Sveta bent down and very carefully picked up the angle grinder
Wait, it's gonna be a Sveta-focused chapter? SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE*coff* NO! You are Datcord. You are perverse. You are the bane of innocence. You are the giggling menace! You do NOT squee like an overwrought schoolgirl just because it's Sveta and she's adorable and full of woobie!
Okay. Okay, I can do this. I believe in me!
(EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!)
"Weee." She said quietly, as she guided the wheelchair to the shelf where Mayhem had originally placed the angle grinder.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Seriously, though. The simple joy that Sveta has in things like "being able to move without killing people" and "actually having HANDS" is... well, it's really sad and horrible and makes me hate Cauldron but she's happy here and that's AWESOME. I mean, I gotta be honest: Adam could probably, like, murder a few orphans with puppies (literally, he could use the puppies as bludgeons) and, as long as said orphan murders were to help Sveta, I'd probably be like "Mmmm, yeah okay. You're still cool in my book. You're alright."
HE'S BANKED A LOT OF GOODWILL HERE, IS WHAT I'M SAYING.
"I guess I'm not very fast at cleaning things up. That's fine. I have precision."
I really hope this has a callback later. You know, after Adam's gone through and given her a complete prosthesis body. With optional armaments, because he knows how a girl likes to accessorize and feel pretty. (NOTHING makes you feel prettier than ordinance.
Nothing.)
C'mon, tell me you wouldn't pay good money to see Sveta standing over Jack Slash and repeating that line right before she punches a hole in his fucking head. You look me in the EYE and tell me that... and then I will call you a LIAR.
Once the area was clear she made two laps of the laboratory, just because she could. She spent the time giggling softly at her sudden ability to choose where she was going.
Oh, god. How? HOW IS SHE SO PERFECT? If I pause for every single instance of Sveta being adorable in this chapter, I'm going to be here all damn day. Let's just sum up all of them with: Good job, Jurric. Damn good job. You've managed to make her adorable enough that I can't even bring myself to make puerile jokes about Sveta and "test driving" her new body.
ME. You've stopped ME from making the dirty joke. I... I honestly didn't think that was possible.
"That's fine. A robot is good. Being a human would be nice, but I can be a robot." She whispered,
H+: "That's the spirit! Hell, being a robot is BETTER!"
Dragon: "Um."
Probably. If he didn't look very busy tomorrow she'd ask him.
Okay, real talk here: You've done a REALLY GOOD job of capturing Sveta's hesitancy and shy/shrinking nature. Her reluctance to impose and her entire "I... I can't push or be a bother because I don't want to annoy him and he's already done SO MUCH for me...." mindset really comes through.
Which is hilarious, because Adam doesn't even really give a shit about the stuff she's so worried about. Helping her is a BY PRODUCT of his real goals. It's a nice by product, but it's still basically a side note. He wants to build her a good body so he can take what he's learned and build himself a BETTER ONE. He wants to learn how powers interact with cybernetics so he can modify himself more efficiently. He likes keeping her happy because a happy test subject is a willing test subject.
This whole thing is an accident... and Sveta would probably cheerfully DIE for him and he doesn't even realize it. (She might not kill for him, since she's pretty traumatized by her past in that regard, but... give her a little while. If it comes down to a "bad person" VS. Adam? That's not gonna be much of a contest.)
Part of her still worried that her tendrils would wake up and destroy her new body. Snap out of their restraints, break apart her chair and then tangle around Mayhem in his sleep for daring to imprison them…
*puerile giggle* I've seen enough anime to know where this is going.... (See, it's okay to make perverse jokes about the tendrils. They're not Sveta, 'cause she has no control over them! TOTALLY different thing.)
"Weeee." She said quietly. It was still fun. One day she'd probably get used to it, but that would take a while.
Wait until you have LEGS, Sveta! (For reals, though. When Adam finishes her body, I have no problems imagining Sveta standing in front of a full length mirror for HOURS, just... marveling at the fact that she HAS A BODY.)
Though, the awkwardness of that final, cosmetically complete body will be glorious to behold. Not for ADAM, mind. He'll just turn off his ability to feel embarrassment. ("Do you want them bigger? Smaller? Rounder? Perkier? Oh, and this artificial skin won't grow hair, so I'm going to have to do all that by hand. How do you want it? Natural look or-" *THUD* "...huh. Even in a complete prosthesis, you can still faint. Good to know.")
"This is fun and all, but it wasn't what I meant by 'a good time.'" The woman said, getting unsteadily to her feet.
Ha! This, sadly, is not a surprise to most of us. Despite our
hopes predictions.
"Really, what do I want?" She asked.
"I can't say that. Not in front of Sveta!"
Shall we take this into the moonlight?
You know, for all your insistence that this isn't a date....
Right. Good. She'd been worried about that. It would be horrible if she had to choose between helping Mayhem with something like that and leaving, because she couldn't leave. Couldn't give up on this… intoxicating freedom.
*coffs*
*points up at earlier statement*
No one was that crazy. Probably. At least she thought that Mayhem wasn't. Most of the time.
Only on days that end in "Y."
Her tendrils had wandered into a bear trap once, and she'd spent half the day with it stuck on her face before she managed to get enough control to rip it off, and that hadn't hurt either. Although it had been really annoying.
*choke*
Fantastic. Now I'm trying not to laugh in the middle of work and my coworkers are giving me funny looks. I hope you're happy, Jurric.
"Don't worry. I've got this." Mayhem said, as Cricket stomped on his metal fingers.
*snerk* I can HEAR it.
*clang* *clang* *clang* "Those are metal, you know." *clang*clang*clang* "All you're doing is hurting your own foot." *clang*clang*clang* "Fine! If I let myself fall, would you just STOP? That noise is REALLY annoying!"
Then Mayhem grabbed Cricket by the throat, and the dizziness stopped, to be followed by the sound of flesh hitting flesh as she kicked him in the groin.
I'm gonna be honest here: I really expected a metal clang noise at that one. Because why WOULDN'T you wear a damn cup? Honestly!
It was rather exciting to be outside. The last time she'd been outside she hadn't enjoyed it. Her tendrils had hunted, hidden and generally just ruined the whole thing, but now she could look up at the stars without the fear of her neck suddenly being dragged somewhere she didn't want it to go.
The general optimism and happiness of Sveta is such an amazing contrast to the usual grimderp you see in Worm fics that it's just awesome to read. I think she's the ONLY case where you see someone go "Yeah, this really sucks, but... look! I have THIS little bit of happiness, so I'm going to focus on that, instead of the mountain of shit that is the rest of my life! There has to be a pony under there somewhere! Yay, happiness!"
She was aware this was make-work, a task to get rid of her while Mayhem did… whatever he was doing,
*coff*Cricket*coff*
"Of course I did. If I threw you through the wall you'd know about it." He drawled.
...great, now Mayhem has a Southern drawl in my head.
"Now. Sveta, it looks like there aren't any shovels in here, so this is what I want you to do. I want to you get the unconscious girl out of the van over there." Mayhem pointed to a plain, gray van. "And I want you to wake her up, take her home, and ask to borrow her shovel. Use the vial marked 'Wake up 3' in my briefcase. She should be fine, we got here before they hurt her."
Did... did Mayhem and Cricket somehow just SAVE SOMEONE while in a fight to the death-or-at-least-severe-maiming? Like, accidentally? (At least on Cricket's part.)
"Tattoo's?" Cricket asked.
"Not your thing? OK, thought you'd enjoy the permanence.
Cricket: I never said THAT. So... like... our names on a knife stabbing into a heart, or...?
And, lest you overlooked it, that IS Mayhem suggesting he and Cricket get matching (or at least paired/complimentary) tattoos. That boy moves FAST.
"You haven't beaten me yet." Cricket snarled.
Then the concrete under her collapsed, and she fell into the pit.
*choke* PERFECT.
Also, if they haven't already, they REALLY need to add/up Mayhem's Thinker rating on his PRT file. Because that boy is obviously pulling a few ranks of it.
"Fuck you!"
"Fortunately I do not think that is actually something that you want. You really want violence, you just get those two mixed up sometimes." Mayhem said,
Why... why not BOTH? Separately, at the same time, one leading to the other.... There are options, is all I'm saying!
smiling at Sveta to show it was a joke.
(No, it wasn't. And no, she doesn't. I choose to believe that this is Mayhem attempting to keep Sveta's brain innocent for a while longer.)
You're compassionate, kind, innocent in a way that I find hard to encapsulate, and you genuinely want to help. Also, you can rip cars in half.
*laughs* "You're a good person... and I've built something I call the Kill-O-Tron 9000 into your left arm, because you're the only one I know who won't immediately use it to murder people to death."
"You're not Mayhem, are you?" She said.
Look, when the INCREDIBLY naive and poorly socialized Case 53 realizes you're acting WEIRD... that's a sign of some sort.
She climbed over him like her insect namesake, and pushed him in. He let her, laughed, and rose out of the pit on his rocket boots before actually hitting the ground.
Wait... pushed him in? Not "tried to stab him and push him in"?
Holy shit. I think is Cricket being playful. I think she's actually ENJOYING HERSELF. Oh, god. Mayhem's realized something important: There's no problem with working with monsters... as long as you can point them at people who deserve having monsters set on them.
'Don't worry. You're more scared of her than she is of you.' The note said.
Wait. Isn't that- no, never mind. It's fine. That's fine.
Her new life, Sveta decided, was slightly crazy. That was OK. She could live with crazy.
When this whole thing crashes, burns, falls over, burns some more, and then EXPLODES, I'm really gonna be sad for Sveta. ...but until THEN, I'm happy for her!
This entire chapter was a delight. It wasn't cracky, it wasn't wacky, it was just... Mayhem's usually insanity filtered through someone else's perceptions, which makes it hilarious. Good job!
To maintain consistency with my new knowledge of Cricket's electo-larynx, I have added a few lines to a previous update. Quoted for your convenience.
Neat! (Also, I don't care WHAT Adam thinks, she totally got that electro-larynx because she's crushing on him like a junkyard compactor.)
Now... well, who is it? Bakuda? Fletchette?
Bakuda's almost certainly still locked up with the PRT. (Assuming Coil hasn't already had her kidnapped and put to use. THERE'S a happy thought for you.)
Fletchette's in... New York, IIRC. I can't imagine why she'd be here, especially with most of the E88 unconscious in PRT holding cells at the moment. It's not like Piggot can go "So, we just had 90% of the villain capes here incapacitated. WE NEED HELP!"
So... not sure who this is. Actually, you know what? Screw it. This is Squealer. She took some really WEIRD shit and it turned her into a teenaged Asian who was promptly kidnapped by her own people. By this time tomorrow, Sveta will be tooling around in a wheelchair that would make a War Rig from Mad Max cry with envy. BECAUSE IT MAKES ME LAUGH. ("Adam! Look at what I have to drive in! I can go so many places so FAST!")
