Where's Kaiser pulling all this metal from? He can manipulate it, not make it, so the description of him just creating loads of metal spikes rise from out of the road confused me. If it's power lines or water pipes, I'd be surprised they're readily available in sufficient quantities... and that'll fuck up a lot of expensive infrastructure.
Given that it's described as "dull iron," it's probably iron flakes on the road surface. Get yourself a magnet and run it along the surface of a road, you'd be surprised how much iron you'll pick up.
Other way around. Kaiser can grow metal out of any solid surface, and shape it as it grows, but once it had been generated, he can't manipulate or alter it. So every gram of metal is grown from the now-stationary metal that was already generated.
Exactly. This whole encounter was Taylor not really thinking but trying to burn off her anger and frustration, and then discovering that it was actually a terrible plan and the only villain she saw was one that never gave her an opportunity to steal skills.
The next chapter is very close to complete. I wouldn't post one ending on a cliffhanger without being absolutely certain that I wasn't going to leave the thread hanging for another year, lol.
The anger that envelops me is sudden, as I think about how her position as a hero could have enabled them to get away with things for the last year and a half.
I want to swear at her and at the teacher for potentially knowing, but I manage to strangle that urge before it makes it even halfway up my throat.
For the rest of the class, all I can do is seethe quietly in my seat, clenching my pen in a white-knuckled grip and glaring at my book to prevent me from screaming at someone.
I grabbed the plates, cutlery, bowls, anything that might be needed, just to focus on it. I added the bread, cheese and grater, loading myself up. What else?
I saw some glasses, and as over-burdened as I was, grabbed them anyway, awkwardly wrapping my arm about them. I turned, the loaf of bread slid slightly across the cutlery, and I reflexively spun around with it, to try and catch it.
The movement tipped the cheese over, and when my elbow jerked out in a futile attempt to catch it, the glasses dropped.
They hit the floor and shattered, shards scattering across the floor with an almost musical ringing sound.
Honestly, she could've tried spinning the plates, that would have kept it all up in the air, never to come crashing down. Taylor! Go find Circus, they're the closest thing to a morally acceptable carny to drain!
More blades were growing from the street, but instead of trying to contain the ABB so they could be arrested, Kaiser was simply growing the blades up through the fleeing men's feet.
The damaged brick wall burst apart with a brief flash of light and a heavy impact as something smashed through it. Dust billowed out from the broken wall, blinding me as the unknown object careened forwards, the shrill scream of the alarm suddenly coming through loud and clear.
Coughing and wiping at my eyes, I staggered clear until I managed to get a good look at whatever had almost run me over.
Then again, also kind of surprised Armsmaster's that vulnerable to him. You'd think he'd either have a Plastic Suit (sold as a separate action figure) or just not show up to Kaiser fights, if his entire setup can be (expensively and humiliatingly) wrecked with a thought. He's been fighting this guy and his gang for a while.
Eh, you can't always control when the call's coming in. By the time he made it to his spare suit and back things would've been over. So it was probably Nerf(ed) or nothing. But really, you'd think he'd have tried for Oni Lee or something, since Kaiser (for all we know), could've been in his office with a telescope. I doubt the Nazi-in-Chief would've put too much attention on Armsmaster fighting the cape that the hero could actually see, and maybe it would give Velocity and Battery a chance to scoop up a few more of the Empire gangbangers.
Definitely not as much fun when you can't see where your opponent is. And he doesn't even have Skitter to copy off of in this universe!
Taylor's lucky the PRT shooed her out of there. Honestly, she could've caught a stray bullet, and then where would she be? I mean, dead or bleeding out, but you get the point. Even if it wouldn't have looked too good for the E88 if 'Nazi Villain skewers/Nazi gang shoots white pedestrian.'
Hopefully Taylor can wriggle her way out of whatever hole in the wall she's found herself in and take this as a wake up call.
Other way around. Kaiser can grow metal out of any solid surface, and shape it as it grows, but once it had been generated, he can't manipulate or alter it. So every gram of metal is grown from the now-stationary metal that was already generated.
I really liked Taylor's reaction to Sophia, it's a kind of impotent rage paired with self denial that's such a staple of her early character that I just don't get enough of in fandom and it's one of the most interesting parts of her character to me.
Close to it, to the point where it will take a year or so for him to recover, and it won't all come back. The few months of his interlude didn't give him enough time to notice the bit that did come back.
Close to it, to the point where it will take a year or so for him to recover, and it won't all come back. The few months of his interlude didn't give him enough time to notice the bit that did come back.
I didn't recognise whatever the malformed and heavily modified vehicle was supposed to be, only that it had once been some sort of pickup truck. There was some arcane-looking device glowing green on the back, parts spinning around for some reason I couldn't fathom.
I did, however, recognise the two young men standing on the back of it, behind the device, shouting and laughing. They were wearing black tracksuits traced with neon-green lines down their torso and each limb.
Uber and Leet.
The disbelief I felt in that first moment was swiftly overtaken by anger at the thought that these two idiot manchildren had managed to fuck with my day once again.
The vehicle veered from side to side as it emerged onto the street and awkwardly turned to face the direction I had come from.
A dull glow briefly illuminated the hole they had created in the wall, and something else followed them through.
It was a bundle of glowing green lines that flickered and occasionally blurred as the thing silently floated after the truck. It took me a few seconds to recognise the shape as that of a tank, the barrel pointed back the way it had come.
The glow of the green lines flared brighter at the base, travelling up through to the turret and down the barrel until it flew out and disappeared back into the hole as the tank 'fired'.
A split second later, a ball of bright white energy flew back out and struck the tank, which flickered into green static and disappeared, all without making any noise that I could hear.
"Ah, shit," I heard a nasally voice pipe up. "That's the last tank we had. Can we make another before they catch us?"
"Hahaha," a deeper, booming voice replied, pronouncing the laughter more than actually laughing as Uber put his hands on his hips and posed with one foot up on the side of the truck. "Of course we can. I can slow them down if needed."
"Good," Leet muttered irritably. "Because our steering is pretty fucked right now. We really need to slow them down."
He looked around the street, and his eyes quickly settled on me, an ugly smile stretching out across his face.
"Uber, grab that bitch. We'll use her as a hostage. They'll stop then."
Uber followed where he was pointing and immediately leapt off the truck.
Oh, shit.
I turned and ran, but Uber caught me before I could get ten feet, his fingers latching onto my upper arm and spinning me around.
I tried to claw his fingers off, kicking at the back of his legs and swearing at him, but Uber simply pulled my arms behind my back and lifted until the pain forced me to stop struggling. The way his sheer physicality outmatched my stolen skills drove my rage to even greater heights.
As he dragged me back to the modified vehicle, I noticed that not only was the cab empty, the steering wheel spinning around by itself, but that both tyres on my side had burst.
No wonder it had been veering so erratically as it turned. Whatever autopilot device Leet had created for the vehicle mustn't have been designed with flat tyres in mind.
Uber picked me up and threw me over into the bed of the truck, swiftly vaulting after me and grabbing me before I could regain my feet.
I had landed behind the strange machine, the arms around its top spinning faster and faster as the green light got brighter, a shape forming in the air just behind the truck.
I heard shouting, and saw two figures climb out of the hole, turning to look at us.
The first one was taller, dressed in an armoured white bodysuit with a repeating clock motif. The one that followed seemed more heavily armoured, the armour plates a bright red and edged in gleaming gold. He looked like he was struggling to keep up, with what looked like a half-constructed rifle in his hands.
Clockblocker and Kid Win.
Great. I don't even get the adults trying to save me from these assholes.
Clockblocker points at me, and Kid Win reaches up to his ear, his lips moving. The two of them immediately set out after the truck, reaching it just as the machine stops spinning and glowing and another wireframe tank appears on the street.
Clockblocker immediately reaches out and taps the tank's barrel with an audible "Ha!"
A brighter glow surging up from around the base of the tank was the only warning he had before the tank fired again at point blank range, the shot taking the Ward in the middle of his chest.
Clockblocker was hurled back down the street, flying almost horizontally past his shocked partner to crash and roll down the asphalt.
Uber and Leet howled with laughter at the sight, Leet needing to clutch the back of the truck cab for support.
Kid Win brought up his unfinished gun, the device looking like it would be a three-barrelled laser if it weren't for the fact that two of the barrels were just a bare metal frame with nothing in them.
There was a flash and another ball of white energy appeared, striking the tank and causing it to momentarily fritz like a physical burst of static. He advanced forward, keeping the rifle trained on the tank and sending out a shot every second or two.
The tank began to reverse the same time the truck started up again, its path listing to one side and then correcting back again as it did.
The tank barrel pivoted, sliding noiselessly around to point at kid Win.
As the light flared the Ward lunged to one side, stumbling as he tried to keep his balance while also dropping as low as possible. The barrel kept pivoting and he was forced to make another awkward leap to dodge the hardlight shot, which flew past him and smashed some windows further down the street.
By this point Clockblocker had managed to regain his feet and started running after us, but he was clearly winded and struggling to catch up. At the sight of this, Uber and Leet started jeering even harder.
"Looks like your clock's starting to wind down!" Leet called out shrilly. "You can't do anything against hardlight constructs, Clockblocked!"
"I don't think you'll be in time to save the damsel in distress!" Uber shouted, half pulling me up to make me more visible, my arms still pinned behind my back without any leverage.
Oh, fuck this, and fuck you.
I saw something small and gold flash through the air, circling the vehicle and Wards.
The Snitch, recording everything that happened so the villains could livestream it. Once again, I had ended up on their fucking show, and I couldn't do anything or it would record me.
Except that my power was undetectable.
I focused on Uber, feeling him through his proximity and physical touch, pulling at his combat skills and ability to fight.
And coming back empty handed.
The strange result threw me for a moment, and I focused on him again, looking through his skills, and again seeing very little.
That didn't make any sense. His power was to be skilled at anything he wanted. He should have had almost anything I could want.
Again, the vehicle drifted across the street, bumping against the curb and rapidly correcting. Leet almost fell, and I might have if it weren't for Uber holding me in place. Briefly, a new skill appeared inside him, balance flaring brighter, and I grabbed at it.
But whatever I could do to sense it, there was nothing I could do to get hold of it, and my power's reach slipped past it like oil and water, the skill feeling ephemeral and somehow false.
His power, I realised. All those things he could do, the skills he could instantly master, all came from his power, and none of them from him. And why would he bother to learn a skill, when he could master it with a moment's focus?
Could he even learn skills? Did his power kick in the moment he tried and give him everything, leaving him unable to learn anything by himself?
I shook the thought off as the vehicle slowed again, the device spinning and whirring as the light grew. I started to leech a bit of everything from Uber until I could come up with a better idea.
"Dude, you gotta fix the fuel cell," Uber muttered, tilting his head to direct his voice to just Leet, who was leaning through the missing space where the rear window would be, rummaging through the cab. "We'll never escape at this rate."
Kid Win was trying to sprint and aim at the same time, and his accuracy suffered, several shots passing right through the wireframe and hitting the back of the truck, to seemingly no effect.
Another green flash, and a new wireframe machine appeared behind the truck. This time, instead of the unmoving tank shape, there was a slowly rotating, almost cut-gem image, which I recognised after a few seconds as a flying saucer.
The villains whooped, Leet holding up a bulky, vivid blue gun with a cartoonishly large barrel end and three curved blades arrayed around it.
"Bonus round!" Uber announced dramatically, as the flying saucer took off, swooping low over the Wards and making them duck to avoid it. Kid Win pivoted to follow it with his gun, then started and jumped to the side as the tank fired again. The Ward's return shot proved to be more accurate, and the tank started fritzing, clean green lines momentarily blurring into static.
"Focus on the tank," I heard Clockblocker say to Kid Win. "The UFO doesn't have any guns."
Then Uber was forcing me back down onto my knees and gesturing to Leet, while the machine started generating yet another tank.
"Here, take the hostage. You shoot, I'll find something else to use."
I felt Leet roughly grab hold of me, unfortunately keeping my arm leveraged up behind my back with one hand while the other pointed the oversized handgun at the heroes.
As the blades around the barrel of the gun started rotating, I could feel the crackle of static electricity crawl over my scalp. My skin prickled, tiny static shocks made themselves known around me and I knew my hair would be a tangled mess before too long.
Leet fired, and I saw a ball of blue light shoot out, hitting the ground near Kid Win's feet. Any hope I had of it being a useless miss disappeared when, instead of dissipating, it turned into a lash of electricity that speared towards the Ward, briefly dancing up his leg and causing it to judder.
He stumbled, almost falling, but kept running.
In truth, I could probably have forced my way out of the position, given that Leet was considerably less physically adept than Uber, but the moment he made skin contact with me, I switched the focus of my power to him.
He actually had a decent amount of shooting practice, which I helped myself to, reasoning that it was the best option in the current situation. I saw Kid Win take out the tank, just in time for the new one to appear. Part of me wondered why he wasn't flying after us on his hoverboard, and if that had already been destroyed earlier in the running fight.
Clockblocker managed to avoid the tank and started gaining on the truck, so the villains focused their fire on him, Uber's pistol firing red beams that Clockblocker seemed to be able to shrug off altogether. Leet's slower shots appeared to actually cause him pain and he made more effort to avoid them.
"Just give up, hero!" Leet cackled. "You can't do anything! Maybe if your teammate wasn't such a shit tinker you might be useful, but you have no hope here."
I couldn't see what he was doing, but he let me go, allowing me to drop fully to the floor of the truck while he wielded the gun with both hands. He fired again, the shot hitting the Ward in the arm but failing to stop him entirely.
"I've made a dozen things more impressive than anything that idiot will ever be able to make," Leet bragged, firing off more shots, the electrical discharge of his gun getting more and more pronounced every time, sparks starting to fly.
The next time the truck veered, I made sure to stumble against his leg. The physical connection through clothes wasn't as good as bare skin, but with him actively using the skill I was trying to steal, talking out loud and myself looking right at him, it felt like more than enough.
"Shit," Leet swore as the next shot caused his gun to shower sparks out back towards him and start smoking. "This thing's overheating."
"At least Kid Win is only going to get better at building stuff!" Clockblocker called out, still gamely trying to keep up with us. "You're only going to get worse and worse, every single time. Face it, you peaked on your first job."
"Fuck you!" Leet snarled, bringing the gun back up and firing shot after shot, missing with most of them, until he lowered his aim, obviously realising that hitting the ground near Clockblocker was the easier task. As he fired, the sparks got worse and worse.
"He can shoot better than you, too!" Clockblocker jeered. "Does the 'always get worse' thing apply to every part of your life?"
A pulsing ball of red energy hit him in the face, and this one snapped his head back and succeeded in knocking him over.
The villains laughed again, taking the opportunity to start the creation of another tank while Clockblocker got back to his feet. This had the side-effect of letting Kid Win catch up, but I was beginning to get frustrated.
Leet's shooting skills were basically non-existent now, but his weapon rendered that less of a problem for him. I was briefly tempted to steal his ability to speak English, or to read or write, but it would be too obvious that someone with powers was messing with him, and I would be the only suspect.
Instead, I chose to take his very limited hand to hand fighting skills, along with his ability to balance properly and his eye-hand coordination.
Come on, just fall off the goddamn truck already.
"I thought the hostage was supposed to make them back off," Uber commented, lining up another shot.
"Oh," Leet frowned. "Think we should threaten her if they don't?"
Great, now their attention was back to me.
"She could have at least worn something nicer," Uber criticised. "If we're going to have eye candy, she should wear something more revealing, or maybe have some tits to show off."
My fury at the remark battled with my disgust, and Uber noticed, smirking.
"What? You're on camera, you should have put more effort in. Hey Leet, do you think they'd be trying harder if she was hotter?"
Whatever Leet might have responded with was cut off when Kid Win managed to score a direct hit on Uber's gun, and he swore, dropping it before snatching it out of the air again. It was smoking, the casing cracked.
Hitting a button on the side, Uber ejected some kind of powercell from the rear of the gun, quickly checking it for damage while throwing the gun itself into the truck cab.
He ducked down as Kid Win fired a flurry of shots at the vehicle, the energy projectiles hitting with muffled thumps.
"Let's see how you deal with this," Uber muttered, pulling yet another gun from out of the cab and slotting the previous gun's powercell into the bottom. The boxy, translucent coils in the exposed top half of the gun started glowing a vibrant, electric blue and the entire thing let off a continuous, ominous whine.
"Hey," Leet complained. "I wanted to use that one. This one's kinda' fucked anyway."
Uber glanced at Leet, then the still-smoking gun he was carrying. After a moment, he shrugged and handed the gun to Leet, who chucked his own back into the cab. Without any hesitation, Uber turned and somersaulted off the back of the truck, landing neatly and moving to engage Clockblocker.
It would have been a one-sided affair if the UFO hadn't chosen that moment to return and ram Clockblocker from behind, almost knocking him over. The distraction bought Uber all the opportunity he needed to drop down and smoothly pivot, scything Clockblocker's legs out from under him and dropping him to the ground.
Leet cheered at the sight, shouting "Sweep the leg! Sweep the leg!"
While Uber did a series of diving rolls to try and avoid the return fire from Kid Win, Leet brought his gun up and fiddled with it. The blue glow got brighter, while the low whine rose to a teeth-aching pitch.
"This is the work of a real tinker," Leet sneered, aiming the gun at Clockblocker while squinting through the light shining in his face. He glanced down at me. "You should be one of our minions. Then you'd get to see my 'equipment' up close." He sniggered to himself, looking back at the Ward.
Oh, fuck this.
I moved my fist forwards, then rammed my elbow back into Leet's groin as hard as I could.
He shrieked, doubling over and clutching at the injured body part. Lifting my torso up, I repeated the movement, this time striking him in the face and knocking him back.
He fell back against the truck cab, one hand frantically trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose while the other feebly tried to use his gun to shield his crotch from further attacks.
Considering that it had been so effective on Cricket, I started taking his pain tolerance away from him, noting that he had far less of it than she did. A swift left jab to the hand clutching his nose drove it further into the site of injury and elicited a wail of pain from the villain. I followed it up with a right hook to the jaw that rocked his head back.
It also stung my fist fiercely, but I ignored that, though I did follow it with an elbow instead of another hook.
Leet tried vainly to fend me off by using his gun as a shield, and I grabbed hold of it, trying to yank it away from him.
Realising what he had done, he gave a panicked yelp and tried harder to cling on to it, but by now I had a better grip on it and managed to twist it until he was forced to let go. I dropped it behind me, and Leet made a desperate dive to grab it, just in time to meet my rising knee with his already bloody face.
He hit the floor of the truck heavily, dazed, and I grabbed his arm and forced it behind his back, leveraging it higher until I could push him back away from the gun.
Whatever it did, he was confident about using it on Wards, so my next move was to pick it up. His eyes went wide when he saw that, and he made another attempt to rise, so I swung the gun around and struck him in the face with it.
Then I did it again.
And again.
All my pent up anger from this stupid, frustrating day came out against Leet, until eventually I hefted the rifle, aimed it at his chest and pulled the trigger.
With a surge in the light and noise emanating from the gun, it discharged its power against the villain, striking him in the chest and hurling him backwards until he bounced off the cab and dropped with a feeble groan.
I fired again, and all it gave was a little flicker. I held the trigger, the noise and light built up again, and once more I fired it at Leet as he tried to curl up into the foetal position. The whine was more warbling at that point, and the electric glow was flickering in a distressing pattern. Then I did it again, and had to admit that it wouldn't be fatal.
So I charged it up one last time, ignoring the smoke hissing out between the coils, and shot him in the face with it.
He stopped moving after that, but I was confronted with two new problems. The first was that the gun was vibrating in a rather alarming fashion, and the end of the barrel looked like it was melting slightly, in particular the area that I had repeatedly bashed into Leet's face. Moreover, the light was building up by itself, jittering through the gun in spasms of power generation that didn't look like it had anywhere to go.
The second problem was the shout of alarm that came from Uber, and I saw him start sprinting back to the vehicle, deftly avoiding Clockblocker's attempt to touch him.
"Override!" He shouted out, juking to one side to avoid a shot from Kid Win coming from behind. Was he timing the shots or something? "Make another tank!"
Immediately, the vehicle started to slow down as whatever power source it used was diverted to the hardlight generator. Uber rapidly started to close with me, and I remembered what had happened the last time I had attempted to fight him.
I looked at the rifle, seeing the chaotic swirl of energies still building, while the handle was heating up so quickly it was starting to burn my hands.
When Uber got to within ten feet of me I hefted the rifle and threw it at him as hard as I could.
Admittedly, that wasn't as hard as I would have liked, or quite as accurate, but even so I was surprised by the sudden, spectacularly graceful leap that Uber made right then. He smoothly pirouetted as the gun sailed past, neatly plucking it out of the air and sliding his hands into the correct positions, continuing his rotation to bring it back to point at me, calling out as he did so.
"Three-sixty no-scope, bi-"
The gun exploded the moment he pulled the trigger, the energy discharge violently ripping the device apart in a storm of shrapnel and electricity.
Uber fell to the ground, screaming and clutching at his face. From between his fingers I could see severe flashburns and raw patches of skin weeping blood.
Clockblocker was there a moment later, quickly tapping Uber, who froze in place, all noise and motion stopping instantly. The Ward kept going as I grabbed Leet and tipped him over the side of the vehicle, which immediately stopped the already-slow speed of driving the moment the second villain left the truck.
Another quick tap and the vehicle itself froze, the hardlight generator stopping all motion and leaving the already-built-up green light to disperse.
The situation was over. I was fine, and it was over.
I was brought back to the present by the sound of laughter.
I looked down and saw Clockblocker's shoulders shaking, the muffled laughter from behind his mask rising in pitch as he leant against the side of the truck, trying to catch his breath.
"Those idiots… got taken out… by their… own hostage!"
He staggered over to Leet, tapping him as well, then lent against the vehicle, still spluttering until he looked up at me.
"Are you okay, ma'am? You aren't hurt?"
The laughter at the situation I had found myself in, and been forced to get myself out of, all the while being filmed by these assholes yet again, was almost too much. And then I remembered that this Ward was also the teammate of Sophia, and that caused me to snap.
"No thanks to you!" I snarled, bringing Clockblocker up short with the amount of venom I squeezed into my words. "I had to deal with them because you were too fucking useless to do it! All you did was get shot, while I had to save myself from these assholes!"
My face was flushed, and my fists were clenched tightly, trembling at my side.
Clockblocker was brought up short, raising his hands feebly.
"Uh, I'm sorry about that, ma'am," He tried, sounding embarrassed, and even in my enraged state, I could tell that he did sound apologetic. "Uh, are you hurt in any way?"
An out-of-breath Kid Win took that moment to catch up with us, having been finishing off the last of the tanks, which had stopped moving and shooting the moment the device which had created it had been frozen.
His red visor looked at me, swung to Clockblocker and then back to me.
"I'm going to secure Leet's equipment," He said quickly. "It's quite unstable and I don't want anything to explode."
He gingerly picked up the remnants of the exploded energy rifle and moved towards the truck, carefully avoiding making eye contact with me.
In truth, I wasn't (particularly) mad at him, as he had actually done something when I was made a hostage. Several somethings, as he had been able to take out the tanks and even shoot Uber's gun out of his hand.
"The PRT will be around to collect these two shortly. If you could stick around to make a statement, we can have an officer check you over for any injuries if you require that."
I glared at Clockblocker, glancing down at the frozen villains.
"Fine," I said curtly.
I hadn't managed to grab anything from any Empire villains, but if I was going to spend the next few minutes here, I might as well indulge in some guilt-free schadenfreude while I had the opportunity.
I strode over to the vehicle, leaning against it with my arms folded, and turning my glare to the two villains, waiting for one of them to unfreeze so I could make sure that whatever they did next would be even less successful than what they had attempted today.
Lookit Taylor getting herself into, and out of, trouble! Here's hoping she isn't recognized by PRT peeps taking her statement. If they have body cams, they might clock her from the fight up the street. And if she's especially unlucky, some conniving snake might put two and two together and get four, especially if he sics his pet Thinker on the footage. Taylor, things might get dicey for you in the future. Head on a swivel, girl!
Ma'am, the adults were too busy trying to save you in the last chapter, or did you already forget 'PRT, get out of here!' Taylor ought to start stealing memory and retention from some fools.
Hitting a button on the side, Uber ejected some kind of powercell from the rear of the gun, quickly checking it for damage while throwing the gun itself into the truck cab.
I wished it would happen, and then it did! Do you believe in miracles? Taylor doesn't need to steal any more shooting or fighting skills if she can hit a target that small!
Leet: Hey, would you like a job, and also a threat of sexual assault/date?
Also Leet: Lol u r so ugly. And also a hostage, 'bitch!'
Taylor logically punching him in the nards.
Leet: Why are all girls crazy?!
Shards probably use their machine access to the hosts' brains to keep them away from that kind of realisation, as it's the sort of thing that would lead to depression, self-loathing and less enthusiastic use of the power, therefore meaning less delumptious DATA.
To be fair, Uber's power would work on the individual moves but not the overall skill. He could absolutely learn how to do martial arts at a professional level if he put the time in, but he never bothered to do that, relying on his power to perform each move perfectly and not learning how to string them together effectively into a cohesive fighting style.
My headcanon is that Uber puts his effort into working out, reasoning that getting a super-fit body gives him the best return on investment, because it lets him perform all moves better. Which is absolutely true. It's just that once he's in peak physical condition, any further advancement can only come from putting in the time to learn it like an unpowered person, and Uber considers himself too good for that. Never mind that his power would let him learn things much faster than a normal person because he wouldn't have to spend any time doing everything repeatedly in order to get the muscle memory of performing the moves correctly. Like, at least 90% of learning martial arts is just doing the same moves over and over again to get it right, and he could skip all of that, but he disdains the idea of learning things like a 'normie'.
Ma'am, the adults were too busy trying to save you in the last chapter, or did you already forget 'PRT, get out of here!' Taylor ought to start stealing memory and retention from some fools.
Leet: Hey, would you like a job, and also a threat of sexual assault/date?
Also Leet: Lol u r so ugly. And also a hostage, 'bitch!'
Taylor logically punching him in the nards.
Leet: Why are all girls crazy?!
Leet is absolutely the kind of person who compensates for his huge insecurities and failures with women with sexist and misogynistic remarks, and then complains that girls don't like him.
I'm really enjoying how you're working with Uber and Leet in this! They're fun to watch but also genuinely awful and grating in a way which makes it impossible to forget they just took someone hostage. And not even to actually hold her hostage either, just for the shits and giggles of having a hostage it felt like. Which almost makes it worse? They're just going to terrorize someone and possibly make them think their life is at stake, as a set piece?
I know it's their whole motif but you do a great job pulling it out.
As for Uber* though, holy shit I wonder if he still has all of his fingers after that, or for that matter flesh in his hands that isn't charred. Cus when a gun explodes hard enough to make shrapnel, that means it's releasing enough pressure to tear metal and, well. Your fingers aren't stronger than metal, so they're probably gonna be part of the shrapnel.
*I just noticed the implication of "Uber" as a name in Brockton goddamn Bay, and oh my fucking god this bastard. I'm sure it feels like just a joke to him too.
