thor8797
Canadian Sterotype
As someone who`s been on the receiving end of a vehicle-totalling collision I can honestly tell you they happen insanely fast.
Effigy [Case53 Taylor Worm AU]
- Thread starter thor8797
- Start date
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
Been there also at the beginning of the month, and agreed, stupidly, insanely fast.
- Location
- Wellington, New Zealand
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Huh ... the one time I was in a car crash (car rolled, but no serious injuries to anyone including me) it really did seem to happen in slow motion ... everything seemed to be moving so slowly.
And a nice use of the "How to avoid the Bystander Effect" method.
And a nice use of the "How to avoid the Bystander Effect" method.
At least the PR department will be happy.
That was a fairly textbook display of a young Parahuman going to the PRT an accident happening, said young Parahuman being told to remain in the vehicle to shield her from any gruesome scenes and or danger until it was surveyed and decided her power was useful in getting an injured man to hospital.
That was a fairly textbook display of a young Parahuman going to the PRT an accident happening, said young Parahuman being told to remain in the vehicle to shield her from any gruesome scenes and or danger until it was surveyed and decided her power was useful in getting an injured man to hospital.
Puppetmaster24
The Crux Mechanicus
That sucks dude!Quick announcement: my laptop crashed and I lost the half finished chapter 1.7 so there's going to be a longer than usual gap between chapters as I rewrite it from scratch, sorry for the delay.
Are you sure their isn't some computer magic you can do to retreive it? I find that leaving a saucer of milk and some cookies for the gnomes that live in my laptop works.
thor8797
Canadian Sterotype
Had to format the drive and reinstall the OS unfortunately, couldn't get anything off it.
Full format or quick? How much have you installed since? Was it a plaintext file?
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thor8797
Canadian Sterotype
Full unfortunately, ended up with a virus.
Effigy - 1.7
thor8797
Canadian Sterotype
Effigy – 1.7
It was late when Hannah and Taylor finally got back to the Rig. The accident and its aftermath had ended up delaying them for long enough to miss the ferry ride that took the evening shift out to the Rig and brought the day shift back into the city; apparently a hero missing their patrol shift was not enough of an emergency for the ferry to make an unscheduled trip.
The pair finally did make it out to their destination by hitching a ride on the helicopter ferrying hardcopies of files out to the Rig's secure archives. Now, as she practically crawled away from the clattering machine with Hannah's help, Taylor felt she could safely cross helicopter rides and flying in general off the list of things she ever wanted to do again.
On the positive side of things, it had finally stopped raining.
Making their way into the base, past the two troopers waiting to help carry the files in, and through the blandly colored hallways they finally reached the door to Taylor's room.
Taylor spoke first. "After I finish putting this stuff away", she said holding up the clothing filled shopping bags in her hands. "Could I hear some more stories? That one about Armsmaster's birthday was really funny", she asked with a slight giggle; an extremely odd sound when combined with her unchanging features.
Hannah shook her head, "I can't, sorry, I'm going to have to make up for the patrol I missed." She let out a regretful sigh, "Which means yet more paperwork."
"Oh", said a disappointed Taylor. "I hope you manage to finish it all then."
Hannah smiled as she spoke, "So do I." Turning and starting towards her own office she called out over her shoulder, "See you tomorrow Taylor."
Taylor waved; a bag swinging from her hand, "See you later."
The first thing Taylor did after closing the door to her room was to hang up her new clothes in the closet. With that task completed she made her way to her desk in the opposite corner of the room and dropped into the chair with a huff. Her folder was in front of her, she spent a few minutes staring at it wondering if she should reread it; none of her memories had come back while listening to Emma but maybe if she reread it again something might click.
With a sigh she placed the file off to the side; she'd read it more than enough already, she would just need to find something else to trigger her memories. She ignored the small voice in the back of her mind telling her it wasn't working, that her memories weren't coming back.
She needed them back; they were hers, she wanted them back.
Instead she booted up the computer and, carefully placing her hands on the mouse and keyboard, navigated over to PHO. She had to be careful holding onto the mouse, especially after she accidently crushed the last one.
A quick glance over the current popular threads showed the usual assortment of debates, Endbringer speculation and someone claiming 'Fall of the Goblin King' had turned the story into a brainless action flick and was an insult to what actually happened.
Taylor skipped over all those and looked up her own name, easily finding the discussion thread in the Brockton Bay sub-forum. The thread had a surprising number of posts already; the early parts were speculation about her powers which had recently given way to comparing her to other capes out there as well as talk about her rescue of the driver of the car.
The sheer number of serial killers she resembled was depressing and more than a little disturbing.
Mannequin, formerly Sphere had the most visual similarities; both of them had ceramic 'skin' but while she still looked mostly human Mannequin resembled a robot. Incredibly good at staying hidden and ambushes he usually went after tinkers trying to improve things and had a special hatred of ones with space-applicable technology.
Black Kaze was a teleporting mass murderer who had killed at least ten thousand people and as some of the later posters said; that wasn't the number of people they thought she had killed, it was just the point where they stopped counting. Fortunately she was currently languishing in the Birdcage; no one was quite sure how she'd been caught.
Oni Lee was merely strongly suspected to be a teleporting serial killer. He was Lung, leader of the Silver Dragon's personal problem solver.
Taylor skimmed the rest looking for heroes that she resembled. There was Strider, an independent mass teleporter with a semi-permanent government contract to get people to Endbringer battles. Then there mentions of Weld and a whole bunch of other Cases who all fell into the category of 'basically human but'. Then someone posted a picture that had been (thankfully) taken down by the mods and earned them a weeklong ban as well as the disgust of most of the other posters.
That was the point that Taylor decided to turn the computer off. She glanced over at her bookshelf, maybe she could read a book instead.
-------------------------------------------
Hannah sat at her desk filling out forms and thinking. She had already come to the conclusion that she couldn't do anything about the re-emergence of the Headhunters; not enough information, the bane of any problem solving really. This brought her to her current line of thought as she filled out reports and forms almost on autopilot. Taylor deserved the chance to attend her father's funeral, which was something she had already decided on.
No, what she kept asking herself was whether it was a good idea or not. She hadn't missed Taylor's slowly increasing desperation and obsession with regaining her pre-trigger memories and she was worried that going to the funeral could make it worse. No Case 53 or 140 had ever regained their memories and Taylor was smart enough that she would realise that sooner or later; Hannah worried about that moment of realisation.
A scratching sound pulled Hannah out of her musings, looking down she saw that she had gone through the stack of papers she had been working on and was now writing on her desk. Hastily she wiped her sleeve through the writing to try and clean it up and succeeded only in smearing it, despite being alone in her office she felt the absurd urge to look around and see if anyone else had spotted the mistake. Pulling another stack of papers to herself she began filling them out and slipped back into her thoughts.
Hannah had promised Mr. Barnes to ask Taylor about attending the funeral; she didn't intend to break that promise. Then there was Taylor herself, as much as she felt the trip could go wrong it could also give the younger girl some much needed closure on her unremembered life. She resolved to talk to Taylor about the funeral tomorrow, beyond that there wasn't much she couldn't think of anything to do but hope and try to support the girl.
Hannah looked to the rest of the paperwork arranged on her desk as she finished the last form from the stack in front of her and sighed. Glancing at the clock on the wall revealed that she had been filling out forms for several hours already. Hannah made her decision; she stood up, stretched her back and headed out the door intent on spending some time on the Rig's (small) range.
She needed to relieve some stress.
--------------------------------------------
"Alright let's try again", droned the instructor's voice.
Taylor groaned in frustration as she moved her arm back into position, she was getting better; her first attempts had been abject failures, her more recent attempts definitely weren't as bad. It just frustrated her that she on attempt number thirty-seven and still couldn't catch a cardboard tube on reflex without crushing it.
Taylor stared intently at the tube hanging from the clamp waiting for it to fall.
The clamp released sending the tube to the floor. Taylor's hand shot forward, grabbing the tube; and crushing it. Again.
"Damnit!" Taylor cried in frustration, tossing the now crumpled tube on the floor. She'd been told that the ability to dead lift about a thousand kilos could come in handy in many situations however; it was definitely a drawback when it came to delicate manipulation. She could do most of the everyday things; door handles, shaking hands, hugs, etc. Handling things that went from whole to broken very quickly was a lot harder for her; she still wished she could go back in time and erase her attempts to 'help' Rory make omelettes.
'Why am I having so much trouble with this? I bet other people with super strength don't have thi-'
"Taylor", came the almost warning tone of her instructor. "You're getting frustrated again, take a ten minute break to calm down and we'll come back to this then. Ok?"
Taylor didn't bother replying opting instead to stomp her way over to one of the benches along the gym wall, dropping onto it with a small thud. Nobody had seen any point in tying up one of the labs, and what she was doing was technically training hence why she ended up in the gym.
The gym was mostly empty save for one or two of the base's PRT troopers and more interestingly Victoria Dallon and an instructor who was doing her best to teach the blonde girl. Taylor vaguely remembered something about the style being created for people with super strength to fight baseline humans without accidently killing them.
As she watched the two Taylor thought back to what she had read and heard; Victoria, cape name Victory was a fairly standard Alexandria-package, flight, super strength, and invulnerability. Dredging that memory up also pulled up the reason she was here; the BBPD, Protectorate and PRT had all strongly recommended she learn how to control her strength in a fight.
Killing a druggie who pulled a gun on her and her friends by crushing his ribcage with a single punch due to adrenaline and a lack of training usually had that result. The fact that she had only crushed his ribcage instead of putting her arm completely through him had been successfully used as evidence that she had been holding back.
Apparently Victoria had progressed far enough in her training to practice with actual people instead of Dragon's mass produced training dummies. As Taylor watched Victoria and her instructor spar she wondered if she would end up learning the same style.
"Ready to go again?" Asked her own instructor.
"Yeah, let's try again", said Taylor unenthusiastically.
---------------------------------------------
Two hours, three breaks, many attempts and just as many crushed tubes later; Taylor finally managed to catch a tube without leaving dents in it.
"Finally!" Shouted Taylor while giving a bit of a victory dance. A thought hit her and she abruptly stopped and turned to her monitor/instructor, "I know it's weird that I just thought of this but, why are we using cardboard tubes?"
"They're cheap and we usually end up with a lot of them, on top of that we also expected you to break most of them", her instructor answered blandly.
"Oh."
Before Taylor could figure out how she felt about that particular piece of information Hannah strode into the room, "Taylor, do you have a moment?"
"Um", Taylor stole a glance at her instructor who nodded.
"I think you've accomplished enough for today", he said with a bit of relief in his tone. It suddenly occurred to Taylor that the whole process must have been incredibly dull for him.
"Yeah, what is it?" She asked Hannah and was suddenly struck by the similarity of the current situation to the time Armsmaster handed her file to her.
Hannah for her part decided to start the conversation off with lighter subjects rather than jumping straight to the subject of Mr. Hebert's upcoming funeral, "How's training coming along?"
"Great, I finally caught one without wrecking it", she said with a note of triumph in her voice as she held up the tube still clutched in her hand.
"That's good, how is your academic assessment coming?" Taylor was being evaluated on the level of knowledge she had in different fields as well as a few skills that were required for everyday function.
"Pretty good, I'm still not doing too well with writing though", the dark haired girl admitted with a slightly disappointed tone. While Taylor could read and write at a level consistent with her age she lacked the 'muscle memory' associated with writing individual letters, hence her writing was precise but very slow.
"Anything else happen today?"
"Not really, oh I was on PHO last night and-" Taylor cut herself off, she didn't really want admit she was being compared to so many serial killers. "-there was someone complaining that 'Fall of the Goblin King' was a dumbed down action flick" She continued.
Hannah hadn't missed the younger girl's word swap but decided to let it slide for now; she could check PHO later, and she was reasonably certain what topic she should look for. "I saw that last Thursday, whoever was complaining was right; the movie had almost nothing to do with what actually happened." Hannah had personally wanted to punch the writer after watching it but she wasn't about to tell Taylor that.
"What did it get wrong?"
Hannah motioned for Taylor to follow her, "Almost everything; the only major event they got right was that it wasn't the first attack that succeeded." She pushed and held the door open for Taylor before continuing, "Nilbog was not killed in a fiery climactic showdown at the end of the siege; he was killed by cruise missiles as part of the opening salvos." Hannah was now quickly walking through the base towards the nearest set of elevators, "His creations weren't wiped out in a month of fighting; it was a nearly two yearlong bloody slog to clear out Ellisburg and even now nobody wants to get close to the area."
Taylor was getting increasingly worried as the two of them stepped into the elevator, Hannah's hands were clenched into fists and her voice was starting to sound strained. She was quickly coming to regret her question now that she was seeing how it affected the uniformed woman.
Hannah carried on not noticing Taylor's subtle signs of discomfort, "It took the Protectorate, the PRT and the National Guard from across the country; it wasn't just whoever happened to be nearby." The elevator doors opened with an incongruously cheerful ding and Hannah marched out into the open aired upper deck of the Rig at a pace that forced the other girl to adopt an awkward walk-jog to keep up.
Hannah wasn't even talking about the movie anymore, "Two years of most Protectorate groups operating at half capacity let the villains expand almost unopposed, it's part of the reason they're as entrenched as they are." Coming to the railing she gripped it tightly looking out at the city, "I was there; it cost some of my friends their lives, Colin lost one of his legs, and the Director the use of her kidneys." She stopped and forced her hands to uncurl from their grip on the railing, "I-." She stopped thanks to a combination of realising she was rambling and something pressing against her side.
Taylor; who had finally worked up her courage, had stepped forward and hesitantly hugged Hannah from the side. She wasn't certain about what she was doing, "I'm sorry." Taylor said quietly hoping it would help, she was out of her depth now and was struggling for a solution.
Hannah let the air out of her lungs in a long sigh before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, maybe her personal demons weren't quite as deeply buried as she would like to believe. They stayed like that for a short time, neither of them speaking.
Hannah was the first to break the silence, "Thank you. Sorry." There was another pause before she continued, "The original reason I wanted to talk to you was that your father's funeral is coming up in a few weeks."
Taylor froze, could this be the kick she needed to regain her memories? "I want to go." She said, her voice edged with steel.
--------------------------------
"You wanted to talk to me?" Hannah asked Colin as he sat in his lab with most of his attention (apparently) focused on the pile of half-assembled parts in front of him.
He replied without looking up, "Yes, the Director asked me if there were any Protectorate members I would recommend to be Miss Hebert's guardian. I was thinking about putting your name forward, considering you already occupy that position in all but name."
Hannah was shocked, "That's-."
'I took her shopping despite the fact that I didn't have to go. I do my best to offer her emotional support. I've spent more time around her than anyone else on the base. I practically asked her how her equivalent of school was going today. I care about her as more than just a fellow cape.'
She closed her mouth, the objection dying in her throat.
'Colin may be on to something.'
"Have you asked her about this?"
"Not yet, the Director and I are simply collecting a list of candidates from within the Protectorate and PRT. When the time comes to assign her a guardian we plan on simply having her go over and meet the candidates put forward." Colin paused to apply solder to the half-finished piece of equipment in front of him, "If none of the candidates put forward appeal to her then we will have to look for foster parents outside of our organisations."
Hannah spent a few minutes going over the idea before replying, "How long do I have to think about it?"
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A/N: Here we go, sorry for the delays. I powered through this over the past week, hopefully you like it.
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- Location
- United Kingdom
Haven't actually read worm I'm having some difficulty following this AU, however my question is around Nilbog's purpose. IIRC Nilbog is some sort of check against the world getting too peaceful, just like the Butcher is there to make sure people keep triggering, as such, I'm interested in how the entities are getting the world to remain chaotic to keep collecting data
Obviously the world is still pretty messed up, but presumably the entities didn't think it was messed up enough if they made Nilbog in the first place
thor8797
Canadian Sterotype
Personally I see Nilbog as something along the line of R/L 9/11, and then I try to image how the general populace of the US would have responded if the gov made their canon half-assed attempt to get rid of him then left him alone. What kind of message does that send to the average citizen? I think most people would see it as something along the line of: You are worthless and we don't care if you are killed. I can't see the general population agreeing with leaving him alone regardless of the cost.
EDIT: That and scion really only cared if the human species itself was in imminent danger of being wiped out.
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- Location
- United Kingdom
That's a fair interpretation I think, but you also have to explain some things of your having it like that,for example this is obviously an AU,but you've just raised a point about the deployment of the military on domestic soil, I'm not American so I don't know a great deal about it,but isn't there something in the constitution about that? Also of you're mentioning a 'salvo' of missiles, how do many villains survive? If the US public approve of airstrikes on domestic soil, they could be persuaded into drones over every major city with missiles ready, if Kaiser pops up just Hellfire him
Obviously this all feeds into a massive move to the right, and people not relying on capes to solve Cape problems then, I assumed that they didn't sort Nilbog out in canon cause only capes could take him and none of them wanted to, but if your missilling people then there are big issues with due process and rights, or is Nilbog an 'enemy combatant' to relate my points back to your 9/11 analogy
thor8797
Canadian Sterotype
In order. (hopefully I don't screw this up)
National Guard not the actual army, the president at the time was quite insistent on that point.
Nilbog was a special case considering he very obviously killed the entire population of a town, the government didn't have much trouble justifying the amount of force they used at the time. Compare to this Au's version of Kaiser who has a large amount of political pull as well as not blatantly committing high profile crimes in person. For this AU the rule for the most successful supervillains is to not bother going out and doing crime in person, that's what your minions are for.
I never really got the sense of cape invincibility that was presented in canon, I feel that only should have lasted as long as it took people to figure out that 80-90% of capes still die when shot like regular people. Yes Nilbog was considered to have no lawful protection thanks to his actions, think canon kill orders for when someone steps so far over the line that the authorities can justify nearly any level of response to them.
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Why did they not just nuke Ellisburg back to the Hadean Eon?
thor8797
Canadian Sterotype
Both in canon and here it was because the PRT/Protectorate believed/had their thinkers tell them that Nilbog specifically planned for that by making his creations thrive in super high heat environments. How does that work? SHARD MAGIC.
EDIT: What Nilbog didn't plan for was a more conventional assault because of his faith in his creation's superiority over the average trooper, which he was completly right about; 1 for 1 his troops were superior to the average human in combat, unfortunately he forgot that the modern trooper doesn't exist in a vacuum. Modern troopers have air support, artillery, armour, cape support, heavy weapons, etc.
EDIT 2: That and deploying nuclear weapons in anger on US soil would be a BIG DEAL regardless of context.
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Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
the problem with Ellisburg in canon is that the PRT never got the cape support they had been promised turning the slog but winnable fight into a slaughter
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
I'm pretty sure a tinker could whip up a 'cold nuke'.
A weapon that lowers temperature to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero would be devastating.I'm pretty sure a tinker could whip up a 'cold nuke'.
- Location
- powell tn
And it would more than likely crack open the crust causeing a volcano and whip up one heck of a storm. I am talking about the kind that floods the area with at least 3 feet of water.
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
And believe me, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES do you want to dump ice-cold water on top of boiling rock!
- Location
- powell tn
Best case: Large explosion that takes out around a small county. Worse case: A state goes bye bye.
It is bad no matter how you look at it. In a case like that it would be best just to carpet bomb the area with mundane bombs. Air fuel bombs would also be okay to use but tinker bombs would be a very bad idea because of the unpredictability. Yeah it would take alot of bombs but it would be safer all around.
- Location
- powell tn
Um more that likely a stupid question but what would happen if they replaced her current face with one that could move because it was made of multiple pieces instead of just one? There would have to be alot of metal framing behind the pieces but I think it could work. Basically I was thinking like some of the animatronics(sp?) out there.
Possibly nothing due to her having only that ceramic body and only a steel frame for a body, no muscle to move said multi piece face.
- Location
- powell tn
None of the rest of her body has any muscle either. Are you aware of what a sliding rivet is? The theory I am working with here is that as long as there is some sort of joint the parts that are meant to move on her body will. I will admit i am not the best at explaining it but think of two plates connected by a rod in the middle. It isn't attached to the plates it simply keeps them together and allows them to turn independent of each other. Something like that and a sliding rivet would allow for some limited movement in her face if done right. Heck just allowing her mouth to open and close and her eyebrows to rotate would do wonders for making her seem more human to people.