H+ Mayhem (Worm)

Jurric · May 8, 2016

Mizu said:
*Corrections*

Thanks, fixed.

Chirishman · May 8, 2016

Jurric said:
~~I wonder what she told her dad to get the day of school?~~

~~Off~~

Jurric said:
This had all began

begun

Jurric said:
Taylor's stilio

???

Edit: crossed out the one Mizu already got

Jurric · May 8, 2016

Chirishman said:
???

Thanks for those corrections.

This is the stilio.

Stilio is Latin for spider, and it is what Mayhem calls the device that he made for Taylor.

Datcord · May 8, 2016

Jurric said:
AN: I needed to jot things down while I had the whole plot in my head, and it took me longer than I thought.

No worries! Get your ducks in a row... so Mayhem can enhance them into nightmarish monstrosities of flesh and steel!

Even our best case scenarios for fighting the Nine involved losing people. With a little luck, those loses would not be permanent.

*glances at the bags*
*glances at Ada*
Did... did you make nanny bags? Is THAT what you've done?

"They're unloading men from the vans. Setting up a perimeter. Armsmaster's there. So are Velocity, Dauntless, Battery, Assault, Triumph… another van just opened up. Looks like the Wards are here too." Skitter told me.

They're here to help Ada plan for her assault on the S9, right? ...right? They COULDN'T be stupid enough to be here to attack, right? Attack a Tinker? In her lab? HER WELL PREPARED AND WAITING LAB?

...what am I saying? It's fucking TAGG. Of COURSE THEY ARE.

How the FUCK did he manage to get the Wards there? Seriously! There's NO WAY "We need them to root out an entrenched Tinker from their lab." managed to pass their parent's approval! The dumbest person on the planet *coff*Krouse*coff* knows THAT'S a death sentence!

I sighed, and started making another head bag.

*facepalms* You did. You DID make nanny bags. I can't even make a joke about "head bags" at this point.

This had all began fifteen hours ago, when Mouse Protector teleported in and apologized for telling her superiors the location of my base. Apparently she hadn't thought they would be this stupid. I couldn't really blame her. I hadn't thought that they would be this stupid either.

Well, that'll show you to NEVER underestimate the stupefyingly incredibly, jaw-dropping insane STUPIDITY of Tagg.

"We could call them. The PRT do have a hotline?"

Yeah, it's 1-800-FUCK UPS. It used to be 1-800-BAY CAPE, but... well... Tagg got in, so certain changes were needed.

I had expensive taste in electronics these days.

Those new Swedish-made pen-

Neural implants don't come cheap

-oh. Yeah, I suppose those work, too.

"OK, Armsmaster is arguing into a hand-held radio. Now he's taking the radio apart…"

Yeah, that seems about right for a Tinker.

Dozens of sedative scalpels, three poison scalpels.

Which were carefully labelled... right? ...right? Ada. Look at me. Look me in my eyes. Tell me you labelled them THIS TIME? ...you're not answering me. ...god dammit.

Cricket, Cricket's laser scythe, which I'd managed to recover from Coil's men after they left.

Yay! Cricket survived! ...wait, why am I cheering for the murderous Nazi? God damn you, Jurric, what have you done to me?!

I hope I was right about Taylor. I'd given her a lot of power.

Trust me, Ada. When Taylor's going against someone "evil," there's NOTHING to worry about... except for her severe tendency to escalate to insane levels nearly instantly. (See, for example, the whole "brainwash everyone to make them good" plan.)

Better try to keep Taylor away from Cherish.

Ahh... okay, seriously. Who DID Cherish kill to get into the S9? We've already heard Hatchet Face mentioned as a survivor, so....

I switched from looking through the drone to looking through the external cameras. Same view, less resolution and no special scanning modes. I didn't build those cameras, they came with the base.

I love Ada's undertone of "...and they're piece of shit, don't blame them on ME!" here.

Armsmaster grabbed the foam gun from the trooper who fired, and then grabbed their radio, and yelled into it.

Why do I get the feeling that he's repeating an inventive remixing of the best abuse hurled by the best drill instructors in the various armed forces? ("When I want a cock-brained dumbass to fire at something, I will point at YOU AND TELL YOU, YOU IGNORANT SHITSTAIN!")

"Tagg would like to take Mayhem into custody. He will be held in an interstate prison, there he will be protected, should his claims of being hunted by the Slaughterhouse Nine turn out to be true."

Yuh-huh. Why don't we ask Mouse Protector how that worked out for her? I'm not saying the PRT are colossal fuckups... because I don't have to. Their record does that for them.

Wonder why he had to use radios?

I have no evidence on this, but I'm going to assume it's because Tagg's a cockbite.

"Also tell him that the traps in this base were designed with the Slaughterhouse Nine in mind. I cannot disable some of them, and if he sends anyone in here, I am not responsible for what happens to them."

Tagg: "HE WAS THREATENING US! Obviously, we HAD to nuke him!"

Armsmaster's bomb disposal robot rolled right through into the first room, where it promptly exploded.

That was rather odd, because the first room was filled with knockout gas.

*squint* Did... Armsmaster just blow up his OWN robot? I really hope he did.

whoever is on the other side of the radio is talking about 'controlling the asset'

Oh, yeah. Tagg wants Mayhem ~~on his side~~ under his thumb so bad he can TASTE IT.

Apparently she planned to put the wealth that Theo had inherited from Kaiser to use starting a charity organization. I gave her three months before she was fleeced out of it.

*wince* Ouch. Harsh... but probably true. (Also, it really doesn't count if YOU'RE the one who fleeces her, Ada. ...but it would be hilarious.)

That was one of my worst plans,

Which says a LOT, Mr. "Let's just pop open my own skull in my bedroom."

Why suicide bomb the Nine once, when I could do it multiple times?

I... can't even really argue with that one.

Of course I only had the one male clone. The formula made changes at a genetic level, so the rest of my clones looked female.

So... *clears throat* that one burning question.... You know the one. About clones...? Would you... care to weigh in on your findings, there? Inquiring minds want to know!

The Skitter clone had then mastered me into stabbing myself in the stomach with a lightsabre,

Ah. A Khepri model. Gotcha.

I'd been lucky I didn't damage my spine, and that I had a few spare kidneys growing in the lab

"Sadly, that meant that Taylor had to send out for lunch that day."

"If I had to guess, I'd say that Jack is trying to break me before he even gets here. [snip] Trying to kill me by sheer reputation. It would probably work if I wasn't able to regulate my emotions."

I'm... honestly not sure HOW Jack will deal with someone who literally CAN'T be scared of him. Oughta be interesting, at least.

"Jack did side with the Siberian to fight the Triumvirate, back when Hero was still around. He might want a repeat performance."

Which, knowing what we do, was more of a grudge match than anything else.

I already knew that the PRT were idiots who liked their power plays. Tagg wanted to control me,

See above RE: "control the asset"

Jack was surprisingly cautious for an insane anarchist who sought challenge.

Plus, he has bullshit author fiat powers! Which, hopefully, aren't fucking WORKING ANY MORE. God DAMN, I hate how he got a free ticket in canon.

HURT HIM, JURRIC. HURT HIM GOOD.

Make my sister create something that would force people to play by his rules, or lose the city. I didn't mind much.

Uh... well, don't need to worry about not being able to call Ada a monster for a while, at least. (Seriously, when she finally shuts down her emotion damping, she's going to be a FUCKING WRECK.)

She was upset about the PRT, I could tell. She really wanted the heroes not to be bumbling incompetents who just got in the way.

And Skitter takes one more step towards being the Skitter we know and ~~huddle in fear of~~ love.

Skitter wasn't meant for heroism.

Well. Not the PRT's brand, at least. She does pretty well with her own... unique brand of it.

A combination that should be able to confuse, surprise and then kill a couple of the more vulnerable members of the Nine. If we were lucky.

Which, really, all comes down to if Cauldron decides to keep being total tools.

I was actually kind of hopeful.

...hope? In a Worm fic? That's... that's not right, is it? We can't have nice things in a Worm fic, right? ...right?

Naturally, that was when the Endbringer alarm went off.

OF FUCKING COURSE. Look at what you did, Ada! LOOK AT IT!

"It's starting." I said

Also, rain hadn't been forecast

Uh... I don't think those are good combinations. Not in the least. That's not a Slaughterhouse Nine combination. That's a "Hey, guise! I'm here to FUCK YOUR CITY UP!" combination.

"I really thought it would be the Simurgh." I said.

...fair enough. You'd think Ada would be a natural for the Simurgh, with how he works.

Against Leviathan... I think he's pretty fucked. I mean, he's got NOTHING THAT'LL AFFECT LEVIATHAN. Other than those grenades, maybe, but... not many of THOSE.

On the OTHER hand... he DOES have those nanny bags. Assuming people aren't too wussy, quite a few people could walk away from this... eventually. Hell, between him and Panacea, they'll have a pretty decent field hospital set up!

TotallyNotEvil said:
inb4 Tagg breaks the Truce.

Hey! No fair calling the obvious shit right out of the gate! Of COURSE he's gonna break it! Everyone knows that already! You gotta predict HOW he breaks it! And how many people catch him doing it!

Pax_Empyrean said:
This is precisely the sort of non-committal vague statement that I can use to declare with 100% certainty that Waffbot: Big Damn Hero is officially canon.

I like the cut of your jib. WAFFBOT FOREVER!

Jurric said:
Stilio is Latin for spider, and it is what Mayhem calls the device that he made for Taylor.

*glances at image*
*coffs*
Did... uh... did the "device" come with the... you know... *makes bouncy motions at ribcage height with both hands* too? Because, you know, I don't really think Taylor would COMPLAIN about getting those in the process....

Chirishman · May 9, 2016

Jurric said:
Stilio is Latin for spider, and it is what Mayhem calls the device that he made for Taylor.

Uh... are you sure about that? Because I'll be the first to admit I wasn't a straight-A student in Latin but I'm pretty sure the latin word for spider is aranea and stilio means lizard.

Some quick googling reveals that the only basis for this translation is the famously inaccurate King James Bible and bibles based on that, however since that translation is noted for its many inaccuracies I don't think that counts as an authoritative source.

Did you use an online translator? They're a lot better than they used to be but they've still got...problems. I was reading this article earlier today where google translate caused confusion because the Russian "УКВ" gets automatically translated as UHF even though it encompasses VHF, UHF and SHF.

Edit: I would suggest something like latin-dictionary.net in future because you've kind of named it after one of the guys in this picture and it wasn't the one you meant to:

Jurric · May 9, 2016

Datcord said:
Ahh... okay, seriously. Who DID Cherish kill to get into the S9? We've already heard Hatchet Face mentioned as a survivor, so....

We know that Hatchet Face is still around, and that his range is relevant. I don't think that it's been mentioned if he survived or not.

Datcord said:
Did... uh... did the "device" come with the... you know... *makes bouncy motions at ribcage height with both hands* too? Because, you know, I don't really think Taylor would COMPLAIN about getting those in the process....

If it makes you feel better, the stilio is currently on Taylor's clone, and the clone is a twisted version of the original. It does differ from the real Taylor slightly. How exactly it differs has not been mentioned.

Chirishman said:
Uh... are you sure about that? Because I'll be the first to admit I wasn't a straight-A student in Latin but I'm pretty sure the latin word for spider is aranea and stilio means lizard.

You're right, it is inaccurate. I just used google translate. I won't be changing it, because Ada also just used google translate, and doesn't actually speak Latin.

Bob Saget · May 9, 2016

Datcord said:
*glances at image*
*coffs*
Did... uh... did the "device" come with the... you know... *makes bouncy motions at ribcage height with both hands* too? Because, you know, I don't really think Taylor would COMPLAIN about getting those in the process....

A certain anthropomorphized giggle needs to work on their reading comprehension.

Jurric said:
"Skitter, while I have you here there's something I'd like to show you." I told her, printing out a picture. I sucked at drawing, so I'd just done a quick search for someone else drawing what I imagined. It was from the Cybernetics branch of the Human Augmentation tree.

"How do you feel about this?" I asked, giving her the picture.

Taylor took the page and glanced over it.

"You mean the large metal leg things?" She asked.

"Of course. What else would I mean?"

She looked at me flatly, then shook her head.

"Just wanted to let you know I'm not going to cut my hair." She told me, handing the picture back. Circus was suddenly between us, snatching the piece of paper and grinning as he looked at it.

"You might want to reconsider." Circus said with a chuckle. "Being a female cape comes with certain expectations. Most of them get at least a little bit of work done. You might want to take advantage of the Bio-Tinker while you can."

Skitter glared at him. She was still wearing her mask, with the too-large eyes and the mandibles and everything, but it was still very plainly a glare.

"Um, what are you talking about?" Sveta asked.

"Spider-like robot legs." Skitter said

Chirishman · May 9, 2016

Jurric said:
You're right, it is inaccurate. I just used google translate. I won't be changing it, because Ada also just used google translate, and doesn't actually speak Latin.

Alrighty then, would be amusing to hang a lampshade on it by having someone poke fun at it though, like those fics where people make breathing jokes about Lung.

Requiem_Jeer · May 9, 2016

Jurric said:
. It would have to be a coastal city,

Christmas in Madrid, anyone? Leviathan does not ONLY hit coastal cities.

Jurric · May 9, 2016

Requiem_Jeer said:
Christmas in Madrid, anyone? Leviathan does not ONLY hit coastal cities.

Mayhem doesn't know as much about Leviathan as he does the Slaughterhouse Nine, and Leviathan does strike coastal cities normally.

serg0 · May 9, 2016

Interesting that Cauldron seems favoring S9 over Mayhem - Costa Brown didn't reign in Tagg. Seems Cauldron don't see the value in Mayhem, thinking him to be "merely" biotinker and prefer just feed him to S9, if it wouldn't require too much effort. Or may be there is no comprehensive explanation because it's Contessa path.

Raviollius · May 9, 2016

serg0 said:
Interesting that Cauldron seems favoring S9 over Mayhem - Costa Brown didn't reign in Tagg. Seems Cauldron don't see the value in Mayhem, thinking him to be "merely" biotinker and prefer just feed him to S9, if it wouldn't require too much effort. Or may be there is no comprehensive explanation because it's Contessa path.

She is running "the strongest army" path to victory. As long as she ensures Adam will survive the S9, having the confrontation happen is one of the best ways to make him escalate. I mean, he has already set up a brainwashed cape clone army, and the fight haven't even started yet.

That said, it's probably going to be early Christmas for Mayhem. Maybe we'll finally get to see how he acts when his mental processes run at 100%?

Jurric · May 9, 2016

Could I waterproof my jetpack before Leviathan arrived? Probably not. I didn't have the right chemical mix made up, and it needed to brew for a few hours. Could I convince Taylor to sit this fight out? To save ourselves for the inevitable strike by the Nine?

I looked at Taylor. She was in costume, but her posture was determined.

No, I don't think I could convince her. Besides, hiding wouldn't do a lot of good, the Endbringer would be coming for me. I wonder if it could be fooled by the clone? Worth a shot at least, but I should plan for that not working, just in case.

Perhaps if I melted candle wax over the joints of the jetpack, that might work for a little while, even if it would eventually cause the generators to overheat and shut down? That would give me about an hour of use, would I need the jetpack more while fighting the Nine or Leviathan?

No, I was thinking about this wrong. If the Nine came out while Leviathan was still here, the full might of the Protectorate would be in place to fight them. Heroes, independents, villains, a pre-built army ready to respond to another S-class threat. The trick would be having enough defenders left over after Leviathan to enforce the Endbringer truce, and keep the Nine at bay while I repaired my work. Would that happen? Probably, so long as the Bay actually survived.

I injected Cricket with something that would wake her up in a few minutes, and laid her scythe across her chest. She wouldn't want to miss this, and if I timed it right she'd wake up, I'd say 'Leviathan,' and then I could throw her at him without having to actually talk to her. Perhaps literally.

I have no idea how she managed to unnerve me when I had my fear turned off, but she did.

"Leviathan." Skitter breathed, a note of fear and anticipation in her voice.

"Probably. I don't think the Simurgh ever makes it rain. Well, there was that one time with the chemical factory and the acid, but it probably isn't that." I said, candles. I knew I had them in here somewhere. Sveta would know where.

I almost called her, then remembered I sent her away. Oh well, good thing I did. Endbringers were probably one of the few monsters who could overpower her brute rating, and she did still need to breathe, so drowning was a risk. Also, she'd sink like a stone in water. Her body was very heavy, I hadn't really mastered metals that were both light and strong at the point I was making it.

"Do you think those grenades of yours will work?" She asked.

Finally, found the candles, now I just needed a blowtorch and duct tape. Duct tape I always carried on me, and a blowtorch was still hanging on the wall…

"Can't hurt to try. Well, it can, we could die horribly, but what the hell. Endbringers kill cleaner than the Nine anyway." I said.

Taylor nodded.

"Shall I send out Adam to talk with the PRT?" She asked. I nodded back.

We were calling the male clone Adam, the female clones Eve, and I was calling myself Ada. Originally I choose Eve, because it was just what I thought of when Adam stopped fitting quite as well, but I had a hard time responding to that name, it was like when witness protection made me change my name all over again. Ada at least sounded similar, and to my ears at least it wasn't quite as feminine.

Not what I needed to think about right now.

"Yeah. We'll head out one of the emergency exits, try to find the nearest rally point. Can you have a couple of Eve's grab the big white cases against the wall over there, the ones with the big red crosses on them. Cricket too, we'll take her with us, she should wake up on the way." I said.

"The white cases are first aid gear?" Taylor said.

"I can do a lot more than first aid with them, but yes, sort of." I said.

She nodded, and I deactivated a few traps so the Adam clone could walk past them. It was fortunate I had it out for testing already. Normally I locked the clones up when Taylor wasn't around. They weren't really dangerous, but it was disconcerting to watch copies of myself twitch pathetically as a tiny insect brain tried to control a human body.

I wasn't lying about not being able to disable all the traps, but there were ways through them, if I turned off some of them, and if you knew which sensors and corridors to avoid. Skitter did still need to move the clones around inside the base after all, possibly to try to draw the Nine into the more dangerous traps, or finish of any of them that might become injured or incapacitated, or simply to have them die as decoys, so that the Nine didn't track us through the escape tunnels.

Unfortunately I don't think that Leviathan could be made to walk through those same traps. Now that I thought about it, I shouldn't have included so many object disintegration bombs into the traps themselves, and I also shouldn't have designed the traps so those bombs couldn't be taken out without everything blowing up in your face.

In my defense, the Nine had two Tinkers. I figured that making the traps hard to disarm was a good policy. Guess I figured wrong.

I finished dripping wax around a few essential bits of the jetpack, and wound duct tape where it wouldn't interfere with the maneuverability of the joints. It wouldn't hold for long, and I was going to have to spend a few hours repairing it even if I didn't burn it out, but it would fly in the rain for a little while. Perhaps I could even upgrade it a bit while I was repairing it. I could make much better kinetic emitters now. Lots more power to the kinetic shots the jetpack was capable of.

Later. We were busy now.

"Armsmaster is apologizing to your clone. He says that, considering Tagg is still counting you as a priority, in the face of an Endbringer, he suspects that Tagg has been compromised, probably by Cherish. He's called it in, and Tagg is being taken into Master/Stranger screening." Taylor said, as I strapped the jetpack on and we walked towards the escape tunnels, a small guard of clones in front of us carrying the cases and Cricket, with Murder Rat bringing up the rear.

"Cherish, the Simurgh, extreme incompetence, it was one of those. Where are we meeting for the Endbringer fight?" I asked, opening the door that lead to the escape tunnel I deemed least likely to flood while we were in it. The one that lead out of the sewers almost directly.

"There are rally points all over town. We'll be teleported from there to the Rig, where we are organizing our defense. Armsmaster wants to meet you in his lab and Tinker something quickly, he thinks the molecular dis-assembly energy is a good way to kill Leviathan, and he wants your input on a long range version. It's hard to get close to Leviathan with swords." Taylor informed me.

That kind of put Armsmaster back on the nice list, if he really was willing to open up his lab in this time of crisis. I was only willing to let Trainwreck into my lab because I was confident he couldn't steal my tech unless I taught him. Maybe Armsmaster had a couple of labs, a public one and a private one? That made sense.

Let's see, onto his question.

Object disintegration, molecular dis-assembly. Same thing really. Mayhem had solved the generator time limit in Cricket's scythe. The trick was gravitic suspension inside a vacuum. I'd used magnetic suspension initially, and that caused the disintegration energy matrix to destabilize. Unfortunately, I didn't have any tech that manipulated gravity, and while looking at the tech Mayhem had stolen from Leet and then incorporated into the scythe made that technology cheaper, it was still an investment I was hesitant to make when the only thing I'd be able to do with it was extend the lifespan of my lightsabres from a minute to indefinite use. If I hadn't killed the person I wanted to kill after a minute of swiping at them, I probably wasn't going to kill them at all.

Some sort of vacuum generator, and a gravity cannon to throw the energy matrix at the enemy? That might work as a repeatable way to throw the grenades, but it would require a lot of energy.

"Tell him that he's out of luck. I have absolutely no idea how to extend the range beyond a meter and half from the generator without burning the generator out. I can make it extend about three meters if I blow the generator, I'll be using grenades that do just that." I said.

It should work. In theory. Unless Leviathan had some sort of physics fuckery ability. He probably did, most of the really tough brutes had some sort of breaker aspect.

Yeah, we were screwed. I was trying to see the good in this, trying to plan around it, but this city was going to face the Nine already broken, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

We strode quickly down the tunnel, I disengaged the traps I'd placed alone the way, and we emerged safely from a grate under a bus stop.

"Armsmaster says he wishes you luck, and you should be careful of friendly fire… He just told you that if you feel you're better off helping by treating the wounded he can deliver the bombs instead." Taylor relayed.

Eh, he probably wanted the glory. I wonder if he had figured out his own version of the lightsabre yet. Probably. I had left one with him very early in my career, when I visited the PRT building.

Several startled civilians looked at us emerge in full costume, but we ignored them, and they hurried on their way to the Endbringer shelters. Maybe those drills would be good for something after all. Although I should probably have been walking with the Eve's instead of beside Taylor, and the Adam clone shouldn't have been carrying Cricket. As a general rule Tinkers let their creations do the manual labor.

Up ahead Taylor's clone took a cellphone from it's pocket, and spoke on it briefly. I hadn't had a chance to build a phone without silicon yet, and we still needed to communicate, so we just let the clones carry the risk.

Taylor had thought it was weird that all my tech was Shatterbird proof, but she had to bug me just to make her stilio waterproof. It made perfect sense to me, I had always planned to fight Shatterbird. Leviathan, less so. Of course Taylor had simply been thinking of rainy days, which would have been equally capable of destroying my devices, but you couldn't plan for every little thing. If it was raining when the Slaughterhouse Nine attacked, I would have improvised… somehow. My suicide bombs had always been waterproof.

"I don't think I can hand over the object disintegration bombs, the only detonator is my own neural chip, I'd need a live feed or something, and I don't think we have time to arrange that. I could probably rig another detonator, but I doubt we have time for that either. I'll do a flyby. It should be safe enough if I stay high." I told Taylor.

"If you want. The Travelers just called, they're fighting as well. They'll meet us there."

"What, even Noelle and the pretty boy?" I asked.

Taylor frowned.

"No, of course not. Noelle on the battlefield would be chaos."

"Ah, right. Sorry." I said.

We ran into a couple of police officers, and for a second they stared at all the my female clones in doll masks, before they ushered us off towards the rally point.

So, one flyby, drop the bomb on Leviathan's head. I should be able to just use H+ for that. The program was working very well. No anomalous behavior whatsoever. I just left it running all the time now, I'd slowly adapted my brain to the extra stress of additional thought through a long regime of electro-chemical stimulation.

Only I'd have to wear my jetpack to do the flyby, so no, that wasn't going to work, it would make it obvious I was a girl. I couldn't change back quickly, I couldn't even change clothes quickly. I could remotely pilot the jetpack, could I strap in my male clone and get Taylor to drop the bomb? No, I wasn't skilled enough to pilot the jetpack without being able to use my own sense of balance and direction. I'd have to find a rooftop, co-ordinate with Taylor, and detonate the bomb when she got it close, perhaps with her clone, it was surprisingly maneuverable while wearing the stilio.

And if I wanted to operate, to help fix the injured, I would need to do so myself, not through a proxy. Blast.

Perhaps I could make it work. The Endbringer truce was very sacred, there wouldn't be recordings, the capes who saw me wouldn't talk, and certainly not to the Slaughterhouse Nine. Word would get out eventually, if people saw a female wearing Mayhem's jetpack and operating with bio-Tinker efficiency, but it only needed to stay secret for another day or so. The Nine would attack when they saw weakness, I was sure of that.

Ugh. It was annoying enough to become a female. Now that secret was getting out, and it wasn't happening because I was gloating about my clever plan over Jack's corpse.

We walked into the tent that had been hastily erected at the rally point. Parian was waiting. Awkward.

When I suddenly needed to dress myself and five female clones, there weren't a lot of places to turn. I didn't have time to make anything myself, and good costume makers were thin on the ground.

Fortunately, Parian was having a sale. Prototypes of her own costume, which were marketed for Halloween parties or masquerade balls. I really don't think she expected another cape to use them, there was a sort of brand identity thing most capes tried to cultivate.

So yes, all the Eve clones and myself were dressed in Victorian era dresses, with doll masks. It was amazing what you could hide under these dresses actually. The Eve's had rifles, pistols and grenades attached to the under-wire of the flared skirts, accessible through slits in the ruffles. I had several dozen pockets with medical gear, and a pistol and my bombs.

The long sleeves and white gloves concealed my mechanical arms, even if my forearms were slightly too large to fit perfectly into the doll like look.

At least I didn't look completely like Parian. I was a blonde, she was a brunette.

She was still glaring when Strider arrived.

I knew of him vaguely, a powerful independent, who ran a transportation business most of the time, and regularly volunteered for Endbringer battles. He saw me and my clones, and tipped his hat slightly, using the motion to hide how he was catching his breath and leaning on his cane.

I like the knuckle dusters built into his gloves. Practical and stylish. It wouldn't be hard to build some into the backs of my hands either.

Then Strider saw the Adam clone, and his eyes widened.

"No. You promised I would never see you again!" He yelled.

Then he vanished.

It took me a second to work it out, and in that time Parian and several PRT troopers switched their glare to the Adam clone.

Taylor was smart enough not to turn towards the real me, but her body language said that there would be questions later.

I had wondered how Mayhem got to Germany and back in less than twenty two hours.

Naturally this only lead to more questions. How on earth had Mayhem contracted Strider? How had he kept the teleporter around when he could literally teleport anywhere on the earth almost instantly? Why was Strider so scared? Was it really Germany? The deaths of the Gesellschaft had helped me survive, preventing reprisals would probably have been inevitable otherwise, and survival was the only objective remaining to Mayhem at the time. I was only guessing that he was responsible.

Then there was the most worrying question of all. If Mayhem had access to Strider, what else might he have been able to do in those missing hours after the fall of the E88?

Now probably wasn't the time to try and find answers though.

Hidden Variable · May 9, 2016

Probs too late to say this but I have mixed feelings about the gender swap. Hope he can change back.

Legion1771 · May 9, 2016

RaneARE said:
Probs too late to say this but I have mixed feelings about the gender swap. Hope he can change back.

He's stated that he has multiple different ways to change back that he knows of, not as immediately effective as the one he used, but he can change back whenever he wants. It's just more convenient being a woman at the moment.

Bob Saget · May 9, 2016

Oh my god that bit with Strider. That was glorious. And now we know for sure Mayhem was able set up at least a few surprises Ada won't be able to see coming.

finbikkifin · May 9, 2016

Armsmaster, you glorious bastard.

And now Mayhem has a creepy doll harem.

consequences · May 9, 2016

I vented more over at SB, but the whole Strider thing desperately needs explanation and justification, even if we take it as a given that Mayhem somehow conscripted a top tier teleporter with no notice and kept him in line instead of getting left in Antarctica after pushing his luck.

Mandabar · May 9, 2016

RaneARE said:
Probs too late to say this but I have mixed feelings about the gender swap. Hope he can change back.

And I hope she doesn't and has to deal with it. I can't wait till s/he ends the emotional dampening.

But yeah multiple changer methods already unlocked I believe.

That bit with Strider... Funny, interesting and frightening. Damn that Mayhem is amazing. What else did he do?!

Pax_Empyrean · May 9, 2016

Jurric said:
Now, candles. I knew I had them in here somewhere. Sveta would know where.

She was the one who insisted on keeping some around, for reasons she never explained. She just blushed a lot whenever you asked.

(It was to make it more romantic when she finally get a chance to hold your hand)

Jurric said:
"The white cases are first aid gear?" Taylor said.

First aid, last aid, the only aid you'll ever need.

Jurric said:
They weren't really dangerous, but it was disconcerting to watch copies of myself twitch pathetically as a tiny insect brain tried to control a human body.

Can't you turn off whatever thing is causing that to bother you? Why haven't you?

Jurric said:
it was still an investment I was hesitant to make when the only thing I'd be able to do with it was extend the lifespan of my lightsabres from a minute to indefinite use. If I hadn't killed the person I wanted to kill after a minute of swiping at them, I probably wasn't going to kill them at all.

"Oh, boo hoo, this investment only gives me infinite lightsaber." I feel like Mayhem would complain about this sort of thing verbally if Trainwreck were around, just to rub it in.

Stupid inferior steam technology garbage...

Jurric said:
Of course Taylor had simply been thinking of rainy days, which would have been equally capable of destroying my devices, but you couldn't plan for every little thing. If it was raining when the Slaughterhouse Nine attacked, I would have improvised… somehow. My suicide bombs had always been waterproof.

Well, so long as you've got the important stuff protected.

Jurric said:
"No, of course not. Noelle on the battlefield would be chaos."

"Ah, right. Sorry." I said.

And chaos is... bad? Remember that you're talking to a guy who named himself Mayhem.

Jurric said:
I'd slowly adapted my brain to the extra stress of additional thought through a long regime of electro-chemical stimulation.

By which he means he's altered his liver to continually produce caffeine, and he implanted a battery in his tongue for that magic buzzy feeling.

Jurric said:
I really don't think she expected another cape to use them, there was a sort of brand identity thing most capes tried to cultivate.

So yes, all the Eve clones and myself were dressed in Victorian era dresses, with doll masks. It was amazing what you could hide under these dresses actually. The Eve's had rifles, pistols and grenades attached to the under-wire of the flared skirts, accessible through slits in the ruffles. I had several dozen pockets with medical gear, and a pistol and my bombs.

The funny thing here is that "batfuck crazy" is Mayhem's brand identity at this point, and if that means a squadron of suicide bombing clone Parians, well, you've got to stay true to your brand.

Jurric said:
I like the knuckle dusters built into his gloves. Practical and stylish. It wouldn't be hard to build some into the backs of my hands either.

You realize you could just wear some, right? Use that extra hand space for more fingers or something.

Jurric said:
I had wondered how Mayhem got to Germany and back in less than twenty two hours.

There are private jets that can make Paris from New York in less than eight hours. Probably would have been easier to get your hands on one of those instead of apparently terrorizing a powerful teleporter, but I guess you just have to keep doing what your heart tells you is right.

Jurric said:
Then there was the most worrying question of all. If Mayhem had access to Strider, what else might he have been able to do in those missing hours after the fall of the E88?

Shenanigans. Just... lots of that.

Quickshot0 · May 9, 2016

consequences said:
I vented more over at SB, but the whole Strider thing desperately needs explanation and justification, even if we take it as a given that Mayhem somehow conscripted a top tier teleporter with no notice and kept him in line instead of getting left in Antarctica after pushing his luck.

If you claimed you'd gotten some kind of biological poison in them via say managing to nick them from behind, and then said only you had the antidote, then I imagine one could manage quite a bit... Not a lot of wet tinkers at that level after all.

Well I imagine the exact text and such might have varied a bit, to make it seem even more like there was no choice at all, but this basic principle to approach the matter would work. If one thought about it long enough I'm sure others would come to mind as well, being smart about things is humanities greatest weapon after all.

Datcord · May 9, 2016

Jurric said:
We know that Hatchet Face is still around, and that his range is relevant. I don't think that it's been mentioned if he survived or not.

*opens mouth*
*pauses*
*grimaces*
Oh, yeeeeah. Bonesaw. Little things like "survival" are pretty flexible she she's involved.

If it makes you feel better, the stilio is currently on Taylor's clone, and the clone is a twisted version of the original. It does differ from the real Taylor slightly. How exactly it differs has not been mentioned.

"Well, you know, Noelle's clones ARE slightly different from the original and-"

"Yeah, but why'd it change THOSE?! And why SO MUCH?! They make my back hurt just looking at them!"

Bob Saget said:
A certain anthropomorphized giggle needs to work on their reading comprehension.

...look, when you bring facts into things like this, it makes baby kittens cry. Stop making baby kittens cry. (I read that. I remember that. I choose to pretend it never happened for the sake of my own personal amusement.)

Jurric said:
Could I convince Taylor to sit this fight out? To save ourselves for the inevitable strike by the Nine

*wild, hysterical laughter* Only if you can somehow convince her that she'll have a chance to fight them BOTH AT THE SAME TIME if she holds off for a little bit.

Besides, hiding wouldn't do a lot of good, the Endbringer would be coming for me.

I'm not saying he's wrong, but... damn, ego much?

Alternately: Oh, great! What'd Mayhem do THIS TIME?! (Cut to Leviathan, looking pissed and covered in toilet paper.)

I injected Cricket with something that would wake her up in a few minutes,

Normally, I'd be giggling something about "injecting" Cricket, but... she's unconscious and I have SOME limits. Not many, but they're there!

if I timed it right she'd wake up, I'd say 'Leviathan,' and then I could throw her at him without having to actually talk to her.

Ada. Ada, seriously. If you don't want to date Cricket, just TELL HER. Trying to set her up with Leviathan is going a little bit over the top, I'd say.

I have no idea how she managed to unnerve me when I had my fear turned off, but she did.

*puerile giggle* That's... not exactly FEAR you're feeling, Ada. That's the knowledge that you give Cricket that special tingling and the fact that turning yourself into a woman probably won't affect that. ("You're a girl now. ...can you still fight?" "...y-yes?" "Good enough.")

I don't think the Simurgh ever makes it rain. Well, there was that one time with the chemical factory and the acid, but it probably isn't that.

"And that one time in the strip club in Brooklyn, but everyone's agreed to never talk about THAT."

Also, she'd sink like a stone in water. Her body was very heavy,

Hey, asshole! Don't say shit like that about a lady's weight! YOU'RE the one who installed the missiles!

Duct tape I always carried on me,

inb4 we see Ada fix someone in the field with duct tape....

"Here, Panacea. This one's yours now. I already got the brain fixed."

"...is that DUCT TAPE?!"

"Neurosurgeon's secret weapon!"

we could die horribly, but what the hell. Endbringers kill cleaner than the Nine anyway.

That's a lady with the right attitude! If you gotta die, at least pick the CLEANER death. Plus, with Leviathan, you don't even have to worry about someone needing to scrub up the blood later!

it was just what I thought of when Adam stopped fitting quite as well,

*puerile giggle* There's... ways to correct that, Ada. Just sayin'....

It was like how when witness protection moved me,.

Yeah, for all the good THAT did.

"Hey, Jack! Look, they're moving my brother! That's ADORABLE. It's like they don't think I've already put monitoring devices into everyone involved with his case!"

"The white cases are first aid gear?" Taylor said.

"I can do a lot more than first aid with them, but yes, sort of." I said

"Okay, so here's the thing... your body was REALLY messed up and it was gonna kill you. So.... I kinda had to remove it and put your brain in something else until I get a chance to fix things."

"BARK!"

"Oh, don't be like THAT, Director Tagg. You're in a chihuahua because that was the only thing available! *snerk* And all the pictures are purely for scientific reasons!"

In my defense, the Nine had two Tinkers. I figured that making the traps hard to disarm was a good policy.

They also have the Siberian and Crawler. The traps probably weren't going to be THAT effective.

(Also, Bonesaw barely counts as THAT kind of a Tinker. She's almost purely wet Tinkering.)

"Armsmaster is apologizing to your clone. He says that, considering Tagg is still counting you as a priority, in the face of an Endbringer, he suspects that Tagg has been compromised, probably by Cherish. He's called it in, and Tagg is being taken into Master/Stranger screening."

I suspect that, even if Tagg HASN'T been compromised, Armsmaster was just waiting for an opportunity to get him out of the fucking way. The guy is basically useless, after all. Hell, he's worse than useless. Even a broken tool can be used as a hammer.

("I'm not being Mastered!" "Of course you're not, sir. We totally believe you, but it's regulations. Very strict regulations YOU put in place, in fact." "I am THE DIRECTOR!" "Yes, sir. And I feel very upset that I was forced to pummel you into unconsciousness like this." "Wha-*THWACK* "What an asshole. Let's get his ass in the cell and go have a beer.")

Cherish, the Simurgh, extreme incompetence, it was one of those.

Or all of them! Don't limit yourself. It's Tagg, after all.

That kind of put Armsmaster back on the nice list,

AKA the "he gets a new body instead of just a head in a jar" list. ("I got the idea from this Earth Aleph show!")

it was still an investment I was hesitant to make when the only thing I'd be able to do with it was extend the lifespan of my lightsabres from a minute to indefinite use.

...why is this even a question? Of COURSE you do it! It's a LIGHTSABER, ~~man~~ woman! YOU ALWAYS VOTE FOR LIGHTSABER.

Yeah, we were screwed.

Well... not until Cricket wakes up, at least. (C'mon, you all know the middle of an Endbringer fight would strike her as the PERFECT time to take things to the next level. Dead bodies, horrible mutilations, screaming, terror.... It's so... ROMANTIC!)

If it was raining when the Slaughterhouse Nine attacked, I would have improvised… somehow.

Ada, any plan that can be ruined by a kid with a water balloon is a BAD PLAN.

I'd slowly adapted my brain to the extra stress of additional thought through a long regime of electro-chemical stimulation.

...is that Bio-Tinker talk for "I've started zapping my brainmeats with raw electricity and marinating it in whatever chemicals I have to hand"? I think it is. I really do.

I couldn't even change clothes quickly.

Yup. You're definitely a girl! </stereotype humor>

The Nine would attack when they saw weakness, I was sure of that.

You know, I kinda hope they attack during Leviathan's attack. If nothing else, it'll FINALLY tip them over into the "We're ALL going to focus on these bastards dying until it's DONE." category.

So yes, all the Eve clones and myself were dressed in Victorian era dresses, with doll masks.

Well, that's only a LITTLE bit creepy. (And suddenly Sveta has A Thing for gothic lolita....)

It was amazing what you could hide under these dresses actually. The Eve's had rifles, pistols and grenades attached to the under-wire of the flared skirts, accessible through slits in the ruffles. I had several dozen pockets with medical gear, and a pistol and my bombs.

If nothing else, at least Parian might get more respect after this!

At least I didn't look completely like Parian. I was a blonde, she was a brunette.

She was still glaring when Strider arrived.

And Assault/Clockblocker will NEVER let them forget this. ("It's like they're twins, but... not quite." "I've seen that video." "Battery is standing right behind you, you know." "...I regret nothiWHAGH!")

Then Strider saw the Adam clone, and his eyes widened.

"No, no. Stay away. You promised. You promised I would never see you again!" He yelled.

*wild, hysterical laughter* Of fucking COURSE. Because why wouldn't Mayhem still manage to find a way to fuck things up for Ada?

If Mayhem had access to Strider, what else might he have been able to do in those missing hours after the fall of the E88?

I have no evidence for it, there's been no hint of it, and it's almost certainly wrong, but... I'm calling it anyways: Worked a deal with the Simurgh.

RaneARE said:
Probs too late to say this but I have mixed feelings about the gender swap. Hope he can change back.

Sveta: "YOU have mixed feelings?!"

(Also, yes. He's stated that he's got options via various formulas and whatnot. Hell, he's a Bio-Tinker. Push comes to shove, he can do things the old fashioned way.)

consequences said:
I vented more over at SB, but the whole Strider thing desperately needs explanation and justification, even if we take it as a given that Mayhem somehow conscripted a top tier teleporter with no notice and kept him in line instead of getting left in Antarctica after pushing his luck.

Well, it's REALLY difficult to blackmail someone who's probably infected you with something that'll turn you bright purple and make you explode if you don't play nice.

Pax_Empyrean said:
he implanted a battery in his tongue for that magic buzzy feeling.

*puerile giggle* Cricket: "Go on...."

The funny thing here is that "batfuck crazy" is Mayhem's brand identity at this point, and if that means a squadron of suicide bombing clone Parians, well, you've got to stay true to your brand.

There's a special power in being known for your complete and utter insanity. When you OWN THAT SHIT, people pay attention. People look at Armsmaster with respect because they know he's solid, he's dependable, and he's capable. People look at Mayhem with trepidation because they NEVER know what he's going to bring to the table.

There are private jets that can make Paris from New York in less than eight hours. Probably would have been easier to get your hands on one of those instead of apparently terrorizing a powerful teleporter, but I guess you just have to keep doing what your heart tells you is right.

Heart, conflict-generation Shard-linked alternate personality in your head... po-TAH-to, po-TAY-to....

LokiTheDarkGod · May 9, 2016

So I now know what Mayhem's second name is.

It's Norris or Shepard.

Gurkenglas · May 9, 2016

"the old fashioned way" <- swap around everyone else's gender?

Mizu · May 9, 2016

Jurric said:
It was fortunate I had it out for testing all ready.

already.

Jurric said:
"There are rally points all over town. We'll be teleported from there to the Rig, were we are organizing our defense.

where we are organizing

Jurric said:
and he want's your input on a long range version. It's hard to get close to Leviathan with swords." Taylor informed me.

wants your input

Jurric said:
Some sort of vacuum generator, and a gravity canon to throw the energy matrix at the enemy?

cannon

Jurric said:
"Armsmaster's says he wishes you luck

Armsmaster says he wishes

Jurric said:
I hadn't had a chance to build a phone without silicon yet, and we still needed to communicate, so we just let the clones carry the risk

carry the risk.

Jurric said:
The long sleeves and white gloves concealed my mechanical arms, even if my forearms were slightly to large to fit perfectly into the doll like look.

slightly too large

Mayhem just keeps on revealing surprises, it seems.

H+ Mayhem (Worm)

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