Cape per capita in the East Coast if not all of America.
Before long, they were going through the doors of PRT HQ. It looked like an office building. A reinforced and fortified office building, but an office building none the less. It just looked like it'd been crossed with a cinderblock, all in all.
Shèn politely wrapped her tail around herself, the doors only fit so much and she was sandwiched together with Miho amidst a bunch of troopers, never you mind Aegis and Clockblocker. It made sense to have a Brute and a timestop Striker kept close to them, yes, but Vista hadn't exactly been subtle about her glares.
These two had volunteered to stay away from the Rig as long as humanly possible.
Their fidgeting as all four of them were crammed into an elevator bound for the basement didn't change the dragon's mind in the slightest. Admittedly, Miho wasn't doing much better, flipping aimlessly through her Grimoire to busy her hands. Well, unless she desperately needed to cross-reference Fester, Radiant Aegis and Libra for some arcane reason.
Soon enough, the metal box on pulleys dinged and they were let out into the underground testing chambers.
"Man, it must've taken some legal black magic to get permits for this." Shèn said with a low whistle. Damn thing was the size of two football fields put side to side. The left half seemed like the unholy lovechild of a CQB training field and a firing range, everything made out of blue and red hardlight. The right half was best summarized as a futuristic gymnasium. Bigger machines, all sorts of swappable and adjustable bits, the odd holographic screen.
What really got her approval, though, was how reinforced everything was. Metal plates that she'd bet anything could be quickswapped covered everything, with plexiglas stuffed with some sort of goop layered on top of those in some parts. Nevermind how every control, observation and whatever else room peppered around were built like bunkers.
A rather short blonde woman, barely taller than Miho, walked up alongside a pair of men clad in labcoats. The presumed Dr Marigold if her lanyard was anything to go by raised a hand in greeting, the other busy holding a clipboard, "Hello, Shen, Miho. Welcome to ENE PRT HQ. Specifically our power testing chamber." Pausing, she turned to Aegis and Clockblocker, "Aegis, Clockblocker, you two are dismissed."
"Ma'am." Aegis saluted, turning about face and marching back into the elevator, accompanied by his teammate, who unlike everything the media based off of this world would tell you? Just nodded sharply and followed right along without a word.
Teenage celebrities or not, they were also paramilitary.
"I'd say it's a pleasure, but I don't think anyone in the building is terribly pleased with the circumstances leading here." Shèn sighed, shaking her head, "Ah, well, we make the most of what we have."
"Do you mean perhaps the potential Master power you utilized, or the circumstances behind the Undersiders robbing Brockton Bay Central?" Dr. Marigold replied, a glint of amusement entering her eyes before it disappeared, almost too fast for Shèn to catch.
"I'd imagine the latter." Miho answered, snapping her book shut with a thump. "That said, may we get an introduction, ma'am? I believe it is considered the absolute bare minimum in polite society."
That got her poked on the side by Shèn's tail, but little else.
With a huff of amusement, Dr. Marigold nodded, "Doctor Abigail Marigold." She introduced herself properly, bowing slightly at the waist, "My associates, Doctor Reuben Hamilton and Nurse Nicholas Mason will be assisting us today, considering one of you has shown the ability to heal."
"How, exactly, are we going to be testing that?" The dragon had to ask, because there was a very pointed absence of patients in the basement. So at best they'd have to relocate at some point, at worst someone would have to 'volunteer'.
"What she said," Miho nodded, curiously peering around the room now that her face wasn't stuck in a book.
"We'll be bringing in volunteers when we arrive at that stage of testing," The obviously senior of the doctor-nurse pair explained, "This wasn't exactly scheduled ahead of time so it will take a while for them to reach HQ."
"Fair enough." Shèn said with a bob of her head, stretching her triceps with an elbow pin just for show. "Alright, what'd you want to see first, doc?"
"Blaster abilities first, I think." Dr. Marigold replied instantly, "Miho, if you could please follow me to demonstrate? Shèn, if you could follow along, we'll be testing your defensive abilities momentarily."
The floozy threw her fellow… situation enjoyer a meaningful look, both sighing nearly in sync. Shèn simply motioned for her to go ahead. "Shèn and I share the same abilities, Dr. Marigold. Both she and I will be able to provide you with similar data."
The good doctor's face was a picture, but credit where it was due, she schooled her features in record time. The wonders of professionals, "In that case, both of you will be working with the Blaster range. Even cluster triggers have different power expressions."
Implications hung heavy there, but at least the good doctor was polite enough to just ask them to follow right along and give her some data to evaluate. They had to weave around some of hardlight projections which given how the place had been clearly emptied out for them? Were only really there to show off the PRT's access to Tinkertech. Shèn wasn't about to begrudge them the manipulation, it was no different from cleaning up and putting on your best suit before an interview.
She had a personable mask wedged on right now, after all.
She honestly just wanted this to be over with after the morning she'd had, get some good food in her belly and a bit boozed up, but needs must. It wasn't like she had any money right now, either. Or a legal identity. Hopefully she could hook onto whatever aids they gave to C53s.
Soon enough, they were told to stand in place amid the mess of hardlight as the labcoat squad skittered off to one of the reinforced rooms built into the walls.
"So, Shèn," A softly-spoken half-question from Miho, along with the hand on her shoulder, caught the dragon's attention, "How much, exactly, do you think we want to share with the federal types?"
"More than what their Thinkers would be able to pull out with their nonsense, less than what would make us sound insane." Shèn replied, reclining back on her uncertified magical tail with an explosive sigh, "How to strike that balance, I have no idea."
"I'll handle it." Miho replied with a slow nod, clearly not at all happy with the idea, but very much aware that she was definitely the more knowledgeable of the pair when it came to Arcanima, "Speaking of handling it, how exactly are you thinking of handling the fact we're, well, ya know?"
"Do you mean the tails or the crystals?" The dragon asked with a quizzical tilt of her head.
"The fact we have no legal identity, no money, and are stuck in the United States of fucking America, who have a social support network that 'exists' only to appease the populace when in reality it doesn't." The fox deadpanned, a hint of irritation entering her voice as her ears flattened against her head.
"The tails, then." Shèn surmised with a bob of her head, throwing a lazy arm over one of her coils, "I'm just going to ask what the Case Fifty Three aids are and if I don't like 'em, demand more on grounds that healers are insanely valuable and if they don't help me, someone else will."
"Reasonable." Miho shrugged, ears perking up as the irritation from earlier fled her voice, "I suppose we are essentially what amounts to a combat medic combined with a battlefield surgeon."
"All in a fancy glowy package that can be executed at range, on multiple targets and in a matter of seconds." The dragon woman snorted, making jazz hands just for effect.
"Ain't Arcanima great?" Miho chirped, perhaps a little bit louder than she'd intended.
"Fukkin nerdo magic." Shèn snorted as she got up, turning towards the bunker with hands cupped around her mouth, "Alright, we're done giving you free intel, roll out them tests!"
Right on cue, the sea of reds and blues flickered away in favor of two parallel rows of turquoise dummies, with floating distance markers saying they were dotted every five meters.
"For the first test, you'll be firing off your Blaster abilities at each dummy in your row." Dr Marigold's voice buzzed through hidden speakers, "Miho, you are first, describe the ability you will use in your own words then take a single shot at the nearest red target."
With a well hidden roll of her eyes and a far too fancy flourish to draw her tome, the fox sighed as she stepped up to the metaphorical plate. Flipping through the pages idly to in a full on nerd act, going as far as pushing up an imaginary pair of glasses, "Right. So. Ruin. Specifically the standard variant. Ruin is a spell designed specifically to be easy to utilize by even the most novice Arcanist, and is roughly equivalent in strength to a rock flung from a sling." Pausing, she took a breath, and continued, "I will now demonstrate."
"ルイン!" Miho intoned firmly, raising her book with her left hand as her right made a vague gesture towards the closest target. Upon being struck, the target flickered, the impact area of the spell turning a nasty yellow-orange. Turning back towards the direction the scientists had gone, she bowed theatrically, "Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration, Ruin."
"It seems we agree on the general potency of your Blaster ability, Miss Miho." Dr. Marigold hummed from within the safety of her bunker, very pointedly not saying anything about the she-fox's comments and their implications, "Shèn, if you would?"
"Of course. To add onto what my partner said, Ruin's extreme simplicity allows for buffering multiple instances of the projectile. Furthermore, as reports will tell you, gestures can substitute verbal components for manifesting a schema. Watch." Shèn explained, taking Miho's lead in going full fucking send it. Yellow fingers traced out the edge of the schema with a flourish, the magic circle unfurling inwards like a camera diaphragm. "Energy intake, elemental stabilizer, capacitor, shaping, targeting, output."
She pointed to a different part of the array as she listed out their respective functions. "I will begin feeding aether to the structure now, note the transit of the energy through the system, as indicated by the light."
Aether went in, was balanced out among all six base elements, then pooled in the holding area without moving further. "As you can see, the structure is built with robustness in mind, allowing for safe handling of power concentrations that would overload other schemas. Furthermore, the shaping segment is designed to always make a projectile under its presets, such that aether exceeding its requirements will simply be fashioned into additional bolts. Finally, both it, targeting and output are so simple they face no practical issues handling the whole of the capacitor's load as a single batch. Their limits are in excess of what the capacitor loop can hold."
"Neither gestures nor vocalizations are required for granular actuation and regulation of the schema, only for its materialization. They are, however, required for modification, as your reports of the earlier altercation will no doubt highlight." Shèn explained evenly, even as she allowed more of her aether to flow into the schema. About eight shots worth, she'd reckon. "I will launch the projectiles now, aiming for the head. Note the rudimentary nature of the targeting."
The barrage of white-rimmed black bolts exploded out as it should. Three smashed into the head proper, two into the neck, one outright deleted an ear and the rest simply grazed as the buckshot barrage tried to curve in to hit no matter what.
The hardlight head, mimicking human anatomy to the best of its ability, became a black and red pulp clinging viscously to the largely intact 'bone' towards the back. Shèn paid it no mind beyond a small pleased grunt, instead turning towards the bunker with an arm across her chest and brushing by her shoulder, bowing. "I hope this was informative."
"...Interesting."
______________________________________________________________________________
With a huff and a sigh, Miho pushed away the still building irritation from being hungry. It certainly wasn't helping her irritation any the the scientists were very much still discussing the results from the tests earlier, though there wasn't exactly much she could do about that. Flipping a page in her tome, she mentally reviewed the tests and the results thereafter.
Shèn had gone first this time, showing off her elemental set of Water, Wind and Earth. Sapphire Ruin burst with a lot of concussive force behind it, mimicking pressurized water. It was like a gigantic hammer taken to whatever it hit, more often than not knocking the dummies on their asses. Emerald Ruin was faster to cast and reach the target, making a terrifying whistling noise through the air before biting into the hardlight like a guillotine arrow. Topaz Ruin meanwhile had the projectile behave like a hunk of lead, having FAR more mass behind it and squashing into the target to deliver its full force before dissipating.
Everyone had agreed that last one was for 'special occasions only', as Shèn had put it. Watching a single Topaz Ruin crunch down a chest cavity like it was breaking in some pointe shoes would do that.
Her own tests had been similar, although the results obviously differed. Ruby Ruin took longer to cast, but in exchange added a 'hot' explosion, acting as something of the middle ground between Shèn's Sapphire and Topaz Ruins. Dr. Hamilton had remarked on how the burns were second degree and with a pie plate the size of a volleyball? Very painfully debilitating. But hey, the victims wouldn't need to go to the burn ward proper unless she hit them repeatedly! Or go into shock and die, as third degree burns were wont to do.
Meanwhile, Amethyst Ruin was largely identical to Emerald Ruin. Fast to cast, fast to hit, even louder. The main difference was in it electrocuting the target rather than leaving a mess of cuts on the impact area. Hamilton had warned about nerve damage, which made this Ruin another 'please don't use this if you don't have to'.
'Wonder if they're going to bother to check on Hess, considering I electrocuted her several times.' Miho mused idly, flipping over the Diamond Ruin's schema.
It had been the one to provide the wonders of lacerations for her, hardening the projectile to fragment on impact. The shrapnel bit in surprisingly deep and froze small parts of the surrounding tissue, begrudgingly making it the least dangerous and painful of her elemental repertoire.
All in all, it had been a productive session for both of the Arcanists and the PRT. Miho and Shèn had attained more practical insights into their spells, while the PRT had begun to piece together exactly what Arcanima did. However, well.
Miho could definitely tell that they still were filing this under a parahuman ability. That'd be put to rest as soon as Panacea confirmed they had no potentia or gemma. Honestly though neither of them truly had a reason to request that, and Panpan was definitely still in M/S containment after Shèn had pulled off what she could only truly call a minor Limit Break. Perhaps akin to the one that Lamati regularly pulled after a certain point?
Eh, more to think about later. She certainly wasn't going to explain to anyone the mechanics behind a Limit Break. It simply was something that existed, given the brief aura of gold that had surrounded Shèn, imperceptible unless one had specifically been looking for it. After all, she did not want to be responsible for letting those secrets out into the wild. Oh sure, it was selfish. She also did not want to be fighting parahumans who's Shards had figured out the mechanics behind it, akin to the way a certain AI had.
With a haggard sigh, Miho stood up from the hardlight chair she'd requested to stretch her legs and make this feel a bit less like a layover. Her compatriot in isekai was getting some rest, at least, the dragoness shifting languidly in her scaly bed. After the first twenty minutes of radio silence, Shèn had clearly given up on looking professional and just sprawled herself on her floating coils, an arm thrown over her eyes as she dozed.
"We've finished compiling our notes. At this point, if you could please summon your Master projections, Miss Shèn, Miss Miho?" Marigold's voice asked through the PA system, "We should be able to test your ranges at the same time. Once we're done, the food we asked the kitchens for should get here."
Oh thank the stars. The Doctor had a brain for things other than research!
"Xǐyuè hé kuángxǐ." Shèn groaned, hopping to her feet and straightening out with a rather fascinating yawn. Just like a snake, her jaw moved in four parts, stretching out each row of dinosaur teeth forward and out… together with her tongue. Woman had a calamitous case of the blep, three inches of pink-purple hanging out of her lip without any seeming notice. At least until she spoke and it got shlorped back in. "Wonder what paramilitaries eat around here."
"Probably depends on what the cafeteria has today." Miho shrugged, turning towards the bunker as she snapped her book closed. In the same motion, she slotted the lifeblood of her magick back into the holster at her side, rummaging through her cloak's pockets for her gemstones. Moments later, she flicked the engraved crystals out, her little 'buncles appearing in a flash of light as the aether she'd loaded into the jewels jumpstarted their systems.
To her right, another quartet of flashes announced the arrival of Shèn's… menagerie. It looked like she'd wanted to demonstrate a bit more, so there was a wind-flavored Bomb, an Aqua Flan and a brown Voidsent Ahriman. The only one unchanged was her cartoonish 'Aegis' Ahriman.
Because of course Shèn was going to demonstrate petglam just to show off. Or to actually give the PRT useful information. Meh. It wasn't any skin off her back and, honestly, it was probably a good idea. Just like the ideas she had for improving her Carbuncles! Miho was pretty damn sure she'd be able to figure out how to make her Carbuncles walk on literal air if given enough time. But that was a thing for future Miho to gloat about if she ever managed to figure out the correct schema for it.
"And 'lo, there came a light and upon its wreath rode the autism creatures." The dragoness drawled, the side of her lip crooking upwards as she looked on at Miho's color-coded carbies.
"Amen." The fox intoned gravely, standing at something vaguely resembling attention before she craned her head in the general direction of the bunkers, "What exactly would you like us to do, Doctor Marigold?"
"We're testing for, first and foremost: the limitations on range, the issuing of commands, the complexities of the command, and any other fancy things you can do with them. Following that, we'll test the general power of your projections." She declared firmly as the range reconfigured itself, becoming a series of circles centered around both Shèn and Miho. "Now, if you could please command your projections to go as far away from you as they possibly can, Miss Shèn, Miss Miho?"
Miho cleared her throat, glancing towards all of her Carbuncles before shooting a look towards Shèn that screamed, 'Follow my lead'. "Disperse to your maximum range, provided no obstacles are in the way." She commanded, watching with a healthy dose of amusement as, one by one, every Carbuncle eventually made it to the wall of the rather cavernous testing area.
'They, after all,' Miho mused whimsically, 'Technically do not have a limited range. Rather, their limitation comes in their supply of aether.'
"As you can surmise," Shèn said as her menagerie of monsters followed suit through a twitch of her aether, "Verbal commands aren't strictly needed, as the Carbuncles can be commanded utilizing the same mechanisms as schema actuation. This is thanks to the aether used to jumpstart them."
Honestly, Miho wasn't sure whether to kiss or throttle Shèn. She had more meant to utilize a verbal command so they'd underestimate them. Then again, they'd definitely notice given the footage they had access to. Therefore Shèn explaining things might have increased the PRT opinion of them since they'd decided to be honest.
Eh. More things for future Miho to be concerned about. Giving the scientists some time to chew on the new data provided, the fox recalled her carbuncles to her side. Taking a seat in her requested hardlight chair, Miho sighed and reached for her book once again. Finally, after another minute, the scientists remembered they were present, and she snapped it shut, again.
"Now, if you could demonstrate the complexity of commands these projections can follow?" Marigold requested.
Complying with a hum, Miho turned towards her Amethyst Carbuncle, "Move to the point over there, stand watch, and attack anything on the provided blacklist if they approach."
"While capable of some limited fuzzy logic to understand commands, Carbuncles are ultimately advanced programs that do not breach into Artificial Intelligence." Shèn went on with her magistral lecture, only missing a set of glasses and a pointer to complete the look. For all Miho had played with the nerd act, the dragoness seemed to just transform into an university professor at the drop of a hat, "For all it eases ethical concerns, it comes with its own struggles, ameliorated as they may be by the aetheric connection between the Arcanist and the etched gemstone. In future altercations, please bear in mind that Carbuncles are therefore most akin to autonomous drones we can communicate with rather than a direct extension of our wills."
Shèn paused, turning to bore into the bunker with flinty eyes, the red lights nestled in her pupils only making the unblinking gaze all the more intense. Her voice matched them perfectly. "We are freely providing you with no small amount of information when we are in our full rights to withhold, as we are only obliged to submit Esuna for testing to leave and our wider healing repertoire if we wish to take up work at the hospital. I expect reciprocation."
Turning towards the bunker herself, Miho adopted a similar posture, "We bear no ill will towards the PRT or the US Government. However, we are thinking, living, breathing beings. We, thus, expect a good turn to be reciprocated, as Shèn explained."
The bunker was silent for several moments, the inhabitants silent as the discussed things amongst themselves, or perhaps blinked at the audacity a pair of 'parahumans' without any sort of support network were exhibiting. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Dr. Marigold answered,
"Miss Miho, Miss Shèn, we will keep your words in mind. You are correct that you were under no obligation to provide us with a good amount of your strengths and weaknesses when all we required was testing for 'Esuna'." Pausing, a harsh sigh could be heard over the intercom, "We'll be making some of the standard Case 53 resources available to you both the moment we conclude the testing, in addition to the fund provided to those who are not of our dimension natively. There will, of course, be a significant amount of paperwork."
"And we will, of course, want a lawyer." Shèn said with finality.
Shèn's estimation of the PRT was picking up steadily. They had not only treated them professionally, but some had gone as far as to commend them for their actions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the poor bloody infantry valued civilian lives over villain arrests. Not that it'd stopped them from carting all the hostages into transport vans, once a few nervously mentioned being able to think clearer or focus better after her bass boosted Esuna had hit them.
There had just been a put upon sigh from the lead groundpounder and a few calls. Plus a whole lot of apologies to both her and the former hostages, of course. Everyone knew it made no real sense for her to turn them into sleeper agents or whatever else, but protocol existed for really good reasons. Inconveniencing people was better than letting them fall prey to parahuman nonsense out of carelessness.
The trip to the PRT HQ had passed in the timeless tradition of grouching about their respective days. Clockblocker, who was sitting between them as a blatant just-in-case, had even managed to chuck in a few good zingers. Benefits of celebrity PR training, Shèn supposed. She herself just took it as a chance to ask a few questions about the Bay's gang situation.
The Empire did as you'd expect of the biggest concentration of power in the city even before you accounted for their overseas connections, doing whatever they damn well pleased so long as they didn't cross enough of a line that the Triumvirate would get called in. Given how apparently there was a lynching or firebombing at least once a week, more than a few troopers grumbled that it wasn't going to happen unless they killed a Ward on national TV.
Clockblocker very pointedly changed the topic, rather than deny anything said.
The ABB apparently had done the yakuza special, propping up businesses and protecting their territory from enemy gangs. Hence, endless bitching from the troopers that anyone with a badge was openly glared at and chased out at the first opportunity. The civilians relied on and trusted the ABB to protect them, the police and PRT were viewed as nothing but a threat to that protection.
They also had, to little surprise, more than two Capes.
Finally, there was no mention whatsoever of the Merchants as a gang. Only grouching about the combo Skidmark and Squealer made and the sheer amount of property damage they caused whenever they got a 'good idea' in their soft skulls. They were spoken of in the same breath as a potpourri of minor gangs, independent villains, vigilantes and the odd small time hero who fucked up. Some were familiar, like Trainwreck rumbling around the Trainyard bullying any Cape passing through. Some weren't, like Diesel or Ballistae.
Well, it figured, highest Cape per capita in the East Coast if not all of America.
Before long, they were going through the doors of PRT HQ. It looked like an office building. A reinforced and fortified office building, but an office building none the less. It just looked like it'd been crossed with a cinderblock, all in all.
Shèn politely wrapped her tail around herself, the doors only fit so much and she was sandwiched together with Miho amidst a bunch of troopers, never you mind Aegis and Clockblocker. It made sense to have a Brute and a timestop Striker kept close to them, yes, but Vista hadn't exactly been subtle about her glares.
These two had volunteered to stay away from the Rig as long as humanly possible.
Their fidgeting as all four of them were crammed into an elevator bound for the basement didn't change the dragon's mind in the slightest. Admittedly, Miho wasn't doing much better, flipping aimlessly through her Grimoire to busy her hands. Well, unless she desperately needed to cross-reference Fester, Radiant Aegis and Libra for some arcane reason.
Soon enough, the metal box on pulleys dinged and they were let out into the underground testing chambers.
"Man, it must've taken some legal black magic to get permits for this." Shèn said with a low whistle. Damn thing was the size of two football fields put side to side. The left half seemed like the unholy lovechild of a CQB training field and a firing range, everything made out of blue and red hardlight. The right half was best summarized as a futuristic gymnasium. Bigger machines, all sorts of swappable and adjustable bits, the odd holographic screen.
What really got her approval, though, was how reinforced everything was. Metal plates that she'd bet anything could be quickswapped covered everything, with plexiglas stuffed with some sort of goop layered on top of those in some parts. Nevermind how every control, observation and whatever else room peppered around were built like bunkers.
A rather short blonde woman, barely taller than Miho, walked up alongside a pair of men clad in labcoats. The presumed Dr Marigold if her lanyard was anything to go by raised a hand in greeting, the other busy holding a clipboard, "Hello, Shen, Miho. Welcome to ENE PRT HQ. Specifically our power testing chamber." Pausing, she turned to Aegis and Clockblocker, "Aegis, Clockblocker, you two are dismissed."
"Ma'am." Aegis saluted, turning about face and marching back into the elevator, accompanied by his teammate, who unlike everything the media based off of this world would tell you? Just nodded sharply and followed right along without a word.
Teenage celebrities or not, they were also paramilitary.
"I'd say it's a pleasure, but I don't think anyone in the building is terribly pleased with the circumstances leading here." Shèn sighed, shaking her head, "Ah, well, we make the most of what we have."
"Do you mean perhaps the potential Master power you utilized, or the circumstances behind the Undersiders robbing Brockton Bay Central?" Dr. Marigold replied, a glint of amusement entering her eyes before it disappeared, almost too fast for Shèn to catch.
"I'd imagine the latter." Miho answered, snapping her book shut with a thump. "That said, may we get an introduction, ma'am? I believe it is considered the absolute bare minimum in polite society."
That got her poked on the side by Shèn's tail, but little else.
With a huff of amusement, Dr. Marigold nodded, "Doctor Abigail Marigold." She introduced herself properly, bowing slightly at the waist, "My associates, Doctor Reuben Hamilton and Nurse Nicholas Mason will be assisting us today, considering one of you has shown the ability to heal."
"How, exactly, are we going to be testing that?" The dragon had to ask, because there was a very pointed absence of patients in the basement. So at best they'd have to relocate at some point, at worst someone would have to 'volunteer'.
"What she said," Miho nodded, curiously peering around the room now that her face wasn't stuck in a book.
"We'll be bringing in volunteers when we arrive at that stage of testing," The obviously senior of the doctor-nurse pair explained, "This wasn't exactly scheduled ahead of time so it will take a while for them to reach HQ."
"Fair enough." Shèn said with a bob of her head, stretching her triceps with an elbow pin just for show. "Alright, what'd you want to see first, doc?"
"Blaster abilities first, I think." Dr. Marigold replied instantly, "Miho, if you could please follow me to demonstrate? Shèn, if you could follow along, we'll be testing your defensive abilities momentarily."
The floozy threw her fellow… situation enjoyer a meaningful look, both sighing nearly in sync. Shèn simply motioned for her to go ahead. "Shèn and I share the same abilities, Dr. Marigold. Both she and I will be able to provide you with similar data."
The good doctor's face was a picture, but credit where it was due, she schooled her features in record time. The wonders of professionals, "In that case, both of you will be working with the Blaster range. Even cluster triggers have different power expressions."
Implications hung heavy there, but at least the good doctor was polite enough to just ask them to follow right along and give her some data to evaluate. They had to weave around some of hardlight projections which given how the place had been clearly emptied out for them? Were only really there to show off the PRT's access to Tinkertech. Shèn wasn't about to begrudge them the manipulation, it was no different from cleaning up and putting on your best suit before an interview.
She had a personable mask wedged on right now, after all.
She honestly just wanted this to be over with after the morning she'd had, get some good food in her belly and a bit boozed up, but needs must. It wasn't like she had any money right now, either. Or a legal identity. Hopefully she could hook onto whatever aids they gave to C53s.
Soon enough, they were told to stand in place amid the mess of hardlight as the labcoat squad skittered off to one of the reinforced rooms built into the walls.
"So, Shèn," A softly-spoken half-question from Miho, along with the hand on her shoulder, caught the dragon's attention, "How much, exactly, do you think we want to share with the federal types?"
"More than what their Thinkers would be able to pull out with their nonsense, less than what would make us sound insane." Shèn replied, reclining back on her uncertified magical tail with an explosive sigh, "How to strike that balance, I have no idea."
"I'll handle it." Miho replied with a slow nod, clearly not at all happy with the idea, but very much aware that she was definitely the more knowledgeable of the pair when it came to Arcanima, "Speaking of handling it, how exactly are you thinking of handling the fact we're, well, ya know?"
"Do you mean the tails or the crystals?" The dragon asked with a quizzical tilt of her head.
"The fact we have no legal identity, no money, and are stuck in the United States of fucking America, who have a social support network that 'exists' only to appease the populace when in reality it doesn't." The fox deadpanned, a hint of irritation entering her voice as her ears flattened against her head.
"The tails, then." Shèn surmised with a bob of her head, throwing a lazy arm over one of her coils, "I'm just going to ask what the Case Fifty Three aids are and if I don't like 'em, demand more on grounds that healers are insanely valuable and if they don't help me, someone else will."
"Reasonable." Miho shrugged, ears perking up as the irritation from earlier fled her voice, "I suppose we are essentially what amounts to a combat medic combined with a battlefield surgeon."
"All in a fancy glowy package that can be executed at range, on multiple targets and in a matter of seconds." The dragon woman snorted, making jazz hands just for effect.
"Ain't Arcanima great?" Miho chirped, perhaps a little bit louder than she'd intended.
"Fukkin nerdo magic." Shèn snorted as she got up, turning towards the bunker with hands cupped around her mouth, "Alright, we're done giving you free intel, roll out them tests!"
Right on cue, the sea of reds and blues flickered away in favor of two parallel rows of turquoise dummies, with floating distance markers saying they were dotted every five meters.
"For the first test, you'll be firing off your Blaster abilities at each dummy in your row." Dr Marigold's voice buzzed through hidden speakers, "Miho, you are first, describe the ability you will use in your own words then take a single shot at the nearest red target."
With a well hidden roll of her eyes and a far too fancy flourish to draw her tome, the fox sighed as she stepped up to the metaphorical plate. Flipping through the pages idly to in a full on nerd act, going as far as pushing up an imaginary pair of glasses, "Right. So. Ruin. Specifically the standard variant. Ruin is a spell designed specifically to be easy to utilize by even the most novice Arcanist, and is roughly equivalent in strength to a rock flung from a sling." Pausing, she took a breath, and continued, "I will now demonstrate."
"ルイン!" Miho intoned firmly, raising her book with her left hand as her right made a vague gesture towards the closest target. Upon being struck, the target flickered, the impact area of the spell turning a nasty yellow-orange. Turning back towards the direction the scientists had gone, she bowed theatrically, "Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration, Ruin."
"It seems we agree on the general potency of your Blaster ability, Miss Miho." Dr. Marigold hummed from within the safety of her bunker, very pointedly not saying anything about the she-fox's comments and their implications, "Shèn, if you would?"
"Of course. To add onto what my partner said, Ruin's extreme simplicity allows for buffering multiple instances of the projectile. Furthermore, as reports will tell you, gestures can substitute verbal components for manifesting a schema. Watch." Shèn explained, taking Miho's lead in going full fucking send it. Yellow fingers traced out the edge of the schema with a flourish, the magic circle unfurling inwards like a camera diaphragm. "Energy intake, elemental stabilizer, capacitor, shaping, targeting, output."
She pointed to a different part of the array as she listed out their respective functions. "I will begin feeding aether to the structure now, note the transit of the energy through the system, as indicated by the light."
Aether went in, was balanced out among all six base elements, then pooled in the holding area without moving further. "As you can see, the structure is built with robustness in mind, allowing for safe handling of power concentrations that would overload other schemas. Furthermore, the shaping segment is designed to always make a projectile under its presets, such that aether exceeding its requirements will simply be fashioned into additional bolts. Finally, both it, targeting and output are so simple they face no practical issues handling the whole of the capacitor's load as a single batch. Their limits are in excess of what the capacitor loop can hold."
"Neither gestures nor vocalizations are required for granular actuation and regulation of the schema, only for its materialization. They are, however, required for modification, as your reports of the earlier altercation will no doubt highlight." Shèn explained evenly, even as she allowed more of her aether to flow into the schema. About eight shots worth, she'd reckon. "I will launch the projectiles now, aiming for the head. Note the rudimentary nature of the targeting."
The barrage of white-rimmed black bolts exploded out as it should. Three smashed into the head proper, two into the neck, one outright deleted an ear and the rest simply grazed as the buckshot barrage tried to curve in to hit no matter what.
The hardlight head, mimicking human anatomy to the best of its ability, became a black and red pulp clinging viscously to the largely intact 'bone' towards the back. Shèn paid it no mind beyond a small pleased grunt, instead turning towards the bunker with an arm across her chest and brushing by her shoulder, bowing. "I hope this was informative."
"...Interesting."
______________________________________________________________________________
With a huff and a sigh, Miho pushed away the still building irritation from being hungry. It certainly wasn't helping her irritation any the the scientists were very much still discussing the results from the tests earlier, though there wasn't exactly much she could do about that. Flipping a page in her tome, she mentally reviewed the tests and the results thereafter.
Shèn had gone first this time, showing off her elemental set of Water, Wind and Earth. Sapphire Ruin burst with a lot of concussive force behind it, mimicking pressurized water. It was like a gigantic hammer taken to whatever it hit, more often than not knocking the dummies on their asses. Emerald Ruin was faster to cast and reach the target, making a terrifying whistling noise through the air before biting into the hardlight like a guillotine arrow. Topaz Ruin meanwhile had the projectile behave like a hunk of lead, having FAR more mass behind it and squashing into the target to deliver its full force before dissipating.
Everyone had agreed that last one was for 'special occasions only', as Shèn had put it. Watching a single Topaz Ruin crunch down a chest cavity like it was breaking in some pointe shoes would do that.
Her own tests had been similar, although the results obviously differed. Ruby Ruin took longer to cast, but in exchange added a 'hot' explosion, acting as something of the middle ground between Shèn's Sapphire and Topaz Ruins. Dr. Hamilton had remarked on how the burns were second degree and with a pie plate the size of a volleyball? Very painfully debilitating. But hey, the victims wouldn't need to go to the burn ward proper unless she hit them repeatedly! Or go into shock and die, as third degree burns were wont to do.
Meanwhile, Amethyst Ruin was largely identical to Emerald Ruin. Fast to cast, fast to hit, even louder. The main difference was in it electrocuting the target rather than leaving a mess of cuts on the impact area. Hamilton had warned about nerve damage, which made this Ruin another 'please don't use this if you don't have to'.
'Wonder if they're going to bother to check on Hess, considering I electrocuted her several times.' Miho mused idly, flipping over the Diamond Ruin's schema.
It had been the one to provide the wonders of lacerations for her, hardening the projectile to fragment on impact. The shrapnel bit in surprisingly deep and froze small parts of the surrounding tissue, begrudgingly making it the least dangerous and painful of her elemental repertoire.
All in all, it had been a productive session for both of the Arcanists and the PRT. Miho and Shèn had attained more practical insights into their spells, while the PRT had begun to piece together exactly what Arcanima did. However, well.
Miho could definitely tell that they still were filing this under a parahuman ability. That'd be put to rest as soon as Panacea confirmed they had no potentia or gemma. Honestly though neither of them truly had a reason to request that, and Panpan was definitely still in M/S containment after Shèn had pulled off what she could only truly call a minor Limit Break. Perhaps akin to the one that Lamati regularly pulled after a certain point?
Eh, more to think about later. She certainly wasn't going to explain to anyone the mechanics behind a Limit Break. It simply was something that existed, given the brief aura of gold that had surrounded Shèn, imperceptible unless one had specifically been looking for it. After all, she did not want to be responsible for letting those secrets out into the wild. Oh sure, it was selfish. She also did not want to be fighting parahumans who's Shards had figured out the mechanics behind it, akin to the way a certain AI had.
With a haggard sigh, Miho stood up from the hardlight chair she'd requested to stretch her legs and make this feel a bit less like a layover. Her compatriot in isekai was getting some rest, at least, the dragoness shifting languidly in her scaly bed. After the first twenty minutes of radio silence, Shèn had clearly given up on looking professional and just sprawled herself on her floating coils, an arm thrown over her eyes as she dozed.
"We've finished compiling our notes. At this point, if you could please summon your Master projections, Miss Shèn, Miss Miho?" Marigold's voice asked through the PA system, "We should be able to test your ranges at the same time. Once we're done, the food we asked the kitchens for should get here."
Oh thank the stars. The Doctor had a brain for things other than research!
"Probably depends on what the cafeteria has today." Miho shrugged, turning towards the bunker as she snapped her book closed. In the same motion, she slotted the lifeblood of her magick back into the holster at her side, rummaging through her cloak's pockets for her gemstones. Moments later, she flicked the engraved crystals out, her little 'buncles appearing in a flash of light as the aether she'd loaded into the jewels jumpstarted their systems.
To her right, another quartet of flashes announced the arrival of Shèn's… menagerie. It looked like she'd wanted to demonstrate a bit more, so there was a wind-flavored Bomb, an Aqua Flan and a brown Voidsent Ahriman. The only one unchanged was her cartoonish 'Aegis' Ahriman.
Because of course Shèn was going to demonstrate petglam just to show off. Or to actually give the PRT useful information. Meh. It wasn't any skin off her back and, honestly, it was probably a good idea. Just like the ideas she had for improving her Carbuncles! Miho was pretty damn sure she'd be able to figure out how to make her Carbuncles walk on literal air if given enough time. But that was a thing for future Miho to gloat about if she ever managed to figure out the correct schema for it.
"And 'lo, there came a light and upon its wreath rode the autism creatures." The dragoness drawled, the side of her lip crooking upwards as she looked on at Miho's color-coded carbies.
"Amen." The fox intoned gravely, standing at something vaguely resembling attention before she craned her head in the general direction of the bunkers, "What exactly would you like us to do, Doctor Marigold?"
"We're testing for, first and foremost: the limitations on range, the issuing of commands, the complexities of the command, and any other fancy things you can do with them. Following that, we'll test the general power of your projections." She declared firmly as the range reconfigured itself, becoming a series of circles centered around both Shèn and Miho. "Now, if you could please command your projections to go as far away from you as they possibly can, Miss Shèn, Miss Miho?"
Miho cleared her throat, glancing towards all of her Carbuncles before shooting a look towards Shèn that screamed, 'Follow my lead'. "Disperse to your maximum range, provided no obstacles are in the way." She commanded, watching with a healthy dose of amusement as, one by one, every Carbuncle eventually made it to the wall of the rather cavernous testing area.
'They, after all,' Miho mused whimsically, 'Technically do not have a limited range. Rather, their limitation comes in their supply of aether.'
"As you can surmise," Shèn said as her menagerie of monsters followed suit through a twitch of her aether, "Verbal commands aren't strictly needed, as the Carbuncles can be commanded utilizing the same mechanisms as schema actuation. This is thanks to the aether used to jumpstart them."
Honestly, Miho wasn't sure whether to kiss or throttle Shèn. She had more meant to utilize a verbal command so they'd underestimate them. Then again, they'd definitely notice given the footage they had access to. Therefore Shèn explaining things might have increased the PRT opinion of them since they'd decided to be honest.
Eh. More things for future Miho to be concerned about. Giving the scientists some time to chew on the new data provided, the fox recalled her carbuncles to her side. Taking a seat in her requested hardlight chair, Miho sighed and reached for her book once again. Finally, after another minute, the scientists remembered they were present, and she snapped it shut, again.
"Now, if you could demonstrate the complexity of commands these projections can follow?" Marigold requested.
Complying with a hum, Miho turned towards her Amethyst Carbuncle, "Move to the point over there, stand watch, and attack anything on the provided blacklist if they approach."
"While capable of some limited fuzzy logic to understand commands, Carbuncles are ultimately advanced programs that do not breach into Artificial Intelligence." Shèn went on with her magistral lecture, only missing a set of glasses and a pointer to complete the look. For all Miho had played with the nerd act, the dragoness seemed to just transform into an university professor at the drop of a hat, "For all it eases ethical concerns, it comes with its own struggles, ameliorated as they may be by the aetheric connection between the Arcanist and the etched gemstone. In future altercations, please bear in mind that Carbuncles are therefore most akin to autonomous drones we can communicate with rather than a direct extension of our wills."
Shèn paused, turning to bore into the bunker with flinty eyes, the red lights nestled in her pupils only making the unblinking gaze all the more intense. Her voice matched them perfectly. "We are freely providing you with no small amount of information when we are in our full rights to withhold, as we are only obliged to submit Esuna for testing to leave and our wider healing repertoire if we wish to take up work at the hospital. I expect reciprocation."
Turning towards the bunker herself, Miho adopted a similar posture, "We bear no ill will towards the PRT or the US Government. However, we are thinking, living, breathing beings. We, thus, expect a good turn to be reciprocated, as Shèn explained."
The bunker was silent for several moments, the inhabitants silent as the discussed things amongst themselves, or perhaps blinked at the audacity a pair of 'parahumans' without any sort of support network were exhibiting. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Dr. Marigold answered,
"Miss Miho, Miss Shèn, we will keep your words in mind. You are correct that you were under no obligation to provide us with a good amount of your strengths and weaknesses when all we required was testing for 'Esuna'." Pausing, a harsh sigh could be heard over the intercom, "We'll be making some of the standard Case 53 resources available to you both the moment we conclude the testing, in addition to the fund provided to those who are not of our dimension natively. There will, of course, be a significant amount of paperwork."
"And we will, of course, want a lawyer." Shèn said with finality.
Rough 1-5
Miho Chan
One with too many ideas
- Location
- Hummelstown
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A Special Thanks to my generous paetrons, J Frost, IridiumSky, Tale Swapper, Ttw1, G_Man_No_99, CateCat, Silva T, Omida, Henifataffle, Rubunny, saganatsu, Spheal lover., VerviettaVP, Logically Random, shadowSeth, Penguino, Joshua Littlesun, White57Wyrms, KenneGlitch, Lightstorm, KaneTw, Jorge Hevia, Talentless Fool, and Nicholas Munger. Your support is what enables to me to write as frequently as I am able, and means the world to me.
"Well, it is a full meal." Shèn said diplomatically, like she hadn't just dealt with the maliciously crumbly shell of these sorry excuses for tacos by opening her mouth like a snake and shoving them in whole, "The rice was nice, at least."
"At least we're not sitting in hardlight chairs." Miho allowed, grimacing as she bit into another taco after picking out all the tomatoes. After chewing for a while with an expression that screamed 'this food is so beyond mid' she finally spoke again, "Can't say much about the food beyond the fact it's free though."
"There's no better spice than food on someone else's dime." The dragon replied with a shrug, quietly pleased that the folding chairs they were on meant she could just thread her huge fucking tail through the back and that this new body came with a new palate. Having your body wig out at a bunch of textures hard enough to leave you dry heaving was no fun, who'd thought?
Now tomatoes were just kinda 'eh' instead of giving the foldout table a new paintjob!
As the pair of Arcanists finished their meal, Dr. Marigold's voice came through the speakers, "Volunteers will be arriving shortly, and as we no longer are testing things that require us to be within the bunker, we will be joining you on the field."
"So, doc, how deluded do you think we are when we talk of Arcanists as a whole profession and our abilities as nothing more than techniques wholly designed and understood by humans?" Shèn drawled out as she leaned back on her chair, pearly scales keeping her steady as a rock rather than an embarrassing sprawl on the floor. Truth be told, she hadn't expected Miho to be so open about that bit of data but oh well. She could play along.
No answer came for several moments, as Miho rolled her eyes, scanning over the area the doctors were coming from regardless, "I don't think she heard you, Shèn." She said after a few moments, the scientists drawing closer as her ears flicked, "I also hear another group of people approaching from the elevators."
"They sure heard me about scratching our back in return." The dragon scoffed, idly picking through her teeth with a talon, "But if need be, I'll repeat myself. You decided to share that and I backed you up, but I'm not about to leave that sort of assumption float around like an unflushed turd."
She'd really rather not be patronized by people who thought she should be put in a straightjacket if it wasn't for how useful her powers were.
"Not blaming you." Miho shrugged, "Just pointing out they probably didn't hear."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm just grouchy about the day now that things have calmed down. As opposed to your head of steam at the bank." Shèn sighed, one hand clamping around the other's wrist as she stretched the whole of her body in the same motion she stood, tail swirling as it slid out of the chair. "Hrrmm. Alright, let's mop this up then see what game of ball the PRT is going to play with us where dimensional immigration is concerned."
"I doubt they'll play hardball." Miho shrugged, following suit with the stretching and standing, a mighty yawn escaping from her own mouth in the same instant, "We're healers. Too important in case their actions drive us away."
"There's still a chance some middle manager with delusions of grandeur gets a very good idea, but yeah." The dragon chuckled, shaking her head. "It would just be us laughing in their faces and asking what sort of pay the ABB offer nowadays, get someone with an actual brain working on our case real quick."
With an amused huff, the fox went to reply, only to snap her mouth shut as she spun her head towards the approaching scientists and volunteers. Turning back to Shèn she shrugged, stretched once more, and sighed, "Well, back to 'work', I suppose."
"And I thought I was the one overly enamored with the new chassis." The dragon muttered under her breath as Miho showed off. Alas, before she could work in any teasing, the nerd squad was with them and the volunteers were starting to really file in. It'd still take a hot minute to get everything in place, she reckoned. The elevator was the only way in or out that the PRT was willing to show them and it only had so much room in it.
"Shen. Miho. We'll be moving onto the final phase of power testing now. If you could please, in your own words, describe what the healing component of your power does?" Dr Marigold asked, clipboard in hand and a ball pen in the other. Wonders of having mics rigged across the whole place, everything was recorded so those notes were probably just her personal observations.
"Of course, doctor." Miho responded before Shèn could, stepping forward as she pushed a pair of imaginary glasses up her nose. The dragon snorted, but let her do her thing, "I'll start with Resurrection, since that was the first spell that Shèn displayed." With a tut of annoyance at the eruption of muttered doubts displayed by the volunteers, the fox woman raised her hand to call for silence, waiting until she received it. "Resurrection is named as such due to the time period it was conceived in. It does not, in fact, return to the deceased to life. It simply stabilizes the target of the spell, and allows them to fight despite grievous injuries through essentially what amounts to a patchwork job that can and will fall apart within the next day or two leading to death or extended trauma." Pausing to take a breath, Miho looked at her audience. They were still muttering, definitely in regard to her word choice. With a roll of her eyes, she began pacing and continued "Resurrection's origins as a tool for battlefield triage does have drawbacks, however. It takes a frankly absurd amount of time to cast. Additionally, it only does a patchwork job. It is not intended to be a lasting solution, but rather a method to triage the wounded so they can get the attention they need as it becomes available."
Pausing, Miho glanced at the volunteers, before shaking her head at the continued looks of skepticism etched across their body language, "I will not be demonstrating this spell, as none of the people here require it nor is it at all ethical to bring someone to the brink of death simply to test out one of my spells. You will simply have to take my word and Shèn's provided example that it does as described."
"For the average Arcanist, it requires eight seconds to charge and is single target. That said, it can be cast at a respectable range, I did not with Grue because I was already by his side. And, of course, I already demonstrated at the bank how a complex schema can be cast quickly and for many recipients if an Arcanist is willing to severely strain themselves." Shèn explained evenly, filling in the gaps that her partner had left. Although she very pointedly didn't go into detail about Aethercharge. It would come up later, so time and place. "The spell's other purpose, is to render patients in a crisis able to move under their own power without aggravating their condition."
Shèn tilted her head, clacking her talons against one another for a second as her funny book beamed more information into her skull, "Unless they are missing a fair amount of muscle mass and bone, of course, as Resurrect simply uses copious amounts of shaped scar tissue to take care of trauma and that can only do so much. It also includes an artificial release of adrenaline and related compounds, a forceful restart of the heart akin to a defibrillator, and a wide spectrum purging of harmful elements. The lethality Miho mentioned is due to said scrubbing being broad strokes, in many cases leaving enough traces to endanger a patient's life long term. However, it buys time and other spells can provide full treatment once out of the splash zone, so to say."
"I have no doubt there will be ample chance to demonstrate all of this once I negotiate some per diem pay at the local hospitals, given what I have heard of this city. For now, though, unless someone well and truly wishes to be knocked out to demonstrate the spell's resuscitation, we will be moving right on." The dragon finished, fixing the volunteers with a flat look. When nobody stepped up for that foolishness, she nodded sharply, "Onto Physik, then. Miho, would you like to keep this pattern of lecture?"
"Of course." The fox replied professionally with a bob of her head that made her ears flop. Cute, not that Shèn would go and verbalize that here, "Physik is a basic spell, akin to Ruin. Its primary strength is in its modularity and ease of customization, allowing for an experienced Arcanist to reliably respond to almost any medical situation with Physik in hand. Physik has two primary methods of casting, though there are more specialized variants that straddle lines between the two. The first mode is the standard method of casting Physik. A quick cast to provide first aid on a mild injury, such as closing a wound that would at most take minor stitches, treating a second degree burn, and other things that a paramedic could handle if given enough time. If anyone wishes for a demonstration of this mode, please raise your hand, Shèn and I will demonstrate Physik in its most basic form."
A smattering of hands rose from among the volunteers. Without bothering to look at them for a moment, Miho turned to Dr. Marigold. Thankfully, the woman caught on without being verbally questioned, and she pointed out two volunteers. "You and you. If you could please step forward and state your injury?"
A pair of men came forward, one aggressively East Asian, the other what looked like an Irish-Italian mutt with olive skin, red hair and a metric ton of freckles. The former spoke first, "Bruise on my torso from a work related injury."
"Minor burn on my right hand from a cooking accident." The other reported, brandishing a rather nasty looking patch of blistered skin running down his inner right arm.
"Now. Shèn, Miho. I will be observing both of your patients with a tinkertech device designed to essentially provide the equivalent of a CAT scan in real time." The good doctor said, brandishing a souped up iPhone looking thing, "If you could both please step forward and heal the volunteers in order?"
"Of course." Shèn said with a bob of her head, a twirl of her talons unfurling the green schema of Physik in front of her hand. She took her time with it, showing off how the light moved through the schema, although she didn't bother giving a verbal breakdown of what each segment did. "Physik works under the basis of aether stimulating tissue into pluripotency, which can then be made to multiply without taxing the patient thanks to the exotic energy supplying all material and power. The quick cast relies on hooking into the body's healing processes, using them for initial targeting and energy allotment, which allows it to be cast at range and near-instantly. It, however, does not obey the body's demands blindly, ensuring everything aligns and connects properly on top of preventing scar tissue from forming. In fact, it is in no small part founded in a hijacking of humans' hyperactive scarification process."
"Do note, there is only so much that can be done for dead tissue. Thankfully, the burn doesn't seem severe enough to incur any debridement. Libra, the diagnostics spell, would tell me with certainty but I am demonstrating it is not needed in situations like this." The draconic Arcanist finished her lecture, not bothering with any gestures as she triggered the spell. The schema collapsed, a green bolt shooting for the tanned redhead, suffusing him in a soft glow of the same that quickly pooled on his burn. It was almost like watching a sugar cube dissolve in coffee, the glistening red skin smoothing out under the light until nobody would be able to tell he had ever been hurt.
The man's eyes went wide, glued to the lightshow and no doubt the odd feeling of the pain fading away together with the damage. Humming softly, he twisted his arm, ensuring that he had a proper range of motion before turning to Shèn, "Thank you. I wasn't looking forward to not being able to cook for a bit, so it's nice to have that taken care of."
"No problem! I know how painful oil burns are, so happy to help." The dragon said with a wide smile. A few people in the crowd flinched at the sight of her chompers, but the guy just threw her a thumbs up so she'd count it as a win.
Miho, for her own part, took that as her cue to shoot her own Physic at the Asian man and start flapping her gums, "Speaking of the diagnostic spell, let's talk about it for a moment. Libra was a spell initially invented by the Arcanists of Nym for use on the battlefield due to their tendency to use their mages in a support role as strategists and tacticians. It was later adapted for use as a diagnostic spell by an Arcanist from Sharlayan, and, as such, is considered to be a fairly recent innovation in the Arcanist's toolkit. Libra, when cast in 'surgery' mode, as one could call it, provides a detailed list of the issues currently affecting the target to better allow for the attending healer to address each issue."
Once more, the crowd began to mutter, although this time it was fairly easy for both Shèn and Miho to ignore. There were definitely things stated, but they were mostly positive as far as they could make out. The overall position seemed to be 'oho, kayfabe with lore'.
"Moving on," Miho declared, eyeing the crowd but otherwise unaffected by the muttering, "We've covered Physik, Resurrection, and Libra. Now, to cover Esuna." Pausing to clear her throat, the fox began explaining the very thing they had been called to test at last, "Esuna is, without a doubt, the most significant contribution a single individual has ever made to Arcanima. Created by an unknown Arcanist during the early days of the Allagan Empire in an effort to replicate the mythical panacea, it has since been built upon endlessly by Arcanists ever since. Esuna is simple in principle. It has a blacklist and whitelist of conditions allowable to the human body, with the whitelist formed through the use of Libra on healthy individuals of that species and the blacklist composed entirely of known afflictions. One such affliction is an altered mental state, as Shèn demonstrated at the bank. Esuna–"
"Does that mean you two can cure hangovers!?" Someone from the crowd of volunteers interrupted loudly.
Blinking, Miho paused, before slowly nodding, "Yes. It would also be possible to use to cure drunkeness, though for alcoholism in general, a more extensive application would be required to completely purge the brain and body of the dependency." Pausing, she held up a finger, "Ah, wait. Drunkenness wouldn't be mental, but Esuna could still take care of it. Apologies, I forgot that for a moment."
"Fixing the liver itself would only take a quick cast, though." Shèn added without missing a beat, because it was as good a lead-in for this quirk of Esuna as anything else. "It falls in the same odd spot as cataracts in taking a long time to build up but being simple enough to treat. Whereas most conditions either need to have been caught on the same day to be healed in such a way or require the spell to be cast in surgical mode."
"Additionally," Miho began, pursing her lips, "Esuna is capable of mitigating but not curing 'mental disorders' such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder." The fox woman's feelings about that label weren't exactly hard to make out. She was not only openly sneering, but spitting the words like something rotten caught between her teeth. Shèn didn't need to be a psychic to know what the people here, especially Dr Marigold were thinking about that reaction.
The Dragon took that as her cue to cut right in. Her partner was compromised enough her explanation had ended up misleading to the point of outright misinformation. "Or rather, it was designed with an extremely even-handed view of psychology and incredibly strict ethics. Unless someone's neural architecture has been modified through traumatic events, alternative setups are considered just that. The only thing treated will be the associated malfunctions. Someone with OCD will retain their eye for detail, but they will no longer be forced into compulsive and obsessive behaviors. Someone with sociopathy or autism will become better able to parse emotions and cues, but the underlying thought patterns will not change. Someone transgender will no longer suffer the symptoms of dysphoria, for all they will retain their gender identity. However, purely harmful conditions such as dissociative disorders, kleptomania and Tourette's will be removed entirely."
"Pardon?" Dr Hamilton questioned as the crowd erupted into whispered mutterings, "Did you just say that Esuna can cure mental disorders? Outright?"
"Yes. Brain tumors and lesions are also eminently treatable by Esuna, although they tend to require switching to surgical mode and plugging in Physik to enhance its ability to transmute and regenerate tissue. Lesions, depending on severity, can be treated singlehandedly by Physik." Shèn replied without missing a beat, bobbing her head as though that hadn't caused another ripple of mutters. She was valuable and by god she was going to drive it in by hammer and chisel. Blowing shit up with flashy magic was a hobby, the medical field was a special layer of hell, doubly so for the cases that'd be assigned to someone like her. "For mutations and assorted transformations of the body, it can be either Esuna on its own or a combination as I described, depending on the underlying mechanics of the effect."
"I… see." Dr Hamilton replied, eyes darting over to Dr Marigold, who simply nodded. There were great many thoughts swirling behind those eyes, but they didn't matter so long as the powers were properly demonstrated. "Right then. Shèn and Miho, if you could both demonstrate Esuna on two volunteers with suitable conditions?"
"Of course." Miho replied instantly, preempting Shèn, "Show of hands please."
Immediately, several hands shot up.
"You and you." Dr Hamilton immediately called, bringing over what looked to be two volunteers. One of them was wearing a skirt and t-shirt combo and in her early twenties, her exposed skin covered in rashes. The other was simply a middle-aged woman with puffy eyes, "If you could state your conditions for the record?"
"Gender Dysphoria, a non serious allergic reaction due to someone accidentally placing shellfish in my meal despite me asking otherwise." The one walking up to Miho stated immediately, her(?) voice straining slightly as it dipped into a more masculine range ever so briefly.
"HRT?" Miho asked, "If you don't mind me asking, that is. I just need to make sure I properly tune Esuna's blacklist-whitelist."
"Yes. Estradiol and Spironolactone." The woman replied with a sharp nod.
"Got it. If you could stand still, please?" The fox requested clinically. Drawing her casting implement against as she cast Libra, Miho hummed to herself as she read the data provided by the spell, "Right. I've identified the issue." Pausing, she took a deep, fortifying breath, "We'll use Esuna in a standard cast first, to deal with your allergic reaction. I will need your permission before I even remotely decide to mess with your dysphoria."
"Understood." With a bob of her head, the woman waited patiently as Miho quickly and efficiently took care of the symptoms caused by the allergic reactions. Rashes disappeared from her exposed skin and face more and more as the Fox concluded her treatment.
"What do we have on the menu for you?" Shèn asked her patient as she left her partner to her devices, offering what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
"An allergic reaction to peanuts. Some bugger on the bus was eating them and accidentally threw one my way. It landed pretty close to my eye, and this is the result." The woman grumped as she waved at her puffy eyes, "Kids these days, I swear."
"Ugh, public transport. I had to take an hour long train ride to get to uni every day and of fucking course it was right at the time the second shift of office workers piled on in." The dragon grumbled back as she unfurled Esuna's rainbow schema, taking the line of conversation and running with it. Couldn't just slap her dick down on the table, also had to get people to ease down. "I'll tell your immune system to calm down. Then if you want I can get it through its thick skull that no, peanuts aren't the spawn of the devil, stop sending a whole army when some pop up. Plus, y'know, any other allergies you've got while I'm at it."
"Miss Shèn, you're capable of doing that?" Doctor Hamilton asked, more to clarify than anything else.
"Yes. It will take the surgical mode to adjust the parameters of her immune system, hence why I'm asking for consent given what could be done there." Shèn replied with a bob of her head, then more towards her patient added, "Not that different than trusting a surgeon to have basic morals while rooting around your chest cavity, really."
"I see." The medical doctor replied, glancing towards the patient, "Missus Freeman, I believe that choice is up to you. Either way, I would recommend getting tested in a medical facility after the fact to confirm that you no longer have the allergy."
For what felt like a minute, Missus Freeman carefully considered Shèn's proposition. "...I give my consent, Miss Shen. There are peanut butter cookies calling my name."
"Alright, let's chuck those diet restrictions to the garbage where they belong." The dragon woman replied with a crooked grin, a rainbow shimmering between her talons.
"They're not parahumans." Doctor Marigold spoke after a few moments, looking the data arrayed before her with a honest to god massive grin, "The scans of their brains we took on the sly corroborate everything else we've seen, and the fact that they repeatedly had to stop to adjust their 'Esuna' schema while working through the volunteers gives credence to everything they said."
Before the Nurse could speak up to voice his doubts, Doctor Hamilton nodded slowly, "I agree with you, Doctor Marigold. For much of the same reasons, though, another thing stuck out to me." He nodded towards an image of Shen and Miho working their way through the volunteers, semi-professionally and smoothly going through the line in a manner akin to a machine. Or a professional. "While we can definitely make the argument that they're simply parahumans with a background in medicine, I don't personally believe that's the case. Like you pointed out, they quite literally have identical powers. Additionally, they both seem to believe that there is a degree of science behind their abilities. Most notably, they were throwing around terms that they didn't quite understand the meaning of, but were confident enough to use."
"There was strange brain activity when we asked them questions…" Nicholas hedged, shifting uncomfortably. There were no coronas or any odd clumps of nervous tissue that'd indicate a core mutation like some Brutes and Changers underwent. That left one very worrying implication.
"And it was nothing like the records of Teacher's minions or Mather's victims. They'd need to have been granted a Thinker power and undergone physical mutation by some parahuman ability and been granted Tinkertech gemstones, to say nothing of whatever enabled them to have this 'aether'." Doctor Marigold replied with a shake of her head, "Some could argue they are grab bags with a Breaker power that phases their true bodies or at least brains in favor of projections."
"But none of the readings match with that theory. Fully functional organs and digestive processes aren't something projections are known for." Doctor Hamilton finished that thought.
"...Have I mentioned how glad I am to be a glorified scribe not invited to the meeting with the Director?" Nicholas said after an awkward pause. This sounded like the start of a case file and he wanted nothing to do with that bureaucratic monstrosity.
"Well, it is a full meal." Shèn said diplomatically, like she hadn't just dealt with the maliciously crumbly shell of these sorry excuses for tacos by opening her mouth like a snake and shoving them in whole, "The rice was nice, at least."
"At least we're not sitting in hardlight chairs." Miho allowed, grimacing as she bit into another taco after picking out all the tomatoes. After chewing for a while with an expression that screamed 'this food is so beyond mid' she finally spoke again, "Can't say much about the food beyond the fact it's free though."
"There's no better spice than food on someone else's dime." The dragon replied with a shrug, quietly pleased that the folding chairs they were on meant she could just thread her huge fucking tail through the back and that this new body came with a new palate. Having your body wig out at a bunch of textures hard enough to leave you dry heaving was no fun, who'd thought?
Now tomatoes were just kinda 'eh' instead of giving the foldout table a new paintjob!
As the pair of Arcanists finished their meal, Dr. Marigold's voice came through the speakers, "Volunteers will be arriving shortly, and as we no longer are testing things that require us to be within the bunker, we will be joining you on the field."
"So, doc, how deluded do you think we are when we talk of Arcanists as a whole profession and our abilities as nothing more than techniques wholly designed and understood by humans?" Shèn drawled out as she leaned back on her chair, pearly scales keeping her steady as a rock rather than an embarrassing sprawl on the floor. Truth be told, she hadn't expected Miho to be so open about that bit of data but oh well. She could play along.
No answer came for several moments, as Miho rolled her eyes, scanning over the area the doctors were coming from regardless, "I don't think she heard you, Shèn." She said after a few moments, the scientists drawing closer as her ears flicked, "I also hear another group of people approaching from the elevators."
"They sure heard me about scratching our back in return." The dragon scoffed, idly picking through her teeth with a talon, "But if need be, I'll repeat myself. You decided to share that and I backed you up, but I'm not about to leave that sort of assumption float around like an unflushed turd."
She'd really rather not be patronized by people who thought she should be put in a straightjacket if it wasn't for how useful her powers were.
"Not blaming you." Miho shrugged, "Just pointing out they probably didn't hear."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm just grouchy about the day now that things have calmed down. As opposed to your head of steam at the bank." Shèn sighed, one hand clamping around the other's wrist as she stretched the whole of her body in the same motion she stood, tail swirling as it slid out of the chair. "Hrrmm. Alright, let's mop this up then see what game of ball the PRT is going to play with us where dimensional immigration is concerned."
"I doubt they'll play hardball." Miho shrugged, following suit with the stretching and standing, a mighty yawn escaping from her own mouth in the same instant, "We're healers. Too important in case their actions drive us away."
"There's still a chance some middle manager with delusions of grandeur gets a very good idea, but yeah." The dragon chuckled, shaking her head. "It would just be us laughing in their faces and asking what sort of pay the ABB offer nowadays, get someone with an actual brain working on our case real quick."
With an amused huff, the fox went to reply, only to snap her mouth shut as she spun her head towards the approaching scientists and volunteers. Turning back to Shèn she shrugged, stretched once more, and sighed, "Well, back to 'work', I suppose."
"And I thought I was the one overly enamored with the new chassis." The dragon muttered under her breath as Miho showed off. Alas, before she could work in any teasing, the nerd squad was with them and the volunteers were starting to really file in. It'd still take a hot minute to get everything in place, she reckoned. The elevator was the only way in or out that the PRT was willing to show them and it only had so much room in it.
"Shen. Miho. We'll be moving onto the final phase of power testing now. If you could please, in your own words, describe what the healing component of your power does?" Dr Marigold asked, clipboard in hand and a ball pen in the other. Wonders of having mics rigged across the whole place, everything was recorded so those notes were probably just her personal observations.
"Of course, doctor." Miho responded before Shèn could, stepping forward as she pushed a pair of imaginary glasses up her nose. The dragon snorted, but let her do her thing, "I'll start with Resurrection, since that was the first spell that Shèn displayed." With a tut of annoyance at the eruption of muttered doubts displayed by the volunteers, the fox woman raised her hand to call for silence, waiting until she received it. "Resurrection is named as such due to the time period it was conceived in. It does not, in fact, return to the deceased to life. It simply stabilizes the target of the spell, and allows them to fight despite grievous injuries through essentially what amounts to a patchwork job that can and will fall apart within the next day or two leading to death or extended trauma." Pausing to take a breath, Miho looked at her audience. They were still muttering, definitely in regard to her word choice. With a roll of her eyes, she began pacing and continued "Resurrection's origins as a tool for battlefield triage does have drawbacks, however. It takes a frankly absurd amount of time to cast. Additionally, it only does a patchwork job. It is not intended to be a lasting solution, but rather a method to triage the wounded so they can get the attention they need as it becomes available."
Pausing, Miho glanced at the volunteers, before shaking her head at the continued looks of skepticism etched across their body language, "I will not be demonstrating this spell, as none of the people here require it nor is it at all ethical to bring someone to the brink of death simply to test out one of my spells. You will simply have to take my word and Shèn's provided example that it does as described."
"For the average Arcanist, it requires eight seconds to charge and is single target. That said, it can be cast at a respectable range, I did not with Grue because I was already by his side. And, of course, I already demonstrated at the bank how a complex schema can be cast quickly and for many recipients if an Arcanist is willing to severely strain themselves." Shèn explained evenly, filling in the gaps that her partner had left. Although she very pointedly didn't go into detail about Aethercharge. It would come up later, so time and place. "The spell's other purpose, is to render patients in a crisis able to move under their own power without aggravating their condition."
Shèn tilted her head, clacking her talons against one another for a second as her funny book beamed more information into her skull, "Unless they are missing a fair amount of muscle mass and bone, of course, as Resurrect simply uses copious amounts of shaped scar tissue to take care of trauma and that can only do so much. It also includes an artificial release of adrenaline and related compounds, a forceful restart of the heart akin to a defibrillator, and a wide spectrum purging of harmful elements. The lethality Miho mentioned is due to said scrubbing being broad strokes, in many cases leaving enough traces to endanger a patient's life long term. However, it buys time and other spells can provide full treatment once out of the splash zone, so to say."
"I have no doubt there will be ample chance to demonstrate all of this once I negotiate some per diem pay at the local hospitals, given what I have heard of this city. For now, though, unless someone well and truly wishes to be knocked out to demonstrate the spell's resuscitation, we will be moving right on." The dragon finished, fixing the volunteers with a flat look. When nobody stepped up for that foolishness, she nodded sharply, "Onto Physik, then. Miho, would you like to keep this pattern of lecture?"
"Of course." The fox replied professionally with a bob of her head that made her ears flop. Cute, not that Shèn would go and verbalize that here, "Physik is a basic spell, akin to Ruin. Its primary strength is in its modularity and ease of customization, allowing for an experienced Arcanist to reliably respond to almost any medical situation with Physik in hand. Physik has two primary methods of casting, though there are more specialized variants that straddle lines between the two. The first mode is the standard method of casting Physik. A quick cast to provide first aid on a mild injury, such as closing a wound that would at most take minor stitches, treating a second degree burn, and other things that a paramedic could handle if given enough time. If anyone wishes for a demonstration of this mode, please raise your hand, Shèn and I will demonstrate Physik in its most basic form."
A smattering of hands rose from among the volunteers. Without bothering to look at them for a moment, Miho turned to Dr. Marigold. Thankfully, the woman caught on without being verbally questioned, and she pointed out two volunteers. "You and you. If you could please step forward and state your injury?"
A pair of men came forward, one aggressively East Asian, the other what looked like an Irish-Italian mutt with olive skin, red hair and a metric ton of freckles. The former spoke first, "Bruise on my torso from a work related injury."
"Minor burn on my right hand from a cooking accident." The other reported, brandishing a rather nasty looking patch of blistered skin running down his inner right arm.
"Now. Shèn, Miho. I will be observing both of your patients with a tinkertech device designed to essentially provide the equivalent of a CAT scan in real time." The good doctor said, brandishing a souped up iPhone looking thing, "If you could both please step forward and heal the volunteers in order?"
"Of course." Shèn said with a bob of her head, a twirl of her talons unfurling the green schema of Physik in front of her hand. She took her time with it, showing off how the light moved through the schema, although she didn't bother giving a verbal breakdown of what each segment did. "Physik works under the basis of aether stimulating tissue into pluripotency, which can then be made to multiply without taxing the patient thanks to the exotic energy supplying all material and power. The quick cast relies on hooking into the body's healing processes, using them for initial targeting and energy allotment, which allows it to be cast at range and near-instantly. It, however, does not obey the body's demands blindly, ensuring everything aligns and connects properly on top of preventing scar tissue from forming. In fact, it is in no small part founded in a hijacking of humans' hyperactive scarification process."
"Do note, there is only so much that can be done for dead tissue. Thankfully, the burn doesn't seem severe enough to incur any debridement. Libra, the diagnostics spell, would tell me with certainty but I am demonstrating it is not needed in situations like this." The draconic Arcanist finished her lecture, not bothering with any gestures as she triggered the spell. The schema collapsed, a green bolt shooting for the tanned redhead, suffusing him in a soft glow of the same that quickly pooled on his burn. It was almost like watching a sugar cube dissolve in coffee, the glistening red skin smoothing out under the light until nobody would be able to tell he had ever been hurt.
The man's eyes went wide, glued to the lightshow and no doubt the odd feeling of the pain fading away together with the damage. Humming softly, he twisted his arm, ensuring that he had a proper range of motion before turning to Shèn, "Thank you. I wasn't looking forward to not being able to cook for a bit, so it's nice to have that taken care of."
"No problem! I know how painful oil burns are, so happy to help." The dragon said with a wide smile. A few people in the crowd flinched at the sight of her chompers, but the guy just threw her a thumbs up so she'd count it as a win.
Miho, for her own part, took that as her cue to shoot her own Physic at the Asian man and start flapping her gums, "Speaking of the diagnostic spell, let's talk about it for a moment. Libra was a spell initially invented by the Arcanists of Nym for use on the battlefield due to their tendency to use their mages in a support role as strategists and tacticians. It was later adapted for use as a diagnostic spell by an Arcanist from Sharlayan, and, as such, is considered to be a fairly recent innovation in the Arcanist's toolkit. Libra, when cast in 'surgery' mode, as one could call it, provides a detailed list of the issues currently affecting the target to better allow for the attending healer to address each issue."
Once more, the crowd began to mutter, although this time it was fairly easy for both Shèn and Miho to ignore. There were definitely things stated, but they were mostly positive as far as they could make out. The overall position seemed to be 'oho, kayfabe with lore'.
"Moving on," Miho declared, eyeing the crowd but otherwise unaffected by the muttering, "We've covered Physik, Resurrection, and Libra. Now, to cover Esuna." Pausing to clear her throat, the fox began explaining the very thing they had been called to test at last, "Esuna is, without a doubt, the most significant contribution a single individual has ever made to Arcanima. Created by an unknown Arcanist during the early days of the Allagan Empire in an effort to replicate the mythical panacea, it has since been built upon endlessly by Arcanists ever since. Esuna is simple in principle. It has a blacklist and whitelist of conditions allowable to the human body, with the whitelist formed through the use of Libra on healthy individuals of that species and the blacklist composed entirely of known afflictions. One such affliction is an altered mental state, as Shèn demonstrated at the bank. Esuna–"
"Does that mean you two can cure hangovers!?" Someone from the crowd of volunteers interrupted loudly.
Blinking, Miho paused, before slowly nodding, "Yes. It would also be possible to use to cure drunkeness, though for alcoholism in general, a more extensive application would be required to completely purge the brain and body of the dependency." Pausing, she held up a finger, "Ah, wait. Drunkenness wouldn't be mental, but Esuna could still take care of it. Apologies, I forgot that for a moment."
"Fixing the liver itself would only take a quick cast, though." Shèn added without missing a beat, because it was as good a lead-in for this quirk of Esuna as anything else. "It falls in the same odd spot as cataracts in taking a long time to build up but being simple enough to treat. Whereas most conditions either need to have been caught on the same day to be healed in such a way or require the spell to be cast in surgical mode."
"Additionally," Miho began, pursing her lips, "Esuna is capable of mitigating but not curing 'mental disorders' such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder." The fox woman's feelings about that label weren't exactly hard to make out. She was not only openly sneering, but spitting the words like something rotten caught between her teeth. Shèn didn't need to be a psychic to know what the people here, especially Dr Marigold were thinking about that reaction.
The Dragon took that as her cue to cut right in. Her partner was compromised enough her explanation had ended up misleading to the point of outright misinformation. "Or rather, it was designed with an extremely even-handed view of psychology and incredibly strict ethics. Unless someone's neural architecture has been modified through traumatic events, alternative setups are considered just that. The only thing treated will be the associated malfunctions. Someone with OCD will retain their eye for detail, but they will no longer be forced into compulsive and obsessive behaviors. Someone with sociopathy or autism will become better able to parse emotions and cues, but the underlying thought patterns will not change. Someone transgender will no longer suffer the symptoms of dysphoria, for all they will retain their gender identity. However, purely harmful conditions such as dissociative disorders, kleptomania and Tourette's will be removed entirely."
"Pardon?" Dr Hamilton questioned as the crowd erupted into whispered mutterings, "Did you just say that Esuna can cure mental disorders? Outright?"
"Yes. Brain tumors and lesions are also eminently treatable by Esuna, although they tend to require switching to surgical mode and plugging in Physik to enhance its ability to transmute and regenerate tissue. Lesions, depending on severity, can be treated singlehandedly by Physik." Shèn replied without missing a beat, bobbing her head as though that hadn't caused another ripple of mutters. She was valuable and by god she was going to drive it in by hammer and chisel. Blowing shit up with flashy magic was a hobby, the medical field was a special layer of hell, doubly so for the cases that'd be assigned to someone like her. "For mutations and assorted transformations of the body, it can be either Esuna on its own or a combination as I described, depending on the underlying mechanics of the effect."
"I… see." Dr Hamilton replied, eyes darting over to Dr Marigold, who simply nodded. There were great many thoughts swirling behind those eyes, but they didn't matter so long as the powers were properly demonstrated. "Right then. Shèn and Miho, if you could both demonstrate Esuna on two volunteers with suitable conditions?"
"Of course." Miho replied instantly, preempting Shèn, "Show of hands please."
Immediately, several hands shot up.
"You and you." Dr Hamilton immediately called, bringing over what looked to be two volunteers. One of them was wearing a skirt and t-shirt combo and in her early twenties, her exposed skin covered in rashes. The other was simply a middle-aged woman with puffy eyes, "If you could state your conditions for the record?"
"Gender Dysphoria, a non serious allergic reaction due to someone accidentally placing shellfish in my meal despite me asking otherwise." The one walking up to Miho stated immediately, her(?) voice straining slightly as it dipped into a more masculine range ever so briefly.
"HRT?" Miho asked, "If you don't mind me asking, that is. I just need to make sure I properly tune Esuna's blacklist-whitelist."
"Yes. Estradiol and Spironolactone." The woman replied with a sharp nod.
"Got it. If you could stand still, please?" The fox requested clinically. Drawing her casting implement against as she cast Libra, Miho hummed to herself as she read the data provided by the spell, "Right. I've identified the issue." Pausing, she took a deep, fortifying breath, "We'll use Esuna in a standard cast first, to deal with your allergic reaction. I will need your permission before I even remotely decide to mess with your dysphoria."
"Understood." With a bob of her head, the woman waited patiently as Miho quickly and efficiently took care of the symptoms caused by the allergic reactions. Rashes disappeared from her exposed skin and face more and more as the Fox concluded her treatment.
"What do we have on the menu for you?" Shèn asked her patient as she left her partner to her devices, offering what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
"An allergic reaction to peanuts. Some bugger on the bus was eating them and accidentally threw one my way. It landed pretty close to my eye, and this is the result." The woman grumped as she waved at her puffy eyes, "Kids these days, I swear."
"Ugh, public transport. I had to take an hour long train ride to get to uni every day and of fucking course it was right at the time the second shift of office workers piled on in." The dragon grumbled back as she unfurled Esuna's rainbow schema, taking the line of conversation and running with it. Couldn't just slap her dick down on the table, also had to get people to ease down. "I'll tell your immune system to calm down. Then if you want I can get it through its thick skull that no, peanuts aren't the spawn of the devil, stop sending a whole army when some pop up. Plus, y'know, any other allergies you've got while I'm at it."
"Miss Shèn, you're capable of doing that?" Doctor Hamilton asked, more to clarify than anything else.
"Yes. It will take the surgical mode to adjust the parameters of her immune system, hence why I'm asking for consent given what could be done there." Shèn replied with a bob of her head, then more towards her patient added, "Not that different than trusting a surgeon to have basic morals while rooting around your chest cavity, really."
"I see." The medical doctor replied, glancing towards the patient, "Missus Freeman, I believe that choice is up to you. Either way, I would recommend getting tested in a medical facility after the fact to confirm that you no longer have the allergy."
For what felt like a minute, Missus Freeman carefully considered Shèn's proposition. "...I give my consent, Miss Shen. There are peanut butter cookies calling my name."
"Alright, let's chuck those diet restrictions to the garbage where they belong." The dragon woman replied with a crooked grin, a rainbow shimmering between her talons.
"They're not parahumans." Doctor Marigold spoke after a few moments, looking the data arrayed before her with a honest to god massive grin, "The scans of their brains we took on the sly corroborate everything else we've seen, and the fact that they repeatedly had to stop to adjust their 'Esuna' schema while working through the volunteers gives credence to everything they said."
Before the Nurse could speak up to voice his doubts, Doctor Hamilton nodded slowly, "I agree with you, Doctor Marigold. For much of the same reasons, though, another thing stuck out to me." He nodded towards an image of Shen and Miho working their way through the volunteers, semi-professionally and smoothly going through the line in a manner akin to a machine. Or a professional. "While we can definitely make the argument that they're simply parahumans with a background in medicine, I don't personally believe that's the case. Like you pointed out, they quite literally have identical powers. Additionally, they both seem to believe that there is a degree of science behind their abilities. Most notably, they were throwing around terms that they didn't quite understand the meaning of, but were confident enough to use."
"There was strange brain activity when we asked them questions…" Nicholas hedged, shifting uncomfortably. There were no coronas or any odd clumps of nervous tissue that'd indicate a core mutation like some Brutes and Changers underwent. That left one very worrying implication.
"And it was nothing like the records of Teacher's minions or Mather's victims. They'd need to have been granted a Thinker power and undergone physical mutation by some parahuman ability and been granted Tinkertech gemstones, to say nothing of whatever enabled them to have this 'aether'." Doctor Marigold replied with a shake of her head, "Some could argue they are grab bags with a Breaker power that phases their true bodies or at least brains in favor of projections."
"But none of the readings match with that theory. Fully functional organs and digestive processes aren't something projections are known for." Doctor Hamilton finished that thought.
"...Have I mentioned how glad I am to be a glorified scribe not invited to the meeting with the Director?" Nicholas said after an awkward pause. This sounded like the start of a case file and he wanted nothing to do with that bureaucratic monstrosity.