Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
I believe that they convert lifeforce into energy and then use that to modify environmental energy into spells. Sort of like the opposite of Sage Chakra generation from Naruto come to think of it. Joe should be able to make a good storage mechanism for it though. They weren't that uncommon in the Nasuverse.
Actually come to think of it Joes golems should be able to make a few since they have Fiat-backed ability to craft storage things as well as he can.
Storage solutions for... magic circuits? How on earth would that work? Would it be stored in sheets? Would it be stored however somebody would store nervous systems, which as I understand it, are essentially what magic circuits are in a biological sense?
Magic Crests are described as a series of magic circuits or as an accumulation of them.
I meant storage for Od actually but yeah some storage devices for Crests or Circuits would also probably be good. With it being possible to heal the soul it should be possible to create a excess of them.
I would even go so far as to say that it would be a decent idea to make a artificial nervous systems worth of them but that'd be a different project entirely. Hell if it's possible to convert nerves into Magic Circuits then it might be worth it to convert ones brain into them since they're contained within the soul.
I believe it's canon that that whole nerve circuit was a terrible idea and a great way to die. I think it's also incredibly painful, temporary with the additional side effect of nerve damage. What you suggested would almost definitely kill Joe
Narsauce
The Crucible Shitlord
- Location
- Here, there and everywhere
Up until, you know, you take into account his Generator Rex Nanites, which have Fiat backed healing bullshittery which should undoubtably be able to heal off any effects of the nerve damage.
- Location
- Odessa
That's correct but Very misguiding without some clarifiers.
1. They do convert (a bit of a mislabeling) lifeforce, Od, but quantity is minuscule, to the point where it is not relevant for costly things like Joe's Noble Phantasm. And person's Od capacity is still limited not by circuits, but by other factors.
2. Magi utilize freely the Mana in the air for the purpose of spells that exceed their personal Od, but the amount they can utilize at one time correlates to the capacity of their Magic Circuits. Source. I understand term 'capacity' as a throughput of sorts, it corelates, circuits don't actually store it, going over capacity will 'overheat' the circuits. But Od I think is still required for control purposes.
3. Od (オド, Odo) is the life-force energy found within living organisms such as humans (Not just mages!), animals and Magical Beasts. Once depleted, the Magic Circuits that are stored in the human soul will begin to replenish it. Od is produced as long as one lives, but the amount a person can store varies from individual to individual. (same source)
4. Mana can be taken in accordingly with the capacities of the Magic Circuits, but the actual conversion process will take time. (same source) Which confirms that circuits do not store anything, they just have some conversion capacity, after which they sort of 'overheat' (supposedly very painful).
5. Od is almost not relevant without presence of external mana sources, once all non-Od magic gets drained, Magus can no longer properly function.
Since Joe does not pass out after repeated use of his circuits, I can only assume that 'capacity' of his circuits is already ridiculous (as proper for a demigod-servant), far above available pool of energy, so he can drain that external 'pool' repeatedly. A normal Magus will have 'circuit capacity' below that of environment energy level, but joe apparently has a reverse situation.
May be in bottles with artificial souls and tissue? 'Nerves' are just a physical representation, most of it are 'soul' level.
Joe definetely can figure out external storage options for Od and Mana (Taylor's armor likely utilizes that), but it's unclear if he will be able to use said options to power up his Phantasm.
Probably not an issue for Joe, still not all that useful.
P.S. I'm fairly certain that it's at minimum unpleasant even for normal magic circuits.
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What I'm suggesting would kill anyone except Joe. Him and possibly a few biotinkers. Or some Magi who got lucky. It should be a matter of doing it well rather then doing it at all. Bonesaw did put artificial nervous systems into the Slaughterhouse Nine as anti-Mastering countermeasures after all.
Nope. "The difference between Mana and Od is their abundance. Mana can be found almost anywhere and in great quantities, thus it is called the Greater Source by the magi. As Od is the energy inside humans and animals, it is much smaller in amount and is called the Lesser Source. Strictly speaking, Mana and Od are energy in its raw state, whereas magical energy is the name given to the energy once it is converted by the Magic Circuits. Mana can be taken in accordingly with the capacities of the Magic Circuits, but the actual conversion process will take time.
Regarding nature interference Magecraft mentioned before, at least for large-scale spells, activation requires the use of Mana regardless of the amount of Od that the magus has. In fact, it is common practice among the magi to start up their spells with Od and then keep them running with Mana. Only small-scale spells that do not interact with the environment directly are performed entirely with Od, an example of which would be Reinforcement."
While draining the environment of Mana instead of, or at least as well as, ones own Od to produce Magical Energy is possible the use of environmental Mana via Magical Energy is A Thing according to the Nasuverse Wiki. A skilled enough Magi could totally pull off the Tenpenchii technique.
Since they aren't biological features so much as spiritual ones I think that they'd just manifest in any medium that a soul had a connection to rather then just living ones. 'Should just end up Projected a la Gradation Air if they weren't bound to anything even. Or maybe that'd only be possible if they were bound to a location without being bound to a material. Boy I wonder how Matrix would feel about that. A object not made out of materials.
I'm sure that Joe could mitigate the discomfort of using Circuits or Crests reasonably easily.
Actually come to think of it the similarity between Magic Circuits and Life Fibers, that being that they're non-atomic and feed off of living things, means that it'd probably be possible to make things like Goku Uniforms or even Kamui out of a sufficient number of Magical Circuits.
Edit: actually if it's possible to make clothing out of spiritual stuff like Magic Circuits/Crests it would probably also be possible to make it out of Aura or souls. Honestly those souls that Joe got could probably stand to be taken out of the Warehouse anyway. I'm sure that Fleet would enjoy taking them on tours around the city.
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Subrosian_Smithy
endless
- Location
- Washington
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
I am begging all of you to read Theory of Magic from CM3 instead of quoting the wiki verbatim.
This debate on Fate magic is a moot point. Given the whole deal about Joe being able to wet-tinker Magic Circuits and actually doing it, has viability. For him? Oh, hell no. He don't need to do it. For Aisha on the other hand.....given he has already asked her to trust in him to improve her body with wet tinkering...or at least it is heavily implied that he did, why wouldn't he consider adding magic circuits to -her- to ensure she has every advantage for survival? We all know she wants to be a magical girl if she can.
EDIT: Autocorrupt.
EDIT: Autocorrupt.
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It's not exactly accessible though is it?
He doesn't really use them for things other then Projection Magic and atemporal crafting so no not really...Actually come to think of it that kind of makes it especially so since Magic Crests automatically cast spells. Since he only really uses those two spells it'd probably be especially useful for him to do so.
That's kind of especially true for Aisha since they'd both want her to be able to auto-cast a lot of spells. It'd be intended to be a emergency feature after all. Furthermore some medical Alteration Magic and bodily Reinforcement Magic would probably be a pretty central use of it as well and getting those to be automatic could take a bit of effort...Or it might be possible to have them and/or the medical nanites biggyback off of eachother.
Interestingly enough I believe that Joe might end up using what is known as Tuning Magecraft since he recently got a Unnatural Skill to that effect if he ends up trying to give Aisha Magical Circuits or Crests.
Subrosian_Smithy
endless
- Location
- Washington
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
Thank you. I'm not sure I'll be able to use it but thank you anyway.
The author decided to depict the resource use lessening Perks as not reducing what could be salvaged from a given thing that Joe made by the same degree that it could be made out of a reduced amount of stuff, which I feel would be a much more reasonably depiction of it, so now he has a way to produce endless components of things.
SiegfriedisOP
Calamity Demon King of Time
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Aisha with the Tuned Unseen Divinely Efficienct Heretically Adapted Element Imbued Magic Crest(Shadow) crafted by Daedalus' Student what will she do?
Whatever the hell she wants.
- Location
- Philippines
If we're talking Workaholic, every time Joe makes anything, he's given the option to either make 5 copies of it or to make it 3 times bigger for every dimension (hence, by the Square-Cube law, makes it 3x3x3 = 27 times more mass, though Joe just rounds it down to 25 for ease of remembrance). It's pretty much Joe's biggest resource management cheat, though he has obtained other perks that either let him duplicate or lessen resource consumption, only at a lesser extent compared to the broken-ass Workaholic perk that he got from the Sonic Jumpchain doc.
It is worth noting though that Workaholic only duplicates what he creates, so if what he makes is temporary (like through Projection and similar effects), the duplicated copies are just as temporary as the original. However, if the items he makes are permanent, so would be the copies.
The Shallow
Shallow, Yet Deep
- Location
- Your Universe
- Pronouns
- She/They
It actually doesn't multiply it by three in each dimension, it multiplies it by the cube root of 25, which is 2.924, rounded up to 3 for the sake of rememberence.
- Location
- Philippines
Oh, so it was the reverse then? Gotcha.
Do Joe's creations have machine spirits or is that something he'll only get once he gets a few more 40k Perks?
There might be a Word of God on the subject, but if there is, I wouldn't know where to find it.
Going off of the Reference Spreadsheet's description of Technical Training and Arch-Magos, I'm going to say Joe won't get the ability to install machine spirits in whatever he builds, solely because the Perk descriptions don't make any reference to that. I might be wrong, though.
BarbaCoPut
Voluta indomita
- Location
- Argentina
- Pronouns
- He/His
OTOH, natural appearance of Machine Spirits.
It's uncertain, uncomplicated machines, no. The Warp is absolutely calm (in galactic terms) so there are no Chaos gods and stuff, whatever "spirit" normal machines "grow" would mostly simply work as intended.
Extremely complex, half-sentient or sentient machines, might develop a Machine Spirit, in time.
Survey and Fleet probably had a nascent Machine Spirit even before gaining a body, Matrix too for that matter.
She's perfectly nice, I swear! (Wallawallaman)
An Omake!
She's perfectly nice, I swear!
Brian was amped up. They finally were able to make a move on the E88. The temporary truce had already fell through due to Damsel's outburst, so the Undersiders were free to raid some E88 storehouses. Taylor's bug senses were becoming incredibly useful for surveillance, and Lisa was able to pinpoint locations accurately. It was a decent change from the week he was still trying to forget. Lisa and Taylor were sorting out and organizing civilian clothes, disguises, and various other utilities into Joe's ridiculous bag.
Glancing at Lisa, she gave him a half hearted shrug, conveying what he presumed was a go ahead, followed by a nod. She really was irritating sometimes.
Glancing at his wrist, "Watch, call Joe"
He had to make sure that he didn't come off like he was asking permission, but that is still what it was, at the end of the day. The undersiders were more than aware of the eyes on them, and had no intention of biting off more than they could chew again.
The call connected almost instantly as expected
"Brian? What's going on?"
"Taylor and Lisa had pinpointed five e88 stash locations, we planned on clearing them out. We plan on going in clean, removing money, and destroying drugs and weapons without property damage."
That was their intent anyway. Rachel's dogs could knock over things without intending to, and Taylor ended up using that knife pretty much every engagement.
Joe's voice piped back, sounding as clear as someone in the same room.
"Ah really? Actually, you know what, could this be Survey's first outside field engagement? She has a few things she could contribute. Also, you guys missed a location between items 4 and 5, I just sent them to your watches. I will probably swing by afterwards and see how things go. We should really do a meet and greet at some point."
At that, Lisa and Alec both perked up, probably for different reasons, and Taylor looked briefly panicked for a moment. It smoothed out, but it was rather odd. Yeah, Joe's tech was pretty scary, and Survey was obscenely beautiful from what he could remember from the summit, but he doubted that anyone on Joe's team could be scary.
The tech? Definitely scary. But he doubted Joe could have anyone truly scary on his team.
And with that thought, the doorbell rang.
___
Rune sped through the skies, Cricket holding onto on her back, though her balance was good enough that it was mostly for wind resistance. Stormtiger on her other side however, was a brick every time she changed directions. Hookwolf inelegantly glomped onto the crumbling slab she had whizzing next to her. He was too pointy to share with. The Undersiders, or at least Grue had been sighted hitting one of the warehouses they owned, so they were trying to head it off early. Who knows what kind of assistance they would have. To be perfectly honest, she doubted that any e88 squad could handle the Undersiders, she saw what those knives could do. She brought some rubble ahead of her to check for garrots or similar.
She could see a billowing cloud of smoke in the distance and the sound of shouting men. Closer! She wasn't really sure how to handle this, maybe she could bank in closer, drop the melee fighters in, than tag some of the roof panels? She didn't really want to get in close but- wait, Grue's smoke is retreating, is that a flying figure-
silver?
//SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXXXXXXCCCCCXXXX???/////
BOOOOOM
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
PAIN
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
OhGodOhGodOhGodIt'sHerNotHerNoAlarmsNoSirensWheresAlexandriaOhGodOhGodIdontwantthisnonononononomommy
//AWWWWWWGGGGGGGGNEEEEEEEXXXEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE////
black
---
Survey was quite pleased with her work. Aisha's idea to train with Karaoke was a great idea as a nonlethal area control method! Using her mass effect fields and other tricks, such as utilizing her hair as a psy field emitter, she was able to hit with an auditory weapon that disoriented and subdued all gangsters in the operational vicinity by manipulation and control of their auditory nerves. Grue performed the visual bait column to draw in the e88 parahuman examples, and the other undersiders had just finished with the monetary and cleanup objectives as she finished her utility song. Rune was adequately subdued, though she must do better with her voice next time. She did not intend to loosen the bladder, so she must have hit those nerves accidentally. She will strive to improve. Stormtiger's fields were not an obstacle, as both Stormtiger and Hookwolf had been targeted via modulated psy field for a similar affect. Sound waves would have been mitigated or ignored respectively, so alternate, more energy intensive methods were used.
She was quite pleased with her performance. There was zero property damage, the Undersiders had clogged or disabled all operational weapons on the field, and most importantly, she set a new personal voice-box waveform complexity record! Admittedly, more complex waveforms had been generated for practice, but were never deployed for a live example. This was a great proof of concept!
Sensors pinged! Hookwolf seems to be recovering operation after a disorientation state inducement. Additional temporary compliance measures may be needed. Extra sensors fired up as Hookwolf's cognition was analyzed. She was concerned that the compound Hookwolf was made after would damage the concrete sidewalk if treated roughly, and she refused to cause more collateral or be messier than Fleet! Psy circuits spinning up, she analyzed Hookwolfs aggression centers and inversed them, using a version of dimensional carrier waves she pioneered off Victor's powers. For additional safety, she added in a sleep state inducement as well. Hookwolf immediate halted aggressive activity, and proceeded to revert to a large Caucasian man. Happily, she snagged a sample of his metal for analysis. Excellent! And the two locks damaged by the Undersiders were valued at combined $635. It was mostly a comment on her skills at managing human engagements. She would work on leaving no trace, like boy scouts in the Forrest! Only amatuers change a system by measuring it, and she could do better.
Proud of herself, she levitated the 3 e88 parahumans into a position to apply restraints, and turned to her compatriots to discuss the next move. She did good, right?
---
Alec wasn't quiet sure what to think right now. Or really, he wasn't sure what to think about anything in the last week or so. It was a surreal experience. But especially now.
Currently they were all following along with Survey, Joe's thinker girlfriend? Or something? Either way, she was enchanting in about every context and lighting to look at. It was giving him uncomfortable flashbacks to certain members of his family, and some of the powers that people didn't like to think about. He was starting to understand what people mean when they something hurts them to think about. He couldn't really name the feeling, but it felt like a vacuum in his stomach. He wrote it off as just a nervous reaction to someone who he couldn't feel with his powers, but it might be because he was reminded of his family. Another one of those things that only started hurting this week.
Lisa had been acting twitchy ever since Rachel asked Survey if she was the voice of the watches and she said yes, but beyond that, things had gone rather well. Lisa's power actually worked really well for once, and with Taylor feeding her a localized map via Gnat wire-frame, as well as Survey's insanely accurate Joe-type insertions, they had avoided almost everyone in the building. Taylor, Lisa and him were running out to meet up with Brian, Rachel and Survey to deal with the actual people. No e88 parahumans yet, but he figured it was a matter of time. They should be able to handle it, or at least survive it, based on Bitch's experience with the force fields.
Coming into the courtyard he was treated to the site of Brian sending up a towering column of darkness, shouting to the world who they were, interspersed with Kephri's black clouds of Neighborly Love. Seriously if Joe wasn't around, she would be the scariest cape in the city.
There were e88 gangsters getting their shit together on their outskirts , but he did notice with a vicious satisfaction that they seemed to be terrified of actually trying to fight them. That was still weird to think about, but he wasn't complaining, not after the storage yard.
Watched beeped.
"Brian: Survey is in position. She said she can take them all out cleanly. She's Joe's teammate, let's see what that means.
The towering cloud of Darkness dissipated, and he noticed Brian and Rachel start running over to his location.
Joe's overly glossy teammate hung in the air, an airy cut on her uniform, her silver hair splayed out in a circular fan around her, rippling like water on a lake.
On her face hung an expression of anticipation, her cherry lips opening as she closed her eyes.
She looked rather angelic, hanging in the twilight, he felt that he couldn't move his eyes away. Not a good sign.
/Dammit Joe, what did you do/
As that thought crossed his mind, he noticed two things. One, Rune and some passengers was incoming in the sky, followed by what looked like one of Joe's drones at a rough distance. Two, a shockwave blew out from Survey, tinged with vaguely purple light. His watch's forcefield flickered on, then off, and stayed that way, but he did notice a slight buzzing noise, like Taylor's insects in the air.
Then he noticed that every e88 member, including Rune and Stormtiger, were screaming and covering their ears. Rune looked like she was trying to crawl away as fast as possible from where Survey shot her down, but she kept twitching until she stopped moving, curled into a fetal position. He had no idea what happened to Rune's platform, but the dust in the air in front of Survey was an accurate sign of their fates. Survey looked positively angelic, like she was effortless sunshine embodied.
It was then very quiet. The move from the volume of an active parahuman conflict, to deserted yard was as rapid at it was unsettling. It had only been about 2 seconds, he had barely been able to notice the action happen.
A hand grasped his harm, surprising him, both in the fact that it happened at all, and the person who did it. Tattletale was staring at Survey, a wideeyed expression on her face, mouth open and closing,a shaking hand wrenching on his bicep to hold herself upright. Her face still didn''t change, still stuck on a wide eyed stare at Survey. Taylor had already made it over to Brian and Rachel, who were looking back at the scene. Tattletale was stuck immobile, no matter how Alec tugged.
Given Joe's teammate just pulled off a Simurg impression, and it was Joe's teammate, whatever scared the shit out of Tattletale was probably pretty fucking scary. He was too busy being confused to be that scared though.
A grinding noise drew Survey's head as she snapped back to Hookwolf. Survey's head tilted a little bit, Lisa's hand got even tighter on his arm. Survey's impossibly beautiful eyes started bleeding purple fire, and Hookwolf started shaking like he was having a seizure, little metal bits flying everywhere. He seemed to let out a strangled groan, and started to revert to a man, leaving his 6ft foot pit fighter bulk drooling on the ground in front of the sidewalk. And at that, Tattletale fainted, and he had to catch her.
Survey turned her head to him and Tattletale.
Survey, with a shining smile on her face, crushed some of Hookwolf's metal in her palm, and ate some of it.
Staring at the image of Enchanting Destruction, Alec then proceeded to scream like a little girl. He really could care less what Brian thought of him at this point.
AN:
I couldn't help but think that Survey running at anything close to her full bearing could easy come off to Lisa as Joe's version of a personal endbringer.
If Lisa puts Survey's similarities to Weld together, that Survey is also watch, (Remember, magic scanners?), coupled with Joe-made body, plus mind powers, plus surveillance?
Plus "unique" areas of concern, eg, inhuman?
(Tats doesn't know she is a sweetheart!)
Terror would be a natural response.
She's perfectly nice, I swear!
Brian was amped up. They finally were able to make a move on the E88. The temporary truce had already fell through due to Damsel's outburst, so the Undersiders were free to raid some E88 storehouses. Taylor's bug senses were becoming incredibly useful for surveillance, and Lisa was able to pinpoint locations accurately. It was a decent change from the week he was still trying to forget. Lisa and Taylor were sorting out and organizing civilian clothes, disguises, and various other utilities into Joe's ridiculous bag.
Glancing at Lisa, she gave him a half hearted shrug, conveying what he presumed was a go ahead, followed by a nod. She really was irritating sometimes.
Glancing at his wrist, "Watch, call Joe"
He had to make sure that he didn't come off like he was asking permission, but that is still what it was, at the end of the day. The undersiders were more than aware of the eyes on them, and had no intention of biting off more than they could chew again.
The call connected almost instantly as expected
"Brian? What's going on?"
"Taylor and Lisa had pinpointed five e88 stash locations, we planned on clearing them out. We plan on going in clean, removing money, and destroying drugs and weapons without property damage."
That was their intent anyway. Rachel's dogs could knock over things without intending to, and Taylor ended up using that knife pretty much every engagement.
Joe's voice piped back, sounding as clear as someone in the same room.
"Ah really? Actually, you know what, could this be Survey's first outside field engagement? She has a few things she could contribute. Also, you guys missed a location between items 4 and 5, I just sent them to your watches. I will probably swing by afterwards and see how things go. We should really do a meet and greet at some point."
At that, Lisa and Alec both perked up, probably for different reasons, and Taylor looked briefly panicked for a moment. It smoothed out, but it was rather odd. Yeah, Joe's tech was pretty scary, and Survey was obscenely beautiful from what he could remember from the summit, but he doubted that anyone on Joe's team could be scary.
The tech? Definitely scary. But he doubted Joe could have anyone truly scary on his team.
And with that thought, the doorbell rang.
___
Rune sped through the skies, Cricket holding onto on her back, though her balance was good enough that it was mostly for wind resistance. Stormtiger on her other side however, was a brick every time she changed directions. Hookwolf inelegantly glomped onto the crumbling slab she had whizzing next to her. He was too pointy to share with. The Undersiders, or at least Grue had been sighted hitting one of the warehouses they owned, so they were trying to head it off early. Who knows what kind of assistance they would have. To be perfectly honest, she doubted that any e88 squad could handle the Undersiders, she saw what those knives could do. She brought some rubble ahead of her to check for garrots or similar.
She could see a billowing cloud of smoke in the distance and the sound of shouting men. Closer! She wasn't really sure how to handle this, maybe she could bank in closer, drop the melee fighters in, than tag some of the roof panels? She didn't really want to get in close but- wait, Grue's smoke is retreating, is that a flying figure-
silver?
//SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXXXXXXCCCCCXXXX???/////
BOOOOOM
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
PAIN
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
OhGodOhGodOhGodIt'sHerNotHerNoAlarmsNoSirensWheresAlexandriaOhGodOhGodIdontwantthisnonononononomommy
//AWWWWWWGGGGGGGGNEEEEEEEXXXEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE////
black
---
Survey was quite pleased with her work. Aisha's idea to train with Karaoke was a great idea as a nonlethal area control method! Using her mass effect fields and other tricks, such as utilizing her hair as a psy field emitter, she was able to hit with an auditory weapon that disoriented and subdued all gangsters in the operational vicinity by manipulation and control of their auditory nerves. Grue performed the visual bait column to draw in the e88 parahuman examples, and the other undersiders had just finished with the monetary and cleanup objectives as she finished her utility song. Rune was adequately subdued, though she must do better with her voice next time. She did not intend to loosen the bladder, so she must have hit those nerves accidentally. She will strive to improve. Stormtiger's fields were not an obstacle, as both Stormtiger and Hookwolf had been targeted via modulated psy field for a similar affect. Sound waves would have been mitigated or ignored respectively, so alternate, more energy intensive methods were used.
She was quite pleased with her performance. There was zero property damage, the Undersiders had clogged or disabled all operational weapons on the field, and most importantly, she set a new personal voice-box waveform complexity record! Admittedly, more complex waveforms had been generated for practice, but were never deployed for a live example. This was a great proof of concept!
Sensors pinged! Hookwolf seems to be recovering operation after a disorientation state inducement. Additional temporary compliance measures may be needed. Extra sensors fired up as Hookwolf's cognition was analyzed. She was concerned that the compound Hookwolf was made after would damage the concrete sidewalk if treated roughly, and she refused to cause more collateral or be messier than Fleet! Psy circuits spinning up, she analyzed Hookwolfs aggression centers and inversed them, using a version of dimensional carrier waves she pioneered off Victor's powers. For additional safety, she added in a sleep state inducement as well. Hookwolf immediate halted aggressive activity, and proceeded to revert to a large Caucasian man. Happily, she snagged a sample of his metal for analysis. Excellent! And the two locks damaged by the Undersiders were valued at combined $635. It was mostly a comment on her skills at managing human engagements. She would work on leaving no trace, like boy scouts in the Forrest! Only amatuers change a system by measuring it, and she could do better.
Proud of herself, she levitated the 3 e88 parahumans into a position to apply restraints, and turned to her compatriots to discuss the next move. She did good, right?
---
Alec wasn't quiet sure what to think right now. Or really, he wasn't sure what to think about anything in the last week or so. It was a surreal experience. But especially now.
Currently they were all following along with Survey, Joe's thinker girlfriend? Or something? Either way, she was enchanting in about every context and lighting to look at. It was giving him uncomfortable flashbacks to certain members of his family, and some of the powers that people didn't like to think about. He was starting to understand what people mean when they something hurts them to think about. He couldn't really name the feeling, but it felt like a vacuum in his stomach. He wrote it off as just a nervous reaction to someone who he couldn't feel with his powers, but it might be because he was reminded of his family. Another one of those things that only started hurting this week.
Lisa had been acting twitchy ever since Rachel asked Survey if she was the voice of the watches and she said yes, but beyond that, things had gone rather well. Lisa's power actually worked really well for once, and with Taylor feeding her a localized map via Gnat wire-frame, as well as Survey's insanely accurate Joe-type insertions, they had avoided almost everyone in the building. Taylor, Lisa and him were running out to meet up with Brian, Rachel and Survey to deal with the actual people. No e88 parahumans yet, but he figured it was a matter of time. They should be able to handle it, or at least survive it, based on Bitch's experience with the force fields.
Coming into the courtyard he was treated to the site of Brian sending up a towering column of darkness, shouting to the world who they were, interspersed with Kephri's black clouds of Neighborly Love. Seriously if Joe wasn't around, she would be the scariest cape in the city.
There were e88 gangsters getting their shit together on their outskirts , but he did notice with a vicious satisfaction that they seemed to be terrified of actually trying to fight them. That was still weird to think about, but he wasn't complaining, not after the storage yard.
Watched beeped.
"Brian: Survey is in position. She said she can take them all out cleanly. She's Joe's teammate, let's see what that means.
The towering cloud of Darkness dissipated, and he noticed Brian and Rachel start running over to his location.
Joe's overly glossy teammate hung in the air, an airy cut on her uniform, her silver hair splayed out in a circular fan around her, rippling like water on a lake.
On her face hung an expression of anticipation, her cherry lips opening as she closed her eyes.
She looked rather angelic, hanging in the twilight, he felt that he couldn't move his eyes away. Not a good sign.
/Dammit Joe, what did you do/
As that thought crossed his mind, he noticed two things. One, Rune and some passengers was incoming in the sky, followed by what looked like one of Joe's drones at a rough distance. Two, a shockwave blew out from Survey, tinged with vaguely purple light. His watch's forcefield flickered on, then off, and stayed that way, but he did notice a slight buzzing noise, like Taylor's insects in the air.
Then he noticed that every e88 member, including Rune and Stormtiger, were screaming and covering their ears. Rune looked like she was trying to crawl away as fast as possible from where Survey shot her down, but she kept twitching until she stopped moving, curled into a fetal position. He had no idea what happened to Rune's platform, but the dust in the air in front of Survey was an accurate sign of their fates. Survey looked positively angelic, like she was effortless sunshine embodied.
It was then very quiet. The move from the volume of an active parahuman conflict, to deserted yard was as rapid at it was unsettling. It had only been about 2 seconds, he had barely been able to notice the action happen.
A hand grasped his harm, surprising him, both in the fact that it happened at all, and the person who did it. Tattletale was staring at Survey, a wideeyed expression on her face, mouth open and closing,a shaking hand wrenching on his bicep to hold herself upright. Her face still didn''t change, still stuck on a wide eyed stare at Survey. Taylor had already made it over to Brian and Rachel, who were looking back at the scene. Tattletale was stuck immobile, no matter how Alec tugged.
Given Joe's teammate just pulled off a Simurg impression, and it was Joe's teammate, whatever scared the shit out of Tattletale was probably pretty fucking scary. He was too busy being confused to be that scared though.
A grinding noise drew Survey's head as she snapped back to Hookwolf. Survey's head tilted a little bit, Lisa's hand got even tighter on his arm. Survey's impossibly beautiful eyes started bleeding purple fire, and Hookwolf started shaking like he was having a seizure, little metal bits flying everywhere. He seemed to let out a strangled groan, and started to revert to a man, leaving his 6ft foot pit fighter bulk drooling on the ground in front of the sidewalk. And at that, Tattletale fainted, and he had to catch her.
Survey turned her head to him and Tattletale.
Survey, with a shining smile on her face, crushed some of Hookwolf's metal in her palm, and ate some of it.
Staring at the image of Enchanting Destruction, Alec then proceeded to scream like a little girl. He really could care less what Brian thought of him at this point.
AN:
I couldn't help but think that Survey running at anything close to her full bearing could easy come off to Lisa as Joe's version of a personal endbringer.
If Lisa puts Survey's similarities to Weld together, that Survey is also watch, (Remember, magic scanners?), coupled with Joe-made body, plus mind powers, plus surveillance?
Plus "unique" areas of concern, eg, inhuman?
(Tats doesn't know she is a sweetheart!)
Terror would be a natural response.
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That some nightmare fuel.