Jim Starluck
CO, ICS Vanguard
- Location
- Cincinnati, OH
Oooh, interesting. I don't think I've seen the "WingedOne = Simurgh" thing utilized this way very often, if at all.
Horizon [Alt!Power & SlightAU]
- Thread starter Kraka
- Start date
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Man, we seriously need more Alt-power undersider characters.
i think i've een it maybe 2 other times. 'taylor Varga' does it for sure. (i recommend that one btw)
2.3 Potestas
Horizon
An; A short chapter to get back into this.
— O —
01–05–10, Tue. Afternoon, Brockton General.
The frantic scrubbing of pen scratching paper was the only thing that could be heard in the small hospital room, if you discarded a pair of synced breaths and muttered curses almost too low for anyone to hear.
Sarah bit her tongue, desperately holding back another expletive from busting through the iron seal of her lips. The last time she had slipped, a nurse had poked her head in, eyes searching and narrowed into a smoldering gaze that made Sarah shrink and her mouth sealed tight.
She revised the events of the day: her boss's strange attitude, the fight in the middle of the street, the sudden cut-off and apparent theft, and the way the city kept fracturing and splintering, only the first remnants of Boston now coming through yet still enough to cause tension and unrest.
Speaking of Boston…
Turning her head towards the TV mounted on the wall, Sarah clicked the remote a couple of times, bringing up the volume just enough to be heard without crossing the 'obnoxious' line. A woman in street clothes was speaking into the microphone, visage marred by lines carved from grief. Her face seemed brighter than it should, though, more hopeful than one would expect after an attack by the Hopekiller.
"—hind me you can see the relief team already helping with the search and rescue tasks outside the Dome, built and deployed mere hours after the fact by a combined effort between Hero, his pupil Armsmaster, and the everpresent Dragon."
The camera panned out by a fraction, the Dome now visible. It was an ugly thing, clearly built more for purpose and reparability — or, god forbid, replaceability — than anything else. Figures in the background shuffled around, moving crates of supplies this way and that, some Heroes even using their flight or super-strength for a not-insignificant boost to the transportation efforts.
The most prominent aspect of the scene was, most likely, the figures with predominantly white clothes; golden symbols representing a blazing, rising sun emblazoned in most of their garb. Some of them wore golden masks, their clothes armored or padded, the various distinctions between them and the other figures marking them as capes.
"And as you can see here, Gold Morning is already invested in the relief efforts and providing as much help as they can. With their presence here, the nascent threat of a Fallen attack has all but evaporated, given the hostility between Gold Morning's primary enforcers in the city — Haven, in this particular case — and the Mathers branch of the infamous Endbringer cult."
The sound of the TV faded into the back of Sarah's mind as she continued scribbling schematics, trying to fix the problems in a theoretical Hive focused primarily on scouting and espionage drones -— the issue was the same one she always had, materials and tools.
This was one of the faster instances she had seen of Scion's Church mobilizing so fast. It usually took around another week for the relief to arrive, with the Church's Enforcers always getting to the affected area earlier than anybody else to ward off attacks: be it from the Fallen, opportunistic villains, or even the Slaughterhouse themselves, rare as that may be.
As Sarah looked over her half-assed sketches and blueprints, the idea of going out hunting for materials started to look more and more attractive. She'd been contemplating buying electronics second-hand, but well… she'd honestly prefer something less likely to get her tortured by a convention center's worth of scuffed WWII LARPers. Y'know, like going up to Kaiser and telling him you dug up and violated Iron Rain's corpse.
Well, she supposed the Spandex Brigade could always get to her first. No doubt it would be better than spending the rest of her life talking to guys that insist they 're not racist they just really like Hugo Boss, but she wasn't exactly enthused at the prospect of spending the rest of her days putting muggers into shibari while dressed like she had an unhealthy fascination with air pumps and latex.
And as for Lung… well, deep-throating a lamp-post would probably be a less painful way to commit suicide.
That left the people that had tried to spirit her away the other day as… Huh. She didn't know.
Sarah grimaced. You'd think nothing could be worse than sex traffickers, slavers, and literal Nazis, but well… she had extensive experience at what happens when one fails to plan for the appearance of an even worse devil than the one they know.
As her hand kept drawing blueprints for the project she wanted to make first and foremost — a Hive that produced multipurpose worker drones, used as tools to make better, more precise Hives — she squeezed her other hand, the one intertwined with Taylor's. The warmth that greeted her grip helped center Sarah, and distract her from the absolute clusterfuck that was brewing in the streets, one that was only sure to get worse in the coming months.
So immersed she was in writing down the ideas that kept piling inside her head that she missed two people entering the room, startled out of her fugue only by the clack-clack of metallic boots resonating against the walls.
"Ahem."
"Jesus fuck!"
Thankfully her notebook landed on the floor closed. She didn't know what would she do if she outed herself by something as stupid as leaving her notes open to be observed by someone who would know what they were.
She bent over to retrieve her notebook, but an armored hand beat her to it, presenting the offending piece to her with a nod.
Sarah chanced a look upwards to find two figures staring at her. The first was covered in what was obviously power armour; polished silver that reflected the light, accompanied with blue accents, a faint whirring sound and, frankly, over-engraved pauldrons. Topping off the 'Knightly' motif was a helmet ripped straight from the pages of a shitty 1900s comic about futuristic space Britain.
No, she wasn't bitter at being taken by surprise. Perish the thought.
The other one wasn't any better — a glaringly red spandex suit with a utility belt, some protection for the chest and a, if it could be described as such, 'vanilla' helmet. It honestly resembled a motorcycle helmet more than anything, if the motorcyclist in question had the "brilliant" idea of stripping off anything below the nose, saying something about "breathing better". Although, they would have a point: the most optimal airflow for the body is laying on the street with your head ripped off, exposing your entire trachea to the wind.
"Can I help you?" she said as she took her notebook, a clear undercurrent of 'I'm just being polite, please leave' painting her words, obvious for anyone that heard her.
"Yes, I'd say so," said the one Sarah identified as Gallant. Clearly, he was deaf. "We were just making the rounds around here, seeing the kids and all that when we saw you here, and curiosity pulled me in." He shifted, and Sarah tensed. What was he on about?
Assault was uncharacteristically quiet too, given what she knew about him in PHO.
"Yeah? Well, here I am. What do you want?" Shit, that had come out a tad harsher than she needed. Just enough hostility to appear irritated, but not suspicious. She had done it a thousand times in school, but caught by surprise, she was having trouble finding her footing. A quick squeeze to Taylor's hand helped alleviate some of the pressure in her chest.
Gallant raised his hands, palms facing her way in a show of peace. She didn't buy it for one second.
"Nothing untoward, I assure you. Just a bit of a flight of fancy mixed with a dash of curiosity, nothing else." He crossed his hands, back resting against the wall opposite to her.
Sarah mulled over for the brief moment of silence that settled into the room, and decided to go with "I'm just her friend — the best and only one. I visit every day, but you probably already knew that." She shrugged, trying to shed some of the tension held there.
Gallant hummed, and separated himself from the wall. "Well, thanks for entertaining my curiosity. Sorry if we bothered you, and have a good day."
At that, they both left, leaving a sense of unease and dread pooling at the bottom of Sarah's stomach. Had she missed something? Something important?
Wait, wasn't Gallant a Tinker?
And she hadn't seen or heard them enter. He could have just taken a photo or video of her notebook as she was lost in her inventive haze and she wouldn't have noticed.
Sarah took her hands to her face, her body limp against the chair of the hospital.
So much for staying underground.
Last edited:
Sandy River DL
(Verified Destroyer Leader)
- Location
- Lake Michigan
- Pronouns
- Her/She
Tay? You better wake up soon, your girlfriend could really use a hug. And backup.
2.4 Potestas
"I should find myself an apartment that doesn't cost an arm and a leg…"
The door closed with a sonorous click behind her, and Sarah let out a frustrated sigh. Not only had she been surprised by the pair of doofus of the Protectorate, but the ideas and the sheer, clawing need to build something beyond the meager tools she had managed until now grew ever more urgent. In the past days, she had improved and tweaked her DIY taser, streamlining and tweaking it until she was sure it wouldn't fry itself into uselessness with a single discharge. But, be as it were, there was only so much she could do without materials or proper tools. The only thing she had at hand was a cheap second-hand kit of tools bought in an inconspicuous, shady shop in an alleyway near her job.
She needed tools, she needed materials, and she needed a workshop where she could work safely and in peace.
If only Taylor woke up so they could leave already…
That sparked a line of thought. Could she use her Hives to heal people? The Hives harvested or made drones that harvested materials and processed them, ripe for other classes of drones to use, so maybe she could make something that harvested the necessary materials for other drones to patch up people?
A schematic started coalescing inside her head, and Sarah's expression took a horrified turn, her veneer pale and sweaty. The blueprint assembled in her head was an affront to mother nature, not too dissimilar to what Bonesaw of the Slaughterhouse Nine did — a Hive that used hunter-killer drones to 'reap' material, with other, more specialized drones to take the Cargo towards the third and fourth type of drones, the third being the one that broke down completely the biomatter into its base components with the fourth 'grafting' those base materials onto the victim.
The worse thing was that she didn't have control over what were the changes the 'Chirurgeon' drone made, and so the first few subjects before the Hive gathered data and made improvements would come out of the procedure horrifically mutated, chronically in pain and deformed, or dead.
Sarah felt something clawing upwards from the bottom of her stomach, and she barely had any time whatsoever to scramble towards the bathroom door, slamming it open and hugging the shitter as tightly as she could as she heaved her guts out, raking coughs shaking her frame as she desperately tried to reign in her disgust. It was only half an hour and a quick shower later that she felt barely human again.
"I'm not using that, ever. God…"
She needed something to keep her head out of that scenario, something to distract herself. One look through the small bathroom window told her that the sun was already setting, painting the sky with fiery streaks of color. After washing her mouth and hands, her choice crystallized. As unpalatable as her power had just demonstrated her it could be, she still needed it if she wanted to ensure her safety and that of her friend, and for that she needed materials.
As for where she could get them? The last dump had been nothing but a headache, what with those guys that definitely looked like mercs, and the other two dumps were way too far from where she was, being placed outside the very city, not even near the outskirts. There was no way she could carry any significant amount of materials from there to her without getting mugged or something.
Stupid fucking city and it's completely absurd crimerate.
What she had more or less nearby that she hadn't scouted yet was the Trainyard, and as far as her internet searches told her, it was positively plagued by crackheads and homeless people. If she was careful, she shouldn't have a problem getting in, gutting something useful and small and getting out. Shouldn't, being the keyword. She didn't trust her luck these days.
After she finished washing and rewashing her hands and mouth for the third time, she took stock of what she needed for her escapade; her clothes, with Taylor's gift as a centerpiece, given that it was a thick black hoodie, her backpack, her taser, a gray bandana, and her pack of second hand tools if something resisted the Sudden Disassembly Protocol™ — a very delicate procedure that consisted of smashing the offending piece of technology with a rock or similarly hard implement.
She hated physical exercise, but the elation that the possibility of finally having toys to tinker with trumped her distaste.
After rechecking her equipment, Sarah exited her temporary abode, and soon enough, the building. It was time to gather materials, and then… then they could escape out of the smoldering powder keg that was Brockton.
Together.
Something had gone seriously awry at some point in time, and she wasn't even sure when, how, or why. The 'what' and the 'who' she had covered, though.
Despite her best efforts, she'd zoned out while she followed her phone's map towards the trainyard, the doom and gloom permeating most of the bay too unbearable for her already stressed out psyche. She acknowledged the groups and clumps of homeless people the nearer she got to the poorer parts of the city, treating them as the potential threat they were. One never could be too careful, and that applied doubly so on a city that was bearing the brunt of an attack from the Hopekiller herself.
Thankfully, she arrived at her destination without having to tase anyone into oblivion. She wasn't quite sure she'd regulated the discharge of her homemade weapon right, and wasn't very keen on field testing it that night.
The rest went relatively smoothly. Without much effort, she managed to find one train car that still had an incredibly rusty padlock attached. A swift application of 'rock' quickly dispelled the foul thing interposing itself between her and the sweet succor of spare electronics to gut and dismember like some kind of rabid techno-raccoon.
Her eyes quickly lit up when she noticed the pair of positively ancient TV's stacked in a corner, near another small pile of electronics so old as to surely crumble to dust were she to touch them. She didn't care in the slightest. She could always make drones to hunt more tech for her, and use that tech to make more drones to hunt more tech to make more drones! Practically vibrating on the spot, she almost missed the sound of tires on the gravel of the trainyard, an engine roaring nearby.
Whipping around, she stared at the black SUV like a deer in the headlights — quite literally, now. It took a single glance at the tinted front window of the sinister all-black car to make her decision and bolt, zig-zagging between piles of trash, broken and discarded electronics, and overturned biohazard waste containers spilling needles all over the ground — that last one had her wincing despite her situation. She wouldn't want to fall into that.
The soft roar of an engine revving behind her quickly brought her out of meandering musings. Focusing all her efforts on running away and pointedly not looking back, she made it to the opposite edge of the trainyard from where she entered in record time, panting, sweating and heaving for breath as hard as she could, a hacking cough punching its way out of her throat soon thereafter, her back against a train car, and a mostly-decayed fence behind said car. "I'm… never doing that-"
A car ramming its way near said flimsy, rusted fence to her right had her jumping on the spot "-again oh come on!"
As she watched the vehicle turn around with the screech of tires on gravel and concrete, another vehicle barreled almost through it, hitting the engine block at a ninety degree angle and pulping the black steel as if it weren't even there. Gaping like a fish and her legs still aching and burning like a pair of smoldering coals, Sarah stood stock still as her supposed savior stepped on the gas and drifted perfectly, leaving the shotgun passenger door just in front of her, which opened with a smooth, almost soundless click.
An incredibly busty, blonde woman with a mask made primarily of metal stood on the driver's side, furiously gesturing at Sarah with one hand. "Get in!"
Sarah stared at the outstretched hand, then at the smoking remains of what was once a black SUV, the doors opening and a pair of masked, armed men in tactical gear stepping out.
With an internal chant of 'please don't be worse than them', she took the woman's offer and stepped inside the vehicle, slamming the door closed and frantically searching for a security belt as the madwoman floored the car, throwing her back into her seat and making her breakfast knock at the back of her throat.
With a haze of speed and turns she was too nauseous to follow, she noticed how the woman slowly let up on the pedal, going slower and slower by the moment, until they reached the outskirts of the city and the surrounding forest, the nearby mountains surrounding the city looming nearby like gray giants.
With rising anxiety, Sarah watched as the stranger set the car onto a patch of grass and killed the engine without saying a word. She wanted to say something, but right now she was thinking back on her decision to step into a car with a masked woman who was probably a cape.
Well, she wouldn't murder Sarah, right? Capes had rules, or so she'd read. Somewhere, sometime ago. At some point. Maybe.
"You have shit luck, girl."
Well thank you too. Sarah didn't get to snark off though, the woman quickly continuing. "You had to go to my hunting place didn't you? Those men were there for me." She shrugged. Oh, oh that… wasn't good. "Well, no crying over spilled milk, and I ain't so heartless as to leave a fellow Tinker out to dry, at least not a kid like you" she said, inclining her head towards Sarah.
That made the car she was currently sitting on feel all the more secure, and all the more like a death trap. Gods knew what the woman had crammed inside so much space. "You can call me Ripley. My charity only extends so much, but…" she cocked her head to the side. "You have a place to sleep, yes?"
Sarah nodded, not trusting her voice to answer without her mouth running off from her. Her dry tongue tried to whet chapped lips to no avail. Paradoxically, she wanted out and not, not knowing if buses came out here and not wanting to walk all the way back to the hotel — and probably get mugged, with her luck.
A question bloomed in Sarah's mind, as dumb as it was. "Why didn't you, I dunno, offer the Wards or give me a speech about statistics?"
Ripley snorted. "Do I look like your average neighborhood hero? Besides," she downed the window and spit into the grass below, "fuck the government, and specially the PRT."
Sarah didn't have, exactly, a good track record with authority — mainly, her parents and the usual bullshit parties they attended full of corrupt fucks. She could get behind the sentiment, if nothing else.
When she opened her mouth, the words caught fire on her throat, a pitched whine echoing across the entire city. With an ear-splittin shriek that had her wincing, the air above the middle of the bay, a good five hundred feet above the very city, was something that defied all logic, and had Sarah's fingers twitching like restless snakes.
A flying oil rig, more kin to a flying fortress than the old installation that apparently was its skeleton, was floating above the Bay, a yawning gold portal snapping shut with a strange, echoing snap.
"Be at ease, citizens!" It blared into the heavens like a baleful foghorn.
Hero was on the bay, and he had taken with him a flying fortress.
The door closed with a sonorous click behind her, and Sarah let out a frustrated sigh. Not only had she been surprised by the pair of doofus of the Protectorate, but the ideas and the sheer, clawing need to build something beyond the meager tools she had managed until now grew ever more urgent. In the past days, she had improved and tweaked her DIY taser, streamlining and tweaking it until she was sure it wouldn't fry itself into uselessness with a single discharge. But, be as it were, there was only so much she could do without materials or proper tools. The only thing she had at hand was a cheap second-hand kit of tools bought in an inconspicuous, shady shop in an alleyway near her job.
She needed tools, she needed materials, and she needed a workshop where she could work safely and in peace.
If only Taylor woke up so they could leave already…
That sparked a line of thought. Could she use her Hives to heal people? The Hives harvested or made drones that harvested materials and processed them, ripe for other classes of drones to use, so maybe she could make something that harvested the necessary materials for other drones to patch up people?
A schematic started coalescing inside her head, and Sarah's expression took a horrified turn, her veneer pale and sweaty. The blueprint assembled in her head was an affront to mother nature, not too dissimilar to what Bonesaw of the Slaughterhouse Nine did — a Hive that used hunter-killer drones to 'reap' material, with other, more specialized drones to take the Cargo towards the third and fourth type of drones, the third being the one that broke down completely the biomatter into its base components with the fourth 'grafting' those base materials onto the victim.
The worse thing was that she didn't have control over what were the changes the 'Chirurgeon' drone made, and so the first few subjects before the Hive gathered data and made improvements would come out of the procedure horrifically mutated, chronically in pain and deformed, or dead.
Sarah felt something clawing upwards from the bottom of her stomach, and she barely had any time whatsoever to scramble towards the bathroom door, slamming it open and hugging the shitter as tightly as she could as she heaved her guts out, raking coughs shaking her frame as she desperately tried to reign in her disgust. It was only half an hour and a quick shower later that she felt barely human again.
"I'm not using that, ever. God…"
She needed something to keep her head out of that scenario, something to distract herself. One look through the small bathroom window told her that the sun was already setting, painting the sky with fiery streaks of color. After washing her mouth and hands, her choice crystallized. As unpalatable as her power had just demonstrated her it could be, she still needed it if she wanted to ensure her safety and that of her friend, and for that she needed materials.
As for where she could get them? The last dump had been nothing but a headache, what with those guys that definitely looked like mercs, and the other two dumps were way too far from where she was, being placed outside the very city, not even near the outskirts. There was no way she could carry any significant amount of materials from there to her without getting mugged or something.
Stupid fucking city and it's completely absurd crimerate.
What she had more or less nearby that she hadn't scouted yet was the Trainyard, and as far as her internet searches told her, it was positively plagued by crackheads and homeless people. If she was careful, she shouldn't have a problem getting in, gutting something useful and small and getting out. Shouldn't, being the keyword. She didn't trust her luck these days.
After she finished washing and rewashing her hands and mouth for the third time, she took stock of what she needed for her escapade; her clothes, with Taylor's gift as a centerpiece, given that it was a thick black hoodie, her backpack, her taser, a gray bandana, and her pack of second hand tools if something resisted the Sudden Disassembly Protocol™ — a very delicate procedure that consisted of smashing the offending piece of technology with a rock or similarly hard implement.
She hated physical exercise, but the elation that the possibility of finally having toys to tinker with trumped her distaste.
After rechecking her equipment, Sarah exited her temporary abode, and soon enough, the building. It was time to gather materials, and then… then they could escape out of the smoldering powder keg that was Brockton.
Together.
—❈—
Something had gone seriously awry at some point in time, and she wasn't even sure when, how, or why. The 'what' and the 'who' she had covered, though.
Despite her best efforts, she'd zoned out while she followed her phone's map towards the trainyard, the doom and gloom permeating most of the bay too unbearable for her already stressed out psyche. She acknowledged the groups and clumps of homeless people the nearer she got to the poorer parts of the city, treating them as the potential threat they were. One never could be too careful, and that applied doubly so on a city that was bearing the brunt of an attack from the Hopekiller herself.
Thankfully, she arrived at her destination without having to tase anyone into oblivion. She wasn't quite sure she'd regulated the discharge of her homemade weapon right, and wasn't very keen on field testing it that night.
The rest went relatively smoothly. Without much effort, she managed to find one train car that still had an incredibly rusty padlock attached. A swift application of 'rock' quickly dispelled the foul thing interposing itself between her and the sweet succor of spare electronics to gut and dismember like some kind of rabid techno-raccoon.
Her eyes quickly lit up when she noticed the pair of positively ancient TV's stacked in a corner, near another small pile of electronics so old as to surely crumble to dust were she to touch them. She didn't care in the slightest. She could always make drones to hunt more tech for her, and use that tech to make more drones to hunt more tech to make more drones! Practically vibrating on the spot, she almost missed the sound of tires on the gravel of the trainyard, an engine roaring nearby.
Whipping around, she stared at the black SUV like a deer in the headlights — quite literally, now. It took a single glance at the tinted front window of the sinister all-black car to make her decision and bolt, zig-zagging between piles of trash, broken and discarded electronics, and overturned biohazard waste containers spilling needles all over the ground — that last one had her wincing despite her situation. She wouldn't want to fall into that.
The soft roar of an engine revving behind her quickly brought her out of meandering musings. Focusing all her efforts on running away and pointedly not looking back, she made it to the opposite edge of the trainyard from where she entered in record time, panting, sweating and heaving for breath as hard as she could, a hacking cough punching its way out of her throat soon thereafter, her back against a train car, and a mostly-decayed fence behind said car. "I'm… never doing that-"
A car ramming its way near said flimsy, rusted fence to her right had her jumping on the spot "-again oh come on!"
As she watched the vehicle turn around with the screech of tires on gravel and concrete, another vehicle barreled almost through it, hitting the engine block at a ninety degree angle and pulping the black steel as if it weren't even there. Gaping like a fish and her legs still aching and burning like a pair of smoldering coals, Sarah stood stock still as her supposed savior stepped on the gas and drifted perfectly, leaving the shotgun passenger door just in front of her, which opened with a smooth, almost soundless click.
An incredibly busty, blonde woman with a mask made primarily of metal stood on the driver's side, furiously gesturing at Sarah with one hand. "Get in!"
Sarah stared at the outstretched hand, then at the smoking remains of what was once a black SUV, the doors opening and a pair of masked, armed men in tactical gear stepping out.
With an internal chant of 'please don't be worse than them', she took the woman's offer and stepped inside the vehicle, slamming the door closed and frantically searching for a security belt as the madwoman floored the car, throwing her back into her seat and making her breakfast knock at the back of her throat.
With a haze of speed and turns she was too nauseous to follow, she noticed how the woman slowly let up on the pedal, going slower and slower by the moment, until they reached the outskirts of the city and the surrounding forest, the nearby mountains surrounding the city looming nearby like gray giants.
With rising anxiety, Sarah watched as the stranger set the car onto a patch of grass and killed the engine without saying a word. She wanted to say something, but right now she was thinking back on her decision to step into a car with a masked woman who was probably a cape.
Well, she wouldn't murder Sarah, right? Capes had rules, or so she'd read. Somewhere, sometime ago. At some point. Maybe.
"You have shit luck, girl."
Well thank you too. Sarah didn't get to snark off though, the woman quickly continuing. "You had to go to my hunting place didn't you? Those men were there for me." She shrugged. Oh, oh that… wasn't good. "Well, no crying over spilled milk, and I ain't so heartless as to leave a fellow Tinker out to dry, at least not a kid like you" she said, inclining her head towards Sarah.
That made the car she was currently sitting on feel all the more secure, and all the more like a death trap. Gods knew what the woman had crammed inside so much space. "You can call me Ripley. My charity only extends so much, but…" she cocked her head to the side. "You have a place to sleep, yes?"
Sarah nodded, not trusting her voice to answer without her mouth running off from her. Her dry tongue tried to whet chapped lips to no avail. Paradoxically, she wanted out and not, not knowing if buses came out here and not wanting to walk all the way back to the hotel — and probably get mugged, with her luck.
A question bloomed in Sarah's mind, as dumb as it was. "Why didn't you, I dunno, offer the Wards or give me a speech about statistics?"
Ripley snorted. "Do I look like your average neighborhood hero? Besides," she downed the window and spit into the grass below, "fuck the government, and specially the PRT."
Sarah didn't have, exactly, a good track record with authority — mainly, her parents and the usual bullshit parties they attended full of corrupt fucks. She could get behind the sentiment, if nothing else.
When she opened her mouth, the words caught fire on her throat, a pitched whine echoing across the entire city. With an ear-splittin shriek that had her wincing, the air above the middle of the bay, a good five hundred feet above the very city, was something that defied all logic, and had Sarah's fingers twitching like restless snakes.
A flying oil rig, more kin to a flying fortress than the old installation that apparently was its skeleton, was floating above the Bay, a yawning gold portal snapping shut with a strange, echoing snap.
"Be at ease, citizens!" It blared into the heavens like a baleful foghorn.
Hero was on the bay, and he had taken with him a flying fortress.
Well, that is different.
So Hero is alive,
and Bakuda? is a good guy. I mean yeah, she's probably anti-gov, and maybe on a watch list or two. But thats still better morals than canon.
Also is lung dead/not around?(can't remember/need to do a re-read.) Or will Hero have the duty of taking part in the obligatory Lung fight? lol
glad to see an update. really wondering what taylor can do. but We will have to wait till she wakes up.
And I like the foreshadowing here.
BTW, been so long since I last saw an update, I forgot that Sarah was not yet Lisa.
So Hero is alive,
and Bakuda? is a good guy. I mean yeah, she's probably anti-gov, and maybe on a watch list or two. But thats still better morals than canon.
Also is lung dead/not around?(can't remember/need to do a re-read.) Or will Hero have the duty of taking part in the obligatory Lung fight? lol
glad to see an update. really wondering what taylor can do. but We will have to wait till she wakes up.
And I like the foreshadowing here.
BTW, been so long since I last saw an update, I forgot that Sarah was not yet Lisa.
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*gasp* it lives again! but I have to reread this all over again, as I need a refresher.
Well...
..I'm pretty sure it's Sherrel Bailey aka Squealer.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Also she was driving a juiced up vehicle:Well...
..I'm pretty sure it's Sherrel Bailey aka Squealer.
'cause that ain't normal.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Nah, busty blonde? That's not Bakuda, that's Squealer. My guess, she's been able to duck the Merchants so far so she's not a strung out addict.
- Location
- Down Under
As far as I can tell the merchants have never come up previously in story so they may not even exist in this AU. The other gangs have all been mentioned.
So I'm guessing Cheryl is a free agent driving around for fun.
I'm also guessing either Legend or Alexandria died instead of Hero which is why he has built a floating doom fortress to compensate.
I'm assuming so far from context clues that Taylor is a Technopath. Her and Sarah should combo really well. Sarah can quickly produce drones but doesn't have fine control whilst Taylor will likely be able to master and control tech in such a way to make up the finese gap.
I need them to get to the "be gay do crime" stage of this relationship asap.
Also has Sarah kicked off anything to claim her parents assets? Even if large chunks or it were tied up in Boston they should still have accounts accessible. Through proving her identity may be a little hard.
So I'm guessing Cheryl is a free agent driving around for fun.
I'm also guessing either Legend or Alexandria died instead of Hero which is why he has built a floating doom fortress to compensate.
I'm assuming so far from context clues that Taylor is a Technopath. Her and Sarah should combo really well. Sarah can quickly produce drones but doesn't have fine control whilst Taylor will likely be able to master and control tech in such a way to make up the finese gap.
I need them to get to the "be gay do crime" stage of this relationship asap.
Also has Sarah kicked off anything to claim her parents assets? Even if large chunks or it were tied up in Boston they should still have accounts accessible. Through proving her identity may be a little hard.
According to the Wiki Ripley is Bonesaw. It feel weird to think of Bonesaw as a nice person instead of a murdering follower of Jack Slash lol. Maybe Jack Slash died in this story(which couldn't happen to a better person lol)and what i find weirder still is that Ziz complains on PHO lol. It feels weird to see her complaining instead of basically do weird stuff whithout ever saying anything(for all we know in cannon Ziz is nothing more than a program that execute the demands it recieves lol.)
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think you're in the wrong thread, Riley hasn't made an appearance in this story.
- Location
- US
Sarah mentioned Bonesaw, so we know she at least was active in recent memory.
I love this fic, and want to see where it goes.
Welcome back, Kraka!