Exploding Canon (Worm SI)

[Ghoul King]

1.1

… mrrgghle.

Ow.

Why do I feel like what I imagine a hangover would feel like? Why does everything feel like headache? Even my fingers feel like headache. That doesn't even make sense.

Uuuugh.

I'm... in a workshop or something I guess? There's machinery parts and stuff. It's... a weirdly eclectic collection. Why is there a disassembled toaster on a table next to a -actually, what is that? God. I dunno.

"Bakuda."

Gah! Right behind me! I hate that shit!

"Lung has been captured by the Protectorate."

Um.

"We need a plan."

I turn slowly. Very slowly. Everything hurts, and also I'm kind of not liking anything about this. I try to say something. It doesn't come out at all the way I want, sounding more like someone clearing their throat than words.

Really? That carries to here?

Wait, I'm feeling like shit, maybe that's not it.

Regardless, I'm now facing a man wearing a mask like what a samurai might wear, covered in knives. And grenades. And... little bags? Huh. He's standing with very neutral body language, arms just sort of... hanging at his side. They're not in pockets, or held behind him, or crossed in front of him, or anything. I get the distinct impression of someone who has forgotten about his own arms. Or something. Everything about his body language is like that. He's not acting impatient, or frustrated, or anything I'd expect given that I'm standing there not answering him.

… that part of canon is fucking retarded though! Goddammit.

Wait, no, don't jump to conclusions. Um.

"Do-" Goddammit. I clear my throat. "Ideas?"

Presumably-Oni-Lee stands there, unreacting. He doesn't even tell me "no". Or slump. Or anything.

Well. If... this is Oni Lee... and he's got that stupid plot point being true... well. He's... probably not going to kill me in my sleep if he thinks I'm acting oddly or knife me if I do something "too heroic" or whatever.

Things could be worse.

Fuck, have I -Bakuda- whatever. Has recruitment by headbomb happened yet? My eyes wander over the workshop for a moment, forgetting about Oni Lee's impassive presence.

Suddenly I'm flooded with ideas. The toaster's heating coils can be combined with some carefully molded aluminum wrapped in a tungsten- it's a bomb. A fear bomb. Uh. Wait, how does that-

lava bomb, holographic mine, time stop bomb, melting bomb, trap-and-time-accelerate bomb (Khonsu bomb), power mimicking bomb, bomb that leaves a temporary force field, napalm bomb, melding bomb, ice bomb, black hole bomb

-gah! This... oh. Huh. No, none of these are actually designed for surgical insertion. Half of them would short-circuit without a frame to protect them from squishy meats, others would detonate from the body heat, one of them would... well, it would work, but it wouldn't produce a black hole, it would sort of... ew. Never mind.

Okay. Bakuda... me... whoever wasn't in the middle of designing bombs to put into people. That's... that's good.

… didn't Bakuda only start doing that as part of rescuing and avenging Lung? That... yeah, Oni Lee just told me Lung was captured. Right.

… well. So. Before... yeah, definitely before the fight with Uber and Leet and -actually, wouldn't this be before Taylor joins the Undersiders?

… now if only... actually, I can probably Google Winslow and look for a student called Taylor Hebert.

Huh.

Huh.

Problem: I'm... I guess currently in charge of the Azn Bad Boys. Or was it Boyz? No, no I don't think they were that orky. Not conducive to allying with Taylor. Or the Undersiders in general. Even aside from being a villain, you know, racism.

Oh. Great. Now I'm a racist. I mean, I don't think Bakuda was actually racist, as far as canon went, not really, just convinced of her own superiority and working for a racist organization... but then, if she was against racism I doubt whatever happened to recruit her would've worked. It's not like Lung personally showed up and gave a "join or die" deal.

I absent-mindedly remember Oni Lee is still here. Staring blankly at me.

… I'm not sure he's blinked once.

Creepy.

Um. "Ass-" goddammit. Clear throat again. "Assets?"

Oni Lee rattles off a list of the guns, money, number of members (Wow, that many?), businesses paying protection money, families paying protection money that are probably amenable to currying favor with us... and also includes himself and me in the list. (Dammit, no other parahumans. Wildbow, why couldn't you ever define more ABB capes?) Oh, and we have a PRT mole.

Wait, we have a PRT mole?! Is that canon? I don't remember that from canon. Fuck, I hope this is just a gray zone "not explicitly covered by canon" thing and not a "I'm going to discover Eden isn't dead because ha ha not canon" thing. They... uh. We? Did? Do hit the PRT truck carrying Lung in canon, so we've got to have a source of information so. Huh. Okay, that makes sense.

God. Uh. Christ. Do I even want to rescue Lung?

Actually, no, first question.

"Oni Lee-" wait fuck do we use cape names or not well he's in costume uh fuck it "-if I suggested not rescuing Lung, what would you say to that?"

No response. Huh. I didn't think it wou-

and then he disintegrates and there's a knife at my throat behind me and Oni Lee is muttering something threatening-sounding and probably Japanese.

"Uh. I, uh, didn't catch that." Oni Lee says, loudly and slowly "No. We free Lung or die trying."

Oh. Well then.

I need to get a remote-detonatable bomb on him. ASAP.

 

[Ghoul King]

1.2

Thankfully, Oni Lee is just making a point, and after I affirm my commitment to Lung rather than the ABB as an organization (You know, the organization I'd be in charge of if we don't rescue Lung, fancy that), he backs off without actually slitting my throat or anything.

We brainstorm for a bit. Or I do, anyway, with Oni Lee providing information to plan with.

The gist of what we settle on is that our mole will work out when Lung is going to be taken to the Birdcage, the route the truck will take, etc, and in the meantime I'm going to make a lot of bombs. Oni Lee will use some of these bombs to make a distraction by attacking the Protectorate HQ ("The PRT HQ." he corrects. "No, I mean the rig. Your teleportation is line of sight, and attacking the capes in their unassailable fortress will be much more alarming than hitting the PRT HQ.") while a bunch of our goons loyal soldiers are going to be led by me in attacking the truck/freeing Lung, carrying even more of the bombs.

My actual plan is I'm going to set up all of the bombs I make for Lee as remote-detonatable, kill him, and move from there. I do wish I could get him to put them on without having to go through with the attack, but Oni Lee is passive, not stupid, and his loyalty to Lung clearly gives him some basis for making decisions, even if they're centered around getting Lung back into command. He's not going to let me casually assassinate him.

Still. I can probably make a good case for having been recruited by the ABB at gunpoint and... wait. Bakuda is the... Cornell? Or something? She blew up or threatened to blow up her university, I forget which. Fuck. Not a good basis for convincing people I'm not really a villain.

Not that I really want to be a hero in the Wormverse, given how the whole Protectorate/PRT system is so blatantly corrupt a depressing number of villains are more moral and just than the heroes, even while being murderers, but I'd rather be a rogue than a villain if I can avoid it. Either that or get in the ground floor on Plan: Warlord Skitter, which... hmm. Worth thinking about.

This is really all in the back of my head as I'm working on one bomb after another. I make sure to set Oni Lee's set of bombs off in a separate spot, and I replace one of my earrings with a tinkertech transmitter. Doesn't do anything unless it comes out of my ear, at which point it sends the signal and all the bombs asplode. It has to do with reading my pulse, electrical conduction of the skin, salt content of my sweat, and a half dozen other things to make sure it's attached to my ear, and that said ear is alive and attached to my head.

Because frankly, fuck Oni Lee if he decides to backstab me anyway out of paranoia or something.

To my immense irritation when I try to imagine how I could do the obvious thing and convert that little transmitter/sensor bead thing into a medical instrument, I get nothing. When I try to imagine giving it a screen providing that information for human use... nothing. I can imagine setting it up so it's connected to a syringe and will automatically trigger the syringe under Y conditions, so that's something, since that could be de-Tinkerteched into any number of emergency medical devices, such as auto-injecting an epi pen, but mostly the power -my power?- is unhelpful unless it can be used as a trap, which hey, lethal injections when triggering a condition qualify.

Not a bomb, interestingly, even though it has no problems translating into bombs, but a trap. I'm pretty sure. I have an easy time imagining tinkertech trap doors and the like, stuff like dumping people into space via portal. Gun? No-go. Has me wondering if the canon bazooka was just an ordinary bazooka the ABB had, because I can't get my power to give me bazooka ideas. Claymores, sure, which are kind of like bazookas, I guess, but not anything I can carry around and fire bombs out of. Even making grenades is more a simple adaptation of making tripwire bombs than something my power wants to actually give me.

I also try to pay attention to if Tinkertech is magical bullshit sustained by the shard or just really advanced technology I'm somehow skipping the industrial base necessary for. I stop that when it occurs to me that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between "It's ordinary steel, except my power is altering it on an ongoing basis" and "Steel I Tinker with is transmogrified into superscience metal that is normally physically possible but not by taking a blowtorch to a toaster". Not without the help of a power-blocking Trump, and frankly if it was that simple to figure out the Wormverse would probably have figured it out way before me.

For that matter, most of the things I create could literally be "a plastic ball my shard has marked as something Bakuda intends to explode into ice" and it obligingly does so through manual shard means, nothing reverse-engineerable about it without accessing the shard somehow.

So yeah.

Mostly I focus on making bombs. For one thing, I need to sell Oni Lee on my insincere sincerity. For another... well. I like working on things. I've focused more on the internal logic of video games and fiction, but really I've always loved physics and I like making things, even if I don't usually think of myself as an artist. Even looking at my finished explosives I don't feel any sense of beauty or whatever it is artsy people think makes art so wonderful, but I do like the sense of sitting down for a few hours and at the end of it having something I can point to and say "I did that".

I suspect shard influence too, mind, because I lose track of time, fail to feed myself, don't sleep, don't shower, don't even think to look at myself in the mirror or anything until Oni Lee shows up again while I'm working on a particularly delicate piece goddammit and informs me that it's been 36 hours and if I let myself die before we rescue Lung he'll kill me.

That's not him being funny. I'm not sure he knows what humor is. I think he intends it more like "When I die I'll find you in the afterlife and kill you".

Doesn't stop me from giggling hysterically, but then everything is hysterical when you're in that kind of condition.

I think I know why I felt like shit when I first woke up, anyway, and it's not because Bakuda was secretly a lush. I -she- fuckit, whatever, we were probably already marathoning making bombs when Oni Lee showed up to deliver the news/I woke up as Bakuda.

So basically I haven't slept in who-knows-how-long, or eaten, and barely had anything to drink. Only gone to the bathroom one time I can recall, and even then I forgot to pull my pants up (Yes Bakuda is a pants girl, apparently) because I had a brilliant idea for a bomb that would knock out the, the, shit I dunno, the part of the brain that actually gives a fuck about winning. I only didn't brain myself because I hit the ground palm-first, instead of assaulting the ground with my head. They still sting.

It takes an astounding amount of willpower to not snap at Oni Lee over interrupting this piece, and I actually sort of... wobble... in place for a few seconds, part of me saying finish the bomb! while another part of me is saying and then you'll start on the next bomb instead of taking care of yourself. What breaks the stalemate is the realization that I really have no idea what I look like beyond female and Asian. Presumably.

It turns out this workshop has a kitchen. I sort of absently remember that, oh yeah, I did come back here and rip out parts from the refrigerator, didn't I? There's instant pizza in the freezer, still cold enough in spite of the fridge being dead that I decide to chance it and stuff three of them into the oven -I didn't take that apart, thankfully- while I pour myself some juice and head to the shower the building also has. Kind of has me wondering what this was before it was my workshop, because it's not an apartment/house. Looks more like a warehouse, with bare concrete, a vaulting ceiling, etc.

After hydrating myself, taking a shower, realizing I didn't find a new outfit first, and wandering around in a towel -which I have never done in my life before and it takes me a minute to remember I should probably get chest coverage too- before I find the horribly neglected sleeping/clothing/etc space. The bed looks like hotel staff just got to it. Unless Oni Lee has some kind of standing compulsion to clean things -which doesn't mesh with anything else in this place- I'm suspecting Bakuda never slept in it at all. I'm vaguely annoyed to find that Bakuda, though she preferred pants, otherwise trended toward blouses. Girly blouses. For that matter the pants are... well, her overall outfit approach puts me in mind of "Hollywood ladysuit" rather than anything really practical. I hate seeing that, I don't want to wear it.

To be fair, what I want to wear is t-shirts and shorts, but I'm not sure I can get away with that, unless Bakuda is really plain or ugly or otherwise going to be ignored in her civilian identity.

Or I could never use a civilian identity, I guess. I think too many Worm characters ignore the possibility entirely for no clear reason. And fanfics, too. Hell, fanfics tend to annoy me more with that.

Whatever. I compromise and dress all in black, ignoring the pink blouses. I like pink, don't get me wrong, but I like practical designs that happen to be pink. And to be fair I do shit like buy a pink DS because I'm a masculine male who happens to enjoy fucking with people's heads: you wanna tell me I can't have a pink DS? Hahahaha fuck you, real men can do what they want. If I'm a girl it's just... not fucking with people's heads to wear pink.

I grudgingly go with a black, lacy bra. Uuuugh. Why Bakuda, why. I better not find out she/I slept her way to getting good grades. Please, please just be a stereotypical Asian girl pushed to be simultaneously an amazing student and a girly girl beyond reproach, and somehow have decided lacy underthings fit to that. The bra is a pain, seeing as how the only capacity in which I've ever touched a bra before was for doing laundry, and the clasp is on the back and I don't have experience doing up clasps I can't see and ugh.

I don't put on panties. I don't have any clue what underwear is for. Or underpants if you want to be specific/technical. Bras are for supporting breasts in a practical way, so unless I want to be in pain and/or cut the things off -which, hey, also would hurt- they need support. Underpants are just inexplicable.

I just wish Bakuda had even one bra that wasn't "if you can see my cleavage I'm providing a pleasant framing to the view too". Oi.

Then the smell of "pizza that will be burning in the next sixty seconds if you don't get it out right now" prevents me from going to look at myself in a mirror.

Turns out I'm not only hungry enough to finish all three pizzas in one sitting but that I'm hungry enough I seriously consider starting more. Ultimately I decide to just start another, since I killed the fridge they'll be going bad soon anyway so it's not particularly more wasteful if I end up throwing half of it out or something. Maybe I can give Oni Lee half of it or something. Assuming his shard hasn't completely destroyed his normal social models, sharing food will make him more inclined to trust me. Also will make me more likely to be open with him, but based on experience I'm more likely to share horrifying/cool scientific facts like duck sex being so rape-based that female ducks are in an arms race with male ducks, rather than providing personal information, so really it just reduces my odds of being killed by Oni Lee and/or increases my odds of convincing him to pretty please put on a dozen awesome bombs I made, they're not intended to kill you honest wink wink nudge nudge.

While the pizza is cooking I finally go and take a look at myself.

I'm kind of disappointed at Bakuda's taste. Not only am I personally not a fan of this stuff, but the black outfit I'm wearing that she presumably selected doesn't even look all that good on her by any metric I care to name except maybe "Not completely hideous". Also? It's uncomfortable. Of course it's uncomfortable. Can't have personal comfort getting in the way of... fashion or something, who knows what was going through her head. Okay, probably not fashion in her case, but she clearly put personal comfort as a depressingly low priority, whatever it was that specifically was placed above it.

Then I remember I was actually wanting to see what Bakuda looks like, you know, personally, and look at my new face and stuff like that. This is less productive than it might be for another person. I'm probably face-blind, or partially face-blind, no official diagnosis but it's likely, and that also seems to have carried forward because I just have difficulty interpreting my own face as anything other than "female, Asian, maybe specifically Korean?". Are my lips large? Hell if I know. I have to stop and think to check my eye color, and frankly since it's not... pink or something... I don't find myself particularly caring about what it is. (Blue, for reference. I will forget this in sixty seconds) What was my eye color before? I want to say brown, but I never cared then either, it's been years since I paid enough attention to actually know. Am I pretty? Hell if I know, I've never felt that Hollywood "babes" were all that different from the average woman on the street, I clearly don't have the requisite brain-whatever to make judgment calls on that topic.

Main thing is I'm finally reminded specifically of my hair. It's been there annoying me the whole time, but somehow it never quite registered as urgent enough to actually do anything about. Now that I'm seeing it, yeah, it's long. I like long hair in theory. I find it enormously obnoxious in practice, and I've never had hair longer than my shoulders before. Too much of a pain to keep clean, for all that it's viscerally satisfying to feel the hair swinging around, separate from my own body input.

Also? I'm now a cape, I'm going to get into fights for sure rather than as a maybe, if for no other reason than because I have an alien sitting in my head screaming get into fights!!! I'm not exactly a conflict avoider at the best of times, I certainly won't be keeping my head down now. So, long hair? A liability.

Trying to find a pair of scissors turns into Tinkering a pair of scissors using parts from... god, I dunno what it was... and ending up with a monomolecular knife, which is honestly a stupid concept but Earth Bet isn't actually operating on physics as we know it so I guess a monomolecular knife is somehow a non-retarded concept here. Or maybe this is just how the shard is explaining some actually sensical science to me, because I don't have enough physics to understand the real explanation. That's a possibility too. Whatever. I cut my hair very carefully with it (As in, go back to the mirror, hold my hair away from my head, cut only where I can see and keep it away from my hand holding the hair), bringing it down to a rough length of almost-shoulder-length. Maybe I'll go to a barber later. Or a hair stylist, I guess? Would going to a barber as a girl somehow have people going why that is strange and interesting and therefore probably that girl is a cape? Ugh.

Then I smell the pizza actually burning. God dammit.

Thankfully, I consider burnt pizza edible, and occasionally even better than merely cooked pizza. Even more thankfully, being Bakuda hasn't made that stop being true. Dunno if that's secretly true of 99% of humanity or if that's some weird translation consistency thing going on here -I wasn't Asian or a girl before this, I'd expect differences but nothing has leapt out so far beyond the obvious- but the pizza works out. Oni Lee does not ask for any, and in fact he left at some point so I can't offer any.

I decide to take a pen and write up a little sign pointing at what's left of the pizza (About a third) saying "For Oni Lee" and set it and the pizza up somewhere out of the way. Why not, I'm not hungry anymore.

Then I go to try to sleep in the bed, which smells of nothing beyond detergent. I fucking hate detergent. Also, that basically confirms that this bed has never been used before.

Eventually I grab the least detergent-y blanket, drag it off the bed to the ground nearby, concrete or no, and curl up in that on the floor and sleep. Seriously, fuck detergent, it smells horrible, leaves the eyes burning, fuck it, I'd literally rather sleep on the floor.

It doesn't take long for me to drift off.

I dream of nothing, which is pretty normal for me, but kind of surprising in context.

 

[Ghoul King]

1.3

To my immense irritation, I discover that Bakuda was also a heels girl.

I think I sort of get the heels. They're so ridiculously heel-y that they probably add a few inches to her height. I'm not sure whether Bakuda -me, now- is particularly short, but she's Asian and female so the odds are weighted in that direction, and even if she's actually tall unless she's ridiculously tall it's all too easy to imagine she wants ridiculous high heels so she can tower over other people and/or not have them tower over her. I'm mostly annoyed at how everything is heels. No flats? Not a one?

I take some comfort in the fact that they're all a somber jet black, nothing pink or worse, red.

Still, I need to buy something more practical. Even if having Bakuda's body has people disinclined to take me seriously, even if that causes problems down the line, with the ability to produce nonsense like time stop bombs I'm going to be putting the Fear Of Me into people pretty much no matter what I do, so striving to have an appropriate image in other realms isn't a high priority. I'll be able to lean on my reputation down the line, and in the meanwhile I can just blow people up to make a point. It's not like everything I make has to be lethal. I can make a point about being able to kill people without killing people.

In other words, I can dress down and still get respect.

For the moment I stick to going barefoot indoors. The concrete is chillier than I might prefer, but I haven't gotten the hiccups yet so it can't be that bad. Maybe I can get Oni Lee to buy me some shoes. Or get a flunky to do it, though I haven't actually seen any flunkies since I woke up. Worst case scenario I go buy flats in my ridiculous high heels and hope I don't break my neck on the way. I've done worse.

I also finally remember to look for a costume.

I don't have a costume.

I'm not really surprised that Bakuda doesn't have her canon costume, given that wearing it was the condition Uber and Leet set for being hired by her and it's a part of the Bomberman theme. (I presume) No idea where the gas mask fits into that or whether the distorted voice does at all. I don't remember there being a Bomberman character that wears a gas mask, though to be fair I also don't remember any female Bomberman characters because I've never been a huge fan of the series, so whatever. Regardless, I was honestly expecting a costume.

I feel sort of stupid for expecting a costume, because really Bakuda doesn't have a lot of use for one. She's known to be the Cornell Bomber or whatever it was, and even if her name and face aren't widespread public knowledge it's not like it would be hard to look up "female Asian student that failed a class at blah university" and pin her down, so her civilian identity is basically blown. Which is probably why she accepted joining the ABB, now that I think about it. Aaaand it also means I can't just walk down the street and buy some flats in my civilian identity.

I did cut my hair, and it's hilarious how often just having a different haircut kills people's ability to recognize you. The Discovery Channel has some great stuff with real-life incidents of that working. So maybe I can get away with it one time.

Not leaving without armaments, mind, because it would be just stupid to wander around with a known criminal identity and no protection.

Also, I'm possibly a pretty young lady now so maybe I'll have to deal with inappropriate attention of that sort. Hm. Maybe I should build a taser or something. Can I build a taser?

---------------​

The short answer: no, I cannot build a taser. I can build something that induces epileptic convulsions, and I can jury-rig it to almost behave like an aimed weapon -think a claymore, but spraying electricity or something convincingly similar- but I can't figure out how to rig it with multiple shots without making it unacceptably bulky. Also, I think adding extra "shots" might make it radioactive. I hope not.

Also I built another batch of bombs for the "Lung Rescue Plan ie the Blow The Fuck Out Of Oni Lee Plan". Tinkering is hard to realize I should, like, stop, when I'm in the middle of it. At least I didn't start cooking more food and then forget about it. I'm starting to think that's going to be really easy to do. Burning down my... home? Workshop or whatever, burning it down=bad. No. Bad shard. Don't make me do that. It doesn't help you see conflict if I kill myself, or end up laid up with burns and bound for prison.

This time I come out of the tinker fugue on my own. This has the disadvantage that I have zero idea of how many hours have passed, lacking an Oni Lee to conveniently be a clock.

I discover I have a television. I'm surprised more that it hasn't been dismantled than at the fact of its existence. I spend a bit looking for a remote, until I spot the gutted remains on one of the tables. Oh yeah, I did strip its wiring for the shadow bomb. (What else do you call a bomb that basically explodes into Grue's power?) Whoops.

I turn on the television manually, and then scroll through channels until I find a news station. I've never been a news-y person, news channels tend to be boring and/or excessively drama-y, but looking for Earth Bet's version of Cartoon Network, however interesting it might be in its own right (Is depicting Endbringers in cartoons considered in poor taste, or cathartic?), is not going to give me context on what's going on in the world I'm now a part of. Well. Not the parts I care most urgently about, anyway.

I grab a Diet Coke -wait, when did that get here? I don't remember having that. In fact... yes, yes the fridge has been shoved into my workshop and a new fridge installed in its place. I... really hope that happened while I was asleep and not while I was tinkering. Not that I'm thrilled at the idea of sleeping through something like that, I'm used to being alert even while asleep, but being that oblivious while tinkering would be a lot more alarming.

Still, apparently my tinkering is considered important enough that they're working around me, rather than harassing me over doing stupid shit and making me fix it my damn self and/or suffer through my own shard-induced stupidity.

I think I'm getting an idea of why Bakuda had such an inflated opinion of herself in canon, shard shenanigans aside.

I'm wondering... wait... yeah. I do remember somebody annoying me while I was welding a dust bomb shut. Asking me what I wanted in the fridge? I don't specifically recall. I remember the annoyance at being interrupted, the dismissive attitude I had, not so much the specifics of the conversation.

Oh, right, TV.

I pour myself a glass of diet coke, notice my trash has also been disposed of, and dig around for snacks in the cabinets. I find ramen. I have no idea if this is because I actually kind of like ramen, or if it's because ABB. Whatever. Diet Coke and a package of ramen, dry. Why not.

I sit down in front of the TV in a lotus position. Or whatever crossing your legs like that is actually called. Drink, chew, drink, chew, watch TV.

In general tone, it's not really that different from what turned me off from news in the first place. The talking heads are different from the ones I vaguely recall on national news, and of course Brockton Bay has local news anchors I have zero familiarity with. Parahumans don't dominate the news. There is ongoing speculation on what the ABB response is going to be to Lung's capture, they've been surprisingly quiet, yadda yadda, oh, there's a clip of... says it's Velocity. Huh. I was expecting a more Flash-esque look. He puts me more in mind of Superman, or I guess Marvel Man with the lightning-bolt-like imagery, but with realistic musculature instead of comic book muscles, in terms of his body shape and costume design. I guess maybe he works out a lot, because of how his power works? My recollection is that he's basically time-warping rather than super-accelerating and cheating out of friction et al, in terms of experiencing a five-mile run the same as a regular person doing a five-mile run, he'll just finish it before you because he has powers. Not sure on that. He dies in the Leviathan fight and the only action he sees before then on-screen is at the "embarrass the Protectorate" fight, so he's not really properly explored.

Surprised it's not Armsmaster, given it's Official Protectorate Commentary on the ABB thing. It's pretty generic stuff. Blah blah blah the Protectorate stands ready, constant vigilance (Is Harry Potter not a thing in Earth Bet?), villains always lose in the end, let this be a lesson to those who would use their powers for selfish ends. I idly wonder if they have tinkertech dedicated to making heroes look ~inspiring~ on television, because in spite of being ostensibly a spontaneous semi-interview of catching Velocity on his way to the PRT HQ he's conveniently got a flag waving in the background. I can practically hear the "fuck yeah America" music swelling in time with his words.

Things get a bit more interesting when the talking heads move on to talking about rumors of the ABB recruiting the Cornell Bomber. Hey, I remembered it right. Specifically? They have a high school photo album picture, all smiles and ~girly charm~ and... braces. Huh. And the civilian name. Alicia? Was that really her name? I don't remember that being her name in canon, and I could've sworn it came up, given that Tattletale's MO is using people's private life to fuck with them. Then again, I'm terrible at remembering the civilian names of most capes, bar a few the fandom has used so extensively it's burned into my brain like Armsmaster=Colin and Miss Militia=Hannah. Maybe I just forgot.

No cape name. Apparently I haven't been announced as Bakuda yet.

There's an interview with her/my parents. Dad is stolid (And less Asian-looking than I'd expected), looking like he's ready to cry but refusing to give in, confesses he wasn't as close to his daughter as he'd have preferred, takes the blame for not guiding her down her life properly in a sorrowful tone of voice. Mom is, on the face of things, more sorry, making earnest noises about missing her daughter and pleading for her to turn herself in, but the things she doesn't say stand out to me: in particular, the fact that dad was apparently your standard workaholic father strongly implies it was mom who provided most of the influence over Bakuda's development, and she doesn't do anything to blame herself like the father is doing.

I have the distinct impression mom was doing the pushing for excellence in all things, including, apparently, being feminine.

Huh.

Well, at least I don't have to worry overly much about not trying to reconnect with Bakuda's family. The dad's not so bad, but there's probably not an actual relationship there. The mom seems toxic. There's no siblings, the talking heads are explicit about that, and extended family doesn't seem to factor in. I suppose that's a plus side to not showing up as Taylor. Managing a relationship with Danny would've been annoying. I'm conveniently free of filial obligation as Bakuda, not so much if I'd been Taylor.

For that matter, aside from being attached to the ABB I also don't seem to have to care about friends wanting me to reciprocate a relationship they formed with someone not-me. I can fix being attached to the ABB. Distractedly, it occurs to me I should maybe engineer the bombs intended for flunky use to be manually detonatable. Or... hm. If I do that I'm going to be that girl who blew up her university, joined a gang, and then blew up the gang. Not the best tack for trying to convince people that I'm totes not evil, honest.

Wait shit, I never got back to the Taylor thing. I mean, I don't have any plan whatsoever, but I haven't even been thinking about it.

A bit of digging around finds a laptop with some kind of wireless internet connection, sitting in a forgotten corner of the bedroom area. I load up PHO, navigate to the Brockton Bay>Connections sub-forum, and use the threadsearch function to find threads in the subforum containing "tt". There's a few false positives, but, unfortunately, there's the canon message to "bug"... dated something like five days ago. So basically I've missed out on any possibility of completely derailing that plot point. Not sure whether I want to, but it's not even an option.

Uuugh, fucking tinker fugues.

All right, I suppose I could still try to contact Taylor and try to go somewhere with that, but, you know, I'm ABB. Connecting with her Skitter persona and pretending I think she's Asian isn't exactly practicable, given she's basically only going to be Skitter around the Undersiders, and finding her in her civilian identity is all kinds of threatening. With Bakuda's civilian identity a known quantity, I can't just happen to bump into her on her runs and develop a friendship. Ugh, so many options closed off. Not necessarily good options, but being Bakuda is limiting.

Actually, you know what? I have an idea for something I can do for Taylor, with minimal problems.

--------------------​

The idea starts with a bang. Specifically, blowing up Winslow High at night to avoid casualties, using one of my exotic bombs. I went with a bomb that removes the electrical charge of atoms in its "blast" radius. In layman's terms: it makes everything vanish completely harmlessly. Or I guess you could consider it a disintegration effect, but people tend to think of painfully turning into dust or something when they hear "disintegration". Nope, just cease to exist.

I sold Oni Lee on the idea of vaporizing Winslow by presenting three points: it frees up our Winslow-attending members for the rescue mission (And doing it at night avoids killing them or cluing people in by virtue of ABB members all not attending on the same day), we'll point to it as an example of the kind of thing that's going to keep happening if the Protectorate doesn't release Lung, only with real casualties, and it puts the Protectorate on edge, softening them up by getting them tense, tired, etc.

I seriously considered trying to remote-detonate the bomb to vaporize Oni Lee. Unfortunately, I find it a little too easy to imagine something like: watch Oni Lee (Having somehow convinced him to let me come along and watch, which is not a guaranteed thing), see him cloneport into the school, detonate the bomb the instant his prior body turns to ash, and whoops he's already cloneported back out to near me and now I'm scattered neutrons. Given how I want the bomb's blast radius able to remove 99-100% of Winslow from existence, that's a really plausible scenario. Also I'm not 100% certain Oni Lee will do it personally anyway, and asking questions is probably dangerous. Accidentally killing a flunky is A: not my goal and B: risking letting Oni Lee know I am trying to kill him. I explained to him why it would be awesome if he did it, because he can cloneport and have the body left behind detonate and voila we still have the bomb, and tinkertech stuff has more of a constricted production pipeline than just buying more grenades, but that doesn't mean he'll do it.

The real goal is, of course, to give Taylor a completely legitimate excuse to not deal with Winslow High for the foreseeable future. It'd be nice if I could somehow leverage this to get some trust from her, but eh, whatever. Mostly? Winslow High is a hellhole and making it cease to exist cannot possibly be anything but an improvement.

There's probably also a tiny bit of catharsis to it, admittedly. I never went to high school, but my brief period of time in middle school was hell and I fantasized about vaporizing the school and everyone in it with Siege Tanks. Revenge is a dish best served in a completely different reality by converting an unrelated building to neutrally charged particles. Also, the innocent grass and dirt and earthworms and so on in the area, but eh. Catharsis!

Since the radius is, of course, a sphere (Well, not quite a sphere, it's a little flattened by gravity), it'll even leave a nicely intimidating crater.

I don't remember exactly what the timeline looks like in canon, but I'm pretty sure the Undersiders haven't hit the bank and... hm. If they haven't, I really ought to do something to make the Dinah thing not happen. Squeamish moral considerations aside, canon events pretty strongly indicate Coil is one of those people who should be killed on principle and denied resources on principle.

Also, maybe I should figure out if I can somehow explode Noelle into being fixed and/or return the Travelers to Earth Aleph. Via explosions. I'm pretty sure I can achieve the latter somehow, a lot of my bombs involve portal shenanigans of some kind, but I'm iffier on the first point. Wormverse doesn't really do "life energy" or whatever, for all that "healing effects" like Othala's exist, so I have doubts I can engineer some kind of cure bomb, especially since Noelle's issues aren't necessarily anything that would qualify as an injury/infection/whatever. For all I know a "cure bomb" would just accelerate her transformation.

Also, Simurgh, if you're listening to this, please don't fuck it up, I already know you manipulate events to fuck over Scion for whatever reason you have, I'm already going to try to do that, I don't need you fucking this up and frankly if you want Cauldron outed for some reason I can probably pull it off, Contessa or no. So please? Don't fuck over the Travelers like in canon, or I guess don't fuck over my attempts to un-fuck them. Please and thank you.

Naturally, I have another tinker fugue, making a series of bombs that do... eeeh. Sort-of-nice things. Like one of them, I was intending it to cauterize wounds, but really it's just a small, tightly controlled burst of intense heat from a pill-sized bomb, so you could totally use it to kill people, or destroy their eyes, or whatever. Another bursts into an anti-bacterial agent. It, uh, has acceptable impact on human flesh, but it does lead to explosive diarrhea and/or vomiting if you're caught in the radius. I do kind of wonder if maybe it could be useful for curing people with serious, long-term infections that are slowly killing them (eg MRSA), but it's not exactly a good way to address the common cold.

When I come out of it, I'm vaguely grateful I don't have to deal with facial hair. It's been... going by prior fugues it's probably been a week-ish since I "arrived". I hate shaving my face, so that's nice. Really, I have less hair in general now. Plus it's not razor wire hair. If I shave my legs or something it's not going to be half as torturous as it once was. Awesome.

Unfortunately, this means I've missed Plan: Vaporize Winslow entirely, probably.

Damn.

 

[Ghoul King]

1.4

I take a brief shower, change into a new set of less-ridiculously-feminine clothes (I notice that my prior laundry has all been handled at some point: still undecided if this is creepy or convenient), start more pizza, pour myself another drink (orange juice this time) and start up the TV with the remote I find sitting conveniently on top of the TV. Seriously, if this is how Bakuda got treated in canon, I'm amazed her ego wasn't eclipsing the sun.

I bounce between three news channels, spend fifteen minutes watching Nickolodeon (Huh, I was expecting an equivalent, not the same network) when the news is boring me with jabber about E88 activity for too long, and finally one of the news channels apparently returns to the topic of the "disappearance" of Winslow High. There's ABB gang tags all around where it used to exist, and a nearby building was spray-painted with a giant message: "Release Lung or else". (Two lines, 'Release Lung' as the top line, 'or else' as the bottom line) Whoever made this was surprisingly artistic, managing to insinuate serpentine dragons going through letters or being part of letters, and there's a "frame" made of an Eastern dragon that's biting its own tail. Wow. An ouroroboros reference too? Kid's too sophisticated for the ABB, damn.

Huh. I didn't really talk with Oni Lee about how we were going to make this announcement. I'd been thinking more like Oni Lee filming himself and sending tapes to news stations, or crashing a mayoral thing and announcing it, or something of the sort, but I never actually got around to details. This is... actually a lot cooler than anything I was thinking.

Also, going by the talking heads' jabber, it's pretty fucking scary. Nobody has explicitly connected this to the Cornell Bomber. They're actually speculating that the ABB might have a new, very scary cape. Interesting.

Then I have an almost-spit-take moment when one of the talking heads refers to this being on the heels of the Undersider's bank robbery.

Shit! Shit! I've already missed my opportunity to botch Coil's kidnapping! Shit!

I grab the laptop, unplug it and drag it over to in front of the TV, and go digging.

Yeah, the Undersiders hit the bank two days ago. Goddammit. Yes, Dinah Alcott has just been announced as being a missing person. Fuck. Coil with access to Dinah is one of the worst things to happen in the setting. He's hard enough to kill with just his power, since the most likely result of an attack on him is "whoops that didn't happen", but with Dinah to forewarn him, I just... fuck.

Wait, wait, there's still a chance. It's not like Dinah was... compliant... the instant she was kidnapped. Coil drugged her and basically trained her, in a roundabout precog-based way, and canon is quite explicit that there was a transition period before he was confident in his grip on her. I don't remember exactly when the party-crashing thing happened -a month after hitting the bank?- but it was more than two weeks minimum (Taylor recuperated from her concussion for two weeks, I'm pretty sure) and Coil bringing out Dinah to reassure/convince/manipulate the Undersiders was still premature.

And I have an advantage. I know that Coil is one PRT agent named Thomas Calvert. I'm already at war with the PRT! I can "take hostage" Thomas Calvert, whoops accidentally kill him (Or execute him and claim it's because they're being too slow in releasing Lung, whatever), and then Coil is fucking dead. I'm reasonably sure that he does fake Coils but not fake Calverts, in canon. He probably can't get away with fake Calverts, given PRT Master/Stranger Protocols et al.

I can figure out dealing with Dinah/the Travelers/the rest of Coil's organization in the aftermath. Maybe Tattletale will just take it over or something, I dunno. I don't really care. Coil+Dinah as his villainous canon self is worse than the goddamn Simurgh in some ways -and if you're listening, you know I mean it, I don't really care if you disagree or have enough of an ego to be offended or whatever, that pair is more horrifying- and I refuse to let it come about. Frankly, the way canon played out re: Coil's death has always reeked of author fiat to me anyway. I'm not comfortable assuming author fiat-y events are still going to play out in a living breathing version of the Wormverse.

I go digging around, find a cell phone sitting... in the freezer? Weird. Poking around, yeah, there's a contacts list, and it's more than 10 entries long. Most of it is unclear names like "logistics", "finance", or "Personnel", two of them are in Mandarin or Kanji or whatever the fuck, but one of them is a simple "Oni Lee". Huh. Awesome. I phone him up.

"What is it, Bakuda." His voice is so flat. I have no idea if he's annoyed with me and not showing it because Oni Lee or if he's annoyed with me and showing it by Oni Lee-ing at me or what. Christ, I'm used to being good at reading people's voices. Anyway: "I have an idea for the next step. Can you meet me so we can discuss it securely?" There's a pause, and then a click.

Huh. If this was basically anyone else, I'd be pretty sure that was a fuck y-

"What do you have in mind?" right fucking behind me holy fucking shit. I don't actually shriek, because honestly I've never been someone to react to being startled by making noise, I react by clamping down on noise, but I do jolt, spin around, trip on the laptop, and only don't crash to the ground because suddenly Oni Lee is behind me, catching me while the first Oni Lee stares impassively and then disintegrates a moment after I'm stable.

Christ.

I take a moment to get over the adrenaline spike. Well. To feel less like my heart is about to explode, anyway. Oni Lee waits it out in silence, and evinces no reaction when I push away to stand on my own two feet. Just stares at me in silence. I clear my throat, try to talk, swallow a couple of times because my mouth is too dry, try to talk again, clear my throat again, and finally manage to say "We're going to kidnap a PRT agent. Maybe ransom him for Lung, but I don't think they'll go for that, so we'll probably end up executing him, get across our point. I have someone in specific in mind, a man by the name of Thomas Calvert. He's important, and local, but not so important that he has the kind of security Director Piggot has, so he'll be reasonably accessible while still mattering to them. Can you handle this yourself, or do you need specific gear?"

He's silent for a moment. Then he makes a sharp, short little bow, stiff-and-straight-armed and very Japanese-looking (Is he even Japanese??), says "It shall be done." and promptly collapses into carbon ash. (What the hell is carbon ash, anyway?)

I stare at the pile of carbon ash for a moment.

Did... did Oni Lee time that deliberately?

Huh. For a guy with no personality, he has flair.

You know, I keep forgetting to ask Oni Lee what our PRT mole has passed on to us. I make a note to remind myself to ask later -an actual note, a sticky note, which I stick to the fridge, the working one- and then I remember, oh yeah, I want flats, and write that down too, and then I remember I want a costume for armor reaso-

what's that smell

shit I forgot about the pizza!

--------------​

Yeah, that's so burned even I won't eat it.

I toss it into the trash, start a new pizza, and distract myself with the internet and TV. I will not tinker. I will not tinker. Burning the building down=bad.

I suddenly realize I'm drowsy. When's the last time I slept?... shit, I've gone through two tinker fugues without sleeping. Goddammit. I... need to stay awake long enough for the pizza to finish and to eat it, and then I need to sleep.

I decide to avoid the news and just pass the time with cartoons.

…

…

Why does Earth Bet have a Reboot series running in 2013?!?

I dig around online and why the fuck, I, what, this is the eighth iteration of a Reboot series! They've done two traditional animations, five CGI series, a live action series (Which admittedly apparently lasted one season and died unceremoniously) and the original series has had a live-action movie that... sounds really awesome.

WHY?

I -what- oh. The pizza. It's ready, it smells delicious.

I mechanically retrieve the pizza, grab a Diet Coke and a glass, and eat while watching the Reboot cartoon.

… is that Zabuza's voice actor playing Bob? Dammit, I have no recollection of what the actor's name is, I have no idea how I could look this up. This is going to be bugging me forever.

Decent episode, actually.

I dump off the glass in the sink, yawn, and make my way back to the bedroom and -they've done the sheets. And blankets.

Huh. My hotel service comparison was more spot-on than I thought.

Whatever. I grab a blanket, sniff it -yeah, still smells of detergent- and lay down in a corner and prepare to drift off, bundled up in it. I'm out basically instantly.

 

[Ghoul King]

Responses in spoiler to minimize distracting from the story while avoiding double-posting.

Spoiler

Usualy I just go with "prepare for the worst" type of plans. In this case I just assume that in the moment of any attack Coil will have a "safe" timeline running, and then build a plan based on that.

Click to shrink...

Sure, but luck can run the other way. Coil may be unusually susceptible for some unexpected reason -for instance, we know in canon he apparently splits the timeline to do something to Mr. Pitter, and in both timelines he remains in the same room. Even aside from the fact that he has to collapse timelines periodically, he's not always maximizing the difference between the two timelines -that's his default approach, but he doesn't actually hold himself to it 100% of the time.

Playing against Calvert is such a bich mostly because you have no way to know what your counterpart already tried on him, what information does he posess.

Click to shrink...

100% agree with this sentiment.

Kidnapping your SI attemting in my head plays out like this:
- Before going out as Tomas Calvert Coil split timelines.
- Calvert gets kidnapped by Oni Lee.
- Coil lock himself in whatewer safehole he have. In other timeline Calvert is negotiating with kidnappers, gathering info.
- Even if negotiation ends with conditions Coil realy pleased about, he drops that timeline.
- Coil uses savescumming to get what he want, but on his terms. Oni Lee still waiting for the opportunity to kidnap Calvert. SI have no idea that Coil already alerted.

Click to shrink...

I'll point out that gathering info via "negotiation" requires that his kidnappers are bothering to talk to him. He can, of course, still gather some information just by paying attention -"My kidnappers are ABB, going by the tattoos" for instance- but talking requires... talking.

Anyway, as I sad earlier, your SI looks like a smart person, and your posts shows that you are realy thinking about the plot, and not just write one of thouse "I am SI, and I know no fail" stories... So please don't think that I'm going for "backseat writing" (is this even a thing?) or something.

Click to shrink...

Thanks!

I'm not concerned about you "backseat writing". (And yes that is a thing even if I've never seen anyone call it such per se) I get that you have your view, I'm just pointing out what looks like flaws in the reasoning to me, partially because that's a thing I do and partially because it's relevant to thinking about the story.

About fanon, and how it treats certan characters... Fanon is a thing, and with Worm it reached a point where most of the readers can't tell it apart from canon. It is a thing, and this will remain a thing no matter what we will do. I have long ago decided to just go with a flow and enjoy the ride.

Click to shrink...

Well, my point in describing it as "a kind of fanon" is that the fandom seems to universally agree that this is the only way to do things... but it doesn't parse logically as the only way and it's actually contrary to what happened in canon. Like, I get why a lot of people think that, but it seems to have become an entrenched "fact" that... isn't.

If something does go wrong, it's going to end with a bang.
It would be hilarious if the SI starts using a bomber personality, say Deidara from Naruto? Art is an Explosion!.

Can you create explosive bullets that work with a gun, the activation button can be a small one on the nose of the bullet.
Or can you make a bomb that could possibly trap Endbringers, but not kill them so that new ones don't awaken, A possible bomb used could be one that freezes the target in Carbonite (The substance that Han Solo was trapped in).

Click to shrink...

I would kind of hate to risk having people familiar with Earth Aleph culture going "Really? You're patterning yourself after a fictional character and hoping we won't notice because they're only well-known in Aleph?"

Any kind of explosive that's sensitive to physical shock (eg one that has an actual button on it) is going to be problematic to use in a gun if the gun is not, itself, a coilgun or something: making an exploding bullet and then putting it into a regular gun is just asking for trouble. (Now, one designed to only explode when triggered could be used to shoot people and then send the "go boom signal", so that has some potential...) Carting around the ammunition is also all kinds of risky: oops, one of them clinked just so in my bag, and now I'm dead because all my exploding ammunition cooked off. (Or I'm not dead, and wishing I were dead)

I personally suspect perma-trapping an Endbringer A: wouldn't work and/or B: would be treated as a death and/or C: would provoke a different Endbringer into freeing them in an attack. But hey, we'll see.

I feel like this is just picking and choosing in order to keep doing something quirky/cute with your SI but it's your story.

It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Did you have trouble walking or reaching for things? No? Then you're actually using Bakuda's body's instincts, not your own. She's going to naturally gravitate towards certain basic norms, including wearing freakin' underwear, and the discomfort from doing so isn't going to be ignorable as it'll be different from whatever you are used to in your own body.

This is leaving aside the hilarious massive elephant in the room that'll be what you're going to do once Bakuda's first period hits.

Click to shrink...

Widespread use of underwear is a recent cultural innovation. Like, less than 200 years old, if I'm recalling correctly. Certainly less than 500. You overestimate the degree to which humans are wired to care about underwear.

Even if unconscious impulses are in play, that doesn't mean conscious impulses won't override them -maybe SI me would put on underwear if they weren't thinking about it at all while dressing, maybe they even will at some later date go "Wait, why am I in underwear, I hate underwear", but at this step there's really no reason why SI me would put on underwear. I'm not sufficiently concerned with conforming to cultural norms to care, I haven't been inculcated with ideas like "only bad girls go around without underwear", etc.

I regularly ignore discomfort that is fresh and new because whatever I'm not dying it can't be that important. I don't really see this fresh and new discomfort somehow being more attention-grabbing.

Also, I really should've said in the original post anyway: for me underwear was the cause of much discomfort. I stopped because one day I ended up not wearing any for... whatever reason, it's been more than a decade I don't actually remember anymore... and holy crap this was so much better! Thus, a new standard was born. It's possible that SI me will discover that actually Bakuda's body is more comfortable with underwear than without and switch back... it's also possible that SI me will coast on prior, now incorrect, knowledge and never discover that really that knowledge is incorrect now. Or it's possible SI me is totally justified doing this in Bakuda's body too, from a comfort perspective.

I honestly find it amusing that you think the period will be a big deal. I have long experience with having my mood invisibly altered/shifted to anger where I only later realize it was because of internal biological considerations -it's just historically from being sick or eating food I react allergically to without realizing it. A period is honestly less of a big deal -I can go "ooooh. THAT'S why I've been cussing out Oni Lee for the last hour. Whoops. Guess it's time to figure out tampons or pads." whereas I have to engage in some mental legwork to realize that I'm low-grade sick or that I ate something that disagrees with me, and I'm not actually surrounded by assholes of the highest order. That is, a period is a clear signal that mood is not at its usual baseline, rather than an unclear signal.

("But Ghoul King, women gets cramps and stuff." Being doubled over, in pain, ready to vomit for hours/days on end is probably not exactly the same thing as cramps, but it's probably not that different. Also, cramps primarily occur if your period is unhealthy for some reason, so there's a question of how well Bakuda has taken care of her body, which is admittedly probably "not very")

Though SI me will be pissed if they end up bleeding all over a costume.

(I am glad you reminded me about periods though -unless Bakuda is really fit, she should be having a period, that does affect decision-making, it would be poor form for me to completely ignore/forget about it... like, say, Worm does... and at this point the story is more than 2 weeks in so unless Bakuda has a really irregular period it should crop up soon, realistically)

I am fully expecting this chapter to lose people. It's, uh, mildly disturbing (Says the sociopath), and also there's plot stuff that might cause people to assume this is standard SI Mary Sue wish fulfillment nonsense. It'd be nice if those of you put off by the latter had a little patience, but I totally understand if you're not willing to go with wait and see and just abandon ship. For the former... well, honestly I don't know how you got through Worm in the first place if you're that squeamish, but, uh. I cannot remotely promise that more of the same isn't incoming. The Slaughterhouse Nine exist, for starters. So... bye, have a nice life, to those folks?

1.5

It's a few days later, me in the middle of a tinker fugue, when Oni Lee is suddenly in my workshop holding a man, knife up against his throat and holding both the guy's arms behind his back with the free arm. The guy looks like life has stolen all his toys, kicked him in the nuts, and then laughed at him.

Huh.

"It is done."

Huh.

"Now what?"

Huh.

Honestly, I was half-expecting Oni Lee to just end up dead doing this. Win-win, as far as I was concerned. I... well, I guess I should -do we have a camera? I ask Oni Lee if there's a video camera in here. He nods his head slightly to one side, and comments flatly "Top shelf." As I make my way to the indicated spot I comment idly "I kind of thought you'd take longer, honestly." Oni Lee's response -flat, of course- is to grunt and say "The man was slippery." Aha! Yes, there's a video camera, and my tinker bullshit tells me it's got a battery etc -I have to push down an urge to turn it into some kind of bomb trigger device- so I grab it and make my way back toward Oni Lee and Coi- Calvert. I don't want to accidentally slip that bit.

I maintain a respectful distance from the two, not wanting to give Calvert any opportunity to somehow exploit my presence via timelines. Oni Lee is apparently awesome enough to keep him under control/kill him in timeline shenanigans, but giving Calvert more openings to exploit is bad, and I wasn't exactly a black belt before this. I say "So he lost you a few times, then?" Oni Lee... has emotion in his voice for the first time I can recall. Annoyance. "If I did not know better, I would suspect the man had been trained as a ninja. His ability to account for my presence was... uncanny."

I'll bet I think to myself.

"So!" I start off with a winning smile directed at Calvert. "We're going to do a video of how we have you captured, send it to the PRT, and demand they release Lung or else." Calvert smirks. Wow. Okay then. He opens his mouth to say something, presumably smug, but I steamroll right over him, still smiling and speaking cheerfully. "After I've surgically installed a bomb into your head." Calvert's smirk drops off his face, and he gets... a little paler, though honestly he's sufficiently pale already I'm not sure if that's a sign of his confidence or just because he can't get much paler.

I abruptly drop the smile, level out my voice, and say "Oni Lee. Get him on the table, strap him down, and gag him." while gesturing at one of the relatively clear tables. Lesse, I'm going to need a saw, one of the cauterizer pillbombs... do I want to bother with anesthesia? It would make it harder for him to somehow turn the surgery into a successful escape, but I don't have any in the workshop and I don't want to go into the... huh. I guess the madness place is kind of appropriate. More than I'd thought, really.

Anyway, point is I'm way more likely to give him an opening if I go into tinker mode so I can make some anesthetic, I don't have any here, and I'd rather not call up an ABB thug -Logistics?- to have some delivered, because I really want this done now before Calvert somehow leverages his power to escape via savescumming-based successful recklessness.

I guess that decides it. No anesthetic for one of the scummiest scum that ever did scum in Worm canon.

Oh well! Sucks to be him.

Carefully keeping my focus away from how to make the circular saw (Something I can carve a round hole in his head with and then put the bone back in, is the point) I grab into a more efficient, killier design, I ponder for a moment whether I want gloves. I decide I don't care, because I'm killing him anyway, maybe immediately after the filming, maybe after we get a negative from the PRT. I mean, sure, touching him is going to be gross, but really medical gloves are primarily about protecting the patient's open wounds from germs on the doctor's hands. Also, I have no idea where we have gloves. I'm... not entirely sure how I've made some of my bombs without gloves while avoiding hurting myself, now that I think about it... evidence that Tinkers are using powers in making stuff, per se?

Whatever, getting distracted is bad. Circular saw, check, cauterizer bomb, check, uh, clotting agent and... gosh, my shard really doesn't want to encourage healing. Well. My understanding is that if you cut out a chunk of bone from the skull and then just sort of... put it back, it'll re-seal on its own, no tools needed, so I guess I can skip that step. Head wounds bleed a lot, but it isn't really dangerous, and cutting into the head doesn't lead to tons of bleeding or brain damage if you don't fuck up, and also it's fucking Coil so I'm not exactly concerned about doing it right.

Mind, I read the "seals back together on its own" thing in an Animorphs book, the one where Cassie has to cut open Ax's head to get at his space alien organ because weird alien health mechanics, so hey, I'm trusting Calvert's future comfort/health to something I read years ago in a book aimed at teens. Using a fictional alien as the example. Sucks to be him.

They were good books, the ones that weren't actually written by... god, every time I try to remember her name I want to say "Rowling", but that's Harry Potter. Ugh, whatever, the woman who made Animorphs, most of it was ghost-written, that stuff was good. K. A. Applegate, that was it!

Though I read once she personally wrote the David trilogy. Or was it just two books? Whatever, those were good, maybe I'm being unfair to her, the David books were amazing. On the other hand, the first ten-ish books were just... ugh, painful.

Oh right. Cutting into Calvert's head.

Fortunately, Oni Lee hasn't finished securing Calvert anyway, so standing around lost in my own head hasn't actually looked inappropriate. Not that I'd have any reason to be embarrassed -I'm getting distracted again. Bad Bakuda. (I need to get used to the idea that this is my name now, I should call myself Bakuda even in my own head, I don't need any slip-ups outside my skull)

I smile brightly down on Calvert, who is now sweating, eyes darting around in every direction. I idly wonder if he's doing different eye directions in both timelines for maximum efficiency or if he's trying to do something more risky in the timeline I'm not seeing.

I comment as an aside to Oni Lee "If he gets loose, kill him. We can try again with someone else, someone a bit less slippery." which Oni Lee just grunts at -or maybe grunts at the effort of getting Calvert's last leg into position and strapped down- while Calvert's eyes go wide. I'm kind of surprised he's not shunting that reaction to his other self. He can do that, it's how he fucked with Tattletale in canon, convinced her that Coil intended to kill Taylor, probably by actually doing so in a timeline he promptly dropped or something. Maybe he thinks acting like a normal panicked person is maximizing his odds of escape/survival?

I start up the saw -maybe this kind of saw is called a bandsaw? I know that's a kind of saw- and move in, smiling toothily the whole way.

--------​

As it turns out, I still hate listening to people scream.

I don't really care about other people's emotional distress or anything -well, I do, I think it's funny to get a reaction out of people- but man, hearing people scream always leaves me feeling queasy. I'm kind of disappointed when my smile turns into a grimace, but I take some comfort in the fact that Calvert is a bit too busy screaming in pain to be likely to have any sense of victory. (Well, assuming I'm not in a dropped timeline...) I do manage to comment absently (I suspect shard influence) "Oh, quit being such a baby, the side of the head doesn't have nearly enough nerves for this to hurt even as bad as a paper cut." but my original intention of keeping Calvert off-balance, less likely to leverage his power successfully... I'm not able to stick to it.

Oh well, primary mission accomplished regardless. Headbomb: installed.

Then I have Oni Lee manhandle him into a reasonably photogenic corner of the building (ie one not made up for my comfort or trashed out as my workspace, instead being nothing but blank gray wall with no windows or anything to provide a hint of where, exactly, we're filming), grab the video camera while wishing I'd learned how to hum tunes, and direct Oni Lee to hold Calvert, knife against his throat. He does so, and I instruct him that, at some point in recording, I'm going to make a hand motion (I demonstrate) and at that point I want him to let Calvert go. Oni Lee nods his understanding. I also take the opportunity to let Calvert know that if he gets more than 300 or so feet away from me the bomb will detonate all by itself. I don't bother to explicitly explain that it's really if he gets more than 300~ (I'm really not sure the exact range) feet away from my earring, because, seriously, he doesn't need edges to exploit. Also I'd rather not clue Oni Lee into the fact that one earring is actually tinkertech. I'm still hoping he hasn't noticed.

So now Calvert knows that breaking loose and making a run for it will avail him nothing. Mind, I wouldn't be surprised if he did escape in an alternate timeline and die. He doesn't react all that strongly to being told he's on a blow-the-fuck-up leash, maybe it already happened.

Or maybe he's just groggy from the pain of amateur tinker surgery. Eh.

The video we film is pretty straightforward, including me informing the Protectorate that I've installed a bomb in Calvert's head designed to go off if he gets too far away from me, so don't be naughty now, and of course mentioning that we're ransoming Calvert for Lung and if we don't get a response in three days, Calvert dies. Oni Lee releases Calvert on cue -I gesture right after mentioning the headbomb- and Calvert sits there, rubbing feeling back into one arm and visibly fuming. He reminds me so much of a tantruming child I can't quite keep the grin off my face, or out of my voice.

My only presence in the video is my voice, though I do explicate that I am Bakuda, temporary leader of the ABB until you release our glorious leader Lung! I dunno, I don't see any reason to let them actually see me, so I don't.

A quick test shows that the video is basically acceptable -everything wobbles a bit because I had the camera on my shoulder, not on a tripod, but whatever, I was a lot more concerned that I'd be too mumbly, I'm fucking awful at being understood by people- and I instruct Oni Lee to find more long-term accommodations for Calvert in the "leash" range and arrange for the video to be delivered to Protectorate Headquarters. He does another "It shall be done" plus stiff bow, grabs Calvert, and the two vanish.

Once he's gone with Calvert, I find my kludged transmitter (Originally made for the Oni Lee bombs) and set the other part of the headbomb's conditional behavior: if Calvert is ever within 30 feet of me (Well, my earring) before I disable this instruction, that will also detonate it.

There's no such thing as too paranoid when it comes to Calvert.

… come to think of it, I have no idea what Oni Lee did with the neutron-ifying bomb. I don't... think... I've seen him carrying it since I sent him to blow up Winslow...

… man, I really want to look into how things are going with Taylor. Curiosity killed the cat, though. Actually... I grab the laptop again, absently turn on the TV and set it to a cartoon in the background, and look up if the Undersiders are known to have done anything since the bank robbery. Initially, it looks like "no", but then I run across a thread on PHO where somebody has a shaky cell phone video of insects descending on and attacking what I presume are Merchants -they have colored bands around their wrists, that's something from canon, I forget the details- and a bit more digging indicates they've raided a Merchant drughouse.

I don't remember that from canon.

…

Oh. Right. The bank led directly into fighting Bakuda led directly into everybody uniting against the ABB. I haven't ambushed the Undersiders, or painted a giant "We're assholes, please kill us" target on the ABB's back, so they're... I guess doing more regular jobs at Coil's direction? Huh. I would've expected him to send them after the Empire. Isn't part of his goal to have the gangs infighting indefinitely until he takes over as Director Calvert, so he can squash everyone and take credit?

… wait, in canon he did that thing where he released all the E88 names to the public. And... the ABB has lost Lung, it's easy to think he's going to actually go into the Birdcage. Which... would actually leave the Merchants as the only other game in town outside of Coil himself. And Faultline's Crew, I guess, but he's apparently able to hire them just fine. Huh. I feel vaguely insulted at the implication that he thinks the ABB isn't worth his time with Lung gone, but the Merchants are.

I could be misreading things.

Regardless... this is going to make it really hard to predict Taylor's development. Canon constantly pushed her and pushed her and pushed her, the bank heist was the closest canon got to really covering what an ordinary job for the Undersiders looks like and especially how Taylor feels about such, and even then it was un-ordinary on basically every level, with Coil providing abnormal incentives to rob the bank, the Undersiders doing it in broad daylight, the Wards responding in force with no Protectorate oversight, Panacea happening to be there...

Come to think of it, when does the thing with Taylor connecting to Rachel happen? Has it already happened? It was... hm. It happens right as Coil releases the Empire info, which... was after the ABB were dealt with, I want to say. So... probably not. Unless having more leisure time has somehow made Taylor more willing to try to connect to the Undersiders. I... fuck, I forget what actually got her -wait, was it approaching Armsmaster to get his support? No, that was for the bank. Timelines don't add up.

Damn. I don't remember what prompted her to stop holding the Undersiders at arms length and actually befriend them. Is she liable to go hero if she doesn't stop holding them at arms length? Is she less likely to go hero if she does hold them at arms length? Ugh. It's also just hard to parse her exact motivations. Brian is explicitly all about "focus on those I care about, everyone else can rot", and an argument can be made that even though Taylor finds that viewpoint horrifying she engages in a certain amount of that herself anyway... but it's also the case that the heroes burn her, and burn her, and burn her some more in every interaction she has.

Hmmm. I guess maybe the main thing that matters is whether the world decides to just fuck her over repeatedly as per canon, different events be damned, vs having a hero actually be nice to her.

… not really a lot I can do to rig that result in any particular direction.

Well. Calvert should be a non-issue in short order. She's at least not going to find out that the other Undersiders are fine with Dinah's situation... unless someone else takes over Coil's organization and uses Dinah... uuugh. Plus side: Lisa is also horrified by the Dinah thing, and I'm reasonably confident that isn't just her manipulating Taylor into liking her/not committing suicide. If she takes over as per canon, then Dinah is unlikely to remain a drugged-up prediction dispenser.

Of course, that's not remotely the same thing as saying that Lisa would let her go home. We never do get real insight into how Lisa would handle that. Hell, Taylor was bound and determined to get Dinah back to her parents, and the possibility that she wouldn't was high enough for Dinah to be sufficiently concerned about that she deliberately tried to ensure Taylor wouldn't give into temptation.

I'm not sure I'm all that much happier with the idea of Tattletale getting to combine her power with Dinah's while being in charge of Coil's organization. Tattletale would, in all honesty, probably be considered a complete monster if she wasn't specifically Taylor's friend. Even considering that Coil has a fairly literal gun to her head for a while there, she's not a nice person or inclined to make the world a better place. Really, she's inclined to fuck with people, even if it provides no clear benefit to her. Canon also insists she's obsessed with trying to prove she's the smartest in the room, and for all that most fans take that as a fact I don't really buy it, but it's something to keep in mind. There's a question here of exactly what kind of Wormverse I'm in. Thus far I appear to be in canon, myself aside... but not only is it possible that I'm really in a fanfic that isn't obviously divergent as yet -I can't be in Atonement, thank god, (Skitter is a part of the Undersiders, not dead) among others, but I could be in fucking Cenotaph, which is a horrifying thought- but generally, I could be in a world that's really similar to Worm canon without being Worm canon.

The thought comes to mind: does my presence here imply that Entities are real, and my own home dimension is at risk of "every version ever blown up"? Hell, Earth Bet is "BB aside, our world except the Entities diverge it". Earth Aleph is "That, but less diverged from ours by Entity presence". Ours could just be a version of Worm canon that we never see or hear about, one that Golden Morning never gets around to touching through blind luck.

Though I'm from 2015, so there'd need to be weird time shenanigans for that to work. I know too much physics to find that comforting. Weird time shenanigans are totally possible, particularly given the Entities have multiple forms of faster-than-light travel. Tachyons are weird, I hope they aren't a thing, I hope they aren't a thing the Entities can use.

Now I'm really uncomfortable.

Have to wonder why I'd be shoved into Bakuda's head. The Entities have some capacity to copy human personalities and transplant them... the Butcher proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. But why grab some guy from Earth Omicron or whatever and shove him into Bakuda's head? I'm having a hard time imagining why even Eden's death would lead to that.

… aaaand I'm remembering Abbadon now. Abbadon is weird, Abbadon is alien, Abbadon maybe assassinated Eden (Or maybe it was just ill luck on an Entity scale), Abbadon behaves differently from the model Scion and Eden present.

I can't imagine a reason why Abbadon -oh. I'm already committed to assassinating Scion.

…

…

…

fuck

 

[Ghoul King]

Responses in spoiler.

Yes, I have an actual update now! Not false hope this time!

Still feeling like my characterization of Taylor is probably a bit iffy, but I think I got closer the more I wrote.

Spoiler

That is one of the longest non-story posts I've seen by an author. And it's about Coil shenanigans !

Click to shrink...

That's honestly kind of a short post for me.

Just to throw my 10c in, I'm prettry sure that Wildbow threw in Coil as a timeline-splitter, then WoG'ed it later as a precog power BECAUSE of this "Not enough energy in the entire universe to create another universe" theory. It's a story, and as long as a story doesn't break it's own universe's rules a lot can be hand-waved. Much less a theory how something can work with theoretical real life physics.

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure yeah, Wildbow concluded that his original explanation was problematic, but if so he really didn't think through the implications of his new explanation.

Though honestly the "not enough energy in the universe to create another universe" thing is a red herring idea. If Coil's power actually is creating worlds, it only needs enough to reasonably fake the local environment, especially since the Entities deliberately close off various realities as-is. The rest of the universe can suffer for this just fine.

You can just as easily say Coil's power works simply by saying this universe/timeline splitting and re-joining is something that happens naturally and Coil's shard just makes him aware of himself in one other time-line. In this theory it is perfectly possible to both take your keys on a walk AND leave them at home. 5 years later when both timelines have re-joined, does it really matter? In 5000 years and all the timelines Coil has been part of has mostly re-merged save for a .00005 percent where his plan succeeded, does it really matter or noticeable to people in that timeline in any meaningful way?

Click to shrink...

That's getting into philosophical territory, rather than raw physics/mechanical territory.

But yes, my essential argument is that it's easier to assume timeline stuff happens naturally and the Entities are piggybacking such than it is to posit that his power is precognition-based and faking.

Coil can predict the Endbringers, Eidolong and Zion with his powers. He's the only precog whom can do that with the canon shards. Don't go around finding contrived reasons as to why "it doesn't make sense!" It's honestly not necessary.

Click to shrink...

My argument is basically "If I give the WOG every benefit of the doubt, even completely unreasonable ones, it still doesn't make sense". That's not looking for a "contrived" reason for why it doesn't make sense -that's looking for ways it can make sense, and failing catastrophically even though I'm rigging the result in favor of the WOG.

It's like having a competition between two teams, rigging things so that Team A will win so long as they show up for the competition, no matter how much better Team B performs, and then Team A fails to show up for the event because they set themselves on fire through sheer incompetence.

it just means your human...as a species we are morally grey. to sound trite we all have that little devil sitting on our shoulder just the same as the angel...and we listen to both. With what happens every day in the news i don't think its much of a stretch to be able to imagine and write about stuff like this. Actually doing it in real life is a different manner altogether and simply because you can write about it doesn't mean your anywhere close to doing so.

Click to shrink...

I don't actually have a conscience.

What you write does say something about you. Maybe it doesn't indicate I'd do it in a heartbeat in real life (In fact, if I would do it in a heartbeat in real life I'd probably avoid writing such so nobody finds it plausible I'd do such, so arguably it's evidence to the contrary), but it does indicate I don't shy away from the idea. Most people are sufficiently squeamish (Excuse me, "moral") that even in writing they skirt the issue -people mock stuff like comic books never using the word "kill", but I've seen tons of fanfiction/original fiction of the This Is Dark And Serious And Grim type talk about the bad guys "killing" good guys while anytime the good guys kill a bad guy a euphemistic phrase/word gets used, every time, without exception. ("Destroy", "Exterminate", "Dealt with", "Eliminated"...) It's subtle compared to the stuff people mock, but it's still happening. Most people shy away from accepting culpability for the death or torture of a human being, even within a fictional context, with even people inclined to be dark and edgy almost universally de-humanizing the people they imagine having terrible things done to them by our heroes, so that it isn't really killing/torturing a human being, it's torturing/killing a "monster".

(The exceptions instead revel in torture and bloodshed and pretend they're just being more honest/realistic than other people, it's not a commentary on their mental state, honest! They also tend to be pretty blatant fantasies)

The extent to which I "shied away" from the concept was providing a warning that it might squick people. I felt no need, in-story, to frame my actions as morally defensible, and while it hasn't really come up out-of-story as yet (Nobody has gone "Ghoul King, you monster!") I also haven't felt the need to defend it on a moral level on that level, either.

That suggests something about how highly I prioritize appearing to be a moral/decent being. (Hint: not very)

also to throw my two cents in about Coils power: i always thought it was a matter of time travel shenanigans, not actually splitting time but perceiving two paths at the same time. then choosing which one to keep. the whole "two paths in a wood" thing but with him able to live both paths at the same time.

Click to shrink...

I... think you're saying something like "Coil plays out a path, travels back in time, plays out the other path, and then picks one"?

you know when i said that i watched this cuz this was HILARIOUS?

keep in mind i did so AFTER reading that chapter

i stand by all i said

wonder if that makes me a sociopath....not that i care that much tbh

Click to shrink...

Eh, you're probably not a sociopath, and laughing at Exploding Canon isn't evidence of a complete lack of human empathy. (Most people only turn on their empathy for people they consider to be friends/family/comrades anyway)

I'll admit I still have no idea why people find stuff I write funny, though.

It could "cheat" by tweaking one of the timelines to force him to choose the other whenever it runs out of simulation "stack space". Or if it knows Coil is going to discard the timeline where he asks Dinah questions, it could simulate the answers with less accuracy than Dinah's actual power gives.

Click to shrink...

The first point is getting back into the "blatant brain hacking" problem if it's still hiding the truth from him, while the latter requires his power always accurately anticipate which timeline he will want to drop... while starting from the premise that it's kind of a shitty precog power.

1.x

Taylor

Dad and I don't usually have the news running in the morning, so the first I know of it is seeing the police cordon and PRT trucks around where school... used to stand.

My first thought is: Emma.

It takes longer for me to unpack the thought. There's worry that the girl who was once my best friend might be dead, tentative relief that the nightmare might be over (Too late, far too late), guilt at the relief and anger at myself that I still care about her, that my first thought is wondering if Emma is okay.

It's only after that I focus on things I should've been focusing on from the beginning. What happened? Why are the police and PRT both involved? (I suppress an irrational fear that they're after me, after Skitter. Even Armsmaster doesn't know who Skitter is, what school she goes to) Why can't I see the school? I don't see rubble, or trees, or anything.

I tentatively tap into bugs in the area, frustrated I can't actually see what they see, trying to block out the murmuring of other people on the bus so I can focus on the bugs. I'm surprised to find almost no bugs where the school should be. Even the usual earthworms are gone. What bugs there are seem to be flying around in an open, empty space. I confirm I can still tell that other bugs in the area are in walls, on walls, running into walls, and so on. Not my power getting glitchy. The school is... missing entirely? And the ground underneath it for... I'm not sure. It takes far too long for flies to touch bottom.

I'm getting impatient with traffic, which is getting slower the closer we get. Finally I signal the bus to stop and get off the instant I can: it's faster to walk, with how bad car traffic is getting. There's too many gawkers, cars not moving or moving too slowly as they look and even take pictures. There's plenty of people trying to get a look on foot, but it's not enough of a crush to stop me, and the bugs give me an idea of where the crowding is worst so I can avoid them entirely.

I'm shocked at how completely Winslow is gone. There's nothing left at all, no building no grounds, just a crater like a giant scooped out the building and enough dirt underneath it to support it and walked off with everything. The crater is bizarrely smooth and spherical, the ground just sort of falling away in a circular shape to form the crater. It's very obviously the product of a parahuman ability: a crater produced by a violent impact, such as a meteor, would be surrounded by a ring of raised dirt and made an enormous mess in general. So an exotic parahuman ability, not simply a blaster like Purity deciding to level the school.

That derails my thought process entirely: why did a parahuman destroy the school?

I have a horrible moment where I'm thinking someone else got shoved into a locker and triggered and did whatever this is to the school, in a blind panic or lashing out, and I somehow failed to notice someone going through the kind of misery that made me trigger. It's actually a small relief when I get an angle on a nearby building spray-painted with a message from the ABB. Threats aimed at the Protectorate, using my school as an example. That's comforting, compared to the alternative.

Even if it does imply the ABB has another incredibly dangerous cape. Lung wasn't enough for them?

I'm close enough now to hear some of what the police are saying. There's a lot of repetition, "stay back, you might hurt yourself", "this is a crime scene, don't interfere with the scene", "we don't know who did this, but we're on the case", mostly variations on these sentiments, but I'm picking out a handful of important things.

They are reasonably sure no one was harmed. The night janitor has been confirmed to be alive. (Which of course makes him a suspect) That tangled knot is back again, tying back to Emma. She's probably not dead or even injured. (Relief? Disappointment? Both?) A nameless dread settles on me when it occurs to me that Sophia is fine too.

This definitely happened sometime last night, currently estimated at sometime between 2 and 4 in the morning.

No witnesses have stepped forward. ("If you saw anything last night, probably somewhere around 3 in the morning, please let us know immediately. Even if you think it was nothing, it might be critical.")

They are not currently assuming the ABB did this: it's unlikely but possible that someone is framing the ABB to take advantage of the loss of their biggest hitter and their leadership in one go. They won't make official statements beyond that on this topic, but I get the distinct impression they think it's the Empire if it's not the ABB.

Winslow High students are all exempt from school for a minimum of two weeks while the situation is being sorted. Students are free to try to enroll in other schools in the meanwhile if they don't want to wait for whatever plan is being developed, but they are also free to wait for said plan to be implemented. Some cops are talking about how Winslow will probably move into a new building, but other cops seem to think that Winslow is probably going to be absorbed into the other schools outright, staff and students alike.

I wince at the thought of Mr. Gladly working at Arcadia.

It takes a minute for it to dawn on me: I'm free.

Temporarily, I immediately amend. Don't get too excited, this isn't a permanent escape, this is just a couple of weeks of safety if I want it. Depending on how the wind blows, maybe a good excuse to try to get into Arcadia? It's supposed to be a good school... though, the Wards are supposed to go there. For all I know one of them might be able to tell I'm Skitter, somehow. Is the supposed quality worth the risk? For that matter, what's Emma going to be doing? If we both get into Arcadia, this might just be a temporary reprieve... and I don't trust myself to actually understand Emma. I really don't know whether she'll push for Arcadia, or try to stay at Winslow if they decide to rebuild it, or go to Immaculata, or... I'm not even sure she wouldn't rather move to another city. The Emma I knew would've wanted to stay, but she would've wanted to stay with her best friend.

I'm literally jostled out of my thoughts by someone else trying to get a better view. Something catches my eye, and I move to get a better angle on it. It takes a minute of pushing through the crowd, it's so much denser this close to the schoo- the crater, but finally I can see most of what caught my eye in the first place: one side of a nearby building has a surprisingly large chunk of it taken up by a message demanding the release of Lung.

My heart speeds up and I discreetly use my eyes and my bugs to check for ABB thugs. I don't find any immediately, but I wasn't expecting to. If they're here, they're going to be low-key. Really, realistically I'm safe. The gangs try to be at least somewhat low-key, they don't attack people in broad daylight in the middle of a crowd, and the unwritten rules should protect me anyway, but I can't quite fight off the sudden fear that the ABB know it wasn't Armsmaster who took down their boss and they want revenge on the teenage girl who did the deed.

They didn't use to vaporize schools, either.

Suddenly my fear doesn't seem so irrational.

I momentarily wish I'd taken one of the burner phones with me. I feel very alone and vulnerable, out of costume, no backup, no place to discreetly gather a swarm close enough to actually reach me in time if things I need them. I didn't bring my costume, either. I have the somewhat absent thought that I don't need to fear the Trio finding my costume for at least two weeks, so I can keep my costume on me more consistently, more safely.

Mostly my focus is on getting away without looking like I'm trying to get away. Nothing to see here, just a teenager who's lost interest and is going home now, pay her no mind, move along.

Do I want to go home? Is that really safer than going to the loft? Do I want to put dad at risk?

That decides me: I'm going to the loft. I'm probably being paranoid, but... if I'm not? No, not worth it, nothing is worth risking dad, and he wouldn't be any help if somebody attacked me, either.

After ten or fifteen minutes of walking, tense and looking everywhere as discreetly as I can the whole way, bugs included, I spot a bus pulling up at a stop just ahead, jog to catch up, and board it. It won't take me directly to the loft, but I'll be a lot closer. I relax, just a little, once I'm aboard. Fewer paths to attack, fewer possible assailants, much harder to ambush me, and the bus itself is armor. Still on edge, though. I don't know of any capes in Brockton Bay who could make a school vanish like that, so there's an unknown cape, a new member of the ABB presumably. Can't plan for the unknown.

Thankfully, nothing really happens while I'm on the bus. There aren't any probable gang members boarding it, nor even rowdy college students being loud. It's a nice, quiet ride. I feel vaguely ridiculous, fearing for my life amid a crowd of normal, calm people, poking at their phones or staring out of the window obviously bored out of their skull. I catch myself wringing my hands, stop it, and take a deep breath. Calm. A semblance of calm, at least. People notice when you're the only one upset, I'm trying to keep attention off me.

When the bus finally gets to stop closest to the loft, I've already had to stop myself bouncing one leg nervously, stop wringing my hands again, stop chewing on my lip, and very carefully made myself not pay attention to how the guy on the other side of the bus is eyeing me oddly. I leave at a fast walk, not quite a run, which turns into a jog once I'm outside and then a full blown run once the bus turns off in a different direction.

I'm not able to get myself under control until I've closed the door behind me. I rest against the door for a moment, bemused to realize I feel safer around Alec and Rachel than I did outside. Bugs forewarned me that they're here, but I'd know even if they hadn't -Alec is loudly playing some kind of wargame upstairs, periodically swearing at it, and I can hear Rachel doing something with her dogs. Training them, I think.

I consider getting into costume, but the only people I can find in my radius are the usual pedestrian traffic and three homeless people tucked out of sight, sleeping. I haven't been trailed by someone, unless a power to hide from me is involved. There's no reason to be prepped for a fight, aside from Rachel, and I don't think she's going to attack me again unless I give her a reason to, stronger than simply being in the loft unexpectedly.

Now I'm tense, and soon to be bored, with no outlet. I could work through my thoughts on the school thing... but really, I want to talk with dad about it first. Focusing on the cause of my stress doesn't seem like a good way to unwind, either. Lisa and Brian aren't here... I consider talking to Rachel. No. Sometimes I feel like talking to her is, itself, provoking her. Navigating the minefield that is conversation with Rachel is not going to relax me, and Alec is the only one around to help if something I say sets her off. I'm not sure I really trust him to leap in if that happens.

Which leaves talking to Alec.

Great.

I call out to let them know I'm here. Rachel grunts irritably, loud enough to hear her from the front door, while Alec doesn't even respond. I sigh a little, and make my way to the 'living room' area, trying to be quiet without being too quiet. As I get closer I start to hear Alec speaking in a more level tone, too quiet to make out initially, still periodically punctuated by shouted invective.

When I get there, Alec is indeed playing a wargame, shooting aliens with guns. He's also wearing a headset with a microphone attached, talking into it. I spend a minute watching before I work out that he's playing the game with other people, and he's coordinating with them, when he's not colorfully insulting their heritage, skill, and appearance. This surprises me a little. I'd gotten the impression he wasn't much of a people-person. Admittedly, I have difficulty imagining friends putting up with his behavior, but I get the impression that he's getting just as much as he's giving. I guess some people think shooting aliens and swearing out your teammates is a good time?

I open my mouth to ask Alec what he's doing, then close it, frowning. Just... watching him play is actually helping me calm down, even with the invective and occasional shouting, and it's not like my curiosity is urgent. It can wait until he's done or something.

Ten minutes of watching him play later, I've worked out some basics -that's total ammo, that's current ammo, that's his health meter, the pistol is completely useless- but the most important one is that the clock ticking down at the top of the screen is how long until the match ends, and it's got less than five minutes left. Another couple of minutes in I've worked out scores -red is his team, blue is the enemy team, his team is currently winning, they get points by holding flagged areas- and started to get an inkling that Alec is actually pretty good at the game.

Finally the match is over and Alec turns to look at me after briefly fiddling with the headphones. I'd thought he didn't know I was here. I blurt out "The ABB destroyed Winslow High." Alec raises one eyebrow. "Really? Awesome." He turns back to the game, while I glower at the back of his head. This is serious. I open my mouth to say so, but Alec pre-empts me with "The school was a hole, nobody you care about died or got hurt, your bullying problem is solved without any chance of it being connected to you, and it's a spontaneous spring break. What's not to like?" I... don't actually have a good argument leaping to mind. I feel very clear that what he's saying is Wrong, but I can't put my finger on why.

I brood on that while he returns to heckling his teammates in a new match.

Eventually I conclude my issue is: Alec isn't concerned about the larger implications... but I can't actually shoot down his point. I have reason to be afraid, but not really any reason to feel guilty. Even if it's my fault the school was destroyed -I took down Lung, so it is in some sense- the actual cost has just been inconvenience to a large number of people, almost all of whom have been a direct part of the bullying, or complicit by pretending they don't see anything. (I think of Greg Veder for a moment. I honestly don't know if he's noticed it or not)

I still want to feel like he's wrong, because it's a strictly selfish viewpoint and so should be wrong, but I can't find a way that it is wrong.

I don't like that.

Feeling like being rude, I ask "Any idea when Lisa and Brian are supposed to show?" Alec sounds bored, and only a little distracted, when he responds with "Fearless Leader is supposed to swing by around three in the afternoon. Smaug-" what? "-is busy with something the mysterious boss wants done, I dunno what, she said she might not show until tomorrow." Oh. Great.

I consider going to talk to Rachel. I'm dissuaded by growling that gets my hackles up, fortunately not nearby and cut off by a sharp word from Rachel. I consider going home, and wince at the idea. I really want to talk to someone who knows how much danger I may or may not be in first (And how much danger I might be bringing home, more importantly), and Alec and Rachel are not my first choices.

My stomach growling distracts me. Alec snorts amusedly right after, and I give the back of his head a suspicious look, but I decide to make myself something to eat.

------​

Thirty minutes later, I've eaten, and Alec is trying to walk me through how to play the game. When I try to ask why he's doing this, his response is a short, smirk-y "You're a girl". I spend a minute trying to figure out whether he's just said something I should be offended by. It's Alec, so I'm inclined to assume yes, but I'm just mystified. What's the relevance?

Twenty minutes after that, I've gotten competent enough that Alec feels like now's a good time to unleash me on the wider world of internet gaming, and get an explanation of his original, bizarre answer the first time I speak.

"Dude! There's a girl in the match!" "No there isn't." "It's just some pedo pretending." "No no, I have a cousin of a sister who plays sometimes." "NO GIRLS ON THE INTERNET."

I'm vaguely stunned by the explosion of disbelief, and I catch Alec smirking just out of the corner of one eye.

Still, after the first ten minutes of complete disbelief pass (Punctuated by comments from people who apparently know Alec's screenname. "Dude, you finally got through surgery? Good for you man!" and similar, apparently humorous comments) I'm surprised to find I am having fun.

I'm also surprised to find I keep having to fight an urge to scout the terrain in the game with my bugs. Weird.

--------------​

By the time Brian shows up I'm reasonably calm and am actually joking back in the matches. Alec is just watching and listening. I keep expecting him to make a sarcastic remark or something, but it keeps not happening.

With a lot more reluctance than I was expecting, I say goodbye after finishing the last match and get off the machine.

Time to talk shop with Brian.

 

[Ghoul King]

2.1

Putting aside existential crises where I may or may not be an unwitting -or witting now, I guess- pawn in a game of politics on a scale beyond my physical ability to imagine... fuck, I can't even assume that figuring it out isn't, itself, a part of the plot because the Entities have precognition, so they can potentially see that "figuring it out" is somehow better for their plan than "placing a mental block barring them from figuring it out" is. Or something.

I fucking hate precogs.

No offense intended, Simurgh. Assuming you can be offended. Assuming you aren't instead amused. Assuming you don't agree. (Actually, since precogs are supposed to interfere with each other, she may well hate other precogs. Hm)

Fuck, distracting myself again. Focus on the ground level. What's in front of me, what I can actually predict and do things about. Second-guessing myself doesn't actually help. Even committing suicide to opt out could somehow be a part of the plot.

Also, I have such a hardwired loathing of the idea that I couldn't make myself do it.

Which is exactly what I would wire into Bakuda's new personality if I was a monstrous alien creature wanting to ensure my pawn stayed on the board.

Uuuuuuuggggh

So, right. I've probably got the Calvert situation handled.

… it occurs to me, somewhat ominously, that he might have the E88 information set up to be released if Calvert dies. I... really hope not. I'd rather not have the PRT kidnap Aster -why the fuck did anyone think that was legal and a good idea?- and thus Purity and her gang go around vaporizing city blocks and murdering people.

Really, I'm not sure why Coil didn't use the information to have at least some of the E88 assassinated in canon. I've always wondered if there was some logical master plan canon never got around to explaining, maybe somehow tying into his plan to become Director Calvert, Hero of the Imperium Brockton Bay, or if Coil was being stupid. I can't wrap my brain around why someone would do that.

Well, I can imagine someone with more information than muscle/leverage releasing the information for the purpose of arranging for other people to deal with them, but that doesn't describe Coil, and with his power it wouldn't even be all that hard to do something like "Split the timeline, in one discreetly hire an assassin, in the other continue as normal" until he finally gets whoever he wants dead.

Maybe it was an attempt to make E88 unviable within Brockton Bay somehow? Keep out Gessel-whatever reinforcements by association?

Oh, whatever.

Point is: I want Brockton Bay reasonably stable, and with me having the right kind of reputation that I can work on Endbringer-killing bombs and build toward something to kill Scion without having to deal with constant harassment and/or end up dead.

… it occurs to me that Leviathan is likely to target me, rather than Noelle, if I get far enough.

Simurgh ol' gal, ol' pal (Yes, I know if you're bothering to read me my semi-sarcastic "friendliness" is utterly transparent to you), I don't suppose you can convince your friends to just... not kill me? I realize that A: you're at least partially driven by a desire to help "dadversary" -man, I really hope that doesn't offend you guys or worse, amuse you guys- and B: Scion is liable to actually sit up and take notice if Endbringers stop Endbringing, so I doubt you're going to listen if I ask you to please stop with the genocide, but if you're intending for Scion to die in this... whatever this is... killing me is sub-optimal?

Oooorrr it occurs to me that you might have some dim loyalty to Scion and/or Eden and, if I am some kind of guided missile from Abbadon, try to kill me on principle.

Oh my fucking god I hate politics. Worse than goddamn precogs.

Fuck it, workshop ho.

I need Endbringer-killing bombs. And a delivery mechanism. Maybe I can get around my power not wanting to give me portal-delivered bombs and make that happen anyway. I need some way to get at them in their rest states.

HEY, SIMURGH, IF YOU ARE LISTENING, AND IF THINKING "LOUDLY" ACTUALLY DOES ANYTHING TO CATCH YOUR ATTENTION OR WHATEVER, AND YOU'RE INCLINED TO NOT KILL ME, COULD I MAYBE GET A SIGN?

"It is done." from right fucking behind me ohmyfuckinggodstopit.

Yes, Oni Lee is doing it deliberately. There's no fucking way it's an accident that he keeps appearing behind me.

At least this time I don't flail around trying to not kill myself on furniture and/or laptops. I just jolt in place, grit my teeth, and try not to yell at Oni Lee. "I assume you mean Calvert is secured in a nearby building" I say as I turn around. Oni Lee gives a jerky, sharp nod, one time.

It occurs to me abruptly that supposedly Asians nod for 'no' and shake their head for 'yes'.

… I'm just going to assume Oni Lee is using American body language and move on.

Actually, I never got around to asking Oni Lee what our mole in the PRT had to say about Lung's transport time and route. I should ask him about that. "So, what's our mole in the PRT turned up regarding Lung's transit, route, etc?" Oni Lee responds with "Officially, Lung is due to be moved this Saturday, five days from now." I note that use of officially. I don't think Oni Lee is a man to waste words. "I assume there's more to it than that." He grunts, and says "Mr. Ikari-" fuck I better not be in a megacrossover "-is of the suspicion that Lung is going to be moved sooner, and by a different route than the stated route." Another grunt. "He is confident he is not suspected, and assumes this is a general precaution." Well, okay then.

I'm tempted to ask if Mr. Ikari wears orange glasses, but I push away the thought. I'm not convinced Oni Lee wouldn't find that weird even by the standards of a tinker that is Bakuda and/or me. Instead I ask "Anything more immediately useful, then?" Oni Lee grunts again. "As per Seiji's suggestion-" who? "-I contacted an out of town Thinker and paid for their services out of petty cash. She used Mr. Ikari's information to determine that most likely Lung will be moved tomorrow night, somewhere between 7 and 9 o'clock, via a trio of unmarked vans headed West by North-West. Mr. Ikari was able to confirm that three trucks are intended to leave tomorrow night, though the time cited was six in the morning. The Thinker suspects this is another falsehood to obscure the trail."

Huh. Neat. Also, more words at once than I've ever heard from Oni Lee before, except maybe when I asked him about our assets. I clap my hands together abruptly, mildly disappointed at Oni Lee's complete lack of a response, and say "Well then. Inform the troops, I want a crew of experienced and, uh, reasonably professional men-" wait, do ABB thugs include women or not, I know there's ABB women but are they soldiers "-uh, and/or women, I'm not picky, ready to back me, I'm going to need an appropriate outfit and I'm not going to have the time to tinker up a full one so get whoever we've got on that, and we're going to prep to go with the Rescue Lung plan we covered a while back, so you should find yourself a good location to launch your attack on the Protectorate HQ before we actually make that attack." I abruptly remember I still have the monomolecular knife somewhere around here. Hm. Undecided as to whether I should take that. Great for beating Brute durability/Tinker armor, but also great for having it jostle and unexpectedly do horrifying things to me. I... don't trust anyone except maybe Oni Lee with-

he has it on him right now

of course he does

… I wonder if this has anything to do with him getting Calvert successfully? Well, there goes not giving it to Oni Lee so I'll still have it after I blow him up. Though really I'm not sure I should blow him up... but I'm not sure I want to rescue Lung either, and Oni Lee has made his feelings quite clear on the topic. Ugh. Dammit, Oni Lee has been so useful and, uh, loyal? Does that apply? Fuck, I'd rather not blow him up. Really, the Bakuda+Oni Lee combination is bullshit, and the fact that canon dodged them hugely influencing events is kinda bullshit and/or disappointing.

Though I suppose I'm more disappointed at the lack of fanfics covering the pairing's potential. Noooo, it's always about Taylor abusing godlike superpowers and calling her a munchkin because she actually paid attention in canon/they gave their fanfic version a godlike power and she's not stupid with it-

Tangent.

Ugh, Oni Lee's already said "It shall be done", bowed, and collapsed into dust while I've been getting distracted here -why is my cell phone ringing?

I pick it up and ask, mildly annoyed -I've never been a fan of phones, really- "What?" My answer: it's some guy called Takeshi -or maybe a woman, the voice is surprisingly androgynous- and apparently they're forewarning me that they're on their way to prepare my outfit. Oh. Right, yeah, they'll need to do fittings or something, won't they? I'm pretty sure no one got my numbers while I was tinkering without me noticing, I'm not that oblivious... probably...

... wait, when were they contacted?

--------​

I'm actually in the middle of tinkering when Takeshi shows up, having gotten bored and wanting to see if I can make myself combat goggles or something. I ended up making a helmet, a crude-looking bowl-shaped thing (Sort of like a WWII helmet, I guess) that should block a lot of sensors, even exotic tinkertech bullshit, and in fact fakes my own brain activity to fool such sensors, among other weird protections.

I don't know what the fuck, really. I wanted targeting sensors, or night vision, and then creativity/my shard went weird places.

Also, I do mean Takeshi just shows up. Knock? No. Ring the door bell? No. Just opens the door and walks in, locking it behind them while putting a key back in their pocket. It only now finally hits me that I've had essentially no privacy this whole time. Somehow, having invisible servants doing stuff without me noticing didn't get my hackles up, but seeing someone with a key to my area casually walk in without even informing me pisses me off. Brain, stop it, be less stupid.

I still have no idea whether Takeshi is a man or a woman, seeing... them. Their walk is weird. (I'm used to being good at identifying gender by the walk, but Takeshi doesn't read right either way) Their clothes are gender-neutral. They're thin all-around, wiry in a way that could go either way and would explain a lack of chest if they're female. They have no stubble, and I can't tell if they have an Adam's Apple or not because they have a weird, high collar. Looks nice on them, really.

… aren't racists usually also phobic about all kinds of other shit too, like gays, transexuals, ambiguously gendered people, etc? Isn't Takeshi exactly the sort of person that racists beat to death, not welcome into their ranks with open arms?

Well, at least gendered pronouns aren't really a thing in a one-on-one conversation in English. I don't have to worry about any aggravating slips of that sort.

I open my mouth to say... I'm not even sure what. It doesn't matter, because Takeshi ignores that, grabs me by one arm, physically manipulates me into a standing position, pulls out a tape measure from somewhere and starts making measurements. My protests are completely ignored and Takeshi's grip is rather more like iron than I'd expect from someone so thin. Takeshi mutters to him/her/itself a couple of times, and then promptly turns around and leaves, having said not one word to me.

What the fuck.

I get back to tinkering after a minute, eye on the door, annoyed, half-wondering if I can tinker up a replacement for the lock or something.

Naturally, I get distracted in short order, completely forgetting to eye the door.

A Bouncing Betty spraying acid...

-------​

Takeshi barges in on me tinkering again, this time while I'm working on bombs for the assault. He/she/it is dragging luggage on wheels, sweeps a table of junk clear over my protests, opens up the luggage, pulls out four outfits, and puts them on the table, laid out nicely. He/she/it points to them and says something briefly about each one at each point.

The first is girly, flowery, and offers no protection. The closest to covering my face it gets is the giant hat. "To be underestimated, to reinforce your position as second to Lung, to distract and confuse, to emphasize your lack of a dual identity." I hate it on sight.

The second is dark spandex sort of shit. It's not girly per se, but I'm getting too much of a Catwoman vibe. Most of the face is uncovered, too, with a built-in domino mask being basically it. "Stealth, speed, comfort-" wait, really? "-and distraction." Uh. Hmm. Comfortable. Hmm. I do like comfortable...

The third is a motley-looking thing, urban camo covered in pouches large enough to fit the majority of my bombs into any given pouch and with more straps, buckles, and dangly bits than I know what to do with. It's completely un-feminine. It has no specific facial covering, but my helmet wouldn't look out of place with it. "Frontline fighter, de-emphasize your parahuman status, project the image of a professional soldier. Separates you from our less professional people, but emphasizing professionalism over parahuman ability, making you more accessible." Huh. An intersection of practicality and image management. Neat.

The fourth and final is dark, spiky, and looks like a combination of medieval armor (Chainmail and the occasional solid piece) and more modern armor. (I'm pretty sure it has a Kevlar vest) It's a full-body piece, with a helmet/mask thing I couldn't fit my tinkertech helmet in with, whether over it or under it. Also? The mask looks like some intersection of a samurai mask and a more Western/Christian sort of goatman/satanic face. Angry red and sprouting fangs, either way. "To induce fear, to present solidarity with Lee, to confuse foes into expecting Lee, to separate out and mark yourself as a parahuman first and a woman second. Second-best protection." Wait, does that mean the urban camo one is better protection, in spite of lacking a helmet?

Huh. Uh. Well, one is out, and frankly two is... I like comfortable, but then I'm not normally going into a battle, am I? I'd rather be uncomfortable and alive than comfortably dead. So. Third or fourth.

… I point at the fourth one (Takeshi nods to it/him/herself and says "I suspected as much", annoying me before packing the other outfits away and leaving) and spend a moment trying to figure out if I can somehow incorporate my tinkertech helmet into the design. Well. I suppose I could probably reconstruct the top part into an equivalent design...

---------​

"It is time."

buh

sleeping

Goddammit Lee.

I peel myself off one of the workshop tables. Yes, I tinkered (oh, hey, I did get the helmet incorporated, awesome) until I collapsed into sleep on the table. I groggily ask "So is that no PRT response, or a PRT response of no?" Oni Lee points at the TV, which I apparently turned on at some point and left running. Or maybe one of the minions turned it on? I don't remember turning it on. ANYWAY. There's a thing going on with a man labeled Armsmaster by the TV gesticulating angrily (Huh, I always imagined him as a stiffer fellow) and talking about how the Protectorate doesn't give into terrorist demands, certainly not to release a man bound for the Birdcage! Wait, we're terrorists now? I thought 9/11 didn't happen in Earth Bet. I'm almost certain that's not fanon.

It's not like Worm ever called Bakuda a terrorist in canon.

Though... hm. In canon Bakuda just blew shit up and made no demands that I can recall. I mean, that's like basically the textbook definition of a terrorist, someone doing something to sow terror, but then there wouldn't be any reason to... oh, right. Taylor basically never watched TV in canon. Maybe they did call Bakuda a terrorist in canon. Hm. Food for thought.

Whatever, that's a "no".

I start digging around for my transmitter, until it occurs to me to ask. "Is Calvert dealt with?" Oni Lee grunts what sounds like a negative to me. I resume searching, briefly consider trying to film us killing Calvert, and then decide that I really don't need to give him any more opportunities to do... whatever... so yeah, I'm just killing him.

Finally I find the transmitter and send the signal for Calvert's headbomb to trigger.

I have a moment where I wish I'd done something dramatic to provide clear feedback that he's dead. I don't have anything on the transmitter to inform me of whether the bomb received the signal let alone whether it detonated. Not even a little LED.

I send Oni Lee to retrieve Calvert's presumably-corpse. I'm kind of thinking of taking pictures and sending them to the PRT.

He re-appears a minute later and informs me, still flatly, that there's a scorchmark on the floor, but no corpse. The door lock was obviously picked, tracks lead away, the trail of blood is cold by several hours.

Shit!

It occurs to me I didn't include any failsafes for Calvert removing the bomb. It just didn't cross my mind that he could perform surgery on himself. (Not the kind of thing that crops up normally) I... fuck. I should've just killed him. Giving Calvert -Coil- time is always the wrong thing to do.

I snap out "Track him down, execute him." Wait. "First, gear up for the assault, take the bombs from that-" I gesture "-table, I made them with you in mind." Double meaning there, really. "We still need to do this, obviously. If the assault timing is getting too close, abandon the chase, we can deal with him later." I wince at the idea of leaving Calvert free to meet back up with his assets as Coil, but I don't have a lot of choice. I briefly walk Oni Lee through how to arm these bombs, getting an absent grunt in response. Oni Lee cloneports over to the table, grabs most of the bombs and clips them on, and then disintegrates, not bothering to explicitly acknowledge my orders.

Meanwhile, I gear up in my selected costume, call up "Logistics", get told to call up "Personnel", do that, and inform him that the operation is a go. To my pleasant surprise he doesn't say anything like "what operation" and simply informs me that the troops in question will be meeting me at the intersection of thus and such and so and so.

It occurs to me that I know nothing about Brockton Bay's layout. I pop over to the laptop, look up the intersection in question, and then realize I don't have any idea where I am, relative to it. I call up Logistics again, and have him send over a car with instructions to take me to said intersection. Logistics asks me if I want a low-key vehicle or an armored vehicle. I'm nonplussed for a moment, wondering how the ABB has an armored vehicle (Aren't those custom jobs?), and why when their boss is Lung, and then indicate I want the low-key vehicle.

Element of surprise and all.

A bit contrary to me going out in full costume, admittedly... eh, whatever. I peek out a window: yeah, night has fallen. And yes, Brockton Bay is more temperate than I'd have expected for being in the NE USA. Reminds me of San Diego, but less wet. Has me wondering what weird microclimate stuff is going on in Brockton Bay.

Come to think of it, this thing doesn't have any shoes. Ugh. I guess I... have to put on the high heels. Better to do it now, practice a bit before I'm heading out to a battlefield. Great way to die, that: "Bakuda died because high heels on a battlefield. The moron."

Heading to the bedroom area, I'm pleasantly surprised to discover six shoe boxes and a note labeled Stack rejects to one side in their boxes -Logistics. They're all black, I discover, which isn't actually my favorite color -I prefer orange, really- but I can see why black would've been grabbed in the absence of actual input from me. They include a pair of sandals (I take those, briefly consider putting them on, and then set them aside with all the friggin' high heels. Also not battlefield-appropriate, regardless of what Naruto thinks), two different types of sneakers (Rejects), platform shoes (I... decide to keep them, just in case, albeit grudgingly), a pair of boots I promptly put on (Takes a bit of wrestling with the leggings: the costume isn't really designed with boots in mind), and some other thing I don't even know how to classify. I make a mental note to ask what the hell they are, fully expecting to completely forget it (Just like I forgot to actually tell people I wanted flats, but apparently a written note worked anyway. Cool), and put their box in with the sneakers ie reject pile.

Then it occurs to me I really need to transport the bombs, too. A bit of digging around nets me a box of trash bags, the big, black, sturdy kind. I stuff all the remaining bombs into four such bags, absently grateful that most of them are more stable than C4. This would be a terrible idea if any of them was sensitive to physical shocks. I still need to be careful about heat, a few of them would go up instantly when exposed to a fire, but I'm not so concerned about that and anyway I'm in a hurry right now.

A brief glance around to see if I missed anything lat- oops, the transmitter. Uh. Hmm. I didn't really design it to be carried on me... eh. Into a trash bag it goes... after I turn it off first. Don't need to butt-dial exploding Oni Lee at the wrong time. I'm really hoping he gets Calvert. I'd hate to feel like I prevented that by prematurely killing Oni Lee via butt-dialing.

Then I wait.

After thirty seconds sitting around, waiting for the car, I'm bored and turn on the TV. I flip away from the news, because it's just talking heads arguing about whether a starlet is a whore or a human being for being known to le gasp have sex with a fellow human being they aren't in an explicitly monogamous relationship with. (I'm paraphrasing, admittedly) The other news channels aren't really any better, though I do linger on CNN covering a lahar in some country I've never heard the name of (It occurs to me abruptly to wonder if the country is an Earth Bet-ism or if I'm just an ignoramus), caused by a local cape rather than weather. Or being blamed on him. It's apparently his modus operandi, but nobody has connected him to this one, they're just assuming it's his fault.

Then I get bored and flip to cartoons. I end up watching a few minutes of a cartoon based on Protectorate capes. (I check via the laptop: the villains they're fighting aren't real, excepting a couple who had sufficiently similar powers to the cartoon version that they patterned themselves after the cartoon. That's... that's a thing. I have no words) It's better than I'm expecting, in all honesty: it's very thinly veiled propaganda about how if you trigger you should always go straight to the Protectorate no matter what, but it's snappily written, the music and art style is actually a lot of fun, and the episode in question is actually about a girl who triggers with some horrifying power (This is a kid's show, so not too horrifying) and assumes she's destined for villainy because her power is such a stereotypically villainous power. She embraces villainy with reluctance, fights Armsmaster a couple of times (His voice actor does a good job of matching the real man's voice, actually, enough so that it takes me a few minutes to be completely sure that no, they didn't somehow get Armsmaster to do his own voice acting. This guy lacks a gruff edge, hard to describe, he's just slightly smoother, but only slightly, I'm really impressed actually), and ultimately her reason for going villain comes out, at which point Armsmaster explains that it doesn't matter what your power is, you too can be a hero! Cue it covering an actual Protectorate article, Teacher Armsmaster (dressed comically with a suit over his costume, of course) explaining to a classroom of Wards, ending on basically and now you know!

It's trite edutainment/propaganda, but it's compelling. Though I do have to wonder if it's hilarious for people who actually know the capes being depicted... or just uncomfortable. Or hilarious and uncomfortable? (Does Armsmaster really take obnoxiously long in the bathroom to get his beard just so, or does he not and find it obnoxious to have people believe that he does because of this cartoon?)

I'm idly thinking on some parallels to Worm's canon events when someone knocks on the door and calls out "Your car is here, Ma'am."

Go time.

 

[CovertCloud]

So, seeing all the thoughts on coil's escape, I figured I might as well weight in with my own take. In the form of a snip, that the gracious Ghoul King decided to cannonize for your reading pleasure. I ain't the best writer, but I'll try. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

2.x Coil

Coil came too in a haze of confusion and pain. His body was distantly trying to tell him all about the many bruises, cuts, and minor burns littering it, but it was all eclipsed by his head. Oh god, his head. Pain radiated out from it, lancing and stabbing and burning in time with his heartbeat. It was... it was agony. Everything seemed to dim in the face of the mounting pain, his awareness trying to escape in the only way it knew how.


But he was COIL! He wouldn't let this defeat him. His mind fought the darkness, refusing to give in, no matter how sluggish his thoughts or scattered his resolve was. In the face of adversity, Thomas Calvert did what he always did. He split the timeline, seeking safety.


With two trains of thought, the path forward became clear. Moving his thoughts in ways only a person with two bodies and two minds could even understand, let alone learn to duplicate, he shunted the pain of both bodies into one self.


Clarity.


At least for one half of himself, but the one slowly falling apart under the pain would be erased, and so did not matter.


Now able to function, Coil opened his eyes. There was no use pretending to still be unconscious, as he was sure he had made some noise while dealing with the pain. Fortunately, he was alone in the room. Not that he particularly liked what he saw. Concrete walls, bare floor, heavy door. Feeling around with his aching body revealed that he had been placed on a basic cot. At least they had left him his underwear. Amateurs.


He slowly began to sit up, when suddenly his other timeline fell apart. He quickly created another split, and shunted the pain onto one of the two Coils. Hmm. It seemed the pain proved too much for the other him, and probably pushed him into cardiac arrest. Lack of oxygen to the Coronna Pollentia, and his powers and the timeline failed.


Well, the dying him's were able to take care the pain, so all in all, it worked well enough. Hopefully the pain would eventually pass. Using his powers this way removed the possibility of more useful applications. He would have to plan quickly.


The door was the first obstacle. Hobbling his way over, he knelt beside the lock and studied it carefully. It was an older model, one that he vaguely recognized. He clumsily felt around in his underwear, feeling for the emergency pouch he had sewn in place. His lockpicking tools, switchblade, and lighter were all there, good. It might take a minute or two to open the door, less if he used his power, but it could be opened.


Now for the other matter.


He could remember what that bitch had said. A proximity bomb set to blow up if he left a certain range. Best to assume that meant the room, and deal with it now.


In the time it had taken him to reach and study the door, three more timelines had fallen apart under the strain. Thankfully, standing seemed to lessen the pain, and while his other self was still dying under the pain from two bodies, it was happening much slower. Time to learn what he was dealing with.


In the throwaway timeline, the convulsing body on the ground spastically raised its arm, and tried to feel its head. Instead, it hit itself right on top of the cut piece of bone, driving it into the brain, and killing it.


Back in the main timeline, Calvert sighed while making a new timeline. Thankfully, the second attempt gave some more insight, as this body had only just begun to deal with the stress. Having a firm mental grasp on what exactly had been done to him, Coil paused to consider his options.


They were rather sparse.


Waiting to see if he could influence or trick the two psychopaths into removing the device or freeing him would be foolish. Coil was loath to simply wait and trust that he could outmaneuver them. They held all the power, and saw him as an object. If Coil had been in their position, he would have never let his victim go. No, that could only be a last resort.


But he did need to remove the bomb. He would just have to do it himself. He split the timeline again, then slowly allowed himself to feel part of the pain. Moving around, he found the optimal position, a hunched, awkward seat on the cot, and then began.


In the throwaway, he carefully prodded the wound, gauging how much leeway he had. It was hard to tell, between the blood and pain, but the loose bone seemed to be sticking out slightly. With slippery fingers, he managed to grasp it, and after taking a moment to steady his nerves, yanked.


Coil gave a short, breathless whimper, before fainting.


In the other timeline, Coil waited. While one of him was unconscious, he was still aware that there were two him's. If the unconscious one disappeared, it would indicate that either the bomb was trapped against its own removal, or he had fallen over and killed himself against the floor.


The second timeline did not disappear, even after he waited several minutes. So, Bakuda hadn't even thought to stop him from removing the bomb. So very, very unfortunate. After his escape he was going to kidnap her and torture her, show her how a real professional did things. He might even let her live. Hmm, he could certainly use a tinker to augment his forces.


Enough daydreaming, he had an escape to implement.


Dropping and splitting the timeline, he grasped the piece of bone. Reproducing the exact movements as much as he could, he breathed out, then pulled. Out it came with a grating pop. In the other timeline, the one that he had shunted the pain to, he keeled over once again. Nevertheless, he sat absolutely frozen, waiting to see if this timeline would end. After several minutes, he relaxed, and dropped the timeline were he had fallen unconscious, and were he had not removed the bone, then split one more.


Cringing at the next bit, one of the Coil's reached up, and began to feel around. While the hole wasn't too thick, it wasn't very big, and accidentally touching the sides would cause quite a lot of pain, as his feeling around had attested. Dropping and splitting once more to get rid of the shakes, he considered his approach.


If he was not careful, there was a very real chance of killing himself. Thankfully, where others might be unable to take the risk, he could try until he succeeded, with no repercussions.


What felt like an hour, and thirty seven failures later, he had mapped out the hole in his head, the device, and the various parts of his brain he should not be poking. He had also pulled the bomb out four times, only to realise he had given himself some form of brain damage. It was subtle, but Calvert had a unique advantage in being able to compare healthy and not so healthy selves in real time, so as to discover any injury.


The fifth attempt had been delayed after number four had seemed successful, until he had felt the blood starting too gush out of the hole and down his head. So far, the attempt seemed to be working out, as he had managed to grasp the device without touching the sides and flinching, or poking his brain and bleeding out, or pushing the bomb in further and cutting into something important. With a slow methodical movement, he drew the bomb out of his head, and carefully, he brought it around, peering at it blearily.


Was that a bandaid holding the wires together?


No matter. Just as slowly as before, he moved the bomb away from himself, placing it in the furthest corner of the room. Taking several minutes, he made sure that his thoughts were not slower, or more disorganized than those of his safe timeline. He moved his head around, and felt his limbs to ensure he could still feel his whole body.


Coil rated it as a tentative success, and went to work on the lock.


With both timelines working at the lock, one with a headbomb, one without, the lock opened relatively quickly. One Coil opened the door, while the other waited.

Seeing no one on the other side, he set off in opposite directions, each timeline looking for a way out. The base was curiously empty, and he only had to hide in an office once. Eventually, the Coil with the bomb in his head found the stairs.

While the Coil without the bomb would have walked down the stairs and out the door, the one without couldn't do so without running an even greater risk of exploding. This would not be a huge loss, but Coil felt somewhat cautious about dropping the timeline just yet. The longer he kept it, the more certain he could be that he had not damaged his mind in some way. So constrained, he decided to head upstairs, to see what he could find. It may not be the way out, but he figured there might be a chance of finding something useful.

At first it all seemed more of the same, until he found a room he recognised. Bakuda's workshop. Quickly hiding himself, he took the moment to look around. The place was a mess, filled with piles of scrap and random junk, some of it not even mechanical. A banana peel sat on an old newspaper, which hid a pile of who knows what underneath. He started to cautiously search the place.

Darting through the workshop, Calvert froze when he caught sight of someone. It was Bakuda, working at one of the tables, oblivious to the world. He nearly laughed out loud. No traps, simple lock, no guards, not even aware of the world around her. This would be sweet.

Crouched low, Coil made his way toward her, knife out and ready to stab. It might not be as fun as some of the other options he had envisioned, but work came before pleasure. He was thirty feet away, and almost halfway through the room when a single beep pierced the silence, and the timeline dropped as his head blew up.

Over in the other timeline, the one where coil did not have a bomb in his skull, he snarled to himself. So she did have some measure of defence against him attacking her after all. Not that it mattered he thought, as he split the timeline in two.

One of him continued out the door of the stairwell on the first floor, while the other stayed behind. This floor, being marginally more busy, took a few retries to avoid being seen, but the place was once again rather empty, and Thomas Calvert was an elite soldier, even without counting the benefit of his powers.

Having distracted the door guard and made his escape, he made his way out of sight of the building and down the block until he found a suitable alley to rest in. His body was sore, but now that he had escaped it would soon be remedied. Assuming the other timeline did not work out, in any case.

The other Coil, once he had cleared the door, had started up the stairs once more, heading for Bakuda. This time, he thought, she wouldn't be saved by her bomb. He was going to hurt her, and maybe see what he could find out with some inventive questioning. Coil was considering retrying his attacks until he found one that ended with her dead and his re-escape. She had made him so angry, he wasn't sure he cared just how hard it might be. He wanted her dead.

The Coil on the inside made his way up to the third floor, and was once more approaching the tinker on silent feet. This time, as he closed in on her, no bomb went off, and he entered into stabbing range.

Stooping low, and still as silent as possible, he stabbed her leg. Best to limit her movement from the start, limit her options, maybe even cripple her with the pain. Coil knew he was about to enjoy this.

He stepped to the side, prepared to fight off a desperate counter-attack. Unexpectedly she simply shifted onto her other foot with a wince, and continued to tinker. Thomas Calvert was confused. And furious. How dare she just... ignore him like that!

He grabbed her arm and spun her around, knife coming up to her throat as he threw her on to the table.

That was more like it, there was the fear, the weakness and the pain. Just as he opened his mouth to start talking, to offer her life in exchange for useful information, (she wouldn't survive this, but hope was such a powerful tool for keeping people obedient) she seemed to come to some realisation.

Whatever the epiphany was, it caused her to reach over to a device, and before he could stop her, she had pressed one of the many buttons. A dozen exotic bombs suddenly exploded, each effect capable of devastating destruction. These caused the other bombs to explode in a cascading eruption. Together, they managed to damage the city in a wide area, from hyper-ballistic pieces of the building to a strange lightning that seemed to disintegrate matter, to a series of marble sized black holes that had been scattered like shotgun pellets by one of the other bombs, to more.

The only one that would actually affect anything, as the timeline fell apart as Coil died, was the bomb that caused agonising nerve pain. Already wounded and weary, and not expecting such a shock to the system, the remaining Coil gave one startled gasp where he was sitting in the alley, and fainted.

-----​

Several hours later, Coil came to, and decided he had enough of fighting the ABB on his own. Wearily, and furious despite his successful escape, Thomas Calvert headed home.

 

[Ghoul King]

2.2

I am surprised to discover there's an attached garage or something. A loading dock, maybe? Ugh, I don't know, point is a space for the car to pull into without me walking out into broad daylight (Well, it's dusk, but whatever) from my lair. Excellent, being in costume is not compromising this location. I was worried about that.

The vehicle itself is a minivan. I was expecting a car. No, it's a minivan. There is absolutely no evidence that it has anything to do with the ABB. Even the driver, aside from being Asian, strictly speaking (He looks to me like somebody grabbed an Aryan prettyboy, dyed their hair black, and gave them epicanthic folds, honestly), isn't anybody I'd readily associate with the ABB. Too... nerdy, I guess. No muscle, clothing isn't well-suited to hiding tattoos, he's smiling like he's actually happy, rather than looking angry or whatever, and his clothing is the sort of vaguely middle-class "I don't actually know how to dress well or comfortably" thing you don't usually find on gang members. The only reason I don't double-take is his complete lack of reaction to me in costume. Cementing it is that he doesn't react at all when I tell him, while loading the bomb bags in, that if there's any unusual sources of heat in there we need to keep the bags away from them so they don't kill us. (Well, "Got it boss" is a reaction. Technically)

I get in back with the bombs, laying down on my belly. The windows aren't tinted enough to keep me invisible, this is supposed to be stealthy, so hiding from the windows. The driver takes that in stride too, and simply hops in front, checks that I'm ready/reasonably comfortable (Yeah, basically, even if the armor was clearly not intended to be laid down in) and starts driving off to the meeting point.

I make a pointed effort to not focus on tinkering. This is not the time to get distracted with tinker thoughts. I think about games. That gets me wondering how much Bet parallels my known reality in games. Kyushu really ought to mean a lot of games are radically different or died out, given how many are Japanese or heavily influenced by Japan and Kyushu apparently was a major blow to Japan as a whole, but stuff like Taylor being casually familiar with real game series seems to fly a bit in the face of that. Like, is Starcraft a thing? Is it still South Korea's national sport? Starcraft is more heavily influenced by 40k than any other one thing, but there's enough Japanese influence in there I have to wonder, and who knows what South Korea is like with Endbringers and parahumans and all running around.

For that matter, 40k has enough anime influence, even before they introduced the Tau, that Starcraft bordering into 40k rip-off territory is also having a notable, indirect anime influence. Or maybe Japan has stepped up its game in exporting fiction and so on, with their land devastated? I mean, stuff would still be different... and to be fair, Starcraft came before Kyushu, I'm pretty sure. Actually, what's going on with Earth Bet in terms of presenting aliens and superpowered psychic beings and stuff? The Protectorate seems to be trying to discourage making parahumans seem like ascended, superior beings we should strive to become, so a lot of scifi tropes about aliens ascended to a higher plane of existence etc etc might not be kosher in Bet. Or maybe they're more popular than ever? I doubt the Protectorate can suppress every story utilizing that stuff, and having The Man try can be enough to promote the idea...

So. Hm. Could go either way: could be that deifying superpowered beings in scifi/fantasy is a big cultural no-no, could be that it's as popular as ever. Something to look into when I have some idle time.

Still trying to not think about tinkering. Um. Romance? I've got to wonder how Earth Bet handles romance fiction. I suspect there's a lot more in the way of exploring relationships where one partner has vastly more power -I mean, back on Omicron (Just sticking to that now, why not, it's my head) that stuff was plenty popular, and hey plenty of relationships really are uneven in that way- but it seems like it would be a much more urgent cultural question to Bet than for Omicron. You mishandle that kind of thing, and you've got A Cape Scorned type of shit leveling city blocks. See: Purity in canon, re: Aster's kidnapping. Regular uneven relationships only start destroying cities when one of the people involved is in a position of trust and power, if even then. Or maybe Bet focuses more on getting away from that kind of dynamic in its romance? Focus on two ordinary people who are about equivalent, stay away from cape/normy romance drama? A lot of romance is about escaping reality, rather than dealing with it...

Uh. Nope, still not arrived. Still need distractions from tinker-thoughts. Check: hands are where they belong, not fiddling with anything? Checked, they're good. Good.

Uh, Pokemon? How's Pokemon doing? Did it even happen? Hm. Hard question. Not really one I can answer without poking around -if it did survive, I have to wonder if cape culture intruded. Really, in general, I have to wonder what fantasy and scifi in Earth Bet looks like. How normal is it to project capes or cape-equivalents into such stories? Does scifi take it as a given that capes continue into the future? Are there cape-nerd scifi fans emailing scifi authors who project current parahuman percentages into the future to tell them that's wrong, at the rate things are going we're going to be 90+% parahuman within a century! Or snail-mailing, I guess. Both. Whatever. Canon seems to be operating on the assumption that non-capes don't know anything about parahuman trends, really, but canon also can't seem to quite make up its mind about where parahumans fit into the culture.

Like, video games. If you're into video games, there's tons of stuff to look at. But if you're not into video games, you probably have only a dim awareness that much of anything is going on with them, based primarily on things like seeing them in the electronics section at Walmart. (And it's easy to have no clue that the Xbox has been replaced like twice if you don't keep up with this kind of thing) Worm seems to kind of think parahumans are like that: people who care have this whole hidden world to dig through and learn about and be interested in, and everyone else is sort of vaguely aware that parahumans exist but don't give them a lot of thought beyond that... which is a bit difficult to reconcile with the world structure going on -parahumans are too intrusive on everyday reality, even if there's a culture of trying to be low-key involved. It'd be like having no clue computers exist. Certainly, computer nerds know more about computers and computer culture than your average citizen, but if somebody in 2015 lives in America and knows nothing about computers, it's because they're an Amish recluse or something, not because they haven't been paying specific attention to it. Just having people increasingly using wifi at public libraries etc is going to make it obvious to your average citizen that computers are a thing, a thing that is changing, etc.

So I suspect parahuman presence has influenced fiction in all kinds of subtle ways. Back in Omicron I saw stories making mistakes like implicitly treating 15th century folks as having access to cell phones, in terms of being so used to people being able to get information to other countries in no time flat that they write scenes where you basically have to assume King Arthur's kingdom has a cell phone network for some inexplicable reason. Probably a lot of fiction takes not only capes but the implications of capes for granted. Canon alludes to special Endbringer rules in government -Endbringer funds? Or is that fanon?- and I can easily imagine people writing fantasy wish fulfillment stories that explicitly have no Endbringers and no Endbringer equivalents and then forget that their government/culture has measures in place for disasters in general derived from the existence of Endbringers, and write their fantasy governments as obviously just having an Endbringer fund set aside even though the setting has no reason to have one. It'd be interesting taking in Bet fiction.

For that matter I have to wonder what Bet teen fanfiction looks like. Is their writing more realistic, driven by the need to engage real reality more, since failure to do so can get them killed, even if they're upper-middle-class? Is it less realistic, driven by a desperate need to hide from the horribleness that is the awareness that no matter how secure your life is, no matter how respected your father is, there's Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine and random parahumans running around, ready to ruin it all without so much as a by-your-leave? Is it basically the same level of realism, but with entirely different paradigms? Do people consider it appropriate to argue over "power levels" or have "vs" debates -Worm suggests they think it's appropriate to have vs debates about real capes, so probably- or is that kind of thing considered crass in an environment where real people routinely die in powered fights? Like, getting into an argument over Darth Vader vs Sauron might strike a little too close to home, and go from "idle, interesting conversation" to "That fight literally happened in my backyard and killed my dog you fucking assholes".

I've wondered how much violence in games is, well, meaningful, what it means if it's meaningful. I'm not big on thinking people are sublimating their real life urges as the entire explanation -that's dumb- but if it is part of the explanation, that raises questions about violence in games in Bet. Is it more common, because the world is more dangerous? Less common, because people take out those urges in real life so much more: just trigger, put on a costume, and go beat people up, no need to pretend you're shooting the asshole bullies when you're playing Doom. More common because even super-conservative people's expectations of what is "too violent" have shifted? With the Slaughterhouse Nine running around (etc etc) it's not like games are any worse than what's on the news -which is a common argument people make in Omicron anyway, but a lot of that is at least Off Some Place Else, like wars in Africa being ugly, where the Slaughterhouse Nine are in America itself, operating with impunity- and that's a thought right there. Do people resent their government as a failure, that it can't stop the Slaughterhouse Nine? The Endbringers are at least like roving natural disasters -it's like blaming the president for the fact that tornadoes exist. The Slaughterhouse Nine are people, people the US has failed to stop for twenty years.

That can't be good for taxpayer opinion of The Man.

The driver's phone rings abruptly, he distractedly picks it up, and then passes it to me saying "It's for you, Ma'am."

Uh. Okay. Well, a distraction, that's good. I put the phone up to one ear and say "Yes?"

Oni Lee's voice comes over the phone, less flat than usual: I think he sounds angry, just a little, or maybe very angry but tightly controlled. "He vanished."

Awww. "You lost his trail? Damn."

Oni Lee cuts back in. "I found him. I threw knives at him. He vanished, and they hit a mannequin."

Shit. Trickster. Well. "How recently was this?"

"Less than a minute." Oh! Oh!

"He should still be in the area, he's being helped by a cape, goes by Trickster, can swap the position of two objects, the more similar in mass they are the faster he can do it, but he needs line of sight and objects to swap with. He's not a faster teleporter than you, unless the area has been prepared with his power in mind, and he has to teleport himself and the target separately so you can catch up easy."Oni Lee grunts. I continue. "You still have some time to find the target, but Trickster's part of a team and they're fairly heavy hitters. The team is mercenary, so I'd prefer it if you didn't kill them unnecessarily, but if killing the target demands you kill one of them, I want the target dead. One of them tends to look like some kind of monster, you don't have to hold back against her, she's a projection. Feel free to nuke her." Oni Lee grunts again and hangs up. I pass the phone back to the driver.

Not dead in the water yet. Worried, because the Travelers are heavy hitters, but Calvert hasn't gotten away entirely as yet.

… I feel kind of dumb for not bringing my phone, though. I don't know how to- actually, can I just have the driver call up Oni Lee? Oh, whatever, I don't want to phone up Oni Lee anyway, in case distracting him fucks up him killing Coil.

Uh, where was I?

… somethingsomething Endbringers and popular culture? Actually, there's a question -what effect has the Simurgh's existence had on Judeo-Christian imagery in pop culture? Having the worst Endbringer (No offense) be a blatant angel expy sure changes the context of A: vague "Just trust me" angels that, back in Omicron are supposed to be trustworthy and Good with a capital G and B: angels intended to be surprise! Evil! The former is suddenly very sinister, while the latter is suddenly not really all that shocking -makes me wonder how pre-Endbringer fiction gets interpreted by the youth of today. Hey, there's another thought: how's Romeo and Juliet taken? At the time it was meant to be a tale of two morons who didn't get that this was a terrible plan making everything worse for everyone, and back in modern American Omicron it was generally taken as a tale of ~le sigh~ TWUE WUV...

… completely misunderstanding and in turn misusing star-crossed lovers...

... so it has me wondering how (Modern) Bet Americans take them. Probably some completely different third way, honestly -maybe focusing more on how forces in place before they were born, impossible to negotiate with and otherwise beyond their control are ripping them apart. Like an Endbringer.

Actually, now that I think about it, what about Neon Genes-

"We're here Ma'am." Yes. No more need for distractions, thank god. I was getting twitchy.

Once the SUV has stopped moving I open up the back before the engine is even off, grab a bag and haul it over one shoulder, and climb out. There's a crowd of obvious thugs lurking halfway into an alleyway we're parked next to. Lesse. We're meeting here because the convoy is supposed to pass by in -uh, er, I don't have a watch, shit- whatever, soon-ish, it'll be here, and... I guess this alleyway is convenient or something, I dunno. The thugs snap to and some of them double-take, not sure why. They don't salute me, but they do all make some weird hand/arm motion at me. From what little I know about gangs, probably a respect/greeting thing made specifically for the gang to subtly signal "I'm a part of the gang, you can trust me bro". I note that close to a quarter of the members are actually female. They're also a lot less tryhard than I was expecting. Hm. A difference in how Bet's male/female dynamics have evolved? When anybody can trigger -as far as most people know- I guess maybe you have less of that "Women feeling the need to be more macho than the men in male-dominated fields so nobody will question their presence"?

Or... something to do with Kyushu, maybe? Like, maybe a disproportionate portion of them are Kyushu survivors and everyone knows you don't fuck with Kyushu survivors? Man, I'd love to be able to just... talk to these people, it'd be interesting. No time though.

I point at three random goons ("You, you, and you"), tell them to grab the other three bags in the SUV. While they're doing that, I set down the bag I grabbed and call out "Everybody know what we're here for?" There's a kind of mumbling affirmative. I look up and say, irritably "Specifically?" Less mumbly, variations on free/rescue/release Lung. I nod sharply and say "Better." Then I ask "Alright, who has the most accurate throwing arm here?" A dozen arms snap to point at one guy, looking faintly embarrassed and maybe a little afraid of being singled out. I pull out what I've been calling a welding bomb, gesture for him to come over, and say in a projecting voice "When the first truck is in sight, you're going to toss this at its front or just in front of it, whichever you think you can pull off more readily. That'll screw up the whole convoy, and then we all move in."

He nods, taking the bomb somewhat gingerly. I clarify absently "It's not armed yet. None of them will be until somebody spots the convoy." I don't think he hears me. Regardless, I am so glad I thought of using my kludged transmitter to set them to "armable" vs "not armable" states. I really need to replace it with a less shit transmitter. Something occurs to me. I call out "Hey, estimated time to arrival?" One of the women holds up an arm with a watch on it, taps it, calls out "Should be thirty minutes, ma'am." Awww shit, I'm going to have to distract myself again.

Well, this time I can at least spend that time explaining what any given bomb is. That won't be boring.

I call out "Sharpest eyes, which one?" Two different groups of arms go pointing toward two different people -a bald man whose head is covered in dragon tattoos, with enough muscle I spend a moment reminding myself that Lung has been captured, this isn't him, and a petite older woman. I'm suddenly reminded of some of the memetic badassery of Japanese old ladies. I spend a moment wondering why there's a granny acting as a soldier when she's not a parahuman. Isn't gang warfare a young person's game? Regardless, I say "You two, sentry duty. Mostly I want to know when the convoy is in sight, but if you spot capes or cops, give a shout." They nod and head off to the alleyway's mouth, taking up discreet positions.

All right. Time to explain the bombs and distract myself in the process.

I really hope Oni Lee gets Calvert.

I clip some of the nastier bombs to my costume before I begin the explanations/passing out of bombs. Still trying to decide whether I want to "accidentally" time stop Lung or not, keeping my options open. Problem is, I'm not sure anyone would believe me if I pretend Lung's death/time entrapment is an accident. I wouldn't believe me, though admittedly I know me, but I'm also having difficulty imagining people trusting the Cornell Bomber to be a safe, sane individual. Hell, going by how utterly bonkers Bakuda is in canon, it wouldn't surprise me if word got around of pre-me Bakuda's personality. If so... why would anyone be surprised by chronic backstabbing disorder out of me?

The next twenty minutes (I hope it's twenty minutes) is me walking people through the more common bombs (ie the ones I made more than one copy of), as well as general operation. ("Once I've armed them, you depress the trigger -they're all x-shaped- for two seconds and then throw. It'll explode on impact or after six seconds, whichever comes first. So long as you hold down the trigger that countdown is frozen, though once you let go depressing it again won't re-freeze the timer.") It's only once I'm done that it occurs to me that I only made two bombs that explode into fire (Well, not counting my already-used cauterizer pillbomb) and one that explodes into shrapnel -and even then, the shrapnel is designed to superheat and burn holes into whatever it hits.

… I might be a bit more of an asshole than I thought.

The rest of it is more exotic shit. My longest streak ended up being a dozen "ice bombs" -freeze over things, which is... well, it's not cartoonishly harmless, as freezing the water in the human body actually does really unpleasant things -it's one of the difficulties with cryostasis in real life- but it's less overtly lethal than most of the other options, and doubles as a way to produce a barrier, buying time to retreat. Or otherwise maneuver, whatever. Hey, I like ice bombs, I dunno why. I like wind bombs, but the one wind bomb I made is dumb, all it does is basically scatter dust everywhere, which is just... lame. Hooray, a bomb to scatter paper everywhere. It's not even a non-lethal takedown tool. I actually left it at the workshop, because ugh, that's awful.

There's also a couple of black hole bombs, which I hold onto, a trio of what I've been calling "Stickyfoam" bombs -Outpost 2 was an awesome game- that... well, they don't actually involve buckytubes and I'm 99% confident they're way inferior to Dragon's containment foam (Their foam is melted by ordinary water, for one), but come on, Stickyfoam! I maybe should've made it breathable. Eeeeh.

Gosh, whatever, I explain all this stuff to people. Well, all the stuff I'm actually giving them. I only explain the black hole bombs, out of ones I'm holding on to, specifically because I want them to know they need to brace themselves if I chuck one/if they feel a major suction effect.

Doo doo doo, da da da, Zelda you got an item tune!

Fuck, I'm bored.

Don't tinker don't tinker don't tinkerdon'ttinkerdon'ttinkerdon'ttinkerseriouslydon'ttinker

aaaaaargh

I briefly consider striking up conversation with someone. Then I decide that's a bad idea. I seem to be doing okay at this "I AM BAKUDA YOU WILL OBEY ME" thing so far, I don't need to go fucking it up by trying to be social. Honestly, I'd probably derail the conversation into a rant about some fucking stupid thing in people's poorly designed fictional worlds that makes no goddamn sense and is bad from a story construction design standpoint and uuurrrgggh

Um.

Oh yeah, point being I'd probably totally ruin my reputation as a competent and/or scary leader. Or be so hard to hear mumbling they're just baffled. Or happen to engage the right otaku in conversation, end up with them actually reciprocating the conversation, and have who-knows-what horrible social consequences as a result. Like, I'm a girl now. Is Bet still a place where girls aren't considered to be associated with nerd things? Would I be liable to end up with a stalker otaku getting all excited that his boss is A GURL and also into the same kind of things as him?

Orrrr I could end up being interpreted as being an example of some of the creepier fangirl types out there. That would be bad too.

Fuck, I'm bad at conversations. Back in Omicron I had people wanting to see my ID when I was ordering a pizza, like it's a suspicious activity that only CRIMINAL SCUM would engage in. Which... hm. If people are already inclined to assume I'm a villainous thug, I'm... probably not botching "being Bakuda" too badly?

Yay, silver lining?

Of course, that sort of suggests that, above and beyond whatever reputation Bakuda got before I became her, I'd be liable to put the Fear Of Me into people just by talking to them, in conjunction with my power/being their boss. If people think I've got to be up to something criminal when I'm ordering a goddamn pizza, it's all too easy for me to imagine my underlings being inclined to assume any not-obviously-business-related conversation is proof that I'm intending to torture them for giggles.

sigh

ARE THEY HERE YET?

Glance at posted sentries says no.

I glance around and look at people from behind my mask without moving my head. Most people seem to be relaxed. There's a couple of people smoking a bit away -I scowl, but decide it's not worth making a scene over- and a handful of quiet conversations going on. The exceptions look new to the gang to me. They don't have any visible tattoos, they're younger on average, and they don't move like they have any injuries/old injuries.

After a bit I notice that people are trying to stay out of my direct line of sight without looking like they are. I also catch myself bouncing one leg a little, stop it, and clasp my arms behind my back. I end up rocking in place, back and forth, slowly, because I can't get myself to fully stop the bored bounciness, and it's a decent compromise. I don't want to be tapping my foot. It looks like a very particular form of impatience -the "Why are you assholes making me wait?" sort.

So yeah, people are wary of me.

I wonder how much of that is just "Lung and Oni Lee are scary bosses" and how much of that is "people think Bakuda, specifically, is scary". Man, I wish this was one of those questions you can just ask people. Noooo, if I ask they're going to say "No Ma'am" unless they think I want to hear "Yes Ma'am", and either way it'll have nothing to do with their actual feelings. Uuurgh. SOCIAL STUFF. ALMOST AS BAD AS REAL POLITICS.

I consider making someone give me their phone, call Oni Lee anyway. Then I remember I don't know his number. I didn't even try to memorize it, I just used the contacts list. Though maybe someone knows his cell number anyway? But wait, there's that thing where it's bad for an employer to let their employees see weakness, because... reasons... I dunno why that would be true in office politics, but here it's pretty straightforward: I don't need people thinking I'm a dumbass they can take advantage of, not when there's two dudes flipping knifes for fun because they're bored.

It crosses my mind that none of them are wearing masks. I'm puzzled. Bet has really weird standards about what people hide their identities and what people don't. Gangs normally have plausible deniability -in fact, canon indicates that the Brockton Bay gangs do that too, with Empire Eighty Eight using euphemisms in their tattoos- but if you're hanging out with Bakuda/Lung/Oni Lee, known parahuman(s) of the Azn Bad Boys, people are going to assume you're a member of the ABB. This isn't like real-life gangs, where everybody knows the mafia don is a mafia don but nobody can prove any crimes in a court of law. This is like having a mafia don walk in, say "Hi, I'm Don Mafia, and these are my loyal minions attached to my criminal organization".

Does Bet have laws relating to henching that are weirdly generous? Because otherwise I would expect these people to resent the hell out of their parahuman bosses acting as a flashing neon sign of "Everybody working with me is a criminal". Early canon has some references to "henching" that never really crop up again, I tend to take that as an indication that there was a major concept/tone shift to the setting -early Worm seems to have intended to be a lot more stereotypical of a superhero story, and a bit more lighthearted than it ended up being, the kind of thing where I could almost see Henchco being a part of the setting- but now I have to wonder if it's totally a thing and just not relevant to the story.

Like, Charlotte and Sierra are Skitter's minions in a manner that is surprisingly public at times, but it's in the context of post-Leviathan Brockton Bay. The law never touches them, but it's hard to say whether that's because the "good guys" are too busy dealing with real crises -Battery is pretty explicit that she's not coming down on Skitter like a ton of bricks because there's more important problems to be dealing with- or because there's some weird background bit of Bet culture that gives non-capes leeway for participating in crimes with capes.

I... hm. I could actually see that, now that I really think about it. The Army has rules like "If your boss sleeps with your wife, we're treating it as rape/coercion no matter what the parties involved say" because the Army is constructed with your boss having a lot of power over you, and so there's no way to clearly draw a line and say "past this line it was coercive". Parahumans are taking that principle and twisting it from social power to mechanical power. The law may be designed to be kind to non-capes working under capes under a similar sort of logic -that the implicit threat capes bring to the table just by being a cape might be legally considered a coercive force even if no evidence of strongarming exists.

If nothing else, there's probably lawyers who have built their career on defending "henchmen" with that basic logic, even if it's not considered to be a "real" part of the law.

Huh.

I'm gonna want to look tha-

The older woman sentry calls out "Three dogfood vans, right on time."

Dogfood vans? The PRT's "unmarked vans" are dogfood vans?

 

[Ghoul King]

2.3

It abruptly occurs to me that I have no idea whether this convoy is supposed to have a cape escort or not. I've been assuming that there won't be

BOOM

HOLY SHIT

I glance off in the direction of a fading light out from the bay, where the Protectorate HQ presumably sits. What the hell? I didn't make anything that should produce that much light or that big of an explosion! I certainly didn't give any such thing to Oni Lee! I- is this about the force field? It's supposed to have some kind of tinkertech force field. Did one of the bombs interact really badly with the force field?

I- shit, no, I need to focus. Everybody else is spooked, glancing toward the still fading light. (That is quite the glow) I snap out "Eyes front, part of the plan, focus people." and start walking toward the end of the alley, grabbing the guy I gave one of the welding bombs to earlier by the shoulder, dragging him with me. (Not literally dragging him, but he's pretty obviously too scared of the consequences of shrugging me off)

Wait shit, I need to arm the bombs. I fumble to retrieve the transmitter, set all the bombs to "armable", and then continue dragging throwboy over. I say "Okay kid-" he's probably older than Bakuda is, actually, but at some point I started reading anyone who's 24 or less as a 'kid', it just slips out, dammit "-it's go time." He glances out of the alleyway, then turns back and says "Uh, Bakuda ma'am, the truck's are stopped a block away." Fuckit.

"Can you hit them at this distance anyway?" He starts stuttering. I rephrase the question. "Have you ever landed a throw from this kind of distance?" He nods, very clearly reluctantly. I notice some of the people out in the street are glancing our way, some just curious, some reacting with fear. Right. I'm in an obvious cape costume, potentially mistaken for Oni Lee in fact. Wonderful. Gotta go now, or elect to (try to) kill Oni Lee and abandon ship.

…

…

fuuuuck I just can't see how abandoning the ABB can work out in a good way

I don't want to have people going "Oh hey, a lone tinker, let's kidnap her!" I don't want to join Toybox. I don't want to join the Protectorate. (Or is Bakuda young enough I'd be a Ward?) I don't really want to be a member of the ABB either, but at least this way I have influence on things.

… of course, if Lung is completely unwilling to listen to me, rescuing him hurts my influence...

Urrrgh. Okay, keep in mind Backup Plan: Kill Lung "Accidentally". Hell, maybe I'll get lucky and a Protectorate member will show up and kill him for me.

So. "Then throw, kid." The guy gulps nervously, but he steps out onto the sidewalk, winds up for the pitch, and throws the welder bomb rather impressively, going the full block in a nice, smooth arc.

It completely misses the first truck, but that's okay, because the radius is pretty decent. It hits the ground, there's a flash of silvery glimmery light -hell if I know why- and the lead truck's back right wheel is suddenly melded with the asphalt and the parts of the truck it's in contact with, the middle truck lurches to the right as both wheels do the same, and the rear truck's front right wheel melds to the ground too.

Huh. I thought the radius was bigger than that. Hitting just the first truck would've been less effective than I'd thought. Lucky. Lung's probably in the middle truck, too, I'm guessing. (Isn't that why you get a 3+ convoy like this, so there is a middle to benefit from cover from both directions?) I snap out "Go go go! Middle truck, come on people, that should be where Lung is, arms free." while jogging briskly that way myself. I don't look back to confirm anyone is following me. I listen, and I can hear them following, not to mention pipes being unslung and pistols being cocked.

There's people screaming and running away now. (Mostly from me, some of them screaming variations on "Oh no, it's Oni Lee!") You know, I don't really recall the "people screaming and running away" thing being a thing in Worm canon. Weird. There's also PRT troops unloading from the trucks (oh thank god they are PRT trucks), though it looks like the first truck's rear door got welder bombed shut, because I can hear banging but there's nobody climbing out, aside from the driver who is, of course, not in full PRT kit. Still pulls what looks like some kind of tinkertech pistol and ducks behind the truck door as cover, which seems silly -well. Hm. It could be reinforced, now that I think about it.

More disturbingly is the pair of very-obviously-capes that unload from the rear truck. Even more disturbing is the rear truck's driver coming out, something at their side turning green, and then whipping into suddenly being a goddamn assault rifle. Awww, come on. I toss the acid-spraying Bouncing Betty. Turns out either Bakuda has a shit throwing arm or I still have a shit throwing arm, either-or, because it doesn't go even half as far as I wanted and lands on top of the first truck. Whoops. It promptly digs a hole into the roof (I was expecting it to be used in an urban environment, though I didn't expect a digging routine designed for concrete/asphalt to work on a steel roof) and then there's screams. Short-lived screams.

Aawwww shit.

Then I'm hitting the ground on my back, chest in blinding pain and vision going dim for a second. Ow ow ow ow. I think Miss Militia just shot me. I hear something crackling. I manage to roll over into a crouching position and look toward the PRT folks. I'm... pretty sure the vaguely Roman guy is Dauntless. What'd he do again? Power Pole Extend or something? I remember he "charges" his stuff...

I'm promptly zapped with lightning from his stupid glowy stick. Or something that looks like lightning anyway, there's not nearly enough cooked flesh for that to be actual electricity, but I do convulse and it fucking hurts. I decide fuck you and arm and throw the shrapnel-that-superheats bomb. It goes flying limply off to one side of Dauntless. He doesn't even bother to raise his shield. Then it detonates, he doesn't react, and a second later he drops (Alongside three unfortunate civilians and two PRT agents) writhing in pain.

Well, fuck you, you've got Panacea, I've got shit all. You'll be fine, asshole.

Eventually.

I manage to climb to my feet, see that Miss Militia is currently occupied taking what I suspect is a telescoping baton or something very similar to a mob of my goon's heads while they try to knife her or hit her with metal pipes or other impromptu clubs. (I notice one of them has a chrome baseball bat. I also notice nobody has pulled a pistol on her. The hell, guys?) Jesus, it hurts to breathe. I glance down at my armor just to make sure there's no penetration. Even knowing that someone hit by a sniper rifle in dragonscale armor or whatever it was called ends up being a giant bruise, even knowing that I'd be coughing up blood if anything had penetrated, I still double-check. The armor doesn't look as good as it did a minute ago, but yeah, no bullets penetrated.

I'm looking around woozily, trying to find that damn third cape. I need to know who they are.

Naturally, my question is answered in the form of being immediately knocked back down (There's a crack when my head hits the ground. I'm pretty sure it was the helmet I integrated), accompanied by a sound like a mountain leaned down into my face and roared angrily with a voice of crashing thunder. Triumph I assume, somewhat dizzily, wondering why the hell I thought it was a good idea to pretend I'm a frontline combatant. 'It worked for Bakuda in canon'. What the hell was I thinking? Fucking canon, fucking fuck fuck why do you do this to me.

Then there's a clink, a very bizarre crackling noise, and holy fuck my feet why do they hurt so oh jesus fuck fuck fuck aaaaargh I lurch up and clutch at my feet, expecting to find bloody stumps or shrapnel-riddled gory messes. I find no damage, but they still fucking hurt, I can't remember ever hurting this much, holy fuck why does it HURT. Dimly, I notice that Triumph is down and very audibly crying. I'm relieved he's not Usagi: his bawling is not accompanied by his power's offensive component that I can tell. Or maybe it's just directed away from me.

It takes several seconds of rocking in place, curled into a ball and clutching at my booted, seemingly uninjured feet to process that probably someone threw a pain grenade at Triumph. Then containment foam is being sprayed at me. Shit! I suddenly feel really dumb for leaving the wind bomb in the workshop. It might've helped. Fortunately, I'm able to scrabble away with only some droplets on my legs, expanding and gumming up my attempts to walk, while ABB Granny takes a length of metal to my attacker's neck with a crack that drops him instantly.

Also: HOLY SHIT MY FEET STILL HURT SONOFABITCH

Walking is pain, and also involves stumbling and half-tripping, which is maddening because I really really don't want to have the containment foam hooking my legs to the ground. The pain is so extreme it's honestly indistinguishable from having no feeling in my feet at all. Also: tears. Tears of pain.

I grab another grenade from off my belt and chuck it at the front of the middle truck. I'm close enough that even with my half-assed efforts it lands close. So close it goes rolling under the truck. I realize I didn't arm it, I just grabbed it and chucked it. Fuck. A PRT guy hits me with what I'm pretty sure is a tazer, going by the crackling electricity and the tines and so on. To my surprise, nothing bad happens. The tines hit my armor and... that's it. I guess it's insulated, too. Awesome.

I grab a grenade, arm the thing this time, and chuck it at the guy. He dives for cover. That's okay, because really I wanted it to hit the middle truck. It does, and it explodes into dancing, arcing electricity for a few seconds. Everything the electricity touches flashes orange and vanishes. Uh. I don't remember making that. Is this something pre-me Bakuda made?

Whatever, I can see Lung chained up in the back of the truck now. (Because most of the front is gone, what's left slumping forward into the pothole made by the vanish-lightning) I stagger my way toward the truck, trying to keep an eye out for people turning their attention to me. It's kind of hard, what with the BLINDING ENORMOUS SUPERPAIN stabbing into my feet continuously. Is it slightly less painful than it was? I want to say it is.

Review as I stagger my way there: Triumph is still down, crying and occasionally shrieking, clutching at... his crotch. Uh. Hm. That is one of the largest clusters of nerves in the male human body. Arright. Miss Militia is still methodically taking down goons, smoothly transitioning between several different kind of melee weapons and occasionally briefly turning her thing into a gun and pumping presumably non-lethal bullets into people's gut or the like. (I assume non-lethal just because there's no blood spray, and they writhe in pain after they've hit the ground) Dauntless is half-crouching half-standing, clearly supporting most of his weight on one foot, and is making his way awkwardly toward his spear. Well. Shit. The PRT agents are outnumbered by ABB thugs, and the remainder of them have largely been reduced to defending themselves in melee, obviating the utility of stuff like containment foam.

Oh, and some blonde chick just slammed down into the ground in a stylish three-point landing in front of me, cracking the already ruined asphalt and then giving me this really nasty look. Hi Glory Girl. Fuck you.

I arm a black hole bomb and chuck it underhanded at her while scrambling away backward as best I can while my feet are still basically useless at feeling things that aren't pain and containment foam gumming them up some and arrrgh everything else causing problems. Glory Girl swats at it with one hand without even turning her gaze toward it. I assume she's trying to look cool. Alas, she loses the hand to the sphere of absolute blackness sucking everything in. She is quite visibly struggling to pull away, but her right arm ends in gore now. Also, I'm being pulled toward the bomb, and my scrabbling isn't helping that much. Lung's truck is rocking, trying to be pulled toward it and failing because the right rear wheel is still melded with the asphalt.

Why do I do these things to myself.

Glory Girl then goes slamming into my upper body and I'm pretty sure I hear my ribs crack. I assume I feel no pain because of the usual reason you don't feel any pain with a major injury: the brain simply refuses to believe. (The agony bomb bypasses that, the science is complicated) Plus side: she carries me off and away from the bomb, so I'm not going to die. Minus side: once the bomb stops suctioning us, her frantic efforts to pull away slam us into the side of a building. I am highly confident that's a brain injury right there. Also: ow.

Glory Girl is now rearing back to throw a punch at me. (I assume: it's her right arm. She clearly hasn't adjusted to the fact that she's missing her right hand) I grab a bomb and hold it between us, trigger depressed. It's actually another agony bomb, but she doesn't know that, flinching and flying up into the air, high enough I probably can't hit her with a thrown bomb on a good day. Then she shrieks and clutches at her right arm's bloody stump.

I, meanwhile, try to take a deep breath and immediately regret it when I get stabbing pain.

I underhandedly toss the agony bomb off in the vague direction of Miss Militia and/or Dauntless, grab the will-to-live-killing bomb, arm it, and toss it in their direction as well. Yells followed by bodies hitting the ground. A glance confirms that Miss Militia is down (As are all the goons she's been fighting, and holy shit she could compete with Arkham Asylum Batman, there's like fifteen thugs down, we only started with, what, 40? 50?) while Dauntless is curled up into a ball.

Oh, and Glory Girl is swinging back down toward me, yelling something. I'm pretty sure she's calling me a bitch. It's hard to tell. I might have a concussion. Everything tastes funny. Like copper soaked in... something.

Oh, that's blood.

And something else, I guess.

Hooray, I'm bleeding into my mouth. Probably from my nose. Yeah, nose is running. With blood, I assume.

I arm and hold out another bomb -crap, running low- threateningly. I have no idea which one this is. Maybe the germ-killing bomb. Maybe something pre-me Bakuda made. Hell if I know. Glory Girl drops down, grabs a chunk of asphalt, whips around while I'm trying to scramble to one side (OW OW OW), and then drops shrieking (The asphalt slams into the first truck), engulfed in flames, just before a hulking man body checks her. Hi Lung.

Yaaay, mission accomplished. Musta... musta freed 'm with the black hole bomb 'r sumthin'.

Kinda wishing I was the kind of person who passes out from pain right about now. N'p. Mrrgle. Definitely something wrong with muh ribs. Wunderbar. That can kill you. Floating rib chunks... in the heart or something... lethal. And no Panacea for me.

Y u do dis to self, self.

I remember I'm still holding a grenade. That is armed. I muster the energy to hurl it off... somewhere. It explodes into a shrieking cloud of black motes that seek out, "eat" chunks of things, and then vanish into a hole centered on the bomb's detonation location. Oh wow, I'd forgotten about that one. That... would've been bad.

At least it's pretty obvious that Team ABB is winning. Has won. Something. Lung chokes Glory Girl 'til she drops, at which point he drops her, and then goes around kicking ABB thugs and demanding they get up dammit. He stops before me. Lung narrows his eyes at me behind the metal mask, and the first words out of his mouth are a rumbling, mildly distorted "If you think about killing me, you die." What?? WHAT?? I rescued you, asshole! Is this- fuck, fuck you Lung, goddamn.

I notice I'm gaping and stop. Asshole. (I take some comfort in the fact that my mask is full-face) I flash through a few different responses, but ultimately what comes out of my mouth is a growling noise. (Somewhat ruined by the blood in my mouth adding bubbles) Lung snorts in response. I think it's in amusement, but it's hard to say. I catch myself fingering one of the remaining grenades when I notice Lung looking down toward my waist.

Whatever. Asshole.

He leans over, hauls me up bodily in a fireman's carry, kicks a few more thugs into action, and demands he be taken to the escape vehicle. He casually throws a fireball at a PRT agent struggling to their feet to one side, and follows the ABB thug that volunteered to take us -I don't recognize them at all, though admittedly I'm currently staring at Lung's hilariously toned ass, and isn't it funny that they left him in nothing but pants for this transfer- all the way back to the alley with the SUV. He hauls me into the back of the SUV and climbs in himself, and rumbles "Drive", getting a "Got it boss" in response from the driver. Then he grabs a blanket and throws it over the expanded drops of containment foam on my legs. Huh. I didn't even notice him avoiding them touching him.

I try to not think too hard about all the pain I'm in or how much I'm bleeding. It doesn't work very well. It never has.

---------------------​

Turns out the ABB has a doctor loyal to them and willing to keep quiet about treating their capes. At least one, I should say. He's ridiculously stereotypically Wizened Chinese Doctor From Old Country. Hunched over, shorter than me-as-Bakuda before the hunch, bald, with a hilariously long Confucian mustache (Goes down to his waist) he clearly puts a lot of work into, strong accent, and... well, okay, the modern doctor's outfit (Hi Chinese Doctor Mario) isn't so stereotypical, but hey, I finally encountered a stereotype. Mostly.

The guy himself doesn't like me. He is completely unwilling to admit so explicitly, but he gives me an obvious stinkeye once I'm unmasked and I'm pretty sure he's poking and prodding harder than strictly necessary because Fuck You, I'm A Passive-Aggressive Asian Guy. Thankfully, the prognosis is less grim than I'd have expected. His professional opinion is I have cracked ribs, not broken ribs, and the concussion is more minor than it could be. The feet have, according to him, a normal range of reaction, so I probably haven't permanently ruined my feet with the pain bomb. The bleeding injuries are all treated with little more than bandages (Pulled so tight it hurts, because Passive-Aggressive, though I don't make much noise in response. I think that disappoints him), and he doesn't push it when I refuse to take painkillers. Which might be the dislike, but my impression is it's because he doesn't really think I need it.

Lung, meanwhile, put on a jacket perfectly sized to him on the drive here that was sitting in the SUV without me having ever noticed it was there. I boggle a bit at that. Has Lung trained his people to fear for their lives if he doesn't have a jacket or something? Sometime partway through the doctor poking me 'til it hurt Lung demanded the driver's cell phone (Because of course the driver came in with us) and called up Oni Lee. The doctor started to shoo him out, but I interrupted. I want to hear.

Of course, all I'm hearing is Lung's side of the conversation, but I gather that Oni Lee got into some trouble fighting the Travelers, nonetheless managed to land a knife in Calvert's back -not lethal, unfortunately- and then went off to be a Distraction Carnifex at Protectorate HQ just as planned. This... apparently got Velocity killed. And did something catastrophic to the shield on the building when he broke out a time stop grenade.

I have to force myself to derail the tinker train of thought that sparks. Really, it only works because bandage-pulled-too-tight happening right at the same time. Hooray for assholery helping me.

Honestly, I'm guessing he hates me for something pre-me Bakuda did, which is annoying. I'm used to being disliked. I'm not used to being disliked for things I haven't even done.

Whatever.

Oh, and Oni Lee lost an arm. I spend a minute half-expecting Lung to turn around and kill me, but no, it's not from Oni Lee mishandling one of my grenades, it's from fighting Armsmaster. I'm assuming prediction software shenanigans.

Well. We rescued Lung, anyway.

Yeah, there's no fucking way I'm ever convincing people I'm not a murderous psychopath now, with how all this played out.

Wunderbar.

I'm not even sure what I should be doing in terms of planning now. Lung's the boss and apparently is expecting me to try to assassinate him and take over for myself or something, so I'd be mighty surprised if he's inclined to listen to me or leave me free to do what I want.

Lung calls up Personnel. Guy's apparently called Watashi, seems to have some history with Lung. A guy he brought with him from the West Coast Azn Bad Boys? I dunno. Anyway, he's checking in on the crew of people that were with me. Four or five are unaccounted for, assumed to have been taken in by the PRT troops. Two are reported dead. A dozen are currently having to be babysat because they won't do much of anything unless somebody tells them what to do. (Well. I guess that indicates I caught Miss Militia with the will-to-live-killing bomb) The rest are having a party. Lung orders Watashi to break out some of his quality sake, let them know it's a reward for their hard work and gibberish gibberish. I assume he said something in Japanese. I also assume it was something not so readily expressed in English.

I'm pretty sure Bakuda is supposed to be born-and-raised American, so my language clueless-ness is probably not going to raise major red flags with anyone. Unless her mom is an immigrant, in which case I'd be expected to know some household insert-Asian-language-here. Probably. Then again, there's immigrants that refuse to teach their kids their home country's language...

Whatever, I'll deal with it if it comes up.

The doctor heads off to retrieve x-ray results. Lung finally finishes with the phone. Then Lung goes into a bathroom. He's very obviously in a bad mood when he comes back out. I'm still woozy, it takes me a minute to think of it, but then I remember something and comment "If people are stupid enough to think that having your crotch rotted off makes you less of a man, that's their problem." Seriously, that stuff is stupid. Provoke the dragon man, tell him he's less of a man. He's going to regenerate it anyway.

Lung's eyes narrow as he glances at me. "Do not mock me, Bakuda."

I goggle at him. Mock him? What the hell -shit, is that the kind of thing canon Bakuda would do? Pretend to be supportive while actually being an asshole? Ugh. I think it is. She was all about the sarcasm and the 'I'm smarter than you, let me prove it by being an asshole to you' and ugh. Great. Thanks pre-me Bakuda. I hate you. I hate you so much.

I firm my goggle into a glare, grit my teeth and say "I don't fucking mock people." Then I pause. Er. Actually, I do mock people. I just usually mock dumbass shit they're saying. I don't mock people by... doing whatever it is Lung thinks I'm doing... fuckit.

Lung snorts, but doesn't say anything. I decide to take what I can get. At least he didn't fry me for contradicting him. Or threaten me. That either.

The doctor comes back with the x-rays, which confirm his initial suspicions: I have three cracked ribs, but nothing more serious than that, ribs-wise. My skull is completely fine, too, no obvious damage to it, which isn't really surprising to me because concussions are about pressure on the brain and damage to the skull can and does minimize the symptoms of a concussion by relieving some of that pressure. I'm too concussed, I think, to have expected real skull damage.

Wait. I think that came out wrong.

Oh whatever.

Then Oni Lee is suddenly in the room, and he looks like shit. His entire right side is coated in blood, he's swaying on his feet, there's all kinds of scuffs and tears in his costume, his mask is missing a chunk from it, and everything is coated in a layer of black dust except where the blood covers it instead. The doctor flinches, but gets right to work, while looking pointedly at me and making some thickly accented comment that includes the phrase "Treating a real patient" and I think he says I should rest, but my god the accent on this guy.

I say in the driver's general direction, without preamble "I want to go back to my workshop." I catch the byplay of him glancing at Lung and Lung giving a small nod in response. Yeah, short leash. Great. Bakuda's stupid fucking headbomb plan is looking a lot more appealing, all of a sudden: headbombs for everyone except Oni Lee and Lung, and killing the two of them. Presto! Loyal gang and no parahumans to fear. Except all my enemies. And anybody who triggers while I'm installing a bomb into their head. And anybody I try to recruit normally, which really, how would I convince anybody to join me if the headbomb recruiting drive becomes known...

It's still a fucking stupid plan, but I can see the temptation now.

Lung tells me to stay here for a minute, goes into a back room, and comes back with a big blanket or something and tosses it at me. Tells me to wear it, cover my costume. I grudgingly put it on, apparently do it wrong because Lung adjusts it, and then head out to the SUV.

----------------​

Next thing I know the driver is waking me up and telling me "We're here, Ma'am." Huh. Must be more tired than I thought.

I stagger my way to the bedroom or whatever it actually is and don't even bother to grab a blanket from the bed before I go to curl up in the corner. I already have a blanket. Two of them, even.

This time, I do dream.

Thanks brain, I didn't need that image of Bowser ripping off Princess Daisy's head with his teeth. What a wonderful way to cap off this sordid adventure.