- Location
- Sea of Dirac
That was the same thought I had as well. He might be okay if she draws material uniformally from its source. If she doesn't... well.
Drip [Worm AU | Alt-Power]
- Thread starter anondymous
- Start date
That was the same thought I had as well. He might be okay if she draws material uniformally from its source. If she doesn't... well.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
If she got enough to noticeably fill a beaker, any beaker size, as she did in the power testing scene, it`d be more than enough to make Newter a very ill man due to the air bubble in his bloodstream, and more than he could make in the span of a few seconds. A LOT more.
It takes roughly 40 minutes to replace the red blood cells in 1ml of blood. Blood weighs a touch more than water, so even a few grams of blood take hours to replace entirely.
The other parts of the actual fluid 'blood' are much quicker to replenish, but since she got 'blood' not 'serum' or what have you, Newter cannot possibly have produced even a fraction of the blood Taylor put into that beaker within the time it took her to do it. Unless he has like... hyper marrow. There`s a reason the Red Cross always wants you to give blood; blood is EXPENSIVE.
PSA : Do not donate blood to the Red Cross. Find a honest for-profit, they`ll hand you enough money to buy several of the cheese rolls the Red Cross gives you. Several dozen if you`re willing to buy the components and make the damn things yourself.
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Arthur Hansen
Author of no Authority.
- Location
- Utah, behind the Zion Curtain.
This is making many, many jumps in logic. Like that she takes it from him rather than just duplicating it. Or that she had to use a large vial (there are some pretty small ones used for blood draw. As a diabetic I'm pretty familiar with how much the assistants draw and these days I usually don't even get told to eat something high in protein.)
If she could draw blood/etc from specific people, she would be amazingly dangerous for assassination. But her power seems to work on all liquids, even ones she can't define well. The poison she hit Lung with had no natural or pre-existing existence as far as I know.
- Location
- Sea of Dirac
Or she grabbed what Armsmaster used on Lung in canon but without the Tinkertech to modulate it against overdoses like what happened here.
- Location
- Australia
Or she grabbed some other tinkertech option.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Not really.
Well, it`s getting pretty obvious that she`s not duplicating liquids. What we assume to be a Cauldron Vial, Newters saliva, those are not exactly highly common liquids available in huge quantities and, surprise, she only got a miniscule amount of either. This would not be an issue if she were able to create the liquids outright. If she did it would be a really odd limitation to only be able to duplicate an amount not exceeding that of the liquid she`s making.
It doesn`t matter if the power testing equipment used was the smallest beaker around. Even if it was a 5ml tiny thimble thing, the fact that she noticeably filled it at all in less than an hour, several seconds to a minute going by the text, means her output rate was exceeding a humans blood replenishment rate by a lot. Even if it took her 4 minutes to fill 1ml of volume worth of Newterblood, her output is an order of magnitude above human blood replenishment.
So now Newter either has a vacuum in his circulatory system, has air bubbles in his circulatory system, Taylor breaks conservation of mass or Newter has hypermarrow.
NOONE knows what she hit Lung with. As others have said, it may have been Armsmasters tranqs, it may have been some other Tinkertech liquid - Bonesaw probably has oodles of coma juice variants for one - or it might just have been a rare or newly developed neurotoxin, or a highly effective, dangerous anaesthetic from some lab somewhere. It might be some rare compound or solution occuring naturally on some exoplanet, as Taylor hasn`t yet displayed a range limit.
Arthur Hansen
Author of no Authority.
- Location
- Utah, behind the Zion Curtain.
How is 'anti-regeneration tranquilizers' equal to 'incredibly powerful neurotoxin'?
There has been exactly zero evidence that this liquid existed anywhere else before Taylor used it to KO Lung and accidentally sent several ABB members (and one not so cautious PRT agent) into medical comas due to brain damage. The PRT/Protectorate actually said they don't know what it is exactly, just that they figured out it was some sort of neurotoxin.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
A lot of things suddenly become 'non-permanently debilitating knockout level of violence' when your target is a regenerator
If the being to be sedated neutralizes chems faster than they can send him to sleep, drop a faster acting chem. Depending on the target you may need to escalate to 'almost kills' just to keep them down for longer than a few minutes. And anything that keeps Lung down for a while probably has to do a lot of damage, very quickly.
Sure sounds like a job for a brain poison to me.
Arthur Hansen
Author of no Authority.
- Location
- Utah, behind the Zion Curtain.
Which is trying to sidestep that Armsmaster's anti-Lung drug was never described as a lethal to the touch nerotoxin but as a Tinkertech anti-regeneration knock out drug. There is nothing even in this story that suggests that Taylor's neurotoxin is the same drug that Armsmaster used.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Noone said it`s definetly Armsmasters stuff though. We just said it MIGHT be.
Also, who said lethal ? Coma patients ain`t dead, just, y`know, comatose.
Arthur Hansen
Author of no Authority.
- Location
- Utah, behind the Zion Curtain.
It sent (what, 8 people?) into comas with no chance of natural recovering that they can see. It looks like either a Tinker or someone with a healing power that can affect brains to save them. Essentially, they are brain dead.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Y`know what we don`t usually do with coma patients ? Immediately declare them beyond help, that they may as well be brain dead, and start harvesting them for organs.
Plus, Taylor CAN heal them. She just needs to accept that they might turn into Case53s, only without the artifical amnesia.
MaskedCritic
Verified Obsessed with Yuri
- Location
- Fluttershy's Secret Dungeon Shrine to Metal
All this debate over whether the liquid is being duped from existing liquid or taken from other locations... and yet nobody is championing the idea that it's actually being created from nothing?
ChallengeAccepted.jpg
Through the use of particle accelerators, it's been proven that E=MC2 works both ways -- matter can be converted to energy, and energy can be converted to matter. Shards do their thing via space whale magic dickery, although word of god says that it's all bound within the laws of physics. With these data points we can safely say that creating matter from energy is within the boundaries of space whale magic dickery, and any limitations can be considered either arbitrary shard limitation nonsense or problems due to processing power and available energy stores. This wouldn't violate the currently defined rules of Taylor's powers, canon rules for powers, or suspension of disbelief.
ChallengeAccepted.jpg
Through the use of particle accelerators, it's been proven that E=MC2 works both ways -- matter can be converted to energy, and energy can be converted to matter. Shards do their thing via space whale magic dickery, although word of god says that it's all bound within the laws of physics. With these data points we can safely say that creating matter from energy is within the boundaries of space whale magic dickery, and any limitations can be considered either arbitrary shard limitation nonsense or problems due to processing power and available energy stores. This wouldn't violate the currently defined rules of Taylor's powers, canon rules for powers, or suspension of disbelief.
- Location
- Sea of Dirac
Another option is that she's more Trump. She can recreate any substance that would be available to the parahumans in her region plus mundane stuff that she as a person could access. The more complex it is, the more of a limit on how much she can make.
I find it difficult to believe that Newter's saliva is that much more complex than Newter's blood. Or that she can recreate Cauldron vials.
Besides, the way the story is going, it looks like the characters were deliberately written as not even thinking about the possibility that the liquids are summoned. If the liquids actually weren't been summoned, doing that serves no story purpose. Taylor or the PRT should have thought of it within the first 10 minutes and tested it, then dismissed it.
- Location
- Existance
I've been watching everyone saying Taylor's pulling it direct from a source and haven't felt it was necessary to say otherwise. It's such a ridiculous idea just on basic principles that it's hardly something you need to speak out against.
I mean, yeah, the shards are totally going to hand out a power that lets the user kill any target they can think of, without any sort of limit or downside, and lets them pull out precious materials, and lets them conjure random substances they invent out of nothing, instead of something simple like creating liquids for the parahuman and applying a limit based on how much exists in real life.
But people are always going to try and make whatever power Taylor gets as stupidly lethal as possible.
- Location
- Sea of Dirac
Isn't that half the fun?
Speculation until the next chapter is very important for keeping people interested. Just look at Dominion.
Shards can easily hand out powers that are this broken.
Also,
1) The power's current limitations can easily be explained as summoning liquids. If it's creating them, you basically need something like "the shard isn't summoning liquids, but it's limited as if it was summoning liquids".
2) If it really produced a Cauldron vial, it is unbelievable that the power could create one.
3) The only reason I can think of as to why the characters in the story haven't tested for summoning liquids is that the author is going to spring it on us as a surprise.
Faucet 1.10
- Location
- USA
The scene was still for a few seconds, as we waited for signs of the villains. The cloud of darkness continued to expand, and I knew that at some point we would have to venture inside - or the heroes would, at least. There was no sign of any more hostages leaving, though there wasn't much sign of anything else. Through the rain, I saw Assault and Glory girl making their way to the other side of the bank. I guessed that they planned to enter from the back.
"I know most of the Wards," I said, "but who is that?" I pointed at the muscular Ward in the dark spandex costume.
"Browbeat. He's new, like you. He's a Brute."
A - oh, Brute with a capital B. Obviously.
Suddenly, part of the cloud bulged out near the side of the bank. It was flowing toward the heavily distorted area. The Wards below noticed it too, and Browbeat, Aegis-as-Clockblocker, and Gallant took off running toward it, their steps augmented by Vista. Kid WIn and Clockblocker-as-Aegis stayed back, keeping an eye on the rest of the street.
"Can they escape that way?" I asked. "I'm assuming that you made a barrier, right?"
"Technically yes," said Vista, "But it would take a very long time. I can't actually change the topology, but I did mess up the distances - moving in that direction should be very difficult. And I can keep stretching the distance in front of them."
She frowned. "Something's not right. I can feel resistance over there, but nothing huge, like Hellhound's dogs."
"Resistance?"
"My power. It's Manton limits stop me from stretching space in the vicinity of living creatures. But that also means I can sort of detect where people are by trying to stretch space around them. It's hard to make out any details though."
I nodded. "I'm Manton limited too. I -"
"Look out!"
Vista temporarily shrunk the distance to Clockblocker-as-Aegis in order to deliver her warning. A moment later, two monsters burst out of the clouds of darkness, heading straight for him. Hellhound's dogs had been terrifying in the dark of the night, and they were just as terrifying in the gloom of the rain, if not more so. I could see a girl riding one of them - Hellhound, probably.
Kid Win pulled up, his hoverboard rising to around the second story of the building. He started firing lasers at the girl, who ignored them for the most part. His aim was pretty bad - most of them weren't going anywhere near the dogs.
Clockblocker-as-Aegis began running toward the dogs. He had to be insanely brave, or just very confident in his power. Vista shortened the distance in front of him, and suddenly he was right next to the riderless dog. It snarled and turned toward him, but too late. A moment later, the dog was completely motionless, frozen in time.
Hellhound let out a scream of rage, but kept moving forward. Her dog veered sharply to avoid Clockblocker, running just a bit to the left of where Kid Win was hovering. Or trying to hover, anyway. His board seemed to be wobbling dangerously, and he wasn't even attempting to shoot his lasers. As the dog came closer to him, he flew off to the side to avoid it. He seemed to be flying lower and lower. Then I saw a man near the edge of darkness, dressed in a renaissance-fair costume and holding what looked like a scepter. It had to be Regent. Vista had said that he made people stumble - he was probably using his power on Kid Win.
"Vista, Regent!" I said. She nodded without looking at me. "Can you shorten the distance between us for about 3 seconds?"
"Sure. Now!"
Suddenly, it was as though Regent was 15 feet or so away from me. I raised my hand, ready to throw one of my confoam balloons -
And dropped it as my arm twisted backward, painfully. At the same time, my leg cramped badly and I fell to my knees. The balloon burst at my side, expanding to engulf both my legs and my right hand in yellowish foam. I found myself trapped in a kneeling position. Good thing I didn't fill it with Newterjuice.
Crouching where I was, I was at the wrong angle to see anything on the street below. Fortunately, my left arm was free, along with one of my plastic bottles. I began to fill it with the foam dissolving agent. I could tell I would need a lot to get free, though.
"Shit!" said Vista. The expletive sounded harsher coming from her. For all her experience, I still couldn't help but see her age. "Hellhound's climbing the building!"
I could feel the building trembling slightly beneath me. "Can't you increase the distance?"
"What do you think I'm doing?"
I grimaced. My balloons were trapped under the foam, and using them seemed like a bad idea anyway with Regent around.
"You need to get to another building," I said. "Without you, they can easily escape."
"I'm not leaving you here!" she said. I felt...touched by her concern for me.
"You can't do anything against her," I said. I poured the solvent I had made so far over some of the foam, freeing my right arm. My legs were still stuck, though, so I kept filling the bottle. "You need to protect yourself."
"I'm perfectly capable of protecting myself, thanks!"
Why did she have to be so stubborn? If she left, the dog would probably follow her anyway, leaving me alone. Probably.
Vista staggered. "Shit. Regent..."
I would have asked her what was happening with Regent, Kid Win, and Clockblocker, but she needed to focus. I emptied the bottle again, dissolving most of the foam around my legs. I stood up, and tried to move, but my left leg was still trapped under the foam. I could at least see over the edge of the building now, though.
What I saw was terrifying. It was a very, very long way down to the ground, at least down the side of the building. However, the bank across the street still seemed to be around the same distance away - it was only the distance down the side of the building that had changed. Crawling up the side of the building was the "dog," which resembled a lizard even more strongly now. It was more than halfway up, and gaining steadily.
Down on the street, Clockblocker had vanished and the darkness had grown to cover more of the area. Regent stood over an unconscious Kid Win, fiddling with his hoverboard. I looked around for the other Wards, but couldn't find them anywhere. I assumed that they were somewhere in the darkness, unable to see us.
I poured more solvent on the foam, and finally freed my leg. "Vista, let's go!" She nodded, and shrank the distance to the next building. We both stepped across. A moment later, the dog burst onto the roof we had just left, snarling. Hellhound looked straight at us, and I shivered. The dog began to bound toward us. Vista expanded the distance to the dog while shrinking the distance to yet another roof, and the game of keep-away was on.
Unfortunately, as long as we were running, Vista and I couldn't devote any attention to the street. Hellhound and her monstrous steed were closing on us steadily, and only the repeated application of Vista's powers kept it away. I had left all my filled balloons in the containment foam, and couldn't focus on filling more while we fled.
As we were watching the dog's approach, preparing to jump to a new roof, I heard Vista gasp behind me. I spun around just in time to see Regent hit her with the head of his scepter. There was an electrical sound, and she collapsed, twitching. His scepter is a taser. How had he gotten onto the roof?
Then I saw the hoverboard. Kid Win's hoverboard.
I risked a glance at the bank. Still no sign of the other wards. But Regent was right in front of me, and Hellhound would be with us soon as well.
"Damn, tinkertech is cool!" said Regent. He grinned at me. "Tats said you're the one who helped us out the other night. So, uh, sorry, I guess."
He lunged at me, scepter extended. I tried to dodge, but my leg twisted and I fell to the ground. The scepter hit me in the side. It hurt, but a lot less than I had expected. It seemed that my nanotech armor was at least partially resistant to electricity. I grabbed at his boot, and he laughed. "Give up." He tased me again.
I ignored the pain, and focused on the boot. It was leather, and therefore waterproof. Give me Newterjuice.
Previously, I had been able to create Antilung by name after deciding what to call it, so I knew that I could use a similar shortcut. Newterjuice was blood specifically, and not saliva. What was so different about saliva than blood? I hadn't had time to figure it out, but I knew it might be the key to understanding the limits of my power.
Regent collapsed almost immediately. I pushed him off of me, and stood up, wincing from the pain in my side. The electricity hadn't disabled my like it had Vista, but the area around the point of impact still hurt. I grabbed Regent's scepter - it seemed like a pretty useful weapon.
I felt massive impact through the roof. Spinning around, I saw Hellhound's monster crawling over the edge, its master still holding on to its back. Frantically, I grabbed an empty balloon and started filling it with Newterjuice. The dog advanced on me, its mouth open and dripping with drool as it growled. Hellhound started to issue a command. "Brutus -"
I didn't wait. I hadn't had time to produce much of the hallucinogen, but I hurled what I had into the monster's half-open mouth. For a moment, it looked like there was no effect. Then, it whined and collapsed to the ground. Wow. Ali hadn't been kidding about its potency. With the dog down, I just needed to deal with -
"Fuck you!"
Hellhound snarled and leapt off the dog, closing the distance between us. "The fuck you do to Brutus? You poison my dog?"
I tried to fill another balloon, but she kicked my hand, forcing me to drop it. Then she started attacking me, punching and kicking. After a few months of running, I was fit, but she was much stronger than I was, and I had no training in self-defense. From the wild fury of her attacks, I suspected she had experience but no formal training - which was still not much better for me. My armor stiffened against her blows, distributing the force, but I still found myself knocked to the ground. She must have noticed how my hoodie stiffened under her blows, because her next attack was a kick to my face. Feeling something break, I blacked out.
I woke up to the sight of a girl with curly brown hair crouched over me. "You have a very mild concussion," she said, "which I can't do anything about, but I've fixed your nose and removed the bruising. You should be fine. Just take it easy for a few days. You should also eat plenty of meat to replenish your iron. You lost fair amount of blood. Fortunately, the human body has plenty to spare."
It took me a moment to realize without her costume. "Panacea?"
She smiled faintly. "That's me. They wanted me to see to you. The fight's over now."
"Oh. What happened?" I felt a little dizzy.
"I'm sure they'll fill you in. I need to go fix Kid Win's leg - he fell from his board, apparently. Nice to meet you."
She turned to go, then hesitated. "By the way, just curious - what exactly is your power?"
"I create liquids."
She nodded slowly. "Is that- Right. Um, ok. I'll see you later, then."
I looked around. I was on ground level, across the street from the bank. I could see the other Wards nearby, along with some protectorate members. There were four PRT vans pulled up as well. Armsmaster and Assault were talking about something, while Miss Militia was speaking with the people I assumed to be the hostages. It had stopped raining.
I glanced down at my costume. There was an awful lot of blood, which I could see despite the dark colors. I guessed that Hellhound had broken my nose when she kicked me. Amazingly, my nose felt fine. In fact, aside from some sensitivity - likely due to the concussion - I felt in perfect shape.
Clockblocker - still dressed as Aegis - sauntered over to me. "Way to go, Wellspring! Nice job for your first time out." He winced. "That's a lot of blood though. Ouch."
"Yeah - I think Hellhound broke my nose."
He nodded. "Good thing Panacea was here. I suppose you can probably make medicines though, right? Coagulants and antibiotics and stuff? Your power sounds really useful."
"Thanks," I said. Something Panacea had said was beginning to nag at the back of my mind. "Excuse me for a moment please - I just need a drink of water."
"Oh right, sure. Then you can come and debrief with the rest of us!"
Getting up and walking over to lean against a PRT van, I fumbled at my belt for a plastic bottle. As with all my bottles, I kept the lids somewhere else so the air within had a place to go when I started filling them with liquids.
You lost a fair amount of blood. Fortunately, the human body has plenty to spare.
Plenty to spare.
Blood. Saliva. The difference between blood and saliva.
Trembling, I reached for my power. Give me my saliva.
My mouth went dry. The difference between blood and saliva was really quite obvious if you stopped assuming that powers were, in any way, fair.
"I know most of the Wards," I said, "but who is that?" I pointed at the muscular Ward in the dark spandex costume.
"Browbeat. He's new, like you. He's a Brute."
A - oh, Brute with a capital B. Obviously.
Suddenly, part of the cloud bulged out near the side of the bank. It was flowing toward the heavily distorted area. The Wards below noticed it too, and Browbeat, Aegis-as-Clockblocker, and Gallant took off running toward it, their steps augmented by Vista. Kid WIn and Clockblocker-as-Aegis stayed back, keeping an eye on the rest of the street.
"Can they escape that way?" I asked. "I'm assuming that you made a barrier, right?"
"Technically yes," said Vista, "But it would take a very long time. I can't actually change the topology, but I did mess up the distances - moving in that direction should be very difficult. And I can keep stretching the distance in front of them."
She frowned. "Something's not right. I can feel resistance over there, but nothing huge, like Hellhound's dogs."
"Resistance?"
"My power. It's Manton limits stop me from stretching space in the vicinity of living creatures. But that also means I can sort of detect where people are by trying to stretch space around them. It's hard to make out any details though."
I nodded. "I'm Manton limited too. I -"
"Look out!"
Vista temporarily shrunk the distance to Clockblocker-as-Aegis in order to deliver her warning. A moment later, two monsters burst out of the clouds of darkness, heading straight for him. Hellhound's dogs had been terrifying in the dark of the night, and they were just as terrifying in the gloom of the rain, if not more so. I could see a girl riding one of them - Hellhound, probably.
Kid Win pulled up, his hoverboard rising to around the second story of the building. He started firing lasers at the girl, who ignored them for the most part. His aim was pretty bad - most of them weren't going anywhere near the dogs.
Clockblocker-as-Aegis began running toward the dogs. He had to be insanely brave, or just very confident in his power. Vista shortened the distance in front of him, and suddenly he was right next to the riderless dog. It snarled and turned toward him, but too late. A moment later, the dog was completely motionless, frozen in time.
Hellhound let out a scream of rage, but kept moving forward. Her dog veered sharply to avoid Clockblocker, running just a bit to the left of where Kid Win was hovering. Or trying to hover, anyway. His board seemed to be wobbling dangerously, and he wasn't even attempting to shoot his lasers. As the dog came closer to him, he flew off to the side to avoid it. He seemed to be flying lower and lower. Then I saw a man near the edge of darkness, dressed in a renaissance-fair costume and holding what looked like a scepter. It had to be Regent. Vista had said that he made people stumble - he was probably using his power on Kid Win.
"Vista, Regent!" I said. She nodded without looking at me. "Can you shorten the distance between us for about 3 seconds?"
"Sure. Now!"
Suddenly, it was as though Regent was 15 feet or so away from me. I raised my hand, ready to throw one of my confoam balloons -
And dropped it as my arm twisted backward, painfully. At the same time, my leg cramped badly and I fell to my knees. The balloon burst at my side, expanding to engulf both my legs and my right hand in yellowish foam. I found myself trapped in a kneeling position. Good thing I didn't fill it with Newterjuice.
Crouching where I was, I was at the wrong angle to see anything on the street below. Fortunately, my left arm was free, along with one of my plastic bottles. I began to fill it with the foam dissolving agent. I could tell I would need a lot to get free, though.
"Shit!" said Vista. The expletive sounded harsher coming from her. For all her experience, I still couldn't help but see her age. "Hellhound's climbing the building!"
I could feel the building trembling slightly beneath me. "Can't you increase the distance?"
"What do you think I'm doing?"
I grimaced. My balloons were trapped under the foam, and using them seemed like a bad idea anyway with Regent around.
"You need to get to another building," I said. "Without you, they can easily escape."
"I'm not leaving you here!" she said. I felt...touched by her concern for me.
"You can't do anything against her," I said. I poured the solvent I had made so far over some of the foam, freeing my right arm. My legs were still stuck, though, so I kept filling the bottle. "You need to protect yourself."
"I'm perfectly capable of protecting myself, thanks!"
Why did she have to be so stubborn? If she left, the dog would probably follow her anyway, leaving me alone. Probably.
Vista staggered. "Shit. Regent..."
I would have asked her what was happening with Regent, Kid Win, and Clockblocker, but she needed to focus. I emptied the bottle again, dissolving most of the foam around my legs. I stood up, and tried to move, but my left leg was still trapped under the foam. I could at least see over the edge of the building now, though.
What I saw was terrifying. It was a very, very long way down to the ground, at least down the side of the building. However, the bank across the street still seemed to be around the same distance away - it was only the distance down the side of the building that had changed. Crawling up the side of the building was the "dog," which resembled a lizard even more strongly now. It was more than halfway up, and gaining steadily.
Down on the street, Clockblocker had vanished and the darkness had grown to cover more of the area. Regent stood over an unconscious Kid Win, fiddling with his hoverboard. I looked around for the other Wards, but couldn't find them anywhere. I assumed that they were somewhere in the darkness, unable to see us.
I poured more solvent on the foam, and finally freed my leg. "Vista, let's go!" She nodded, and shrank the distance to the next building. We both stepped across. A moment later, the dog burst onto the roof we had just left, snarling. Hellhound looked straight at us, and I shivered. The dog began to bound toward us. Vista expanded the distance to the dog while shrinking the distance to yet another roof, and the game of keep-away was on.
Unfortunately, as long as we were running, Vista and I couldn't devote any attention to the street. Hellhound and her monstrous steed were closing on us steadily, and only the repeated application of Vista's powers kept it away. I had left all my filled balloons in the containment foam, and couldn't focus on filling more while we fled.
As we were watching the dog's approach, preparing to jump to a new roof, I heard Vista gasp behind me. I spun around just in time to see Regent hit her with the head of his scepter. There was an electrical sound, and she collapsed, twitching. His scepter is a taser. How had he gotten onto the roof?
Then I saw the hoverboard. Kid Win's hoverboard.
I risked a glance at the bank. Still no sign of the other wards. But Regent was right in front of me, and Hellhound would be with us soon as well.
"Damn, tinkertech is cool!" said Regent. He grinned at me. "Tats said you're the one who helped us out the other night. So, uh, sorry, I guess."
He lunged at me, scepter extended. I tried to dodge, but my leg twisted and I fell to the ground. The scepter hit me in the side. It hurt, but a lot less than I had expected. It seemed that my nanotech armor was at least partially resistant to electricity. I grabbed at his boot, and he laughed. "Give up." He tased me again.
I ignored the pain, and focused on the boot. It was leather, and therefore waterproof. Give me Newterjuice.
Previously, I had been able to create Antilung by name after deciding what to call it, so I knew that I could use a similar shortcut. Newterjuice was blood specifically, and not saliva. What was so different about saliva than blood? I hadn't had time to figure it out, but I knew it might be the key to understanding the limits of my power.
Regent collapsed almost immediately. I pushed him off of me, and stood up, wincing from the pain in my side. The electricity hadn't disabled my like it had Vista, but the area around the point of impact still hurt. I grabbed Regent's scepter - it seemed like a pretty useful weapon.
I felt massive impact through the roof. Spinning around, I saw Hellhound's monster crawling over the edge, its master still holding on to its back. Frantically, I grabbed an empty balloon and started filling it with Newterjuice. The dog advanced on me, its mouth open and dripping with drool as it growled. Hellhound started to issue a command. "Brutus -"
I didn't wait. I hadn't had time to produce much of the hallucinogen, but I hurled what I had into the monster's half-open mouth. For a moment, it looked like there was no effect. Then, it whined and collapsed to the ground. Wow. Ali hadn't been kidding about its potency. With the dog down, I just needed to deal with -
"Fuck you!"
Hellhound snarled and leapt off the dog, closing the distance between us. "The fuck you do to Brutus? You poison my dog?"
I tried to fill another balloon, but she kicked my hand, forcing me to drop it. Then she started attacking me, punching and kicking. After a few months of running, I was fit, but she was much stronger than I was, and I had no training in self-defense. From the wild fury of her attacks, I suspected she had experience but no formal training - which was still not much better for me. My armor stiffened against her blows, distributing the force, but I still found myself knocked to the ground. She must have noticed how my hoodie stiffened under her blows, because her next attack was a kick to my face. Feeling something break, I blacked out.
I woke up to the sight of a girl with curly brown hair crouched over me. "You have a very mild concussion," she said, "which I can't do anything about, but I've fixed your nose and removed the bruising. You should be fine. Just take it easy for a few days. You should also eat plenty of meat to replenish your iron. You lost fair amount of blood. Fortunately, the human body has plenty to spare."
It took me a moment to realize without her costume. "Panacea?"
She smiled faintly. "That's me. They wanted me to see to you. The fight's over now."
"Oh. What happened?" I felt a little dizzy.
"I'm sure they'll fill you in. I need to go fix Kid Win's leg - he fell from his board, apparently. Nice to meet you."
She turned to go, then hesitated. "By the way, just curious - what exactly is your power?"
"I create liquids."
She nodded slowly. "Is that- Right. Um, ok. I'll see you later, then."
I looked around. I was on ground level, across the street from the bank. I could see the other Wards nearby, along with some protectorate members. There were four PRT vans pulled up as well. Armsmaster and Assault were talking about something, while Miss Militia was speaking with the people I assumed to be the hostages. It had stopped raining.
I glanced down at my costume. There was an awful lot of blood, which I could see despite the dark colors. I guessed that Hellhound had broken my nose when she kicked me. Amazingly, my nose felt fine. In fact, aside from some sensitivity - likely due to the concussion - I felt in perfect shape.
Clockblocker - still dressed as Aegis - sauntered over to me. "Way to go, Wellspring! Nice job for your first time out." He winced. "That's a lot of blood though. Ouch."
"Yeah - I think Hellhound broke my nose."
He nodded. "Good thing Panacea was here. I suppose you can probably make medicines though, right? Coagulants and antibiotics and stuff? Your power sounds really useful."
"Thanks," I said. Something Panacea had said was beginning to nag at the back of my mind. "Excuse me for a moment please - I just need a drink of water."
"Oh right, sure. Then you can come and debrief with the rest of us!"
Getting up and walking over to lean against a PRT van, I fumbled at my belt for a plastic bottle. As with all my bottles, I kept the lids somewhere else so the air within had a place to go when I started filling them with liquids.
You lost a fair amount of blood. Fortunately, the human body has plenty to spare.
Plenty to spare.
Blood. Saliva. The difference between blood and saliva.
Trembling, I reached for my power. Give me my saliva.
My mouth went dry. The difference between blood and saliva was really quite obvious if you stopped assuming that powers were, in any way, fair.
- Location
- USA
Ok, well, this concludes the first arc. Many of you guessed the twist, which I take as a good sign - it means it didn't just come out of nowhere.
In fact some of the inspiration for this story did come from SCP 294. There were other sources of inspiration as well, but I don't want to spoil anything.
The next chapter will be an interlude. I am leaning toward Shadow Stalker, but let me know if there are other perspectives you really want to see. I might do a double interlude, though I don't want this to be the sort of story where the interludes equal or exceed the main POV in total length.
In fact some of the inspiration for this story did come from SCP 294. There were other sources of inspiration as well, but I don't want to spoil anything.
The next chapter will be an interlude. I am leaning toward Shadow Stalker, but let me know if there are other perspectives you really want to see. I might do a double interlude, though I don't want this to be the sort of story where the interludes equal or exceed the main POV in total length.
Dr. Mercurious
Strangest Person You Know
- Location
- New England
Damn it. I was hoping everyone was wrong about this, since that turns a useful power into a shitty one. It reminds of of another story where Taylor gains the power of a living voodoo doll; it's exactly as shitty a power as you'd expect.
Honestly, not sure if I'm interested in an alt-fic where Taylor's power makes her a fire-bucket carrier.
Honestly, not sure if I'm interested in an alt-fic where Taylor's power makes her a fire-bucket carrier.
Haaaaaaaaaaahahahhaahahahahhaaaahahaaaahhhahaaaaaaaa.
God, her power is the stuff of nightmares. It's a damn shame the PRT/Protectorate are going to completely neuter her, likely prohibiting any people-draining even for non-lethal takedowns on principle (Ward + PR). Of course, they'll also forbid her from 'making' gold or anything else she's likely to be stealing from someone. I can only hope she'll have the sense to keep quiet about this revelation and won't run afoul of Armsmaster's lie detector.
Edit: I liked the last paragraph a lot, it conveys Taylor's realization of "I'm living in Wildbow's fucking Worm" so very nicely
.
God, her power is the stuff of nightmares. It's a damn shame the PRT/Protectorate are going to completely neuter her, likely prohibiting any people-draining even for non-lethal takedowns on principle (Ward + PR). Of course, they'll also forbid her from 'making' gold or anything else she's likely to be stealing from someone. I can only hope she'll have the sense to keep quiet about this revelation and won't run afoul of Armsmaster's lie detector.
Edit: I liked the last paragraph a lot, it conveys Taylor's realization of "I'm living in Wildbow's fucking Worm" so very nicely
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- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
They might come up with a PR friendly excuse "She can produce a targeted knockout gas" or somesuch - or maybe even use her power on missions she's unrelated to so that the public don't hear about it ("help us take down Stormtiger non-lethally")