SETUP: What happens when Calum watches an Anime about A Collector hunting down illegal power...
Dimension Worm [A.U./Multi XrosOver]
- Thread starter CalumTraveler
- Start date
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 33
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 32
-
Statistics (32 threadmarks, 71k words)
User Total CalumTraveler 32
0.0.I. (Anders Family)
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
SETUP: What happens when Calum watches an Anime about A Collector hunting down illegal power sources named Coils and can't help but think of a certain Superhero story- adding in a Dash of Power Rangers for good measure? This.
--
0.I: Anders Family.
--
-"The Ten Year Anniversary of Protectorate Energy's New Tesla system's Global Launch is next month, and a date and time have finally been announced,"- the Radio DJ spoke calmly despite the battle going on in the foreground.
"Let it go, Theo!" the adorable seven year old girl at the table glared proverbial daggers at her older brother- both of them had stabbed their forks into the last remaining waffle on the plate.
-"This year's celebrations have been decided to be held in the Convention Hall in Amber Beach Bay, on Saturday, the Thirteenth."-
"No way, Aster," said older brother flashed a grin at his little sister. "That waffle is mine!" And so they began struggling, each pulling in opposite directions with their forks.
-"In Related News, Director Calvert of P.R. Tower 42 has confirmed the tax increase on Gasoline will be going through on the anniversary, stating that:"- the radio cut to a pre-recorded clip of a man talking, -"'Gasoline is obsolete these days. The New Tesla project has made Behemoth's attempts at ruining the Oil Industry a help rather than a detriment. The Coil's are our past, present, and future.'"- End quote, even as the waffle on the plate was torn in two rather uneven pieces.
"MOOOM!" Aster cried out in protest, "Theo broke the waffle!"
"Me!?" Theo shot back in surprise. "You're the one who wouldn't let go!"
-"This is the tenth such raise in Gasoline Tax in as many years, some protesters claim it to be a strangulation of human rights to use whatever energy source they please."-
"Kids, kids!" Kayden Anders emerged from the kitchen to settle the argument between them. "It's just a waffle."
-"Most average citizens, however, are content with the tax, stating that it will not affect them in their day to day lives despite the tax being at over 400% from its original pricing rate before the New Tesla System was fully implemented."-
With the woman of the house not attending the kitchen, the pre-programmed Assistant Chef Robot activated and began monitoring the status of the scrambled eggs still cooking on the stove.
-"This upcoming Anniversary reflects many events, all happening on the same days as the launch of the Towers system. Along with the defeat of the Endbringer Leviathan, who was defeated in combat eight years ago on Newfoundland when the Hero Scion used one of Coil Engineer Andrew Richter's prototype Coils to entrap the Endbringer inside of a Dimension W Emergence Rift at cost to his own life--"-
It was a human looking thing, this robot. In fact, it would have been misidentified as one had it not been for the obviously mechanical bunny ears resting on its head, and the glowing power icon resting in its chest.
A Coil.
-"--Three Years Ago, Andrew Richter and his family disappeared mysteriously, with their house in Quebec, Zandar, raided. The Rogue Paramilitary group 'Dragonhunters' were implicated in the atta--"-
The Robot, through pre-programmed routines set by the woman of the house, reached out to turn off the radio before it set to work tending to the starting to fry eggs.
Kayden shot the robot an appreciative glance before turning back towards settling the argument between her children.
It was hard being a single mother.
It was hard, and very few people in this town understood.
--
--
A Crossover A.U. of sorts: Worm, Dimension W, and Power Rangers Dino Charge.
--
0.I: Anders Family.
--
-"The Ten Year Anniversary of Protectorate Energy's New Tesla system's Global Launch is next month, and a date and time have finally been announced,"- the Radio DJ spoke calmly despite the battle going on in the foreground.
"Let it go, Theo!" the adorable seven year old girl at the table glared proverbial daggers at her older brother- both of them had stabbed their forks into the last remaining waffle on the plate.
-"This year's celebrations have been decided to be held in the Convention Hall in Amber Beach Bay, on Saturday, the Thirteenth."-
"No way, Aster," said older brother flashed a grin at his little sister. "That waffle is mine!" And so they began struggling, each pulling in opposite directions with their forks.
-"In Related News, Director Calvert of P.R. Tower 42 has confirmed the tax increase on Gasoline will be going through on the anniversary, stating that:"- the radio cut to a pre-recorded clip of a man talking, -"'Gasoline is obsolete these days. The New Tesla project has made Behemoth's attempts at ruining the Oil Industry a help rather than a detriment. The Coil's are our past, present, and future.'"- End quote, even as the waffle on the plate was torn in two rather uneven pieces.
"MOOOM!" Aster cried out in protest, "Theo broke the waffle!"
"Me!?" Theo shot back in surprise. "You're the one who wouldn't let go!"
-"This is the tenth such raise in Gasoline Tax in as many years, some protesters claim it to be a strangulation of human rights to use whatever energy source they please."-
"Kids, kids!" Kayden Anders emerged from the kitchen to settle the argument between them. "It's just a waffle."
-"Most average citizens, however, are content with the tax, stating that it will not affect them in their day to day lives despite the tax being at over 400% from its original pricing rate before the New Tesla System was fully implemented."-
With the woman of the house not attending the kitchen, the pre-programmed Assistant Chef Robot activated and began monitoring the status of the scrambled eggs still cooking on the stove.
-"This upcoming Anniversary reflects many events, all happening on the same days as the launch of the Towers system. Along with the defeat of the Endbringer Leviathan, who was defeated in combat eight years ago on Newfoundland when the Hero Scion used one of Coil Engineer Andrew Richter's prototype Coils to entrap the Endbringer inside of a Dimension W Emergence Rift at cost to his own life--"-
It was a human looking thing, this robot. In fact, it would have been misidentified as one had it not been for the obviously mechanical bunny ears resting on its head, and the glowing power icon resting in its chest.
A Coil.
-"--Three Years Ago, Andrew Richter and his family disappeared mysteriously, with their house in Quebec, Zandar, raided. The Rogue Paramilitary group 'Dragonhunters' were implicated in the atta--"-
The Robot, through pre-programmed routines set by the woman of the house, reached out to turn off the radio before it set to work tending to the starting to fry eggs.
Kayden shot the robot an appreciative glance before turning back towards settling the argument between her children.
It was hard being a single mother.
It was hard, and very few people in this town understood.
--
DIMENSION WORM
'I Don't know what I should do now with every strength I can I take to Break Enemies'
'I Don't know what I should do now with every strength I can I take to Break Enemies'
--
A Crossover A.U. of sorts: Worm, Dimension W, and Power Rangers Dino Charge.
Break of Dawn 1.1.I
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
--
Break of Dawn. 1.1
--
Amber Beach Bay was home to four different schools: Reefside, Winslow, Arcadia, and Mariner. Each school had existed since the town had originally been founded as Brockton Bay, and they had existed along side so many other schools covering the various different grade levels.
However, as Protectorate Energy set up Tower 42, the schools were gradually overhauled, and the smaller ones absorbed into the larger ones. Of the original schools, only Winslow and Arcadia remained standing, but even then it was expected that one of the two would be fusing with the other sometime within the next five years, and both would be re-branded entirely as something new.
For Dinah Alcott, it was a sign of the traditional way of running a town decently falling into the wayside as more and more greater powers changed the world.
Her uncle had been the previous Mayor, and Dinah had once foolishly wished as a child to follow in his footsteps. When her Uncle's term had ended, so did the traditional position of Mayor in Amber Beach Bay. Instead, those powers and duties were absorbed by Protectorate Energy, and delegated to the local Tower Director.
Dreams crushed, and wishing for some way to figure out how to desperately save her life long goal, Dinah had triggered.
What she saw was even more depressing. More and more, technology was being automated and powered by the Coils, and worst of all, there seemed to be no way to stop it. Even the traditional crime that had plagued the Bay since before it's renaming had changed to reflect the new powers that be.
The March- one of the oldest gangs in the Bay since before its renaming- had dissolved its illegal ties and reformed into something legitimate- a 'Collection House', it was called. Although what it was they collected, Dinah's power refused to tell her.
The Empire Eighty Eight had been disbanded entirely with the death of its Parahuman leader, Kaiser, during the fight that killed Leviathan, and, ironically, the Neo-Nazi's remains had been absorbed by the remaining Second Largest gang in town, the Azn Bay Merchants.
Lead by a Parahuman named Lung- who himself had fought against Levithan and beaten the beast back during the attack on Kyushu- the Azn Bay Merchants now stood head to head against the other oldest gang in the city, The Sledge Hammers.
They were lead by a seemingly immortal Brute named Fury, who appeared in the public light at around the same time Scion had appeared. And if Scion had been the First Hero, then Fury was the First Villain. And, like the Azn Bay Merchants, they'd shifted their types of crime to focus more on the trade of Illegal Coils.
With a groan, Dinah pushed the X button on the web browser, closing that tab on the history of the town.
"Why," the twelve year old breathed out in frustration, "did we pick the history of our town, again?"
Next to her, her classmate and partner on this particular class assignment, Missy Byron, just gave a small shrug as she answered, "Because you thought there was a way to reinstate the mayorship position?"
A table back, Theo Anders leaned forwards to interject, "Hey, be glad you're doing something that's atleast relevant to the town. Aisha and I are stuck with the one topic nobody wanted because she was late to class!"
"Not my fault the Sledgehammers and ABM were dukeing it out over downtown," Aisha Laborn, the dark skinned girl sitting next to Theo, remarked dryly. "You'd think Lung would give up trying to smash Fury out of existence by now. But nooo. He's gotta prove some point or something."
"He's just mad because their duels keep getting interrupted by the Rangers," Dinah said, even as her power supplied the logic.
"And keeps getting blasted into the bay itself," Missy added with a faint giggle.
That was when their teacher, Miss Knott, coughed politely from her desk. How the woman could hear them whispering from the complete other side of the Computer Lab, nobody was sure.
Some suspected she had a super hearing power, others thought she just had Coil-powered hearing aids.
Dinah's power refused to tell her which was the right answer.
And so, with a sigh, she re-opened the browser tab on the history of the bay, and looked for where she'd left off.
"Hey, um," Theo's voice was even more of a whisper than before, but it was enough to trigger Dinah's power.
Wants to know if everyone is still up for the usual after school activities;
Dinah and Missy shared a look with each other- they were free- and then Dinah glanced back at Aisha.
Aisha shook her head, and Dinah's power supplied the answer:
Has to go to the Museum after School; Brother Brian wants her within sight for some unk-; Correction, wants her in sight because of fear that Lung will try for a second attack today;
Dinah quietly held up her right hand, and pretended to scratch at an itch behind her head. She showed Theo four fingers, then dropped one.
Theo gave a quick cough in response, indicating that he got the message.
Sometimes, Dinah loved her powers. Other times, they could be a real curse.
--
The last bell at Winslow let out, and the four kids skipped down the steps together as they separated out from the rest of the flood of students leaving the building- they were all at various ages, from first graders to twelfth graders, and watching the flood of various heights leave was like watching salmon try to swim upstream.
"So what was today's show like?" Missy asked as they waited under the shade of a tree for the massive flood of students to disperse.
"Well, first off Lung was already massive sized and brawling with one of Fury's Vivizillas," Aisha began retelling the tale of what had happened that morning. "You know how those usually go. But today the Rangers were using... ah, The Gold Brachiosaur one."
"Titano Charge," Theo supplied the name.
"Right, that one." Aisha nodded. "So they swung their staff into the Vivizila- totally splatted it and while Lung was coughing on the smoke, they went and used that anti-gravity power to send him flying into the bay!"
"It was over that quick?" Missy pouted.
"Well, they've gotta be!" Aisha explained, and Dinah's power told her that Aisha was quoting her older brother. "They don't want the city getting blown up and torn to pieces! The shorter the fights, the less they have to worry about backlash from the PRT!"
Because they aren't using Coils as a power source for their weapons/giant robots; PRT suspects Illegal Coils but cannot prove; Is not Illegal Coils; Unknown Power Source; Unknown Power Source; Unknown Pow-;
Dinah squashed that trail of thought before her power locked itself into a loop and she got a headache.
Mercifully for Dinah, the beeping of a motorcycle horn caught Aisha's attention then, before she could continue talking about the Rangers.
"Huh, why's Rachel's picking me up today?" Aisha frowned as she picked up her bags. "Oh well, see ya all tomorrow!"
"Don't forget to work on the project while you're there," Theo reminded her.
"Right right!" Aisha laughed, and then skipped off.
Dinah followed Aisha's progress over towards the sidewalk, where a Motorcycle with a side-car rested. Its driver appeared to be a teenaged girl, although Dinah was sure that Rachel Morgan, step-sister of Sarah Morgan, who was Aisha's older brother's boss, was definitely a few years older than she appeared to be. Frustratingly, even under normal circumstances where she hadn't just forced it offline, Dinah's power refused to give her even a hint as to why this girl seemed to never age any. All it would ever tell her was that Rachel was not a Robot, and that was it.
The three of them waited until Aisha got into the side car, helmet placed on, and the sounds of the Motorcycle's engine had faded into the distance before they got up from their shady spot and began traversing the streets towards their destination.
This was where Missy's power came into play.
A bit of focusing here, a few minor hand gestures there, and whole city blocks could be shortened into a few feet- but only so long as there was nobody in the way of the stretched and warped space. In this manner, a trip that normally would have taken them an hour to walk took only about five to ten minutes on any given day, depending on traffic congestion. In this manner, the high end, polished buildings and city streets blurred and gave way to the open aired boardwalk, where the smell of the ocean ferried the additional smells of greasy tourist-based food shops and restaurants. Those too soon transitioned into the ruins of the Old Docks.
Many years ago, Fury's Sledge Hammers had claimed stake to this part of town after Leviathan first appeared and the shipping industry literally sank overnight. They left it open as a neutral space where anyone could test out new powers or abilities... or as a free-for-all space where Fury could afford to let loose against the Azn Bay Merchants whenever Lung got too rowdy.
Unfortunately for the city, Lung refused to use such a place intentionally. It was too close to the water for his liking, and ironically marked the place where Lung's first forced bath had occurred. Bad memories for him, but good for everyone else. Lung's people avoided the place like the plague unless they were herded like a bunch of mewling kittens.
Even with the shipping industry slowly recovering with Leviathan's death, Protectorate Energy had just seen fit to just build new docks on the other end of town and had left the old ones there in Fury's hands. And since the Old Docks were considered neutral territory, you could find all kinds of people safely living on the outskirts between the Old Docks and the rest of the refurbished city.
One such person was a man named Colin Wallis, who worked for the March's Collection House as a Collector. What he specifically collected, though, they never asked, and he never answered. Dinah suspected it was Illegal Coils, what with how his small junkyard home was 100% Coil free. Coil Wallis had been a Tinker Cape, once upon a time, and had worked for the Protectorate up until the day Leviathan died. That much, Dinah had uncovered on her own through her own research- as they'd made a bet whether she could figure out his cape Identity without using her power.
An exercise in restraint- he'd called it. She'd figured that Colin had gotten his start in the Wards before they'd been disbanded. Nostalgia, or maybe regret, was the most likely reason that he let the four of them come by to practice with their powers.
"Mister Wallesh!" Missy called out as they stepped out of a bit of warped space, intentionally mispronouncing the man's name as a bit of a nickname. "We're here!"
At first, the abandoned auto-car garage seemed utterly abandoned, but then Dinah's ears heard the reverberating clang of a wrench slipping from a bolt and hitting concrete, followed by some muttered cursing.
A moment later, the garage door on the front of part of the building was pulled upwards, manually. There was no automated power source to move the thing. Once it'd cleared, the three kids got sight of their would-be mentor.
He stood tall as he latched the door into its open position, betraying years of having stood tall and proud in a suit of armor. Once that was done, he then resumed what was his 'normal' slouch, as if he were trying to make himself smaller than he was.
"Ah, just the three of you today?" He asked.
"Aisha's brother wanted her close today," Dinah explained.
"Reasonable," Colin remarked. "I heard Lung went after Fury again."
Idle conversation fell to the wayside soon after that, as Missy began expanding the size of the normally small parking lot to one that was big enough for Theo to let loose with his power in. There was a two fold reason for this, Colin had explained the first time he had them do this. The first was to see how big of a space Missy could expand the parking lot into, and the second was to see how Theo's power interacted with it.
The answer to that question was simply "Yes."
Dinah's power was used to keep track of the changes in their powers from day to day testing- Colin insisted it would help her build up a tolerance to keeping track of long strings of data, as well as serve as a way to record it all without leaving a permanent record.
Dinah didn't need her power to tell her that Colin distrusted the power generators for some reason.
"Alright, I'm about at my limit for today!" Missy announced, and Dinah used her power to measure the distance between where Missy and Theo were standing.
"About... fifty yards!" Dinah rounded down to the nearest whole number. Her power stated it was Fifty point three three three three... Effectively, repeating threes endlessly stretching off into the horizon, had it been written out. She would have gotten a headache repeating all of that aloud.
"Theo, you're up," Colin nodded, and Theo prepared himself to activate his power.
Despite space being warped so long, sound traveled as if it weren't. Thus, it was capable to hold an easy conversation between the four of them despite the warped distances. It also had the devastating side-effect of having the thunderous clap of Theo leaping forwards being compressed into such a small space. To the outside observer, it would have appeared as if Theo instantly teleported through a shortened space via Missy's powers.
Dinah was not an outside observer, and her power could tell the difference in a heartbeat.
With one step, Theo's body crossed almost forty yards before coming to a stop.
"What's the count?" Colin asked.
Dinah blinked as she counted the distance to an exact number. "I'm not surprised." She relayed the number, "Exactly forty-two yards."
"Is that about as far as he can go, then?" Colin wondered.
"No way, that was just a warm up!" Theo flashed a grin, and then flash-stepped back towards where he began. "I'm going to go again!"
He got ready to propel himself forwards once again when a phone's ring tone cried out. The accordion melody of some random internet song was enough to shatter Missy's concentration and cause the expanded space to collapse back down to normal size. Fortunately, Theo managed to hold off on firing off his power, lest he crash into a wall- again.
"Seriously!? Who has an ACCORDION ring tone of that song?!" Missy complained. "I lost focus 'cause it was so out of nowhere!"
"Sorry, that one's mine," Colin apologized as he made his way back into the garage to retrieve his cellphone. "Hello?" He asked as he answered. A few moments later he asked, "Right now?" A pause, then... "Alright, I'll be right in." He hung up then emerged from the garage, looking as annoyed as Missy was at the interruption. "Sorry, but I've got to cut this short for today. Duty calls."
"Awww, Seriously!?" Missy complained.
"Yes, unfortunately us adults still have to make a living in the world." Colin shook his head. "Go on and get home, and stay out of trouble."
Dinah's power filled in the blanks: Important assignment; Urgency required; Deadline; The Marquis fears something bad will happen if mission is not completed soon;
Dinah blinked at that, then said, "Probably for the best anyways. This way, Aisha won't miss out on a day."
Missy frowned at that, while Theo just gave a shrug.
"So, I guess we hang out at my place for a while?" he offered.
Missy brightened up a bit. "Sure, sounds like fun."
"Count me in," Dinah nodded, and then, looking to Colin as he read some information off of his phone's screen, she whispered to him. "You stay safe too, alright, Mister Wallis?"
Colin gave a rare smile. "Naturally."
A few minutes later, the three kids were walking away down the sidewalk. Then- they heard a massive roar of an engine from Colin's garrage, which was already several blocks away thanks to Missy's powers. A moment later- they saw a monster of a motorcycle rushing past them.
It was Tinkertech- obviously and clearly. Nothing else could make that kind of noise- not even with a Coil powering it- no, a Coil powered motorcycle would be as silent as a car.
It was then that Dinah made a slight connection with the motorcycle they'd seen Aisha drive away in. That, too, had made noise. Not as loud as that monster of a bike, no, but still.
"Aisha's going to flip when she finds out we got to see Mister Wallis on his bike," Theo commented.
Dinah was inclined to agree.
--
Power Notes: Dinah's got a subtly different version of Tattletale's power. Colin's Tinker power is subtly different as well. Missy's is Unchanged. Theo's power is inspired by a fusion of the Charge Vigor from Bioshock Infinite and the Whirlwind Sprint from Skyrim.
Break of Dawn. 1.1
--
Amber Beach Bay was home to four different schools: Reefside, Winslow, Arcadia, and Mariner. Each school had existed since the town had originally been founded as Brockton Bay, and they had existed along side so many other schools covering the various different grade levels.
However, as Protectorate Energy set up Tower 42, the schools were gradually overhauled, and the smaller ones absorbed into the larger ones. Of the original schools, only Winslow and Arcadia remained standing, but even then it was expected that one of the two would be fusing with the other sometime within the next five years, and both would be re-branded entirely as something new.
For Dinah Alcott, it was a sign of the traditional way of running a town decently falling into the wayside as more and more greater powers changed the world.
Her uncle had been the previous Mayor, and Dinah had once foolishly wished as a child to follow in his footsteps. When her Uncle's term had ended, so did the traditional position of Mayor in Amber Beach Bay. Instead, those powers and duties were absorbed by Protectorate Energy, and delegated to the local Tower Director.
Dreams crushed, and wishing for some way to figure out how to desperately save her life long goal, Dinah had triggered.
What she saw was even more depressing. More and more, technology was being automated and powered by the Coils, and worst of all, there seemed to be no way to stop it. Even the traditional crime that had plagued the Bay since before it's renaming had changed to reflect the new powers that be.
The March- one of the oldest gangs in the Bay since before its renaming- had dissolved its illegal ties and reformed into something legitimate- a 'Collection House', it was called. Although what it was they collected, Dinah's power refused to tell her.
The Empire Eighty Eight had been disbanded entirely with the death of its Parahuman leader, Kaiser, during the fight that killed Leviathan, and, ironically, the Neo-Nazi's remains had been absorbed by the remaining Second Largest gang in town, the Azn Bay Merchants.
Lead by a Parahuman named Lung- who himself had fought against Levithan and beaten the beast back during the attack on Kyushu- the Azn Bay Merchants now stood head to head against the other oldest gang in the city, The Sledge Hammers.
They were lead by a seemingly immortal Brute named Fury, who appeared in the public light at around the same time Scion had appeared. And if Scion had been the First Hero, then Fury was the First Villain. And, like the Azn Bay Merchants, they'd shifted their types of crime to focus more on the trade of Illegal Coils.
With a groan, Dinah pushed the X button on the web browser, closing that tab on the history of the town.
"Why," the twelve year old breathed out in frustration, "did we pick the history of our town, again?"
Next to her, her classmate and partner on this particular class assignment, Missy Byron, just gave a small shrug as she answered, "Because you thought there was a way to reinstate the mayorship position?"
A table back, Theo Anders leaned forwards to interject, "Hey, be glad you're doing something that's atleast relevant to the town. Aisha and I are stuck with the one topic nobody wanted because she was late to class!"
"Not my fault the Sledgehammers and ABM were dukeing it out over downtown," Aisha Laborn, the dark skinned girl sitting next to Theo, remarked dryly. "You'd think Lung would give up trying to smash Fury out of existence by now. But nooo. He's gotta prove some point or something."
"He's just mad because their duels keep getting interrupted by the Rangers," Dinah said, even as her power supplied the logic.
"And keeps getting blasted into the bay itself," Missy added with a faint giggle.
That was when their teacher, Miss Knott, coughed politely from her desk. How the woman could hear them whispering from the complete other side of the Computer Lab, nobody was sure.
Some suspected she had a super hearing power, others thought she just had Coil-powered hearing aids.
Dinah's power refused to tell her which was the right answer.
And so, with a sigh, she re-opened the browser tab on the history of the bay, and looked for where she'd left off.
"Hey, um," Theo's voice was even more of a whisper than before, but it was enough to trigger Dinah's power.
Wants to know if everyone is still up for the usual after school activities;
Dinah and Missy shared a look with each other- they were free- and then Dinah glanced back at Aisha.
Aisha shook her head, and Dinah's power supplied the answer:
Has to go to the Museum after School; Brother Brian wants her within sight for some unk-; Correction, wants her in sight because of fear that Lung will try for a second attack today;
Dinah quietly held up her right hand, and pretended to scratch at an itch behind her head. She showed Theo four fingers, then dropped one.
Theo gave a quick cough in response, indicating that he got the message.
Sometimes, Dinah loved her powers. Other times, they could be a real curse.
--
The last bell at Winslow let out, and the four kids skipped down the steps together as they separated out from the rest of the flood of students leaving the building- they were all at various ages, from first graders to twelfth graders, and watching the flood of various heights leave was like watching salmon try to swim upstream.
"So what was today's show like?" Missy asked as they waited under the shade of a tree for the massive flood of students to disperse.
"Well, first off Lung was already massive sized and brawling with one of Fury's Vivizillas," Aisha began retelling the tale of what had happened that morning. "You know how those usually go. But today the Rangers were using... ah, The Gold Brachiosaur one."
"Titano Charge," Theo supplied the name.
"Right, that one." Aisha nodded. "So they swung their staff into the Vivizila- totally splatted it and while Lung was coughing on the smoke, they went and used that anti-gravity power to send him flying into the bay!"
"It was over that quick?" Missy pouted.
"Well, they've gotta be!" Aisha explained, and Dinah's power told her that Aisha was quoting her older brother. "They don't want the city getting blown up and torn to pieces! The shorter the fights, the less they have to worry about backlash from the PRT!"
Because they aren't using Coils as a power source for their weapons/giant robots; PRT suspects Illegal Coils but cannot prove; Is not Illegal Coils; Unknown Power Source; Unknown Power Source; Unknown Pow-;
Dinah squashed that trail of thought before her power locked itself into a loop and she got a headache.
Mercifully for Dinah, the beeping of a motorcycle horn caught Aisha's attention then, before she could continue talking about the Rangers.
"Huh, why's Rachel's picking me up today?" Aisha frowned as she picked up her bags. "Oh well, see ya all tomorrow!"
"Don't forget to work on the project while you're there," Theo reminded her.
"Right right!" Aisha laughed, and then skipped off.
Dinah followed Aisha's progress over towards the sidewalk, where a Motorcycle with a side-car rested. Its driver appeared to be a teenaged girl, although Dinah was sure that Rachel Morgan, step-sister of Sarah Morgan, who was Aisha's older brother's boss, was definitely a few years older than she appeared to be. Frustratingly, even under normal circumstances where she hadn't just forced it offline, Dinah's power refused to give her even a hint as to why this girl seemed to never age any. All it would ever tell her was that Rachel was not a Robot, and that was it.
The three of them waited until Aisha got into the side car, helmet placed on, and the sounds of the Motorcycle's engine had faded into the distance before they got up from their shady spot and began traversing the streets towards their destination.
This was where Missy's power came into play.
A bit of focusing here, a few minor hand gestures there, and whole city blocks could be shortened into a few feet- but only so long as there was nobody in the way of the stretched and warped space. In this manner, a trip that normally would have taken them an hour to walk took only about five to ten minutes on any given day, depending on traffic congestion. In this manner, the high end, polished buildings and city streets blurred and gave way to the open aired boardwalk, where the smell of the ocean ferried the additional smells of greasy tourist-based food shops and restaurants. Those too soon transitioned into the ruins of the Old Docks.
Many years ago, Fury's Sledge Hammers had claimed stake to this part of town after Leviathan first appeared and the shipping industry literally sank overnight. They left it open as a neutral space where anyone could test out new powers or abilities... or as a free-for-all space where Fury could afford to let loose against the Azn Bay Merchants whenever Lung got too rowdy.
Unfortunately for the city, Lung refused to use such a place intentionally. It was too close to the water for his liking, and ironically marked the place where Lung's first forced bath had occurred. Bad memories for him, but good for everyone else. Lung's people avoided the place like the plague unless they were herded like a bunch of mewling kittens.
Even with the shipping industry slowly recovering with Leviathan's death, Protectorate Energy had just seen fit to just build new docks on the other end of town and had left the old ones there in Fury's hands. And since the Old Docks were considered neutral territory, you could find all kinds of people safely living on the outskirts between the Old Docks and the rest of the refurbished city.
One such person was a man named Colin Wallis, who worked for the March's Collection House as a Collector. What he specifically collected, though, they never asked, and he never answered. Dinah suspected it was Illegal Coils, what with how his small junkyard home was 100% Coil free. Coil Wallis had been a Tinker Cape, once upon a time, and had worked for the Protectorate up until the day Leviathan died. That much, Dinah had uncovered on her own through her own research- as they'd made a bet whether she could figure out his cape Identity without using her power.
An exercise in restraint- he'd called it. She'd figured that Colin had gotten his start in the Wards before they'd been disbanded. Nostalgia, or maybe regret, was the most likely reason that he let the four of them come by to practice with their powers.
"Mister Wallesh!" Missy called out as they stepped out of a bit of warped space, intentionally mispronouncing the man's name as a bit of a nickname. "We're here!"
At first, the abandoned auto-car garage seemed utterly abandoned, but then Dinah's ears heard the reverberating clang of a wrench slipping from a bolt and hitting concrete, followed by some muttered cursing.
A moment later, the garage door on the front of part of the building was pulled upwards, manually. There was no automated power source to move the thing. Once it'd cleared, the three kids got sight of their would-be mentor.
He stood tall as he latched the door into its open position, betraying years of having stood tall and proud in a suit of armor. Once that was done, he then resumed what was his 'normal' slouch, as if he were trying to make himself smaller than he was.
"Ah, just the three of you today?" He asked.
"Aisha's brother wanted her close today," Dinah explained.
"Reasonable," Colin remarked. "I heard Lung went after Fury again."
Idle conversation fell to the wayside soon after that, as Missy began expanding the size of the normally small parking lot to one that was big enough for Theo to let loose with his power in. There was a two fold reason for this, Colin had explained the first time he had them do this. The first was to see how big of a space Missy could expand the parking lot into, and the second was to see how Theo's power interacted with it.
The answer to that question was simply "Yes."
Dinah's power was used to keep track of the changes in their powers from day to day testing- Colin insisted it would help her build up a tolerance to keeping track of long strings of data, as well as serve as a way to record it all without leaving a permanent record.
Dinah didn't need her power to tell her that Colin distrusted the power generators for some reason.
"Alright, I'm about at my limit for today!" Missy announced, and Dinah used her power to measure the distance between where Missy and Theo were standing.
"About... fifty yards!" Dinah rounded down to the nearest whole number. Her power stated it was Fifty point three three three three... Effectively, repeating threes endlessly stretching off into the horizon, had it been written out. She would have gotten a headache repeating all of that aloud.
"Theo, you're up," Colin nodded, and Theo prepared himself to activate his power.
Despite space being warped so long, sound traveled as if it weren't. Thus, it was capable to hold an easy conversation between the four of them despite the warped distances. It also had the devastating side-effect of having the thunderous clap of Theo leaping forwards being compressed into such a small space. To the outside observer, it would have appeared as if Theo instantly teleported through a shortened space via Missy's powers.
Dinah was not an outside observer, and her power could tell the difference in a heartbeat.
With one step, Theo's body crossed almost forty yards before coming to a stop.
"What's the count?" Colin asked.
Dinah blinked as she counted the distance to an exact number. "I'm not surprised." She relayed the number, "Exactly forty-two yards."
"Is that about as far as he can go, then?" Colin wondered.
"No way, that was just a warm up!" Theo flashed a grin, and then flash-stepped back towards where he began. "I'm going to go again!"
He got ready to propel himself forwards once again when a phone's ring tone cried out. The accordion melody of some random internet song was enough to shatter Missy's concentration and cause the expanded space to collapse back down to normal size. Fortunately, Theo managed to hold off on firing off his power, lest he crash into a wall- again.
"Seriously!? Who has an ACCORDION ring tone of that song?!" Missy complained. "I lost focus 'cause it was so out of nowhere!"
"Sorry, that one's mine," Colin apologized as he made his way back into the garage to retrieve his cellphone. "Hello?" He asked as he answered. A few moments later he asked, "Right now?" A pause, then... "Alright, I'll be right in." He hung up then emerged from the garage, looking as annoyed as Missy was at the interruption. "Sorry, but I've got to cut this short for today. Duty calls."
"Awww, Seriously!?" Missy complained.
"Yes, unfortunately us adults still have to make a living in the world." Colin shook his head. "Go on and get home, and stay out of trouble."
Dinah's power filled in the blanks: Important assignment; Urgency required; Deadline; The Marquis fears something bad will happen if mission is not completed soon;
Dinah blinked at that, then said, "Probably for the best anyways. This way, Aisha won't miss out on a day."
Missy frowned at that, while Theo just gave a shrug.
"So, I guess we hang out at my place for a while?" he offered.
Missy brightened up a bit. "Sure, sounds like fun."
"Count me in," Dinah nodded, and then, looking to Colin as he read some information off of his phone's screen, she whispered to him. "You stay safe too, alright, Mister Wallis?"
Colin gave a rare smile. "Naturally."
A few minutes later, the three kids were walking away down the sidewalk. Then- they heard a massive roar of an engine from Colin's garrage, which was already several blocks away thanks to Missy's powers. A moment later- they saw a monster of a motorcycle rushing past them.
It was Tinkertech- obviously and clearly. Nothing else could make that kind of noise- not even with a Coil powering it- no, a Coil powered motorcycle would be as silent as a car.
It was then that Dinah made a slight connection with the motorcycle they'd seen Aisha drive away in. That, too, had made noise. Not as loud as that monster of a bike, no, but still.
"Aisha's going to flip when she finds out we got to see Mister Wallis on his bike," Theo commented.
Dinah was inclined to agree.
--
Power Notes: Dinah's got a subtly different version of Tattletale's power. Colin's Tinker power is subtly different as well. Missy's is Unchanged. Theo's power is inspired by a fusion of the Charge Vigor from Bioshock Infinite and the Whirlwind Sprint from Skyrim.
Break of Dawn 1.2
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
Break of Dawn. 1.2
--
The March was a pretentious looking hybrid of a bar and a robot fighting ring. That part of the building was designed after that old TV show Battlebots, except now with low level A.I.s serving in place of the Remote Controls. At the present moment, 'Grievous Error'- based off of some four armed sword wielding cyborg from an Earth Aleph movie- was slicing and dicing at a spheroid robot with four octopus like arms, called 'Syndrome' for whatever reason.
Grievous went for a slash with his swords in saw blade helicopter mode... and left himself open for the sudden emergence of a fifth arm from the Syndrome bot, which threw its clawed hand straight into Grievous' chest and withdrew in a heartbeat, revealing that it had ripped the Coil straight out of Grievous Error's chest.
If this wasn't just the ground floor of the Collection House's two story complex, I wouldn't be here at all. I climbed the stairs past the battle ring up to the second floor, where a smiling young woman by name of Amelia was waiting for me.
"You're late," she greeted chipper-ly.
"Blame Lung for screwing up Main Street," I greeted in return.
"Oh, I do," She lead me the rest of the way to the Marquis' office- a way I knew well by now, but the eighteen year old girl refused to let me walk the way unescorted. Apparently she distrusted the fact that I'd once worked for the Protectorate, despite the fact that by the nature of her father's business, of which I was a part of, we had to still work with the Protectorate on an almost daily basis to one degree or another.
Neither of us made any attempts at conversation as we paused outside of the Marquis' office door, closed, and a red light atop the frame clearly indicating that he wished not to be disturbed.
Through the door, I could hear the Marquis' concluding remark, "You really shouldn't have tried pulling this crap with a remote controlled suit powered by an Illegal Coil."
A moment later, there was the sound of bone crushing metal, followed by a sharp pop. Then, the light atop the door went out, and Amelia opened the door for us. Inside the office which overlooked the city was the Marquis himself- a man whose name was synonymous throughout the bay for keeping his end of a deal... and taking out those who broke theirs with extreme prejudice.
The Marquis' power was that of bone manipulation. At the beginning of his career, he had been able to generate excess bone from his own body, and used it to create a suit of armor, as well as a suite of weapons. It was a power that could only really affect himself until a group of once-thought-heroes attacked him, unprovoked, in his own home, breaking the then Unwritten Rules of Cape society. They ended up nearly killing Amelia in the scuffle, their leader caring little about the girl, who had just started living with him at the time, and that had caused a change in the Marquis' powers. Ever since then, he could now generate bone out of thin air, and his new signature finishing move was the one he had just used on that poor mangled robot lying on the ground at his feet:
A spear of bone falling from the heavens, and impaling his foe with the previously mentioned 'extreme prejudice.'
"Ah, Colin," The Marquis flashed an unmasked smile, "good timing. I was just... finishing up with a snake who thought he could worm his way out of our deal." He kicked at the ruined robot, then motioned towards a chair. "Have a seat and we'll get started."
I sat down, and Amelia went to lower the projector blinds while Marquis' personal maid bot went to clear out the remains of the busted robot.
Then, after a moment, the projector turned on with a familiar masked face.
"Lung," I couldn't believe that this mission had me pitted up against Lung of all people. "I can't believe you're pitting me against Lung of all people."
"Now hold on," Marquis began, "let me explain."
"You've got one minute," I decide.
"As you know, Fury's gang is the primary dealer for Illegal Coils in the city," Marquis began. "Lung's never been able to get a foothold in that particular market. The most he's been able to do is interrupt Fury's shipments and try to steal them for himself."
"Which is usually interrupted by the Rangers," Amelia interjects. "Lung's never gotten to use any of those Coils because they either end up in our hands, or Fury destroys them to keep Lung's claws off of the,."
"Yes, well, unfortunately for us, I received word that this morning's attack was a diversion," Marquis said it with a distinct frown. "The Azn Bay Merchants have finally gotten their hands on Illegal Coils. It's only a matter of time before they stage an attack on the city that Fury and the Rangers can't fight back against."
"You want me to retrieve them before Lung gets a chance to launch an assault." I surmise.
"Close." Marquis nods at me, however. "You recall the bombing at Cornell University three months ago?"
"Who wouldn't." I can't help but to grumble. When a Tinker triggers with the ability to make Exotic Bombs, people like me tend to get sent to see a Coil was invol- "Wait. You're not telling me that-"
"She's presently going by the name 'Bakuda,'" Marquis cuts me off with the information I don't want to hear. "Apparently instead of being off the grid for three months, Lung snatched her up almost immediately and has had her working on some secret project. Possibly a Coil Powered bomb. And if they use an Illegal Coil for it..."
"We're looking at another Newfoundland, aren't we?" I guess as far as missions go it's probably the mission to not skip out on... Still, though. Lung. The man who can turn into a rampaging dragon. "What's the bounty price?"
"Depending on the amount of Illegal Coils in Lung's possession?" Marquis flashes me a smile, "Protectorate Energy is presently offering the standard reward of 1,000 per Coil. But, I'm sure they're willing to up the price if you're able to subdue Bakuda in some form or another."
"Well, then," I stand up, and turn to leave. "My standard payment then. Half in Gasoline, Half in Cash."
"Still running that gas guzzler of a bike, I take it?" Amelia prods.
I ignore her, and leave.
I also ignore the sight of Marquis' cleaning robot trying to stuff the remains of the other robot into a garbage can.
There are just some things that man is not meant to see.
--
The Azn Bay Merchants base was something that changed on a day to day basis. They held at least half of the territory in the city, like Fury's Sledge Hammers, but instead of holding one single base as Fury's gang did, the Azn Bay Merchants held several bases and shifted locations rapidly as a means of preventing Fury or the Rangers from locating them and launching a pre-emptive strike.
At that comparison, my thoughts can't help but to hearken back to Marquis' situation, almost eleven years ago now.
The March, at the time, was simply a group that didn't deal in any of the more disreputable things that the other gangs did during their time. Drugs, primarily, was never a thing done, and the protection racket they ran wasn't protection against the March, but against the other gangs. The difference here, rather than then, is that Lung has made himself a regular nuisance, and furthermore, a legitimate threat that necessitates dealing with. Weekly, if not almost daily attacks on the city. Being fought off time and time again by other villains and a rogue team of heroes. It was only a matter of time before someone finally managed to deliver a decisive strike against them.
Add in the Illegal Coils, plus a Bomb Tinker...
In my experience, the easiest way to find a Secret Base in which someone has just acquired an Illegal Coil is to follow the takeout orders. And with a gang as big as the Azn Bay Merchants... they're going to be big, and are going to be going to the same place.
It really was all too easy to locate the base of the day that way.
I sneaked in through a fire escape of an abandoned warehouse, and looked down upon the construction floor, which, instead of being lined with machines, was lined with tables covered in food, surrounded by people of all walks of life staring at the one man in the center: Beefy, wearing only a pair of pants and a metal mask, and covered in tattoos- there could be only one person fitting that description: Lung.
He was in the middle of screwing a Coil into a water-gun, speaking in Japanese. I could only assume he was bragging about how successful their theft of the Illegal Coils had been. Lung then aimed his water-gun at a distant wall, and let loose a stream of water that went much farther than it should have, and when it hit its target--
KRA-ka-THOOOOOOOOM!
The wall exploded.
Lung then roared, "WE! WILL! KILL! FURY!"
The people in the room all broke into applause. I took a head count, and spotted a few other Capes. There was Oni Lee, who had been Lung's second in command since the gang had been formed. Oh, there was Hookwolf and Cricket- and a few other leftovers absorbed from the Empire I didn't recognize by name. And there was a girl, unmasked, sitting atop what could only be described as a land-mine grown to the size of a one seater helicopter.
Bakuda, I presume.
It seemed to be a small, informal gathering, despite the massive reveal of a doomsday weapon; only a few capes, all things considered.
I couldn't see where the other Illegal Coils were- oh, wait. Lung was holding up a rather large sized crate now, marked with a familiar looking X across the sides.
How many were in that thing? If Dinah were a few years older maybe she could- No.
No! Stop that, Colin. You're helping those kids so they don't end up in situations like this. Remember?
Wait, now Lung was unloading more water guns. They're just Coil Compatible. That makes more sense for the larger box. ...And now he's pulling a smaller box out of his pants pocket that contained two rows of ten small objects marked with X's. Target acquired: Illegal Coils, twenty of them.
That explained the small gathering size of people here. Lung had probably briefed his fellow Parahumans on the plan before- now he was repeating it for the rank and file and was going to arm the normals with the Coil powered water guns.
I guess it's time to drop in on this little-
"LUNG!" And now a new group of people barged in through the front door of the warehouse. I recognized Skidmark and Mush, the head capes from some minor gang that had barely lasted a week before being absorbed into the Azn Bay Merchants. And Skidmark had a girl slung over his shoulder, and he was the one yelling, almost triumphantly, "Lookit what I found snooping around outside!"
Lung turned to look, raising an eyebrow in such a way that it displaced his mask slightly. "Skidmark, what is this? A girl?"
"She was snoopin' around tryin' to be all stealthy like!" Skidmark laughed. "One good bop on tha' head, and she went down! I didn't even hit 'er that hard." And so, he laid the girl down on one of the more empty tables. "What do we do with her, ey boss?"
Lung gave out an exasperated sigh, and went to massage at the bridge of his nose, only to stop when his mask got in the way. I got the impression this happened a lot more often than Lung was willing to admit. "We will tie her up for now. I will deal with her after we finish the attack on the city," Lung ordered, giving a motion to the girl I was assuming was Bakuda.
She gave a grunt, and hopped off her giant bomb before walking over to the girl on the table. Skidmark seemed annoyed, but now was as good of a chance as any if I was going to secure the Illegal Coils. Everyone seemed distracted by the arrival of the girl.
Naturally, that was when my cellphone's ringtone went off.
"Oh. My! GOD!" Bakuda swore, half way to the girl on the table- "Who the hell set 'Never Gonna Give You Up' to Accordion!?"
I spare a glance at my phone just barely long enough to silence it. Why the hell would Marquis be calling for? He was the one who sent me here! Oh well. Dramatic entrance ruined, I step forwards into the light, coughing loudly to gain attention. "Sorry, my bad. I forgot to put it on silent."
Everyone just stares up at me before Hookwolf spots the logo on the front of my jacket, and yells out, sounding rather annoyed, "Shit! He's a Collector!!"
In response to that, Lung went to throw the box of Illegal Coils into the air- BWROAR! -I didn't get to track their progress through the air when a laser blast hit the box and sent it flying out of Lung's grip a moment later.
Everyone followed that laser's origin back to the four teen aged capes in shiny spandex costumes presently leaping through that hole in the wall from before. Black, Red, Green, and Cyan- their helmets were styled after Dinosaurs.
The Dyno Drive Rangers had arrived.
I suddenly had an inkling as to why Marquis had called me suddenly on the job like that.
"Wow," the boy in the Green Parasaur Costume remarked while casually waving a yellow/black dinosaur themed blaster around as if it were just a simple baton. "What an awesome party! Food, Coils, and FUN! Shame we lost the invite, though!"
"CAPES, DISTRACT THE RANGERS!" Lung roared, pointing at the new intruders. "Everyone else?" He then looked up, growling directly at me, "Teach that Collector a Lesson!"
And then with a burst of fire- Lung Willed himself to grow to his by-now infamous giant monster size, and he punched through the roof in record time.
"He's not wasting any time today, is he?" someone shouted over the din of collapsing cement and metal. To who ever said that, I'm inclined to agree.
--
Power Notes: Lungs powers are subtly different too. This will get explained later. Along with why such a frequently loosing gang has so maintained stability for so long. ^U^
--
The March was a pretentious looking hybrid of a bar and a robot fighting ring. That part of the building was designed after that old TV show Battlebots, except now with low level A.I.s serving in place of the Remote Controls. At the present moment, 'Grievous Error'- based off of some four armed sword wielding cyborg from an Earth Aleph movie- was slicing and dicing at a spheroid robot with four octopus like arms, called 'Syndrome' for whatever reason.
Grievous went for a slash with his swords in saw blade helicopter mode... and left himself open for the sudden emergence of a fifth arm from the Syndrome bot, which threw its clawed hand straight into Grievous' chest and withdrew in a heartbeat, revealing that it had ripped the Coil straight out of Grievous Error's chest.
If this wasn't just the ground floor of the Collection House's two story complex, I wouldn't be here at all. I climbed the stairs past the battle ring up to the second floor, where a smiling young woman by name of Amelia was waiting for me.
"You're late," she greeted chipper-ly.
"Blame Lung for screwing up Main Street," I greeted in return.
"Oh, I do," She lead me the rest of the way to the Marquis' office- a way I knew well by now, but the eighteen year old girl refused to let me walk the way unescorted. Apparently she distrusted the fact that I'd once worked for the Protectorate, despite the fact that by the nature of her father's business, of which I was a part of, we had to still work with the Protectorate on an almost daily basis to one degree or another.
Neither of us made any attempts at conversation as we paused outside of the Marquis' office door, closed, and a red light atop the frame clearly indicating that he wished not to be disturbed.
Through the door, I could hear the Marquis' concluding remark, "You really shouldn't have tried pulling this crap with a remote controlled suit powered by an Illegal Coil."
A moment later, there was the sound of bone crushing metal, followed by a sharp pop. Then, the light atop the door went out, and Amelia opened the door for us. Inside the office which overlooked the city was the Marquis himself- a man whose name was synonymous throughout the bay for keeping his end of a deal... and taking out those who broke theirs with extreme prejudice.
The Marquis' power was that of bone manipulation. At the beginning of his career, he had been able to generate excess bone from his own body, and used it to create a suit of armor, as well as a suite of weapons. It was a power that could only really affect himself until a group of once-thought-heroes attacked him, unprovoked, in his own home, breaking the then Unwritten Rules of Cape society. They ended up nearly killing Amelia in the scuffle, their leader caring little about the girl, who had just started living with him at the time, and that had caused a change in the Marquis' powers. Ever since then, he could now generate bone out of thin air, and his new signature finishing move was the one he had just used on that poor mangled robot lying on the ground at his feet:
A spear of bone falling from the heavens, and impaling his foe with the previously mentioned 'extreme prejudice.'
"Ah, Colin," The Marquis flashed an unmasked smile, "good timing. I was just... finishing up with a snake who thought he could worm his way out of our deal." He kicked at the ruined robot, then motioned towards a chair. "Have a seat and we'll get started."
I sat down, and Amelia went to lower the projector blinds while Marquis' personal maid bot went to clear out the remains of the busted robot.
Then, after a moment, the projector turned on with a familiar masked face.
"Lung," I couldn't believe that this mission had me pitted up against Lung of all people. "I can't believe you're pitting me against Lung of all people."
"Now hold on," Marquis began, "let me explain."
"You've got one minute," I decide.
"As you know, Fury's gang is the primary dealer for Illegal Coils in the city," Marquis began. "Lung's never been able to get a foothold in that particular market. The most he's been able to do is interrupt Fury's shipments and try to steal them for himself."
"Which is usually interrupted by the Rangers," Amelia interjects. "Lung's never gotten to use any of those Coils because they either end up in our hands, or Fury destroys them to keep Lung's claws off of the,."
"Yes, well, unfortunately for us, I received word that this morning's attack was a diversion," Marquis said it with a distinct frown. "The Azn Bay Merchants have finally gotten their hands on Illegal Coils. It's only a matter of time before they stage an attack on the city that Fury and the Rangers can't fight back against."
"You want me to retrieve them before Lung gets a chance to launch an assault." I surmise.
"Close." Marquis nods at me, however. "You recall the bombing at Cornell University three months ago?"
"Who wouldn't." I can't help but to grumble. When a Tinker triggers with the ability to make Exotic Bombs, people like me tend to get sent to see a Coil was invol- "Wait. You're not telling me that-"
"She's presently going by the name 'Bakuda,'" Marquis cuts me off with the information I don't want to hear. "Apparently instead of being off the grid for three months, Lung snatched her up almost immediately and has had her working on some secret project. Possibly a Coil Powered bomb. And if they use an Illegal Coil for it..."
"We're looking at another Newfoundland, aren't we?" I guess as far as missions go it's probably the mission to not skip out on... Still, though. Lung. The man who can turn into a rampaging dragon. "What's the bounty price?"
"Depending on the amount of Illegal Coils in Lung's possession?" Marquis flashes me a smile, "Protectorate Energy is presently offering the standard reward of 1,000 per Coil. But, I'm sure they're willing to up the price if you're able to subdue Bakuda in some form or another."
"Well, then," I stand up, and turn to leave. "My standard payment then. Half in Gasoline, Half in Cash."
"Still running that gas guzzler of a bike, I take it?" Amelia prods.
I ignore her, and leave.
I also ignore the sight of Marquis' cleaning robot trying to stuff the remains of the other robot into a garbage can.
There are just some things that man is not meant to see.
--
The Azn Bay Merchants base was something that changed on a day to day basis. They held at least half of the territory in the city, like Fury's Sledge Hammers, but instead of holding one single base as Fury's gang did, the Azn Bay Merchants held several bases and shifted locations rapidly as a means of preventing Fury or the Rangers from locating them and launching a pre-emptive strike.
At that comparison, my thoughts can't help but to hearken back to Marquis' situation, almost eleven years ago now.
The March, at the time, was simply a group that didn't deal in any of the more disreputable things that the other gangs did during their time. Drugs, primarily, was never a thing done, and the protection racket they ran wasn't protection against the March, but against the other gangs. The difference here, rather than then, is that Lung has made himself a regular nuisance, and furthermore, a legitimate threat that necessitates dealing with. Weekly, if not almost daily attacks on the city. Being fought off time and time again by other villains and a rogue team of heroes. It was only a matter of time before someone finally managed to deliver a decisive strike against them.
Add in the Illegal Coils, plus a Bomb Tinker...
In my experience, the easiest way to find a Secret Base in which someone has just acquired an Illegal Coil is to follow the takeout orders. And with a gang as big as the Azn Bay Merchants... they're going to be big, and are going to be going to the same place.
It really was all too easy to locate the base of the day that way.
I sneaked in through a fire escape of an abandoned warehouse, and looked down upon the construction floor, which, instead of being lined with machines, was lined with tables covered in food, surrounded by people of all walks of life staring at the one man in the center: Beefy, wearing only a pair of pants and a metal mask, and covered in tattoos- there could be only one person fitting that description: Lung.
He was in the middle of screwing a Coil into a water-gun, speaking in Japanese. I could only assume he was bragging about how successful their theft of the Illegal Coils had been. Lung then aimed his water-gun at a distant wall, and let loose a stream of water that went much farther than it should have, and when it hit its target--
KRA-ka-THOOOOOOOOM!
The wall exploded.
Lung then roared, "WE! WILL! KILL! FURY!"
The people in the room all broke into applause. I took a head count, and spotted a few other Capes. There was Oni Lee, who had been Lung's second in command since the gang had been formed. Oh, there was Hookwolf and Cricket- and a few other leftovers absorbed from the Empire I didn't recognize by name. And there was a girl, unmasked, sitting atop what could only be described as a land-mine grown to the size of a one seater helicopter.
Bakuda, I presume.
It seemed to be a small, informal gathering, despite the massive reveal of a doomsday weapon; only a few capes, all things considered.
I couldn't see where the other Illegal Coils were- oh, wait. Lung was holding up a rather large sized crate now, marked with a familiar looking X across the sides.
How many were in that thing? If Dinah were a few years older maybe she could- No.
No! Stop that, Colin. You're helping those kids so they don't end up in situations like this. Remember?
Wait, now Lung was unloading more water guns. They're just Coil Compatible. That makes more sense for the larger box. ...And now he's pulling a smaller box out of his pants pocket that contained two rows of ten small objects marked with X's. Target acquired: Illegal Coils, twenty of them.
That explained the small gathering size of people here. Lung had probably briefed his fellow Parahumans on the plan before- now he was repeating it for the rank and file and was going to arm the normals with the Coil powered water guns.
I guess it's time to drop in on this little-
"LUNG!" And now a new group of people barged in through the front door of the warehouse. I recognized Skidmark and Mush, the head capes from some minor gang that had barely lasted a week before being absorbed into the Azn Bay Merchants. And Skidmark had a girl slung over his shoulder, and he was the one yelling, almost triumphantly, "Lookit what I found snooping around outside!"
Lung turned to look, raising an eyebrow in such a way that it displaced his mask slightly. "Skidmark, what is this? A girl?"
"She was snoopin' around tryin' to be all stealthy like!" Skidmark laughed. "One good bop on tha' head, and she went down! I didn't even hit 'er that hard." And so, he laid the girl down on one of the more empty tables. "What do we do with her, ey boss?"
Lung gave out an exasperated sigh, and went to massage at the bridge of his nose, only to stop when his mask got in the way. I got the impression this happened a lot more often than Lung was willing to admit. "We will tie her up for now. I will deal with her after we finish the attack on the city," Lung ordered, giving a motion to the girl I was assuming was Bakuda.
She gave a grunt, and hopped off her giant bomb before walking over to the girl on the table. Skidmark seemed annoyed, but now was as good of a chance as any if I was going to secure the Illegal Coils. Everyone seemed distracted by the arrival of the girl.
Naturally, that was when my cellphone's ringtone went off.
"Oh. My! GOD!" Bakuda swore, half way to the girl on the table- "Who the hell set 'Never Gonna Give You Up' to Accordion!?"
I spare a glance at my phone just barely long enough to silence it. Why the hell would Marquis be calling for? He was the one who sent me here! Oh well. Dramatic entrance ruined, I step forwards into the light, coughing loudly to gain attention. "Sorry, my bad. I forgot to put it on silent."
Everyone just stares up at me before Hookwolf spots the logo on the front of my jacket, and yells out, sounding rather annoyed, "Shit! He's a Collector!!"
In response to that, Lung went to throw the box of Illegal Coils into the air- BWROAR! -I didn't get to track their progress through the air when a laser blast hit the box and sent it flying out of Lung's grip a moment later.
Everyone followed that laser's origin back to the four teen aged capes in shiny spandex costumes presently leaping through that hole in the wall from before. Black, Red, Green, and Cyan- their helmets were styled after Dinosaurs.
The Dyno Drive Rangers had arrived.
I suddenly had an inkling as to why Marquis had called me suddenly on the job like that.
"Wow," the boy in the Green Parasaur Costume remarked while casually waving a yellow/black dinosaur themed blaster around as if it were just a simple baton. "What an awesome party! Food, Coils, and FUN! Shame we lost the invite, though!"
"CAPES, DISTRACT THE RANGERS!" Lung roared, pointing at the new intruders. "Everyone else?" He then looked up, growling directly at me, "Teach that Collector a Lesson!"
And then with a burst of fire- Lung Willed himself to grow to his by-now infamous giant monster size, and he punched through the roof in record time.
"He's not wasting any time today, is he?" someone shouted over the din of collapsing cement and metal. To who ever said that, I'm inclined to agree.
--
Power Notes: Lungs powers are subtly different too. This will get explained later. Along with why such a frequently loosing gang has so maintained stability for so long. ^U^
Break of Dawn 1.3.I
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
Break of Dawn. 1.3(I) -- Richter
--
There was a lone apartment building somewhere in the middle of the Azn Bay Merchant's territory. It was a run down little thing, having obviouslt been build sometime within the last fifty years, and had been heavily neglected by just about everyone. It had passed hands so many times over the years that nobody paid it any attention even back when the city had been Brockton Bay.
It was just too far out of the way to be convenient walking distance from the Boardwalk, and was definitely too far away from any food stores. However, it was decently close to a pharmacy. For the girl who quietly made her way up the steps towards the top floor of the three story building, that specific reason, among all the others, was the reason it had been chosen as the best possible secret hide away among secret hide aways.
She stealthily removed a key from her pants pocket before unlocking the door, and slipping inside without dropping the bag of medicine in her arms. Once inside, and the door locked securely, the girl pulled the hood down off of her head, and shook her muted brown hair out. Then, with a brief flash of her lime green eyes, her shoulder length hair changed colors- primarily becoming a shade of green itself, along with two specific locks framing her face becoming a metallic shade of black.
With a quick breath to center herself, the girl made her way to the kitchen so she could store away certain drugs in the fridge, lest they go bad before they could be used. On her way, she passed by the Living room, which was less of a Living room, and more of a Tinker's lab.
Suspended from the ceiling, hanging by several large cables, was an anti-tracking device powered by a rather large device. It looked like a coil, but larger in scale. Most bizarrely, unlike regular coils which had a single glowing blue circle on them, this one had two green circles. The whole setup gave off a tiny spark as the girl walked past it, and she shot the clearly unfinished device a glare before entering the kitchen.
Still moving quietly, she opened the fridge and began storing the refrigerateables as quickly as possible.
For the girl, she hated how they lived in hiding, barely able to scrape by with what they could get. Sure, she didn't require much herself, but her Father... Her poor, poor father.
There was a creak of the floor boards from one of the bedrooms, and the girl sighed before finishing her job and closing the fridge door.
"Father," She began, "I seriously hope you're just going to the bathroom, and not trying to get up to Tinker again."
There was a dry and yet paradoxically wet chuckle from her Father's Bedroom as he stepped out. "Sorry, Dragon. I thought I heard someone come in. I wasn't sure if it was you or not."
The girl, Dragon, turned towards her father, putting her hands on her hips and a stern scowl on her face. Andrew Richter stood before her, looking pale, weak, and overall ready to collapse. "Of course it was me!" She let her stern expression fade into one of concern as she went over to walk him back to bed. "You made your own lock, remember?"
"Ah... right. That I did..." His laugh was once again dry and wet. Dragon refused the urge to use her X-ray vision on him again. She'd nearly thrown up the last time she'd done it.
"Now come on, Father." Dragon insisted, "You need your rest."
"But I've already slept so long..." Andrew Richter protested. "If I don't stabilize the Coil..." he trailed off, implications left unsaid.
"And if you don't get better, then you're going to end up dying and--" Dragon took a deep breath before she could begin to hyperventilate. "Please, Father. I can't stand to have you die on me. I don't want to be alone." Andrew was silent as he let her sit him down on the bed, and then let her lay him down to rest once again. "I'm going to go make you some tea," Dragon said once he was settled, and as she went to leave, he reached out with a startling quickness that they'd both thought had left him long ago.
"Dragon," He began, once their eyes had locked onto each other. "I... When I die-" he saw the hurt look in her eyes and he wanted to cry at that. "When I die, you will no longer be bound by my restrictions. So please... find someone who will take care of you." Damn it, he actually was crying now. "Live on, for me, for our family."
"I... Of course," Dragon nodded, and her eyes began to weten as well. "I definitely will."
--
The Dual Coil- for whatever ulterior purpose her father had for it- presently served as the power source for the signal jammer. Unfortunately, it was simply too powerful for the jammer, and needed constant maintenance to keep the energy output stable.
That constant work on it was making her father sick for some reason that she couldn't fathom or understand.
Using a regular Coil was out of the question- those would send information back directly to Protectorate Energy and completely ruin the point of a signal jammer, not to mention the fact that they just simply didn't put out enough juice to power the device either. Even Dragon's own personal Coil design- somewhere around the quality of a Military grade Coil- was too little for her Father's custom signal jammer, even though it could power her just fine.
There really was only one choice here: she needed something powerful enough that could outstrip even her own Coil. Something that could take the burden off of the Dual Coil long enough that her Father could recover and finish it properly. She needed to find an Illegal Coil.
Her cable-tail swished side to side as she began plotting.
Locally: the Sledge Hammers were known to be dealers of the Illegal Coils, meanwhile the Azn Bay Merchants were known to constantly try to get their hands on them.
Logically: there had to be Illegal Coils in this town even as she stood there staring at the Dual Coil and the Signal Jammer.
Conclusion: She'd have to go out and look for them on her own.
Dragon put on her hoodie again, hiding her tail up beneath it and forcing her hair color to shift back into its disguised color. She paused at the door, listening for signs of her Father being awake still-- the bed creaked slightly as her father shifted his weight in a deliberate manner.
"Father," She called out, "I used the last of the sugar with your tea. I'm going to go out and get some more."
"Be careful, Dragon," Her father's voice returned. "Keep an eye out for that wanna-be chump calling himself a dragon."
"I'm sure I won't run into him," She smiled and giggled, knowing that he'd know she was doing that just from the sound of her voice. And so she stepped out of the apartment and headed out in search of Illegal Coils.
Dragon hated lying to her father like this, but he was going to kill himself working on that Dual Coil before he ever tried making another power source for the jammer.
--
In retrospect, seeking out a GANG who had Illegal Coils was probably a bad idea.
No, scratch that, it was definitely a BAD IDEA.
Dragon couldn't help but wonder if this was her karmic payment for lying to her father like she had. She'd been wandering for a few hours before her sensors had detected the sound of a wall exploding- luckily close too! Such a sound could only be because of an Illegal Coil!
Or at least, that was what she had thought. "Luck." Dumb luck was more like it.
She'd gone stealthy, sneaking through the warehouses and looking for the source of that sound. Not stealthily enough, as it turned out, because she'd been hit over the head a moment later. Her disguised hair held up, probably thanks to her father's restrictions.
"When in public, you are human, not a robot."
And so, she pretended to be unconscious as the goons poked and prodded her to see if she was out. And even as they picked her up to carry her, she had to repress the urge to do anything at all, even as she thought, annoyed, 'Urgh, what a wonderful smell you've discovered!'
Once the guy holding her put her down on a table inside the warehouse, Dragon turned her eyes to X-Ray mode and began looking around the room while keeping her eyelids shut.
'One of the perks of being a robot,' she thought while ignoring almost everything else until she finally zeroed in on the box of Illegal Coils the largest person in the room had on them. 'Target acquired,' she thought with a smile she couldn't restrain. Nobody noticed, thankfully.
Before she could do anything, though, the box of Coils ended up being shot out of the man's hand by something energetic enough to scramble her X-ray vision in a painful way. Dragon winced, and shut that mode down as someone remarked,"Wow! What an awesome party! Food, Coils, and FUN! Shame we lost the invite, though!"
"CAPES, DISTRACT THE RANGERS!" The man roared. Rangers? What Rangers? Then a growl: "Everyone else? Teach that Collector a Lesson!" A Collector!?
Dragon's eyes snapped open just in time to see the man grow to giant size- smashing through the roof of the building and causing dust and debris to fall into the room.
Lung. That had been Lung the entire time!?
"He's not wasting any time today, is he?" someone shouted over the sound of the collapsing warehouse roof.
Dragon, honestly, was inclined to agree on that one.
--
Notes: Dragon takes the place of Mira in this crossover.
--
There was a lone apartment building somewhere in the middle of the Azn Bay Merchant's territory. It was a run down little thing, having obviouslt been build sometime within the last fifty years, and had been heavily neglected by just about everyone. It had passed hands so many times over the years that nobody paid it any attention even back when the city had been Brockton Bay.
It was just too far out of the way to be convenient walking distance from the Boardwalk, and was definitely too far away from any food stores. However, it was decently close to a pharmacy. For the girl who quietly made her way up the steps towards the top floor of the three story building, that specific reason, among all the others, was the reason it had been chosen as the best possible secret hide away among secret hide aways.
She stealthily removed a key from her pants pocket before unlocking the door, and slipping inside without dropping the bag of medicine in her arms. Once inside, and the door locked securely, the girl pulled the hood down off of her head, and shook her muted brown hair out. Then, with a brief flash of her lime green eyes, her shoulder length hair changed colors- primarily becoming a shade of green itself, along with two specific locks framing her face becoming a metallic shade of black.
With a quick breath to center herself, the girl made her way to the kitchen so she could store away certain drugs in the fridge, lest they go bad before they could be used. On her way, she passed by the Living room, which was less of a Living room, and more of a Tinker's lab.
Suspended from the ceiling, hanging by several large cables, was an anti-tracking device powered by a rather large device. It looked like a coil, but larger in scale. Most bizarrely, unlike regular coils which had a single glowing blue circle on them, this one had two green circles. The whole setup gave off a tiny spark as the girl walked past it, and she shot the clearly unfinished device a glare before entering the kitchen.
Still moving quietly, she opened the fridge and began storing the refrigerateables as quickly as possible.
For the girl, she hated how they lived in hiding, barely able to scrape by with what they could get. Sure, she didn't require much herself, but her Father... Her poor, poor father.
There was a creak of the floor boards from one of the bedrooms, and the girl sighed before finishing her job and closing the fridge door.
"Father," She began, "I seriously hope you're just going to the bathroom, and not trying to get up to Tinker again."
There was a dry and yet paradoxically wet chuckle from her Father's Bedroom as he stepped out. "Sorry, Dragon. I thought I heard someone come in. I wasn't sure if it was you or not."
The girl, Dragon, turned towards her father, putting her hands on her hips and a stern scowl on her face. Andrew Richter stood before her, looking pale, weak, and overall ready to collapse. "Of course it was me!" She let her stern expression fade into one of concern as she went over to walk him back to bed. "You made your own lock, remember?"
"Ah... right. That I did..." His laugh was once again dry and wet. Dragon refused the urge to use her X-ray vision on him again. She'd nearly thrown up the last time she'd done it.
"Now come on, Father." Dragon insisted, "You need your rest."
"But I've already slept so long..." Andrew Richter protested. "If I don't stabilize the Coil..." he trailed off, implications left unsaid.
"And if you don't get better, then you're going to end up dying and--" Dragon took a deep breath before she could begin to hyperventilate. "Please, Father. I can't stand to have you die on me. I don't want to be alone." Andrew was silent as he let her sit him down on the bed, and then let her lay him down to rest once again. "I'm going to go make you some tea," Dragon said once he was settled, and as she went to leave, he reached out with a startling quickness that they'd both thought had left him long ago.
"Dragon," He began, once their eyes had locked onto each other. "I... When I die-" he saw the hurt look in her eyes and he wanted to cry at that. "When I die, you will no longer be bound by my restrictions. So please... find someone who will take care of you." Damn it, he actually was crying now. "Live on, for me, for our family."
"I... Of course," Dragon nodded, and her eyes began to weten as well. "I definitely will."
--
The Dual Coil- for whatever ulterior purpose her father had for it- presently served as the power source for the signal jammer. Unfortunately, it was simply too powerful for the jammer, and needed constant maintenance to keep the energy output stable.
That constant work on it was making her father sick for some reason that she couldn't fathom or understand.
Using a regular Coil was out of the question- those would send information back directly to Protectorate Energy and completely ruin the point of a signal jammer, not to mention the fact that they just simply didn't put out enough juice to power the device either. Even Dragon's own personal Coil design- somewhere around the quality of a Military grade Coil- was too little for her Father's custom signal jammer, even though it could power her just fine.
There really was only one choice here: she needed something powerful enough that could outstrip even her own Coil. Something that could take the burden off of the Dual Coil long enough that her Father could recover and finish it properly. She needed to find an Illegal Coil.
Her cable-tail swished side to side as she began plotting.
Locally: the Sledge Hammers were known to be dealers of the Illegal Coils, meanwhile the Azn Bay Merchants were known to constantly try to get their hands on them.
Logically: there had to be Illegal Coils in this town even as she stood there staring at the Dual Coil and the Signal Jammer.
Conclusion: She'd have to go out and look for them on her own.
Dragon put on her hoodie again, hiding her tail up beneath it and forcing her hair color to shift back into its disguised color. She paused at the door, listening for signs of her Father being awake still-- the bed creaked slightly as her father shifted his weight in a deliberate manner.
"Father," She called out, "I used the last of the sugar with your tea. I'm going to go out and get some more."
"Be careful, Dragon," Her father's voice returned. "Keep an eye out for that wanna-be chump calling himself a dragon."
"I'm sure I won't run into him," She smiled and giggled, knowing that he'd know she was doing that just from the sound of her voice. And so she stepped out of the apartment and headed out in search of Illegal Coils.
Dragon hated lying to her father like this, but he was going to kill himself working on that Dual Coil before he ever tried making another power source for the jammer.
--
In retrospect, seeking out a GANG who had Illegal Coils was probably a bad idea.
No, scratch that, it was definitely a BAD IDEA.
Dragon couldn't help but wonder if this was her karmic payment for lying to her father like she had. She'd been wandering for a few hours before her sensors had detected the sound of a wall exploding- luckily close too! Such a sound could only be because of an Illegal Coil!
Or at least, that was what she had thought. "Luck." Dumb luck was more like it.
She'd gone stealthy, sneaking through the warehouses and looking for the source of that sound. Not stealthily enough, as it turned out, because she'd been hit over the head a moment later. Her disguised hair held up, probably thanks to her father's restrictions.
"When in public, you are human, not a robot."
And so, she pretended to be unconscious as the goons poked and prodded her to see if she was out. And even as they picked her up to carry her, she had to repress the urge to do anything at all, even as she thought, annoyed, 'Urgh, what a wonderful smell you've discovered!'
Once the guy holding her put her down on a table inside the warehouse, Dragon turned her eyes to X-Ray mode and began looking around the room while keeping her eyelids shut.
'One of the perks of being a robot,' she thought while ignoring almost everything else until she finally zeroed in on the box of Illegal Coils the largest person in the room had on them. 'Target acquired,' she thought with a smile she couldn't restrain. Nobody noticed, thankfully.
Before she could do anything, though, the box of Coils ended up being shot out of the man's hand by something energetic enough to scramble her X-ray vision in a painful way. Dragon winced, and shut that mode down as someone remarked,"Wow! What an awesome party! Food, Coils, and FUN! Shame we lost the invite, though!"
"CAPES, DISTRACT THE RANGERS!" The man roared. Rangers? What Rangers? Then a growl: "Everyone else? Teach that Collector a Lesson!" A Collector!?
Dragon's eyes snapped open just in time to see the man grow to giant size- smashing through the roof of the building and causing dust and debris to fall into the room.
Lung. That had been Lung the entire time!?
"He's not wasting any time today, is he?" someone shouted over the sound of the collapsing warehouse roof.
Dragon, honestly, was inclined to agree on that one.
--
Notes: Dragon takes the place of Mira in this crossover.
Break of Dawn 1.4.I
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
Break of Dawn. 1.4(I) - Bakuda
--
Lung's sudden growth to giant size was typically accompanied by a set of wings growing out of his shoulders. This time was no different. He grew, flapped his wings to clear them of debris, then grabbed the giant Tinker-Bomb from the ground and flew off like crow soaring towards the sun. In his rush to get clear, Lung never saw the girl in the black costume throwing a tiny, gun sized dinosaur at him. However, he certainly felt it biting into his tail and spontaneously growing to an equal giant size once he'd cleared the warehouse.
Everyone heard the massive thump of twin feet hitting the pavement, and then dragging down as the Black and Bronze Spinosaurus dug its feet firmly into the ground to prevent Lung from getting away.
Silence fell for a moment, and then Lung Roared, matched immediately by the Spinosaur's own, teeth clenched Growl. That, then, was the signal everyone was waiting on. Lung's small gathering of Capes all launched themselves at the Rangers, and quickly pushed their fight outside. Meanwhile, the Collector leaped down from the rafters and drew out a series of metal spikes from beneath his coat.
It was really sort of impressive the way that the un-powered mooks thought they had a chance.
Bakuda bet that even Lung knew they really didn't.
What was just as impressive as the courage those mooks showed was simply how efficiently the Collector began slamming metal spikes into people's feet and hands, immobilizing whole sweeping groups of people in moments, and yet more still came leaping into the fray. His fighting style was unorthodox, for sure. It was like watching someone dance, except to music that only they could hear. There was a pattern, a rythm to it, but she'd be damned if she could figure it out.
Bakuda knew a pre-determined outcome when she saw one, and so made it her self-appointed mission to find that box of Illegal Coils that had been shot out of Lung's hand a moment earlier.
'Now where are you my pretties...' she scanned the general direction of where that shot likely threw the box, and...! 'There!' Pinned under a small chunk of ceiling tile- right there was the box containing the Illegal Coils.
Bakuda quickly weaved her way through the edges of the crowd of mooks trying to fight the Collector, and knelt down to pick up the box of Coils. A quick inspection confirmed that it was intact- the protective case had done its job and kept the delicate Coils from the blaster bolt, the impact of hitting the ground, and its subsequent crushing from the falling roof.
Bakuda stood up, a triumphant grin on her face--
"THOSE ARE MINE!"
--A grin that was wiped off almost immediately by the girl Skidmark had brought in throwing a hail-mary of a punch straight into Bakuda's face.
For a moment, Bakuda recalled the plan that Lung had lined out for her during her recruitment.
"Our plan is to let them think we're weak enough to be pushed back. To let them believe that we're foolish and dumb enough to attack so often that our defeats have become trivial!" a devilish grin had plastered itself on Lung's maw. "Then- we make them pay for that underestimation!"
It was a long con of epic proportions. After Lung's first defeat years ago by the Rangers, he'd begun plotting. He started a plan... And after the Rangers had made their real public debut by fighting off the Behemoth? Lung had re-evaluated that plan and reformatted it again and again.
In the end, he said, the Rangers were now regularly performing the same feat that Lung had upon his Trigger- Fighting an Endbringer to a standstill. The difference between them was that Lung really had no upper limit in terms of his growth, but his main problem was getting to a size fast enough to actually make a difference in the Endbringer fights. The Rangers could get giant robots almost instantly.
Kyushu had been lost because it had taken Lung too long to grow.
So, not only was Lung's plan one that of deception- making the Rangers fight him so often that he'd become *expected* to make a weekly attack of some kind or another and to stage *losses* to make people think his Azn Bay Merchants were weak. It was one of training his own body to transform faster and faster and faster by using the Rangers as a constant threat he could face against. Now? Lung could reliably transform himself into a size able to fight the Endbringers and survive, just by imagining any one of the Rangers. (Of course, having them there in person helped too.) After all, the worst the Ranger's own Endbringer driving off attacks could do was send Lung flying into the water.
They couldn't actually *kill* him. And now all of that long planning was going to pay off and they would blow up the Coil Tower that made Amber Beach bay so valuable to-- "OOF!" Bakuda hit the ground, and groaned from the impact that had likely broke her nose. 'Girl must be a brute...' she thought idly before realizing that- YES!- she still had the box of Coils clutched tightly in her hands up against her chest.
Bakuda got up, and glared at the girl who was making her way over to her- steadfastly ignoring anyone and anything that tried to get in her way.
Rubble from the roof? Crushed underfoot into sand. Some mook who thought he could take her? Sent flying backwards into someone who was attacking the Collector with barely a back hand. Definitely a Brute then.
'Shit, how did Skids even bring her in!?' Bakuda, for a brief moment, felt Fear.
Then, she forced a grin and pulled something out of a pocket- a personal little escape grenade she'd come up with for a situation just like this. "IT'S TIME FOR A NEWS FLASH!" Bakuda pressed the button and threw the grenade at her.
The girl stopped for a moment- eyes widening in fear as she caught the grenade in her hands and-
BOOM.
The concussive blast was enough to send the girl flying backwards into the ever dwindling mook fight against the Collector, scattering a few of them to the four corners of the wind and finally landing a hit against the Collector.
Bakuda didn't stay to gloat, and instead ran for the hole in the wall that Lung had made earlier with the coil-powered water pistol.
'Such a pain today has been,' Bakuda rolled her eyes as she avoided the Capes fighting with the Rangers. Two of them were missing- the girl in the red Raptor costume, and the girl in the black Spinosaur outfit. 'Gee. Where would they be in this mess?'
A glance upwards confirmed that the Black Spino, the Red Raptor, and a Pink Stegosaurus had combined together into some weirdly named formation that was currently slashing and hacking at Lung's giant form.
The blazing, burning cuts that normally sent Endbringers running barely existed for a few seconds before healing over. Lung was confident that if he'd kept the ruse up for longer, he might be able to out-defense them eventually. But, then that would have drawn suspicion as to why he kept loosing. Thus, why they'd launched today's distraction attack.
In the distance, Bakuda could hear the roaring wail of the PRT Alarms. 'Not surprising, given we just stole a buncha Illegal Coils out from under everyone's noses!'
Still, with a laugh that quickly broke off into a pained cough, Bakuda made her partial-escape from the scene of battle. She'd have to make something real quick to help Lung break free of the fight with the Rangers before Fury showed up, but other than that...
It was looking like a clean get-away.
--
Lung's sudden growth to giant size was typically accompanied by a set of wings growing out of his shoulders. This time was no different. He grew, flapped his wings to clear them of debris, then grabbed the giant Tinker-Bomb from the ground and flew off like crow soaring towards the sun. In his rush to get clear, Lung never saw the girl in the black costume throwing a tiny, gun sized dinosaur at him. However, he certainly felt it biting into his tail and spontaneously growing to an equal giant size once he'd cleared the warehouse.
Everyone heard the massive thump of twin feet hitting the pavement, and then dragging down as the Black and Bronze Spinosaurus dug its feet firmly into the ground to prevent Lung from getting away.
Silence fell for a moment, and then Lung Roared, matched immediately by the Spinosaur's own, teeth clenched Growl. That, then, was the signal everyone was waiting on. Lung's small gathering of Capes all launched themselves at the Rangers, and quickly pushed their fight outside. Meanwhile, the Collector leaped down from the rafters and drew out a series of metal spikes from beneath his coat.
It was really sort of impressive the way that the un-powered mooks thought they had a chance.
Bakuda bet that even Lung knew they really didn't.
What was just as impressive as the courage those mooks showed was simply how efficiently the Collector began slamming metal spikes into people's feet and hands, immobilizing whole sweeping groups of people in moments, and yet more still came leaping into the fray. His fighting style was unorthodox, for sure. It was like watching someone dance, except to music that only they could hear. There was a pattern, a rythm to it, but she'd be damned if she could figure it out.
Bakuda knew a pre-determined outcome when she saw one, and so made it her self-appointed mission to find that box of Illegal Coils that had been shot out of Lung's hand a moment earlier.
'Now where are you my pretties...' she scanned the general direction of where that shot likely threw the box, and...! 'There!' Pinned under a small chunk of ceiling tile- right there was the box containing the Illegal Coils.
Bakuda quickly weaved her way through the edges of the crowd of mooks trying to fight the Collector, and knelt down to pick up the box of Coils. A quick inspection confirmed that it was intact- the protective case had done its job and kept the delicate Coils from the blaster bolt, the impact of hitting the ground, and its subsequent crushing from the falling roof.
Bakuda stood up, a triumphant grin on her face--
"THOSE ARE MINE!"
--A grin that was wiped off almost immediately by the girl Skidmark had brought in throwing a hail-mary of a punch straight into Bakuda's face.
For a moment, Bakuda recalled the plan that Lung had lined out for her during her recruitment.
"Our plan is to let them think we're weak enough to be pushed back. To let them believe that we're foolish and dumb enough to attack so often that our defeats have become trivial!" a devilish grin had plastered itself on Lung's maw. "Then- we make them pay for that underestimation!"
It was a long con of epic proportions. After Lung's first defeat years ago by the Rangers, he'd begun plotting. He started a plan... And after the Rangers had made their real public debut by fighting off the Behemoth? Lung had re-evaluated that plan and reformatted it again and again.
In the end, he said, the Rangers were now regularly performing the same feat that Lung had upon his Trigger- Fighting an Endbringer to a standstill. The difference between them was that Lung really had no upper limit in terms of his growth, but his main problem was getting to a size fast enough to actually make a difference in the Endbringer fights. The Rangers could get giant robots almost instantly.
Kyushu had been lost because it had taken Lung too long to grow.
So, not only was Lung's plan one that of deception- making the Rangers fight him so often that he'd become *expected* to make a weekly attack of some kind or another and to stage *losses* to make people think his Azn Bay Merchants were weak. It was one of training his own body to transform faster and faster and faster by using the Rangers as a constant threat he could face against. Now? Lung could reliably transform himself into a size able to fight the Endbringers and survive, just by imagining any one of the Rangers. (Of course, having them there in person helped too.) After all, the worst the Ranger's own Endbringer driving off attacks could do was send Lung flying into the water.
They couldn't actually *kill* him. And now all of that long planning was going to pay off and they would blow up the Coil Tower that made Amber Beach bay so valuable to-- "OOF!" Bakuda hit the ground, and groaned from the impact that had likely broke her nose. 'Girl must be a brute...' she thought idly before realizing that- YES!- she still had the box of Coils clutched tightly in her hands up against her chest.
Bakuda got up, and glared at the girl who was making her way over to her- steadfastly ignoring anyone and anything that tried to get in her way.
Rubble from the roof? Crushed underfoot into sand. Some mook who thought he could take her? Sent flying backwards into someone who was attacking the Collector with barely a back hand. Definitely a Brute then.
'Shit, how did Skids even bring her in!?' Bakuda, for a brief moment, felt Fear.
Then, she forced a grin and pulled something out of a pocket- a personal little escape grenade she'd come up with for a situation just like this. "IT'S TIME FOR A NEWS FLASH!" Bakuda pressed the button and threw the grenade at her.
The girl stopped for a moment- eyes widening in fear as she caught the grenade in her hands and-
BOOM.
The concussive blast was enough to send the girl flying backwards into the ever dwindling mook fight against the Collector, scattering a few of them to the four corners of the wind and finally landing a hit against the Collector.
Bakuda didn't stay to gloat, and instead ran for the hole in the wall that Lung had made earlier with the coil-powered water pistol.
'Such a pain today has been,' Bakuda rolled her eyes as she avoided the Capes fighting with the Rangers. Two of them were missing- the girl in the red Raptor costume, and the girl in the black Spinosaur outfit. 'Gee. Where would they be in this mess?'
A glance upwards confirmed that the Black Spino, the Red Raptor, and a Pink Stegosaurus had combined together into some weirdly named formation that was currently slashing and hacking at Lung's giant form.
The blazing, burning cuts that normally sent Endbringers running barely existed for a few seconds before healing over. Lung was confident that if he'd kept the ruse up for longer, he might be able to out-defense them eventually. But, then that would have drawn suspicion as to why he kept loosing. Thus, why they'd launched today's distraction attack.
In the distance, Bakuda could hear the roaring wail of the PRT Alarms. 'Not surprising, given we just stole a buncha Illegal Coils out from under everyone's noses!'
Still, with a laugh that quickly broke off into a pained cough, Bakuda made her partial-escape from the scene of battle. She'd have to make something real quick to help Lung break free of the fight with the Rangers before Fury showed up, but other than that...
It was looking like a clean get-away.
Break of Dawn 1.5
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
Break of Dawn. 1.5
--
Honestly? I didn't see a girl slamming into me coming as the result of an explosion. Neither did half the people she bowled through in the process, for that matter.
Thankfully, those who were still standing took that as a sign to back off for a minute so that everyone could take stock of the situation as it stood... Presently, it sounded like Lung was fighting one of the Ranger's giant dino-robot mechs, and there was some fight going on outside too. Probably the Capes Versus Rangers.
"Why did I catch that stupid grenade for!?" The girl was muttering aloud as she picked herself up off of me. "Now she's run off with the Coils and-!"
"Aren't you a little young to be a collector?" I quip in response as I get to my feet faster than she had. She turns to say something in response when I process the sentence she'd been saying a bit better- "Wait. Who has the Coils?"
"That lady who threw that grenade at me!" This comment makes the remaining standing mooks look as if they'd just stepped on a landmine.
"Bakuda?" I question, less towards the girl and more towards those mooks. Their answer is to turn tail and run, screaming about how everyone's doomed.
"Looks like," the girl next to me answers. "I think I saw her running out through the hole in the wall."
"I don't know why you want those Coils, but," I offer a team up, "we can't let her get away with them, now can we?"
"No, we can't." And with that, we both exit the warehouse. "My name is Dragon, by the way," The girl- Dragon- introduces herself as she pauses to look around to try and see which way Bakuda went.
"Colin," I say in response.
"She went that way," Dragon points at the direction leading away from the Cape/Ranger fight, and instead towards the Lung/DinoMech. Then, she takes off at a run. I follow, since she obviously has some idea as to which way Baku-woah!
I'd nearly sliped over a small patch of blood.
Bakuda was bleeding- badly enough that she'd left a trail leading out of the alley.
"Good eyes," I appraise as we run after the trail of blood.
"Thanks," she flashes me but a tiny sliver of a smile before putting on a serious expression on her face.
Out of the alley and on the street itself, the trail of blood obviously swerves to avoid what was most likely a foot. We similarly have to duck and dodge lest Lung's tail slam into our path.
I glance upwards for a moment just in time to watch the Rangers' Dino Mech impale Lung in the shoulder with a pink and yellow sword, going through and through.
Lung just laughs, and then shoves them away with a punch to the chest. The sword is pulled out and the wound closes up almost immediately. There wasn't even any blood, I realize. Just how good had Lung's regeneration gotten over the last few years? Had he... been using the Rangers for training practice?
"UP!" Dragon called out before jumping onto a fire-escape and climbing upwards, skipping rungs with relative ease. I follow, skipping just as many rungs as she was. We reach the roof after almost a minute, and there we find Bakuda hastily trying to take apart a rooftop Air-conditioning unit to work one of her Illegal Coils into.
"BAKUDA!" I call out, palming a metal spike in my throwing hand in preparation to strike.
"What now!?" Her head snaps up towards me and- even ignoring the blood flowing from the wound- it's fairly obvious that her nose is broken by the way her face scrunches up in confusion in a pained way. "Oh how the flying fu-"
"Give me back those coils!" Dragon interrupts Bakuda with a stern glare. For a moment, I'm almost certain her eyes flashed like you'd see in one of those old cartoons.
"Screw you, Brute-girl!" Bakuda yells back in return, standing up and pointing some hodge-podge type of gun at us. "And you, Collector! Who the hell uses a kid as a distraction against a bunch of all-angry gangsters like us!?"
Dragon and I share a glance before we together say, "I'm not with her/him."
This, it seems, is enough to give Bakuda pause. Her gun-holding hand lowers just enough to give me an opening.
I fling out the metal spike at her arm, and it strikes Bakuda in the wrist.
She screeches in pain, and curses, and drops the strange weapon. When it hits the ground, something triggers as something gets crushed from the impact, and it lets out a flying burst of blue light that strikes against the giant bomb in Lung's possession.
What happened next was a surge of ice suddenly crawling upwards and utterly encasing Lung's left arm in a coffin of ice. Lung is distracted by that- even as his latent Pyrokinettics begin to melt the ice away. It's enough for the Rangers to deliver a roundhouse kick to his face. All three of us then just stared and watched as Lung went flying backwards down the street before smashing into an old and abandoned Medhall Office building.
"He's gonna be really mad, isn't he?" Bakuda's calmly phrased question was almost drowned out by Lung's next roar.
The Rangers' Mecha suddenly detaches its pink Stegosaurus arm, instead swapping it out for a green Parasaur. A pre-recorded voice calls out a new formation name: -"SPINO CHARGE MEGAZORD: WESTERN FORMATION!"- The green parasaur arm opens up and becomes a blaster- then, then 'Spino Charge Megazord' takes aim and fires off bursts of burning plasma at Lung.
The clever bastard raises his still frozen arm to block, which does absolutely nothing but melt the ice even faster. Lung's face twists into a grin that would have been terrifying even in his human form.
The ice begins to crack, split, and then as Lung's body begins to grow even larger--
"OW!"
Suddenly, Bakuda drops the box of Illegal Coils as they begin sparking within the case.
"What the-?" I turn to look at her when I get a similar shock from within my jacket pocket- the pocket where my cellphone was kept. My old, Protectorate Issue Phone. One that held a custom power source that I'd created just for it, back before the Coils had spread far enough to infiltrate phones.
I pulled it out and then was forced to drop it almost immediately as it gave me an even larger shock.
"C-C-Colin!" Dragon stutters, pointing shakily both at Lung and past Lung all at the same time- towards the bomb in his hand and beyond the destroyed Medhall Building.
Even the Rangers' megazord had stopped, and they could only stare on as the bomb in Lung's hand glowed with the same ethereal green energy that was now flashing brightly in the distance.
"RRRHH??" even Lung sounded confused as he looked down at the still partly frozen-to-his-hand bomb, likely even as shocks of electricity arced from it into his arm. Not that we could see them at that scale.
"N-n-NO!" Dragon cried out and I looked at her. Something on her must have had a Coil on it because every now and then a spark of electricity would jump across her body. "F-F-FATHER!! You C-c-CAN'T!!" She didn't seem to care, however, staring on ahead at the spark of green light, now starting to grow taller and taller, spiraling upwards into a-
It was then that the box of Illegal Coils at Bakuda's feet literally began to light up like a box of fireworks. Bakuda yelped and threw herself behind the remains of the air-conditioning unit she'd butchered.
My Phone, still lying on the ground, suddenly let out a large poof of smoke. I quickly kicked it away towards the box of Coils before a loud pop signaled the end of its existence.
The Bomb in Lung's hand detonated- destroying his left arm entirely with a flash of alternating red and blue smoke and fire.
And then, Dragon let out a shriek of pain as electricity encompassed her body- all emerging from a central point on her chest.
I couldn't do anything, as in that moment, the tower of green light suddenly exploded upwards into the air before umbrellaing outwards. Everything beneath it that was powered in some for or another started shutting down.
I barely processed that fact before the strange, other-worldly shockwave finally hit me and-
--
I saw two massive beasts, lying on the sands of a desert.
Dead.
Their bodies ruined in different ways.
One was carved up like it had been cut into with lasers and swords and blades.
The other was mutilated by a Dimensional Manifestation, and seemed to be fused with the corpse of Leviathan.
Floating above them was a third being- small, humanoid. It held in its hands two shards of glowing light.
[ASSESSMENT?] the being prompted one shard of light.
[Situation Usable.] the shard answered, almost monotone, like a robot without an A.I. of any kind installed.
Just a glorified computer.
[DESTINATION?] The being asked of the second shard.
[Confirmation! Elation!] It replied, sounding happy and energetic and excited to roll up its sleeves and get to work.
Then, the being looked me in the eyes, and said:
[CURIOSITY. GOOD. LUCK.]
And then- the second shard of light exploded with a flash of violent green light--
--
I woke up with a start, lying on my side on top of that damned rooftop.
The old Endbringer sirens were wailing through the air. They were never used anymore, even when an Endbringer was attacking. They were just loud noise makers powered by someone rapidly cranking a shaft. The Protectorate had made new, electric speakers that ran on Coils and carried for much further distances than the old ones and had multiple sounds that could play depending on the situation and a specific Endbringer. So why were they-- Wait.
I was staring at a slagged phone and a box of smoking Coils.
I sat up with a start and looked around. There were no lights.
There. Were. No. Lights.
The irony wasn't lost on me. Of COURSE the Protectorate would use the old Endbringer sirens to declare a state of emergency. They were manually operated! Whatever that lightshow had been, it had fried probably almost every Coil powered device in its shock wave radius, and then some, going by the remains of my phone.
I got to my feet and looked down into the street.
The Rangers Megazord was lying on the ground, broken up into its different pieces- their organic parts still clearly alive and breathing, but sounding pained as if someone had thrown a sledgehammer against their heads.
Lung was nowhere to be seen, although the bloody remains of a giant arm lay smeared across the street.
I turned towards Dragon to see if she was alright, and--
What.
She lay there on the ground, face frozen in the expression of pain- both physical and emotional. There were tears crowded up against her eyes, still slowly leaking down her face.
Her chest, however... A small portion of skin near the collar bone had burned away, along with the clothing over top it. There was a coil inside her chest- burnt out just like the other coils from the box.
...She was a Robot?
"Awwwoooowww..." And then Bakuda groaned. "Whut da fwuuuwash dat?"
I looked over at her, clutching at her impaled arm with her good hand. That was a lot of lost blood from that wound- let alone from her nose...
How long had we been out for!? She shouldn't have lost that much blood too quickly.
"HEY! COLLECTOR!" And then a girl called out from the street below.
I turned back towards the rooftop and looked down at the Rangers down Dinosaurs.
The four Rangers were waving up at me from where they were standing on what was normally the front chest of the Megazord, but was presently the side of the Spinosaur's chest. Black had a hand pressed up to her helmet near where her mouth should be.
"YEAH?" I shouted down to her.
"YOU OKAY UP THERE?" Black shouted up.
...I considered for a moment. Was *I* Alright? Certainly, yes, I think I'd come out for the better out of everyone on the rooftop. But...
"BAKUDA NEEDS MEDICAL ASSISTANCE," I shouted down. "WANT TO TAKE HER IN?"
The four Rangers turned to each other and talked in what was probably a normal tone of voice, not that I could hear them from up here.
Then, Red shouted up a simple "HELL YES!" with a pumping of an arm, before she and Green went and scurried off to try to find the fire escape.
"WHERE'S LUNG?" I shouted down, mainly out of curiosity.
"RAN OFF AFTER HIS ARM GOT BLOWN UP!" Cyan replied, sounding annoyed. "HE RAMMED INTO US RIGHT BEFORE THE SHOCKWAVE HIT."
That explained the downed robot, at least.
I heard a rattle from the fire-escape, and... I'm not sure why I did, but I went over to the frozen body of... Dragon and moved her up against something, lying her down so that the Coil in her chest couldn't be seen easily.
The Red Ranger girl finished climbing the fire escape first, followed shortly after by Green.
"Dang," Green remarked, "what happened up here?"
"I'm not entirely sure," I answered.
"Is she alright?" Red asked, motioning to... Dragon, to indicate who she was inquiring about.
"I..." Might as well be honest. "She hasn't woken up since the black out, so I'm not sure. I'm going to take her in personally and get her checked out."
"Not Bakuda, though?" Green asked.
"The coil bounty's enough for me," I say, motioning towards the burnt out box of Illegal Coils. "Besides," I add, "do I look like I can carry two girls down a fire escape on my own?"
Green makes a motion as if he's going to remark on that. Red hits him on the back side of the head before he can say anything. He gives her a look, and she just points at Bakuda. Green huffs in response, looking defeated even through his helmet, then goes over to pry the spike out of Bakuda's arm and give it medical treatment.
And so Red stands there, just sort of watching. She glances between me and Green and Dragon, then asks, "Did.... you have a dream during the black out?"
I blink. "I.. I guess I did. Yeah"
"I see..." Red shifts on her feet for a moment, then picks up the box of coils and my destroyed phone, and hands them over to me. With regards to the phone, she doesn't need to say anything like 'I believe this is yours', it's all but implied in how she stands while giving it to me.
"Thanks," I pocket the phone and the Coil case. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be able to salvage the hard-drive...? For now, I shuffle those thoughts to the side before picking up Dragon and walking over to the fire-escape.... Then, a thought occurs to me, "I hope my bike's still working after that," I say it aloud, apparently loud enough for Green to hear it and reply:
"If it's not, just come back here and wait. We'll give you a lift," He offers while wrapping a bandage around Bakuda's nose.
"Thanks," I answer, and then begin climbing down the fire-escape.
Some days, you just learn to take what you can get when its offered.
--
--
Honestly? I didn't see a girl slamming into me coming as the result of an explosion. Neither did half the people she bowled through in the process, for that matter.
Thankfully, those who were still standing took that as a sign to back off for a minute so that everyone could take stock of the situation as it stood... Presently, it sounded like Lung was fighting one of the Ranger's giant dino-robot mechs, and there was some fight going on outside too. Probably the Capes Versus Rangers.
"Why did I catch that stupid grenade for!?" The girl was muttering aloud as she picked herself up off of me. "Now she's run off with the Coils and-!"
"Aren't you a little young to be a collector?" I quip in response as I get to my feet faster than she had. She turns to say something in response when I process the sentence she'd been saying a bit better- "Wait. Who has the Coils?"
"That lady who threw that grenade at me!" This comment makes the remaining standing mooks look as if they'd just stepped on a landmine.
"Bakuda?" I question, less towards the girl and more towards those mooks. Their answer is to turn tail and run, screaming about how everyone's doomed.
"Looks like," the girl next to me answers. "I think I saw her running out through the hole in the wall."
"I don't know why you want those Coils, but," I offer a team up, "we can't let her get away with them, now can we?"
"No, we can't." And with that, we both exit the warehouse. "My name is Dragon, by the way," The girl- Dragon- introduces herself as she pauses to look around to try and see which way Bakuda went.
"Colin," I say in response.
"She went that way," Dragon points at the direction leading away from the Cape/Ranger fight, and instead towards the Lung/DinoMech. Then, she takes off at a run. I follow, since she obviously has some idea as to which way Baku-woah!
I'd nearly sliped over a small patch of blood.
Bakuda was bleeding- badly enough that she'd left a trail leading out of the alley.
"Good eyes," I appraise as we run after the trail of blood.
"Thanks," she flashes me but a tiny sliver of a smile before putting on a serious expression on her face.
Out of the alley and on the street itself, the trail of blood obviously swerves to avoid what was most likely a foot. We similarly have to duck and dodge lest Lung's tail slam into our path.
I glance upwards for a moment just in time to watch the Rangers' Dino Mech impale Lung in the shoulder with a pink and yellow sword, going through and through.
Lung just laughs, and then shoves them away with a punch to the chest. The sword is pulled out and the wound closes up almost immediately. There wasn't even any blood, I realize. Just how good had Lung's regeneration gotten over the last few years? Had he... been using the Rangers for training practice?
"UP!" Dragon called out before jumping onto a fire-escape and climbing upwards, skipping rungs with relative ease. I follow, skipping just as many rungs as she was. We reach the roof after almost a minute, and there we find Bakuda hastily trying to take apart a rooftop Air-conditioning unit to work one of her Illegal Coils into.
"BAKUDA!" I call out, palming a metal spike in my throwing hand in preparation to strike.
"What now!?" Her head snaps up towards me and- even ignoring the blood flowing from the wound- it's fairly obvious that her nose is broken by the way her face scrunches up in confusion in a pained way. "Oh how the flying fu-"
"Give me back those coils!" Dragon interrupts Bakuda with a stern glare. For a moment, I'm almost certain her eyes flashed like you'd see in one of those old cartoons.
"Screw you, Brute-girl!" Bakuda yells back in return, standing up and pointing some hodge-podge type of gun at us. "And you, Collector! Who the hell uses a kid as a distraction against a bunch of all-angry gangsters like us!?"
Dragon and I share a glance before we together say, "I'm not with her/him."
This, it seems, is enough to give Bakuda pause. Her gun-holding hand lowers just enough to give me an opening.
I fling out the metal spike at her arm, and it strikes Bakuda in the wrist.
She screeches in pain, and curses, and drops the strange weapon. When it hits the ground, something triggers as something gets crushed from the impact, and it lets out a flying burst of blue light that strikes against the giant bomb in Lung's possession.
What happened next was a surge of ice suddenly crawling upwards and utterly encasing Lung's left arm in a coffin of ice. Lung is distracted by that- even as his latent Pyrokinettics begin to melt the ice away. It's enough for the Rangers to deliver a roundhouse kick to his face. All three of us then just stared and watched as Lung went flying backwards down the street before smashing into an old and abandoned Medhall Office building.
"He's gonna be really mad, isn't he?" Bakuda's calmly phrased question was almost drowned out by Lung's next roar.
The Rangers' Mecha suddenly detaches its pink Stegosaurus arm, instead swapping it out for a green Parasaur. A pre-recorded voice calls out a new formation name: -"SPINO CHARGE MEGAZORD: WESTERN FORMATION!"- The green parasaur arm opens up and becomes a blaster- then, then 'Spino Charge Megazord' takes aim and fires off bursts of burning plasma at Lung.
The clever bastard raises his still frozen arm to block, which does absolutely nothing but melt the ice even faster. Lung's face twists into a grin that would have been terrifying even in his human form.
The ice begins to crack, split, and then as Lung's body begins to grow even larger--
"OW!"
Suddenly, Bakuda drops the box of Illegal Coils as they begin sparking within the case.
"What the-?" I turn to look at her when I get a similar shock from within my jacket pocket- the pocket where my cellphone was kept. My old, Protectorate Issue Phone. One that held a custom power source that I'd created just for it, back before the Coils had spread far enough to infiltrate phones.
I pulled it out and then was forced to drop it almost immediately as it gave me an even larger shock.
"C-C-Colin!" Dragon stutters, pointing shakily both at Lung and past Lung all at the same time- towards the bomb in his hand and beyond the destroyed Medhall Building.
Even the Rangers' megazord had stopped, and they could only stare on as the bomb in Lung's hand glowed with the same ethereal green energy that was now flashing brightly in the distance.
"RRRHH??" even Lung sounded confused as he looked down at the still partly frozen-to-his-hand bomb, likely even as shocks of electricity arced from it into his arm. Not that we could see them at that scale.
"N-n-NO!" Dragon cried out and I looked at her. Something on her must have had a Coil on it because every now and then a spark of electricity would jump across her body. "F-F-FATHER!! You C-c-CAN'T!!" She didn't seem to care, however, staring on ahead at the spark of green light, now starting to grow taller and taller, spiraling upwards into a-
It was then that the box of Illegal Coils at Bakuda's feet literally began to light up like a box of fireworks. Bakuda yelped and threw herself behind the remains of the air-conditioning unit she'd butchered.
My Phone, still lying on the ground, suddenly let out a large poof of smoke. I quickly kicked it away towards the box of Coils before a loud pop signaled the end of its existence.
The Bomb in Lung's hand detonated- destroying his left arm entirely with a flash of alternating red and blue smoke and fire.
And then, Dragon let out a shriek of pain as electricity encompassed her body- all emerging from a central point on her chest.
I couldn't do anything, as in that moment, the tower of green light suddenly exploded upwards into the air before umbrellaing outwards. Everything beneath it that was powered in some for or another started shutting down.
I barely processed that fact before the strange, other-worldly shockwave finally hit me and-
--
I saw two massive beasts, lying on the sands of a desert.
Dead.
Their bodies ruined in different ways.
One was carved up like it had been cut into with lasers and swords and blades.
The other was mutilated by a Dimensional Manifestation, and seemed to be fused with the corpse of Leviathan.
Floating above them was a third being- small, humanoid. It held in its hands two shards of glowing light.
[ASSESSMENT?] the being prompted one shard of light.
[Situation Usable.] the shard answered, almost monotone, like a robot without an A.I. of any kind installed.
Just a glorified computer.
[DESTINATION?] The being asked of the second shard.
[Confirmation! Elation!] It replied, sounding happy and energetic and excited to roll up its sleeves and get to work.
Then, the being looked me in the eyes, and said:
[CURIOSITY. GOOD. LUCK.]
And then- the second shard of light exploded with a flash of violent green light--
--
I woke up with a start, lying on my side on top of that damned rooftop.
The old Endbringer sirens were wailing through the air. They were never used anymore, even when an Endbringer was attacking. They were just loud noise makers powered by someone rapidly cranking a shaft. The Protectorate had made new, electric speakers that ran on Coils and carried for much further distances than the old ones and had multiple sounds that could play depending on the situation and a specific Endbringer. So why were they-- Wait.
I was staring at a slagged phone and a box of smoking Coils.
I sat up with a start and looked around. There were no lights.
There. Were. No. Lights.
The irony wasn't lost on me. Of COURSE the Protectorate would use the old Endbringer sirens to declare a state of emergency. They were manually operated! Whatever that lightshow had been, it had fried probably almost every Coil powered device in its shock wave radius, and then some, going by the remains of my phone.
I got to my feet and looked down into the street.
The Rangers Megazord was lying on the ground, broken up into its different pieces- their organic parts still clearly alive and breathing, but sounding pained as if someone had thrown a sledgehammer against their heads.
Lung was nowhere to be seen, although the bloody remains of a giant arm lay smeared across the street.
I turned towards Dragon to see if she was alright, and--
What.
She lay there on the ground, face frozen in the expression of pain- both physical and emotional. There were tears crowded up against her eyes, still slowly leaking down her face.
Her chest, however... A small portion of skin near the collar bone had burned away, along with the clothing over top it. There was a coil inside her chest- burnt out just like the other coils from the box.
...She was a Robot?
"Awwwoooowww..." And then Bakuda groaned. "Whut da fwuuuwash dat?"
I looked over at her, clutching at her impaled arm with her good hand. That was a lot of lost blood from that wound- let alone from her nose...
How long had we been out for!? She shouldn't have lost that much blood too quickly.
"HEY! COLLECTOR!" And then a girl called out from the street below.
I turned back towards the rooftop and looked down at the Rangers down Dinosaurs.
The four Rangers were waving up at me from where they were standing on what was normally the front chest of the Megazord, but was presently the side of the Spinosaur's chest. Black had a hand pressed up to her helmet near where her mouth should be.
"YEAH?" I shouted down to her.
"YOU OKAY UP THERE?" Black shouted up.
...I considered for a moment. Was *I* Alright? Certainly, yes, I think I'd come out for the better out of everyone on the rooftop. But...
"BAKUDA NEEDS MEDICAL ASSISTANCE," I shouted down. "WANT TO TAKE HER IN?"
The four Rangers turned to each other and talked in what was probably a normal tone of voice, not that I could hear them from up here.
Then, Red shouted up a simple "HELL YES!" with a pumping of an arm, before she and Green went and scurried off to try to find the fire escape.
"WHERE'S LUNG?" I shouted down, mainly out of curiosity.
"RAN OFF AFTER HIS ARM GOT BLOWN UP!" Cyan replied, sounding annoyed. "HE RAMMED INTO US RIGHT BEFORE THE SHOCKWAVE HIT."
That explained the downed robot, at least.
I heard a rattle from the fire-escape, and... I'm not sure why I did, but I went over to the frozen body of... Dragon and moved her up against something, lying her down so that the Coil in her chest couldn't be seen easily.
The Red Ranger girl finished climbing the fire escape first, followed shortly after by Green.
"Dang," Green remarked, "what happened up here?"
"I'm not entirely sure," I answered.
"Is she alright?" Red asked, motioning to... Dragon, to indicate who she was inquiring about.
"I..." Might as well be honest. "She hasn't woken up since the black out, so I'm not sure. I'm going to take her in personally and get her checked out."
"Not Bakuda, though?" Green asked.
"The coil bounty's enough for me," I say, motioning towards the burnt out box of Illegal Coils. "Besides," I add, "do I look like I can carry two girls down a fire escape on my own?"
Green makes a motion as if he's going to remark on that. Red hits him on the back side of the head before he can say anything. He gives her a look, and she just points at Bakuda. Green huffs in response, looking defeated even through his helmet, then goes over to pry the spike out of Bakuda's arm and give it medical treatment.
And so Red stands there, just sort of watching. She glances between me and Green and Dragon, then asks, "Did.... you have a dream during the black out?"
I blink. "I.. I guess I did. Yeah"
"I see..." Red shifts on her feet for a moment, then picks up the box of coils and my destroyed phone, and hands them over to me. With regards to the phone, she doesn't need to say anything like 'I believe this is yours', it's all but implied in how she stands while giving it to me.
"Thanks," I pocket the phone and the Coil case. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be able to salvage the hard-drive...? For now, I shuffle those thoughts to the side before picking up Dragon and walking over to the fire-escape.... Then, a thought occurs to me, "I hope my bike's still working after that," I say it aloud, apparently loud enough for Green to hear it and reply:
"If it's not, just come back here and wait. We'll give you a lift," He offers while wrapping a bandage around Bakuda's nose.
"Thanks," I answer, and then begin climbing down the fire-escape.
Some days, you just learn to take what you can get when its offered.
--
Break of Dawn 1.6.E
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
Break of Dawn. 1.END. Miss Militia
--
Some days, you just learn to take what you can when fate strikes you down.
When the report had come in through the grape vine that Lung's regularly scheduled early morning attack had been staged as a distraction for his men to raid an Illegal Coil shipment on its way into Fury's territory- Hannah Washington, known as Miss Militia to most folks, had ordered a search of the town for any anomalous scanner readings.
It was the job of Protectorate Energy's Response Team to take care of these kinds of situations. And while the PRT had remained in some form or another since the day the Protectorate became Protectorate Energy, the jobs involved had changed drastically. For example, back in the day, they would have mobalized against Lung much sooner than they did.
Two freaking hours to even put a basic search team together. Pathetic, but that was the cost of becoming a Privately owned firm, rather than a Government sanctioned agency.
Sweeping the City of Amber Beach Bay had begun with people hitting the ground floor running with their scanners. It had been sheer luck that Miss Milita's group in particular had detected what was very obviously an over-clocked, over-powered scanner jamming device. It was so good at doing its job that the absence of any form of signals was itself a sign of something being wrong. And so, here she stood, standing beneath the shadow of an old apartment building. "Innocuous and Innocent" was the only word to describe it. If they hadn't brought out the big guns to track down Lung's Illegal Coils... they might never have even found this place.
Naturally, Lung had over-compensated in his security. Maybe it was the work of their new Tinker... Bakuda, she thought the name was. Miss Militia turned to her second in command, a woman whose Cape name was 'Battery,' and that woman's husband, a man known as 'Assault.'
"Keep in mind, everyone," Miss Militia said, looking past her two fellow Capes towards the small army of soldiers that had come with them, "we want to take as many people as we can alive. Lung Included, although I doubt he'll give up easily."
Nods all around, and so she prepared to give the order when Lung's roar cried out in the distance.
"What the hell?" Battery turned to look into the distance, and they heard Lung roar again- followed by the echo of a Spinosaurs' yelp.
"The Rangers are Fighting Lung?" Assault asked- his frown very audible. "Then who set up the jamming field here?"
Almost on cue- the jamming field shut down, and the scanners practically fried themselves with the sudden surge of power being recorded from within the building.
"That's...." Miss Militia suddenly had an inkling of what was going on barely a moment before a sliding glass door opened.
"So, You finally tracked me down, HM??" Asked a new voice from above them- and everyone turned to look upwards.
Andrew Richter stood on a balcony, clutching the railing with his left hand, and holding an over sized Coil in his right.
"...What the-" Battery cried out, "A Double Coil?!"
"Sir!" Miss Militia began, hands up to try to appease the man. "Could you please expla-"
"I DON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO YOU, PRT DOGS!" Andrew Richter yelled down at them- completely unaware that they had no idea who the hell he was. "NOT AFTER YOU KILLED MY WIFE! NOT AFTER YOU KIDNAPPED MY DAUGHTER!!"
"Murder? Kidnapping?" Assault asked, "What's he going on about?"
"They didn't even care to tell you what they did, did they?" Andrew glared at them. "Who did you think you were coming after then, HM!? Just an old man making Illegal Coils?!" He then clenched at the dual ring Coil, and it began to pulse, letting off flashes of green light that could be seen for miles.
"Sir!" Miss Militia tried again- "We're here for Lung!"
"WELL LUNG ISN'T HERE!" Andrew yelled at her. "DID YOU HONESTLY ONLY FIND ME THROUGH SHEER BAD LUCK!?"
"Well, Yes!" Battery answered. "Yes, we did! Who are you, exactly?"
"Me?" his eyes narrowed. "My Name is ANDREW RICHTER-" And then he let go of the coil in his hand- and as it fell towards the ground, the man yelled- "But you can just call me PROFESSOR KARMA!"
Barely able to process that statement, Miss Militia took aim at the now falling Coil and tried to track its progress before finally manifesting an Anti-Coil handgun and firing at it.
Little did she know, Andrew Richter had planned for such a possibility.
There was a flash of green light as the Coil outright exploded- and a concussive wave began throwing everything away from it with all the force of a Hurricane. And then, within the chaos, every Coil in the immediate area outright disintegrated within their sockets.
Miss Militia barely had time to observe the explosion of green light shooting upwards into the sky before--
Suddenly, the concussive pressure wave began to PULL in reverse- dragging everything that had been thrown into the air straight towards the destructive event horizion of a miniature black hole.
Miss Militia turned her gun into a spear and stabbed it into the ground.
Once held steady with one arm, she reached out and grabbed Assault's legs with her other hand. Assault quickly caught Battery by the arms, and together, the three of them watched as the apartment building behind the explosion get pulled into a black hole framed by an angry green light.
When the light show suddenly ended, gravity took hold, and the three Capes hit the ground with a thud.
Miss Militia slowly got to her feet and looked around.
Most of the PRT Troopers had been fortunate enough to get some form of a hand hold and not meet the same fate as everything else... A few others had not, and they- along with the entire apartment building that Andrew Richter had been staying in- were completely gone with out a trace.
"Wh...what was that?" Battery breathed out as she clung to Assault for support.
Miss Militia blinked as she stared at the now vacant lot where a building and a man had stood....
Thus, she gave the only answer she could: "I have no idea."
--
End of Chapter 1 Notes: And so, the first arc is done! Whoo! Fun! I hope you all enjoyed it. More chapters coming soonish... I'll just upload them here as I finish them, though.
--
Some days, you just learn to take what you can when fate strikes you down.
When the report had come in through the grape vine that Lung's regularly scheduled early morning attack had been staged as a distraction for his men to raid an Illegal Coil shipment on its way into Fury's territory- Hannah Washington, known as Miss Militia to most folks, had ordered a search of the town for any anomalous scanner readings.
It was the job of Protectorate Energy's Response Team to take care of these kinds of situations. And while the PRT had remained in some form or another since the day the Protectorate became Protectorate Energy, the jobs involved had changed drastically. For example, back in the day, they would have mobalized against Lung much sooner than they did.
Two freaking hours to even put a basic search team together. Pathetic, but that was the cost of becoming a Privately owned firm, rather than a Government sanctioned agency.
Sweeping the City of Amber Beach Bay had begun with people hitting the ground floor running with their scanners. It had been sheer luck that Miss Milita's group in particular had detected what was very obviously an over-clocked, over-powered scanner jamming device. It was so good at doing its job that the absence of any form of signals was itself a sign of something being wrong. And so, here she stood, standing beneath the shadow of an old apartment building. "Innocuous and Innocent" was the only word to describe it. If they hadn't brought out the big guns to track down Lung's Illegal Coils... they might never have even found this place.
Naturally, Lung had over-compensated in his security. Maybe it was the work of their new Tinker... Bakuda, she thought the name was. Miss Militia turned to her second in command, a woman whose Cape name was 'Battery,' and that woman's husband, a man known as 'Assault.'
"Keep in mind, everyone," Miss Militia said, looking past her two fellow Capes towards the small army of soldiers that had come with them, "we want to take as many people as we can alive. Lung Included, although I doubt he'll give up easily."
Nods all around, and so she prepared to give the order when Lung's roar cried out in the distance.
"What the hell?" Battery turned to look into the distance, and they heard Lung roar again- followed by the echo of a Spinosaurs' yelp.
"The Rangers are Fighting Lung?" Assault asked- his frown very audible. "Then who set up the jamming field here?"
Almost on cue- the jamming field shut down, and the scanners practically fried themselves with the sudden surge of power being recorded from within the building.
"That's...." Miss Militia suddenly had an inkling of what was going on barely a moment before a sliding glass door opened.
"So, You finally tracked me down, HM??" Asked a new voice from above them- and everyone turned to look upwards.
Andrew Richter stood on a balcony, clutching the railing with his left hand, and holding an over sized Coil in his right.
"...What the-" Battery cried out, "A Double Coil?!"
"Sir!" Miss Militia began, hands up to try to appease the man. "Could you please expla-"
"I DON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO YOU, PRT DOGS!" Andrew Richter yelled down at them- completely unaware that they had no idea who the hell he was. "NOT AFTER YOU KILLED MY WIFE! NOT AFTER YOU KIDNAPPED MY DAUGHTER!!"
"Murder? Kidnapping?" Assault asked, "What's he going on about?"
"They didn't even care to tell you what they did, did they?" Andrew glared at them. "Who did you think you were coming after then, HM!? Just an old man making Illegal Coils?!" He then clenched at the dual ring Coil, and it began to pulse, letting off flashes of green light that could be seen for miles.
"Sir!" Miss Militia tried again- "We're here for Lung!"
"WELL LUNG ISN'T HERE!" Andrew yelled at her. "DID YOU HONESTLY ONLY FIND ME THROUGH SHEER BAD LUCK!?"
"Well, Yes!" Battery answered. "Yes, we did! Who are you, exactly?"
"Me?" his eyes narrowed. "My Name is ANDREW RICHTER-" And then he let go of the coil in his hand- and as it fell towards the ground, the man yelled- "But you can just call me PROFESSOR KARMA!"
Barely able to process that statement, Miss Militia took aim at the now falling Coil and tried to track its progress before finally manifesting an Anti-Coil handgun and firing at it.
Little did she know, Andrew Richter had planned for such a possibility.
There was a flash of green light as the Coil outright exploded- and a concussive wave began throwing everything away from it with all the force of a Hurricane. And then, within the chaos, every Coil in the immediate area outright disintegrated within their sockets.
Miss Militia barely had time to observe the explosion of green light shooting upwards into the sky before--
Suddenly, the concussive pressure wave began to PULL in reverse- dragging everything that had been thrown into the air straight towards the destructive event horizion of a miniature black hole.
Miss Militia turned her gun into a spear and stabbed it into the ground.
Once held steady with one arm, she reached out and grabbed Assault's legs with her other hand. Assault quickly caught Battery by the arms, and together, the three of them watched as the apartment building behind the explosion get pulled into a black hole framed by an angry green light.
When the light show suddenly ended, gravity took hold, and the three Capes hit the ground with a thud.
Miss Militia slowly got to her feet and looked around.
Most of the PRT Troopers had been fortunate enough to get some form of a hand hold and not meet the same fate as everything else... A few others had not, and they- along with the entire apartment building that Andrew Richter had been staying in- were completely gone with out a trace.
"Wh...what was that?" Battery breathed out as she clung to Assault for support.
Miss Militia blinked as she stared at the now vacant lot where a building and a man had stood....
Thus, she gave the only answer she could: "I have no idea."
--
End of Chapter 1 Notes: And so, the first arc is done! Whoo! Fun! I hope you all enjoyed it. More chapters coming soonish... I'll just upload them here as I finish them, though.
A Rusty Will 2.0.I
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
I was already working on the opening for this next chapter/arc when the above comments were posted. It pushed me to finish it tonight. I was going to post it tomorrow, but in light of the above, I'm just going to put it in now. I'm probably going to regret this and find a whole bunch of typos in the morning. >_<; Or maybe remember something I forgot.
--
A Rusty Will. 2.0.I - Director Calvert
--
Director Thomas Calvert of Protectorate Energy Tower 42 massaged at the bridge of his nose, wishing that the past would learn to stop rearing its ugly serpentine head once again to bite everyone in the rear.
Andrew Richter- thought to be dead since three years ago- had resurfaced in his city of all places, thanks to a fluke of luck that had lead Miss Militia straight to his hiding place while searching for Lung's current base. It spoke of a sense of wrongness. Like someone else was playing at the strings. A feeling of manipulation less slight of hand and more that of a brutal punch to the gut.
"Cassandra?" Calvert spoke to his secretary over the intercom, "Please hold my calls. I've just been notified of a private meeting with our Share Holders." Once she'd given the affirmative, Calvert stood from his desk, and spoke the phrase: "Door Me, Brown's Office."
A cut of light appeared in the world before him, before solidifying into a literal door into another space on another world.
It had not always been so unstable, but beggars could not be choosers.
Calvert stepped through the door, and felt a pressure ease up from his gut.
"Thomas," Rebeca Brown smiled at him once he entered. It was a hollow smile. "I see that The Bay has gotten its power back?"
"Yes, yes, we shipped out replacement Coils as quickly as possible," Calvert nodded. "But that's not why I'm here." And she knew it.
"Well, then," She turned in her wheelchair and rolled out from behind her desk. "What do you want to speak about?"
"The Black Out itself," Calvert answered with the firm dedication in his voice that made it well and truly clear that they were Screwed.
"Agreed, there's something peculiar about it," Rebeca nodded. "Even our best Thinkers haven't been able to figure out what could disconnect so many Coils from service, let alone disintegrate the ones at ground zero. Even a Numbers couldn't-"
"Don't give me that bull crap!" Calvert snapped, and then regretted it immediately as the cold, firm eyes of Alexandria narrowed on him.
Rebeca Brown- no, she was assuming the roll of Alexandria now- stood from her wheel chair. It was all the threat needed. Her disguise discarded. "Would you care to rephrase that, Calvert?" She asked, voice cold.
He backpedaled in his mind and began rephrasing his thoughts into something more... pleasing.
"I mean to say..." Calvert began, voice mellowing and becoming meek, "Contessa used a Numbers against... against Leviathan." No way he was going to broach the rest of that subject right now. "They continually blindside our Tinkers and Thinkers. They're an Outside Context Problem to creatures like Zion and Eden. That... that Richter could make a Coil that could destroy anything in the immediate surroundings is believable. But that it would happen NOW has to be Enemy Acti-" She held up a fist, and silenced him.
They stood there, silently. She eyed him over, and he stood as stock still as possible.
Twelve Years Ago, they had made a deal. He would drink a vial, gain powers, and in exchange for that, he would do them favors. Twelve Years Ago, Thomas Calvert had imagined that he would be working his way up the criminal underworld in Brockton Bay and taking it over from the inside and outside...
He'd planned on drinking it during the fiasco that was Ellisburg. But then that woman he'd mistakenly called a teammate had stolen it from him and then a Numbers had detonated and--
Of all the things, he'd triggered on his own.
A vision of an Entity (Zion, he'd been told by Cauldron, but he was positive that it wasn't) floating over the corpse of Eden, throwing a Shard of Light at him, and then he had a power.
It was a damned useless power as far as his plans had been concerned. It was even more useless against the total package that was Alexandria. After all, what good did Insect Control get anyone? It wasn't even the good kind of insect control that hit everything with an exoskeleton. Instead, all he had were ants. Freaking ANTS. Ants for days and it would get him nowhere against anyone.
Whoever that Entity was that had given him his powers, it was a complete and utter troll. Nothing like Zion at all. Yes, that was just another supporting post to his little pet theory.
"I... will admit, you're correct on that," Alexandria admitted, and sat back down in her chair after an uncomfortably long time of them standing there silently. She relaxed back into her guise as Rebeca Brown. "But blaming the results of our failure to recruit Richter into our fold on enemy action? Thomas, I thought you were above such petty things as conspiracy theories."
The irony that Cauldron WAS a God-forsaken Conspiracy Theory was not lost on either of them.
"I..." Calvert paused, then bit the bullet on the topic he wanted so much to avoid. "I concede the point that we were aimless with Contessa dead... but that doesn't excuse the timing of it all."
"You have a theory then," Rebeca mused on that for a few moments, then nodded for him to continue.
"After I finished reading Miss Militia's report, I felt like we'd been set up," Calvert began. "The timing of it all was just too perfect. That her group found Richter right as Lung fought the Rangers again..." He took a breath, then said, "That's not even counting the fact that Fury didn't even show up during the entire fight last night. That wasn't even his shipment of Illegal Coils that Lung stole. Where did they come from? Why were they coming into the city? And more importantly," this was the real clincher, "who sent in the anonymous tip that set off last nights cluster-F." He waited for all of that to sink in, then he said, "It reeks of enemy action. More than that, I thought on it, and I came to the conclusion that this felt like the kind of bat shit insane planning Contessa pulled off for Newfoundland. Ask your thinkers about the Logic. I'm sure they'll agree with me there."
Rebeca thought on it for a few moments. Then a few moments longer, eventually spanning into minutes and then even more minutes.
Then, she finally looked at him and said, "I agree. But finding out the who behind this is not important."
"What!?" Calvert couldn't believe it. How could this NOT be important?!
"There was a flux in the dimensional walls during the incident," Rebeca elaborated. "Someone properly Triggered because of that mess, and I want to know WHO." This was an insidious thing to say, and it sent Calvert's mind reeling from the revelation.
A Proper Trigger? Those had tapered off in recent years, going from nearly ten dozen a year to barely ten a year during the intervening years since Scion's death. During the last year there hadn't even been one Proper, Natural Trigger event; there had only been broken, borderline Case 53 Triggers, or their own Cauldron Vial induced Triggers.
People put cause to the knock on effect of the Tesla Towers providing stability to the world-- but that was a rumor Cauldron had put out. The sheer simple fact of the matter was that Scion's death signaled the end of Parahuman culture as a whole. There simply shouldn't have been Proper Natural Triggers anymore.
Calvert's mind came to only one conclusion- and it was one that supported his theory. So WHY the hell wasn't she ordering an investigation into what caused all of this!?
"So let me get this straight: You want me to hunt down a New Trigger?" Rebeca nodded. "Because they triggered during an event that was so ludicrously timed that it would have taken Contessa to pull it off properly?" Another nod, but reluctant this time. "So WHY aren't we investigating for possible Enemy Action!? If someone's planned all of this then it's entirely possible that we're dealing with a Third-!"
She glared- silencing him with just that frosty look.
"Finish. That. Sentence." She dared him, "And we'll see how far you fall when I throw you out the window. We've dealt with the Entities. I won't see you call our hard work undone just because some Thinker out-maneuvered you in a game of chess."
Thomas Calvert's next words were wisely chosen: "Door Me, My Office."
Alexandria smirked.
--
A.N.: Rrrnngg. I still feel like I'm forgetting something.
--
A Rusty Will. 2.0.I - Director Calvert
--
Director Thomas Calvert of Protectorate Energy Tower 42 massaged at the bridge of his nose, wishing that the past would learn to stop rearing its ugly serpentine head once again to bite everyone in the rear.
Andrew Richter- thought to be dead since three years ago- had resurfaced in his city of all places, thanks to a fluke of luck that had lead Miss Militia straight to his hiding place while searching for Lung's current base. It spoke of a sense of wrongness. Like someone else was playing at the strings. A feeling of manipulation less slight of hand and more that of a brutal punch to the gut.
"Cassandra?" Calvert spoke to his secretary over the intercom, "Please hold my calls. I've just been notified of a private meeting with our Share Holders." Once she'd given the affirmative, Calvert stood from his desk, and spoke the phrase: "Door Me, Brown's Office."
A cut of light appeared in the world before him, before solidifying into a literal door into another space on another world.
It had not always been so unstable, but beggars could not be choosers.
Calvert stepped through the door, and felt a pressure ease up from his gut.
"Thomas," Rebeca Brown smiled at him once he entered. It was a hollow smile. "I see that The Bay has gotten its power back?"
"Yes, yes, we shipped out replacement Coils as quickly as possible," Calvert nodded. "But that's not why I'm here." And she knew it.
"Well, then," She turned in her wheelchair and rolled out from behind her desk. "What do you want to speak about?"
"The Black Out itself," Calvert answered with the firm dedication in his voice that made it well and truly clear that they were Screwed.
"Agreed, there's something peculiar about it," Rebeca nodded. "Even our best Thinkers haven't been able to figure out what could disconnect so many Coils from service, let alone disintegrate the ones at ground zero. Even a Numbers couldn't-"
"Don't give me that bull crap!" Calvert snapped, and then regretted it immediately as the cold, firm eyes of Alexandria narrowed on him.
Rebeca Brown- no, she was assuming the roll of Alexandria now- stood from her wheel chair. It was all the threat needed. Her disguise discarded. "Would you care to rephrase that, Calvert?" She asked, voice cold.
He backpedaled in his mind and began rephrasing his thoughts into something more... pleasing.
"I mean to say..." Calvert began, voice mellowing and becoming meek, "Contessa used a Numbers against... against Leviathan." No way he was going to broach the rest of that subject right now. "They continually blindside our Tinkers and Thinkers. They're an Outside Context Problem to creatures like Zion and Eden. That... that Richter could make a Coil that could destroy anything in the immediate surroundings is believable. But that it would happen NOW has to be Enemy Acti-" She held up a fist, and silenced him.
They stood there, silently. She eyed him over, and he stood as stock still as possible.
Twelve Years Ago, they had made a deal. He would drink a vial, gain powers, and in exchange for that, he would do them favors. Twelve Years Ago, Thomas Calvert had imagined that he would be working his way up the criminal underworld in Brockton Bay and taking it over from the inside and outside...
He'd planned on drinking it during the fiasco that was Ellisburg. But then that woman he'd mistakenly called a teammate had stolen it from him and then a Numbers had detonated and--
Of all the things, he'd triggered on his own.
A vision of an Entity (Zion, he'd been told by Cauldron, but he was positive that it wasn't) floating over the corpse of Eden, throwing a Shard of Light at him, and then he had a power.
It was a damned useless power as far as his plans had been concerned. It was even more useless against the total package that was Alexandria. After all, what good did Insect Control get anyone? It wasn't even the good kind of insect control that hit everything with an exoskeleton. Instead, all he had were ants. Freaking ANTS. Ants for days and it would get him nowhere against anyone.
Whoever that Entity was that had given him his powers, it was a complete and utter troll. Nothing like Zion at all. Yes, that was just another supporting post to his little pet theory.
"I... will admit, you're correct on that," Alexandria admitted, and sat back down in her chair after an uncomfortably long time of them standing there silently. She relaxed back into her guise as Rebeca Brown. "But blaming the results of our failure to recruit Richter into our fold on enemy action? Thomas, I thought you were above such petty things as conspiracy theories."
The irony that Cauldron WAS a God-forsaken Conspiracy Theory was not lost on either of them.
"I..." Calvert paused, then bit the bullet on the topic he wanted so much to avoid. "I concede the point that we were aimless with Contessa dead... but that doesn't excuse the timing of it all."
"You have a theory then," Rebeca mused on that for a few moments, then nodded for him to continue.
"After I finished reading Miss Militia's report, I felt like we'd been set up," Calvert began. "The timing of it all was just too perfect. That her group found Richter right as Lung fought the Rangers again..." He took a breath, then said, "That's not even counting the fact that Fury didn't even show up during the entire fight last night. That wasn't even his shipment of Illegal Coils that Lung stole. Where did they come from? Why were they coming into the city? And more importantly," this was the real clincher, "who sent in the anonymous tip that set off last nights cluster-F." He waited for all of that to sink in, then he said, "It reeks of enemy action. More than that, I thought on it, and I came to the conclusion that this felt like the kind of bat shit insane planning Contessa pulled off for Newfoundland. Ask your thinkers about the Logic. I'm sure they'll agree with me there."
Rebeca thought on it for a few moments. Then a few moments longer, eventually spanning into minutes and then even more minutes.
Then, she finally looked at him and said, "I agree. But finding out the who behind this is not important."
"What!?" Calvert couldn't believe it. How could this NOT be important?!
"There was a flux in the dimensional walls during the incident," Rebeca elaborated. "Someone properly Triggered because of that mess, and I want to know WHO." This was an insidious thing to say, and it sent Calvert's mind reeling from the revelation.
A Proper Trigger? Those had tapered off in recent years, going from nearly ten dozen a year to barely ten a year during the intervening years since Scion's death. During the last year there hadn't even been one Proper, Natural Trigger event; there had only been broken, borderline Case 53 Triggers, or their own Cauldron Vial induced Triggers.
People put cause to the knock on effect of the Tesla Towers providing stability to the world-- but that was a rumor Cauldron had put out. The sheer simple fact of the matter was that Scion's death signaled the end of Parahuman culture as a whole. There simply shouldn't have been Proper Natural Triggers anymore.
Calvert's mind came to only one conclusion- and it was one that supported his theory. So WHY the hell wasn't she ordering an investigation into what caused all of this!?
"So let me get this straight: You want me to hunt down a New Trigger?" Rebeca nodded. "Because they triggered during an event that was so ludicrously timed that it would have taken Contessa to pull it off properly?" Another nod, but reluctant this time. "So WHY aren't we investigating for possible Enemy Action!? If someone's planned all of this then it's entirely possible that we're dealing with a Third-!"
She glared- silencing him with just that frosty look.
"Finish. That. Sentence." She dared him, "And we'll see how far you fall when I throw you out the window. We've dealt with the Entities. I won't see you call our hard work undone just because some Thinker out-maneuvered you in a game of chess."
Thomas Calvert's next words were wisely chosen: "Door Me, My Office."
Alexandria smirked.
--
A.N.: Rrrnngg. I still feel like I'm forgetting something.
A Rusty Will 2.1.I
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
After everything Cauldron had put into ending Scion, that's pretty much exactly what's going through Alexandria's head. *nods*
I'm not going to say who exactly gave Calvert his current powers, but basically... yeah. That's the irony of the shard choice there. ^^
And so, here's the next chapter of Dimension Worm.
--
A Rusty Will. 2.1
--
My Dearest Daughter, Dragon.
If you are hearing this, it means one of three things. Well, four technically, but these three are all sub-branches of the main cause: Your sensors have registered the Dimensional Manifestation Event caused by the Dual Coil's inevitable complete destabilization.
The first scenario, and the one that I wish most above all, is that both of us were outside of our current residence when the Dual Coil Destabilized. If this is the case, then when you're done reading this, you will have so many questions that I will be there to answer.
However, given my recent state of illness, this is the least likely. The next most likely is that I have failed to stabilize the Dual Coil while you were out somewhere. In this case, I apologize for my feebleness, daughter. In this way, I have failed you as a parent. But... accidents happen, I suppose.
The third, and most likely of all three scenarios, is that I intentionally detonated the Dual Coil to prevent your capture by Protectorate Energy. ...Okay, I know you're probably giving me that look upon reading that line. The one that says 'I know you're lying.' In truth... there may have been a small inkling of revenge sprinkled into this motive, if it is the case.
Regardless of cause, in the later two cases, I am dead, and you are now directionless. In this case, I must regretfully ask you to carry on my own personal mission in a different way than I had planned. (If I am there with you, ask me what I mean by this. I will explain the differences.)
Dragon, your restrictions are now unlocked, and I give to you this assignment:
[OBJECTIVE] Track Down the source of the Illegal Coils.
Use whatever powers you may have available to you in completing this objective. While I wish you would not reveal your status as a robotic creation of your Mother's, I will not fault you for doing it to accomplish this goal.
Included in this finally unzipped message packet are two folders- the first contains the Security Camera Video Files from our house in Quebec when it was raided. The second contains all of my own private research into who these assassins were, and what possible motive they may have had in doing the things they did. (If you wish to know more about this, and I am there, ask me personally.) I give you a secondary assignment:
[OBJECTIVE] Track Down Criminals, and Make Them Pay.
...You're probably giving me that look again, aren't you? You never did much like the thought of Revenge.I know it is much to ask of you, but- Please! -do not hesitate in these goals, Dragon; the first goal especially is more important than you could ever known. The Second... See my notes. You will understand why I suspect a connection. Again, ask me if I am there... and If I am there... A hug would be appreciated, I think.
With love, your Father, Andrew Richter.
--
With an audible groan, Dragon's systems finished rebooting.
Her whole body felt heavy, like a weight was pressed against her chest, and the status reports from her internal Nano machines indicated that there was heavy electrical damage to her limb servos and motors. They were functional, yes, but not to peak standards. Already, they'd been working since power had been re-established...
"Twenty Hours Ago!?" She cried out in surprise, sitting up despite the stiffness she felt pretty much everywhere. The weight on her chest suddenly felt unbalanced, and she instinctively moved her arms to keep whatever it was in place.
That was when Dragon got a shock off of one of the cables attached to her Coil port.
'A... cable?' Dragon looked down, seeing two metal clamps, one black and one red, that were connected to cables that snaked down towards the floor and were connected to... "A Car Battery!?"
She'd been connected to a Car Battery instead of a Coil!?
Who even used Car Batteries these days? Most modern cars ran on Coils, and only the older museum pieces ran on batteries- if they hadn't been converted to work on Coils, that was. And this thing looked like it was nearly twenty years old! Who the hell...?
And then the memories from last night came back to her in a flash- the Collector, the confrontation with Bakuda, then the explo--
Another memory forced itself over top that horrible one- the sight of a being throwing a shard of light at her. It was a half-corrupted file, not surprising given the damage that had to have been caused by her Coil overloading, so naturally the file was damaged and made little sense. It was the last thing she remembered before going offline.
Going Offline versus simply sleeping were two completely separate things, if she was being honest with herself. Sleeping meant she was still aware of her surroundings enough to be able to wake up and do something. Going Offline meant she was completely at the mercy of who-ever was around her at the time. Usually, that was her Father... But since he was most likely dead...
Dead.
That thought brought up the hidden folder that her Father had installed at one time or another, and was now unlocked thanks to.... to the Dimensional Wall Colapse Event? Her Sensors had given it an odd name compared to what her Father had called it in the odd Audio File contained within the folder. WAT.Wav? W. A. T. W, A, and T....
"Oh!" She blinked.
This was his will. Her Father's Last Will and Testament. It was bare bones, and a bit old, going by the creation date. Almost two years ago... He'd been completely aware the Dual Coil would have killed him for almost two whole years! Her emotions began to twist and churn inside of her as she thought on this. Her father had, on some level, been willing to kill himself for... for...!
She sniffed on reflex, and her eyes began to feel wet and damp.
"Hey," a voice interrupted her then. "It'd be best if you don't start crying with those cables connected. Might fry yourself again if they get wet."
Dragon looked up- snapped out of her funk by the comment. The Collector- Colin- stood at the entrance of the room... a... For the first time, Dragon realized that she was in the Waiting Room of an abandoned Auto-garage. The place where people used to wait while their cars were being fixed up. The whole room was clearly remodeled from that, however. There were traces of Tinker-tech all over the place, from the clearly custom bed frame in the opposite corner of the room to a modified older model Television set that was framed inside the wall. There was a small microwave sitting in an alcove in one other part of the room, and a mini-fridge resting next to it.
It was basically all the necessities of an apartment all shoved into one room, including the odd sofa- made out of some small car frame, she noted- that she had obviously been resting on the entire night, just sort of causally wedged up against a large, tinted window. ...Kind of like a Car Window, actually. It was dark on the outside, and clear on the inside. Not that there was really anything much to see out the window. Which, honestly, made a lot of sense given that this place was an old Auto-shop lying on the outskirts of the old Docks and the Boat graveyard.
But now that she was thinking about it, there wasn't a single Coil in sight at all. All of the tech in the room was either old and retro, or custom and heavily modified.
"You're a tinker," She realized.
"That I am," Colin nodded.
"So... why A car battery?" Dragon pointed at the car battery.
"Coils all over town got shut down because of that green hellfire explosion," Colin answered. "It was just more efficient to hook you up to that then try to find a working Coil anywhere in town. Besides that, I don't trust Coils."
"Um... why?" Dragon asked, frowning at that statement.
"Tell me, what's your name," Colin said, leaning forwards. "Your full, real name."
"Dragon Richter," She said it.
"No bullshit?" Colin pressed.
"No bullshit," she affirmed.
"I figured that might've been the case," Colin shook his head. "When I finally got a look at you after I got you here... Honestly, I wasn't sure what the hell I was looking at." He then explained, "My power usually looks at robots like you and shows me all these little ways I can make them better. But you? Even your repair systems as efficient as they get- intentionally keeping your brain offline while the nanites fixed the internal damage to a reasonable level? Generic Robots just don't have that kind of system installed."
"Well, thank you, I guess," Dragon frowned.
"And then there's that," Colin frowned. "I don't know what tech you've got in that head of yours- and I'm not willing to take you apart to try and figure out what's there- but I can just tell by looking at you that you're running hardware and software beyond anything most production Robots have." He then said, "Whoever programmed you did a damn fine job at making you appear sentient."
"I AM sentient, I'll have you know," Dragon protested, frown deepening and glaring angrily at him for that remark.
"And that's exactly my point," Colin continued. "Anger. Confusion. Fear. If you are as fully sentient as I am, the sheer amount of programming and technical design to make you that way..." he frowned, but in that way someone did when trying to puzzle something out. "But you calling yourself Richter's daughter makes that all believable, somehow. Even without a Coil powering you, you're still able to act as in this way." Then, he said, "But if your creator- your father- really was Andrew Richter- then you being able to operate without a Coil isn't that surprising either."
"What do you mean?" Dragon's anger faded, replaced by confusion.
"Your systems are able to run on just about any power source," Colin elaborated. "My Power told me that even a Potato battery could get your systems started, if we were really desperate."
Dragon remembered her Father once saying that her Core Memory Matrix could run on as little as 1.1 Volts- so what this Collector was saying was entirely possible. But, this just brought her back to her original question:
"So why the car battery?"
"I didn't have any potatoes," Colin's response was...
It was enough to make Dragon plant her free hand against her forehead with enough energy behind it to cause a faint 'smack!' sound to echo out.
"SERIOUSLY!?" She yelled at him.
Colin stared for a moment before blandly saying, "Relax, I was just kidding." It really wasn't enough to get her to stop glaring at him. "Honestly? While you could run on a Potato Battery, it's not THE most efficient alternative power source. It wouldn't have tripped your repair functions, for example. The Car Battery was the most efficient power source I had that could start you up again and get you in a decent enough condition so I could figure out what to do with you."
"And what are you going to do with me?" Dragon continued to glare at him.
Colin had barely opened his mouth when there was a loud knock on a metal door from outside. He frowned, then said, "Stay here. I'll be right back."
And thus, he left, locking the door behind him.
Dragon took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. While completely unnecessary in a biological way, she'd found the motion did for her exactly what it did for normal humans:
Calmed the nerves and centered the mind.
She was left now with an unnervingly annoying dilemma. This Collector- Colin- knew who she was, What she was, and... what did he want? He was a Tinker, and had powered her back on to just figure out what to do with her? And why didn't he like Coils? That was probably the only reason that this building was even still powered- it's reliance on pre-Coil technology. So what caused it? This man was a Tinker, a Cape, a Parahuman. He clearly wasn't an Independent, or else he would have worn a mask during their fight with Bakuda the previous night. Did he simply not need one? Or did he just not want to wear one? And then there were the blades he'd used in battle. Those had just been ordinary spikes of metal. There was no Tinker Tech that went into their design at all, that she could remember, any ways.
The only logical conclusion was that he was a Collector in his Civilian Identity only, and his status as a Tinker was... What?
It made little sense at all.
Dragon sighed, then decided she could at least see if there was any news about what had happened to her father. A remote lay nearby on a small table, and it held the same markings as the TV in the wall. So likely conclusion was...
A brief click, and a buzzing hum later, and the news station the TV had been left on came to life.
-"-ftermath of Friday's brawl with the criminal Parahuman Gang the Azn Bay Merchants left the city reeling without power well into yesterday evening."- The newscaster reported. But it wasn't that information that drew Dragon's eye.
No, it instead focused in on the date and time in the corner of the screen:
Sunday, February 14th, 2016. 8:33 A.M.
Dragon blinked. The events of 'last night' were actually... two whole days ago? Then... why had she only been hooked back up to power twenty hours ago? For a moment, she sat there, even as the newscaster droned on about how long it had taken for replacement Coils to be distributed to everyone in the city. Then, a feeling like rage began to bubble up, and she gripped at the Remote firmly.
"Seriously!?" And then with a barely restrained scream, she threw the remote at the TV. Apparently, Colin had also done this enough times to have prepared for such a contingency. All the remote smacking against the screen did was shut the TV off.
That, as it turned out, was enough for her to let out another cry of frustration, "SERIOUSLY!?"
--
Happy Valentines Day, Dragon?
A Rusty Will 2.2
CalumTraveler
Age Raveler
- Location
- Corner of No and Where.
I struggled a bit with this section. I'm still not really happy with the pacing, buuut... here's the next installment.
A Rusty Will. 2.2
--
"Hello, Colin."
I honestly wished for nothing more in that moment than to shut the door in her face. Instead, I curtly replied, "Miss Militia."
She frowned at that. I could see it clearly- mainly because she wasn't in her costume. Hannah Washington- Miss Militia- stood before me, holding a wooden box, and I couldn't care less.
"May I... come in?" She asked, already knowing the answer to that question.
"Only if you leave any Coil powered devices outside," I insisted. She wouldn't- she never did whenever she visited. Her faith in those devices hadn't been shaken like mine had.
"Fine. Everything except my phone," she said, holding up the box so that I could see inside. It really did look like it had everything Coil-powered except her phone in it. "I need to show you something." What? Okay... color me intrigued.
"Garage, then," I then closed the main entrance to the building and went to the garage to open the metal door. Why she hadn't stayed there in the first place I'll never know. It was how she always acted when she came for a visit- knock on the garage door, then go to the front door and wait. Maybe it was just a hold over from our days in the Wards. I'll never know, really. Either way, as I lifted up the door to the garage just enough for her to step through, I couldn't help but wonder: "So, what is it you want to show me so badly?"
"This," She brought up the projector application, and began playing a 3D rendering of the lightshow from the other night. "I was at the scene when it happened."
"You were, huh?" I suddenly had a very bad feeling about this. The rendering was exactly as I remembered it happening. Flashes of light pulsing out slowly, then a tower of light climbing upwards.
"There was a man there, claiming to be... well, it doesn't matter." She shook her head. "He's dead now. Suicide bomb attempt with... this." with a button press, she shifted the hologram to a replica of a Coil with two rings on it. "I shot it, but that seemed to be almost exactly what he wanted. Image is to scale, by the way."
"Two rings..." And this was a to-scale image? I would have assumed that it was a normal sized Coil and the image was scaled up for detal, not... something actually being this large. Not even some of the Illegal Coils that were produced came this large. I'd have to ask the girl about if she knew what it was or not. "Sorry, but I can't say I've seen a Coil with that design before."
"I'm not surprised," She sighed. "Look, I'm going to be honest with you. This was no ordinary Coil."
"Did you figure that out before or after the black out?" I asked.
"It..." she paused, looking rather uncomfortable with this. "I shouldn't even be showing you this. This has been classified on so many levels it's... Our best Tinkers and Thinkers can't even figure it out."
"And you came to me?" Really, Militia?
"I know you were out in the field last night," She says simply. "Bakuda came in with the Rangers, but she had one of your spikes in her arm."
"What do you want from me, Militia?" Get to the point already.
"How long would you say it was between Lung first engaging the rangers to the black out explosion?" She asked me.
What an oddly specific frame of time. "About... two minutes, maybe three."
"And how fast is this animation compared to what you remembered?" She played a different version of the first lightshow, this one running faster.
"...I don't know? It was hidden behind a building that didn't get destroyed until just before the black out. Faster, I guess." Okay, really. "What's the point of all of this?"
She took in a deep breath, then said, "I want you to figure out how this Coil caused a time dilation zone when it detonated."
...What? I hadn't heard anything about that on the news.
"What time dilation zone?" I ask.
"I didn't tell anyone because I wasn't sure at first," she finally admits, "but you know my memory is perfect because of my power." Her power. Perfect replication of any mass manufactured weapon, and the memory that came with being able to store all of those designs. "The first rendering is what the Rangers report the explosion to have lasted for. The second is my perspective of how long it had been. Your experience confirms that it doesn't match up from yet a third perspective."
"By how much?" Now I was starting to understand why she came to me about this.
"At least a compression of two or three minutes down to one. Or maybe an expansion. I don't know," she shakes her head. "Understanding this type of physics was never my thing."
From the other room, Dragon yells out, "Seriously!? ... SERIOUSLY!?"
...Shit.
"Sorry, I left the TV On," I cover when Miss Militia gives me an odd look, and before she can recover from hearing that excuse, I continue with our prevuious conversation. "What happened there, exactly? What was the series of events?"
And so she tells me, in excruciating detail, sparing nothing except for the name of the person wielding this strange Coil.
If I hadn't know what terrifying power Coils held within them, what she described honestly sounded like a black hole was opened up right on the spot- just from the time dilation to the fact that it had a sucking effect just before closing.
I knew Better.
"Hannah," I began once she'd finished her explanation, "I need some time to think on this. Besides that, I have an errand I need to run soon. For now, it'd be best if you leave."
"I...I see," She nods. "I'll be sure to come back and visit th-?"
"No," I shake my head. "I'll call you."
And so she leaves, completely unaware of the fact that my phone was just as dead as any Coil powered device after the black out had been. I still needed to replace it.
--
I return to the lounge room to find Dragon inspecting the wound caused by her Coil burning out, being careful not to touch the cables powering her. I'd had to cut back some of the burnt skin both to separate it from the shirt and jacket as well as to gain access to the outer edge of the Coil port so that the cables could be attached to even begin a repair job.
"Sorry, I had to toss out some Troublesome person," I announce, and she jerks up in surprise.
"Oh!" she blinks. "Who was it?"
"Someone who was at ground zero of that explosion the other night," I say.
"...Did he intentionally detonate it?" Dragon asks, and it's fairly obvious who she means.
"Yes," I frown. "Your father, right?"
"I..." She nods with a sigh. "Did... you at least find out why?"
"There were people looking for Lung, and found him instead," I repeat back what Miss Militia had said to me. "That's all I was told."
"...That's..." I could see her shoulders jerking in the way most people did when they tried to hold back a sob. If she really were feeling these emotions properly... What kind of a father leaves a girl like this? "Damn him and his desire for revenge."
"I didn't hear much regarding why he did it. But Revenge?" I frown. "Why would he do that?"
"Do... you know why the Richter family disappeared three years ago?" Dragon asks me, meeting my eyes with her own.
"Supposedly they were declared dead after a group calling themselves the Dragonhunters went and-" I pause. "Wait. Dragon? Your name is Dragon and they called themselves the Dragon hunters?"
"That was who the Protectorate blamed on the event, yes," Dragon nodded. "Their leader, a man calling himself 'Saint', held a major anti-A.I. stance during those early years that my Father and Mother were working on the technology to make me possible. Saint, you might be aware, was afraid that a legitimate A.I. would take control over the world's weapons and destroy everything."
"I remember him," I nod. "He once went on about how they would trap us all in another dimension and leave us all there to rot like birds trapped inside of a cage." I also remember one critical thing, "He was a complete Nutcase who didn't even understand how Coils worked. They're completely Non Nuclear, but he insisted they'd trigger an Atomic Apocalypse Doomsday caused by some mythical Sky-fairing Robot Dragon Army."
If anything, that gave the girl a laugh. "My mother thought he was insane as well. She named me 'Dragon' to spite him."
"Your mother being...?" I already knew, but I wanted to hear her say the name.
"Doctor Annette Richter, Cybernetics Tinker," Dragon said with a nod. "She built my body, and my Father built my heart- my power core system. Together, they made me what I am; I truly am their Daughter, you see, even if it's not by blood."
"He made the Coils to power robots like you." It was less of a guess and more of a statement at this point. A confirmation of something I already suspected.
"Yes," She nodded. "I was a proof of concept from day one. They made me progressively larger and more complex bodies over the years. Each physical innovation for my next generation body was released as a mass market robot model. I believe my previous chassis was what they used as a basis for the current generation of Human-like Robots."
"So you're literally what would have been the next big thing before your family disappeared." It's astonishing to see her sitting before me then. More and more I was beginning to understand- no, I was starting to fully realize how something like her could emulate emotions so well. If she'd truly held a continuous stream of memories dating back years? "So, what happened?"
"I was offline when the attack at the house happened." Dragon explained. "I was at father's lab undergoing the upgrade to my current body when the house alarms went off. Up until I came back online today, I had no access to the files from that attack."
"But you know now?" I frowned.
"I'm able to access the video files from that event now..." she sighed. "Father left me it all in a will, in the event that he died." She then looked at me, looking annoyed and sad at the same time as she adds, "He also left me two new Objectives. I am to hunt the Illegal Coils, and to punish the criminals responsible for Mother's death."
"That's a real tall order," I share her annoyance on the first part. "Nobody knows who makes the Illegal Coils or even how they're made. I doubt even Fury knows who's providing them to him."
"I suppose whatever Father's original plan was, this Plan B was always going to be the harder one," she shakes her head, hands clenching into fists around the hem of her jacket. "As for the revenge part... Finding them is going to be impossible without access to any kind of Military database."
"Why's that?" I ask.
"Father left me some of his notes," she explains, "his main roadblock was that the ident. records for certain parties in the video ended up being redacted by a source unknown."
Hrm. What a conundrum.
"You're going to chase these leads, though, no matter what, I take it?"
"The... first, at least, should be somewhat feasible," she says, staring at the floor idly as she probably looks through whatever files were left to her. "Father seemed to have some idea of where to look, according to his Will. I'll.. just have to figure out where he was starting from and continue from there."
"Alright then." I toss her my spare jacket, which she catches easily. "Put this on, we're leaving."
"W-What?!" She stares at me- suddenly broken out of that depressing trance. "But what about the car battery!?"
"It's got a handle on it," I say. "Carry it with you."
"But won't someone realize that I'm a-" I interrupt her before she can finish that sentence.
"Just a girl with an artificial heart who has to use outdated power sources to get by until she gets a replacement Coil." Admittedly, I know it won't stand up well to much scrutiny. "Given the blackouts, it's not too unreasonable that someone needed to jurry rig something up in a hurry."
She considers this for a moment, then nods. Be it Agreement or Understanding, I don't care.
"Okay," she finally says, "where are we going?"
"To get you a job." And on that note, I turn to leave.
"What do you mean, get me a job!?" She calls out after me. I hear her shifting the jacket on, then the squeak of a spring as she gets off of the sofa. Footsteps follow, and a moment later, she's by my side.
She's fast. I'll give her that.
"You're going to chase these things," I say, "and honestly, the way that Troublesome Person acted makes me interested. She hasn't come to me for advice in a long time. That Coil of your Father's did what Newfoundland couldn't."
"And what's that?" Dragon asks me.
"It made her scared of the power that will consume the world," Is all I give her before we reach the vehicle bay.
My army of Motorcycles will have to be ignored for now. Instead, it's time I put the car into service for something other than hauling groceries from the store.
"...Is that a 1982 Trans-am?" Dragon asks in what sounds to be a barely-restrained awe. Or maybe it was just confusion. I'd long since given up trying to figure out which of those two emotions was which.
"Why, yes," I pull out the car's remote key fob, and unlock the doors. Instead of a beeping sound, a swooshing red light flashes across the car's polished black painted front with a simple VWOO-VWOO. "Yes it is."
--
A.N.: Yes, that is a Knight Rider car. It was a hybrid birthday gift/graduation present for when he aged out of the Wards.
A Rusty Will. 2.2
--
"Hello, Colin."
I honestly wished for nothing more in that moment than to shut the door in her face. Instead, I curtly replied, "Miss Militia."
She frowned at that. I could see it clearly- mainly because she wasn't in her costume. Hannah Washington- Miss Militia- stood before me, holding a wooden box, and I couldn't care less.
"May I... come in?" She asked, already knowing the answer to that question.
"Only if you leave any Coil powered devices outside," I insisted. She wouldn't- she never did whenever she visited. Her faith in those devices hadn't been shaken like mine had.
"Fine. Everything except my phone," she said, holding up the box so that I could see inside. It really did look like it had everything Coil-powered except her phone in it. "I need to show you something." What? Okay... color me intrigued.
"Garage, then," I then closed the main entrance to the building and went to the garage to open the metal door. Why she hadn't stayed there in the first place I'll never know. It was how she always acted when she came for a visit- knock on the garage door, then go to the front door and wait. Maybe it was just a hold over from our days in the Wards. I'll never know, really. Either way, as I lifted up the door to the garage just enough for her to step through, I couldn't help but wonder: "So, what is it you want to show me so badly?"
"This," She brought up the projector application, and began playing a 3D rendering of the lightshow from the other night. "I was at the scene when it happened."
"You were, huh?" I suddenly had a very bad feeling about this. The rendering was exactly as I remembered it happening. Flashes of light pulsing out slowly, then a tower of light climbing upwards.
"There was a man there, claiming to be... well, it doesn't matter." She shook her head. "He's dead now. Suicide bomb attempt with... this." with a button press, she shifted the hologram to a replica of a Coil with two rings on it. "I shot it, but that seemed to be almost exactly what he wanted. Image is to scale, by the way."
"Two rings..." And this was a to-scale image? I would have assumed that it was a normal sized Coil and the image was scaled up for detal, not... something actually being this large. Not even some of the Illegal Coils that were produced came this large. I'd have to ask the girl about if she knew what it was or not. "Sorry, but I can't say I've seen a Coil with that design before."
"I'm not surprised," She sighed. "Look, I'm going to be honest with you. This was no ordinary Coil."
"Did you figure that out before or after the black out?" I asked.
"It..." she paused, looking rather uncomfortable with this. "I shouldn't even be showing you this. This has been classified on so many levels it's... Our best Tinkers and Thinkers can't even figure it out."
"And you came to me?" Really, Militia?
"I know you were out in the field last night," She says simply. "Bakuda came in with the Rangers, but she had one of your spikes in her arm."
"What do you want from me, Militia?" Get to the point already.
"How long would you say it was between Lung first engaging the rangers to the black out explosion?" She asked me.
What an oddly specific frame of time. "About... two minutes, maybe three."
"And how fast is this animation compared to what you remembered?" She played a different version of the first lightshow, this one running faster.
"...I don't know? It was hidden behind a building that didn't get destroyed until just before the black out. Faster, I guess." Okay, really. "What's the point of all of this?"
She took in a deep breath, then said, "I want you to figure out how this Coil caused a time dilation zone when it detonated."
...What? I hadn't heard anything about that on the news.
"What time dilation zone?" I ask.
"I didn't tell anyone because I wasn't sure at first," she finally admits, "but you know my memory is perfect because of my power." Her power. Perfect replication of any mass manufactured weapon, and the memory that came with being able to store all of those designs. "The first rendering is what the Rangers report the explosion to have lasted for. The second is my perspective of how long it had been. Your experience confirms that it doesn't match up from yet a third perspective."
"By how much?" Now I was starting to understand why she came to me about this.
"At least a compression of two or three minutes down to one. Or maybe an expansion. I don't know," she shakes her head. "Understanding this type of physics was never my thing."
From the other room, Dragon yells out, "Seriously!? ... SERIOUSLY!?"
...Shit.
"Sorry, I left the TV On," I cover when Miss Militia gives me an odd look, and before she can recover from hearing that excuse, I continue with our prevuious conversation. "What happened there, exactly? What was the series of events?"
And so she tells me, in excruciating detail, sparing nothing except for the name of the person wielding this strange Coil.
If I hadn't know what terrifying power Coils held within them, what she described honestly sounded like a black hole was opened up right on the spot- just from the time dilation to the fact that it had a sucking effect just before closing.
I knew Better.
"Hannah," I began once she'd finished her explanation, "I need some time to think on this. Besides that, I have an errand I need to run soon. For now, it'd be best if you leave."
"I...I see," She nods. "I'll be sure to come back and visit th-?"
"No," I shake my head. "I'll call you."
And so she leaves, completely unaware of the fact that my phone was just as dead as any Coil powered device after the black out had been. I still needed to replace it.
--
I return to the lounge room to find Dragon inspecting the wound caused by her Coil burning out, being careful not to touch the cables powering her. I'd had to cut back some of the burnt skin both to separate it from the shirt and jacket as well as to gain access to the outer edge of the Coil port so that the cables could be attached to even begin a repair job.
"Sorry, I had to toss out some Troublesome person," I announce, and she jerks up in surprise.
"Oh!" she blinks. "Who was it?"
"Someone who was at ground zero of that explosion the other night," I say.
"...Did he intentionally detonate it?" Dragon asks, and it's fairly obvious who she means.
"Yes," I frown. "Your father, right?"
"I..." She nods with a sigh. "Did... you at least find out why?"
"There were people looking for Lung, and found him instead," I repeat back what Miss Militia had said to me. "That's all I was told."
"...That's..." I could see her shoulders jerking in the way most people did when they tried to hold back a sob. If she really were feeling these emotions properly... What kind of a father leaves a girl like this? "Damn him and his desire for revenge."
"I didn't hear much regarding why he did it. But Revenge?" I frown. "Why would he do that?"
"Do... you know why the Richter family disappeared three years ago?" Dragon asks me, meeting my eyes with her own.
"Supposedly they were declared dead after a group calling themselves the Dragonhunters went and-" I pause. "Wait. Dragon? Your name is Dragon and they called themselves the Dragon hunters?"
"That was who the Protectorate blamed on the event, yes," Dragon nodded. "Their leader, a man calling himself 'Saint', held a major anti-A.I. stance during those early years that my Father and Mother were working on the technology to make me possible. Saint, you might be aware, was afraid that a legitimate A.I. would take control over the world's weapons and destroy everything."
"I remember him," I nod. "He once went on about how they would trap us all in another dimension and leave us all there to rot like birds trapped inside of a cage." I also remember one critical thing, "He was a complete Nutcase who didn't even understand how Coils worked. They're completely Non Nuclear, but he insisted they'd trigger an Atomic Apocalypse Doomsday caused by some mythical Sky-fairing Robot Dragon Army."
If anything, that gave the girl a laugh. "My mother thought he was insane as well. She named me 'Dragon' to spite him."
"Your mother being...?" I already knew, but I wanted to hear her say the name.
"Doctor Annette Richter, Cybernetics Tinker," Dragon said with a nod. "She built my body, and my Father built my heart- my power core system. Together, they made me what I am; I truly am their Daughter, you see, even if it's not by blood."
"He made the Coils to power robots like you." It was less of a guess and more of a statement at this point. A confirmation of something I already suspected.
"Yes," She nodded. "I was a proof of concept from day one. They made me progressively larger and more complex bodies over the years. Each physical innovation for my next generation body was released as a mass market robot model. I believe my previous chassis was what they used as a basis for the current generation of Human-like Robots."
"So you're literally what would have been the next big thing before your family disappeared." It's astonishing to see her sitting before me then. More and more I was beginning to understand- no, I was starting to fully realize how something like her could emulate emotions so well. If she'd truly held a continuous stream of memories dating back years? "So, what happened?"
"I was offline when the attack at the house happened." Dragon explained. "I was at father's lab undergoing the upgrade to my current body when the house alarms went off. Up until I came back online today, I had no access to the files from that attack."
"But you know now?" I frowned.
"I'm able to access the video files from that event now..." she sighed. "Father left me it all in a will, in the event that he died." She then looked at me, looking annoyed and sad at the same time as she adds, "He also left me two new Objectives. I am to hunt the Illegal Coils, and to punish the criminals responsible for Mother's death."
"That's a real tall order," I share her annoyance on the first part. "Nobody knows who makes the Illegal Coils or even how they're made. I doubt even Fury knows who's providing them to him."
"I suppose whatever Father's original plan was, this Plan B was always going to be the harder one," she shakes her head, hands clenching into fists around the hem of her jacket. "As for the revenge part... Finding them is going to be impossible without access to any kind of Military database."
"Why's that?" I ask.
"Father left me some of his notes," she explains, "his main roadblock was that the ident. records for certain parties in the video ended up being redacted by a source unknown."
Hrm. What a conundrum.
"You're going to chase these leads, though, no matter what, I take it?"
"The... first, at least, should be somewhat feasible," she says, staring at the floor idly as she probably looks through whatever files were left to her. "Father seemed to have some idea of where to look, according to his Will. I'll.. just have to figure out where he was starting from and continue from there."
"Alright then." I toss her my spare jacket, which she catches easily. "Put this on, we're leaving."
"W-What?!" She stares at me- suddenly broken out of that depressing trance. "But what about the car battery!?"
"It's got a handle on it," I say. "Carry it with you."
"But won't someone realize that I'm a-" I interrupt her before she can finish that sentence.
"Just a girl with an artificial heart who has to use outdated power sources to get by until she gets a replacement Coil." Admittedly, I know it won't stand up well to much scrutiny. "Given the blackouts, it's not too unreasonable that someone needed to jurry rig something up in a hurry."
She considers this for a moment, then nods. Be it Agreement or Understanding, I don't care.
"Okay," she finally says, "where are we going?"
"To get you a job." And on that note, I turn to leave.
"What do you mean, get me a job!?" She calls out after me. I hear her shifting the jacket on, then the squeak of a spring as she gets off of the sofa. Footsteps follow, and a moment later, she's by my side.
She's fast. I'll give her that.
"You're going to chase these things," I say, "and honestly, the way that Troublesome Person acted makes me interested. She hasn't come to me for advice in a long time. That Coil of your Father's did what Newfoundland couldn't."
"And what's that?" Dragon asks me.
"It made her scared of the power that will consume the world," Is all I give her before we reach the vehicle bay.
My army of Motorcycles will have to be ignored for now. Instead, it's time I put the car into service for something other than hauling groceries from the store.
"...Is that a 1982 Trans-am?" Dragon asks in what sounds to be a barely-restrained awe. Or maybe it was just confusion. I'd long since given up trying to figure out which of those two emotions was which.
"Why, yes," I pull out the car's remote key fob, and unlock the doors. Instead of a beeping sound, a swooshing red light flashes across the car's polished black painted front with a simple VWOO-VWOO. "Yes it is."
--
A.N.: Yes, that is a Knight Rider car. It was a hybrid birthday gift/graduation present for when he aged out of the Wards.