...You're really not communicating a distinction with this sentence.
Hybrid Hive: Eat Shard? (Worm/MGLN) (Complete)
- Thread starter CmptrWz
- Start date
- Crossover
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
the distinction is that they can still smoke in private, in certain areas, (downtown we have a cigar bar here) and in their own homes/vehicles as well as areas further away from entrances public buildings than the requisite 50ft. Private buildings make their own rules, this is versus an effective public ban on all smoking, which like 1920's prohibition (on alcohol) would never work.
Sandy River DL
(Verified Destroyer Leader)
- Location
- Lake Michigan
- Pronouns
- Her/She
Can we stop arguing over whether or not people have the right to deathsticks?
Congratulations on living in the only place in the world where the smokers actually care about where they're not allowed to smoke. Bans mean nothing when they're not enforced, and when they are, it just results in a crowd of angry smokers at the exact limit of the distance deliberately blowing smoke towards the place they're not allowed to be, because it's an infringement of their rights to be banned! Second class citizens! Not even considered human! We should revolt! And then after ranting for a while until the enforcement people leave, they move back into the area they're not supposed to be in and double down on it.
I'm sorry, but can you clarify this bit for me?
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
Ravenwood is a coroner by profession.
Huh! That makes much more sense than the stuff I ended up imagining about.
Scarlet Rose
Verified Furry
- Pronouns
- Female/Genderless
...why is everything off-topic..?
Looking forward to the next chapter, might have to re-read though. Forgetting what's happened because of distractions.
Has this fic had a forum site interlude? (Can't recall the in-universe site's name)
Looking forward to the next chapter, might have to re-read though. Forgetting what's happened because of distractions.
Has this fic had a forum site interlude? (Can't recall the in-universe site's name)
I don't. Don't even know what PITA is.
Sandy River DL
(Verified Destroyer Leader)
- Location
- Lake Michigan
- Pronouns
- Her/She
Pain In The Ass. PITA.
*Facepalm* Well, that's good to know I suppose.
Isnt my realname
This isn't my real name.
- Location
- Not Here
Scarlet Rose
Verified Furry
- Pronouns
- Female/Genderless
Thank you! Knew I was missing something. Kind of just goes over my head when the characters read PHO, and Amy does it a lot too 🤣
There are subtle differences, though...much like with <insert profanity here> and tone of voice...or one memorable BtVS fanfic which made use of the language of "Dude"
POS most often refers to a thing that is broken to the point of being infuriating, or useless for the described/intended purpose. Often it is poorly-designed so that it doesn't do what you think it does. Can also be used as a direct insult to a person (or company), often implying that their ethical & moral frameworks are broken: usually a reference to widely-agreed bad behavior (especially e.g. abuse-of-others, less often simply treating others poorly); common for describing ex-SOs. I've never heard it used in reference to a process or situation. Form: "X is a POS" where X is an object/person/company. "That car is a POS" e.g. referring to a lemon (or a make/model with major engineering/safety problems, or...).
PITA nearly always refers to a process (less often a repeatedly-encountered situation), is predictable-but-annoying, and you have no more-reliable, less-annoying options for getting X done, so you are forced to deal with it. Often used in the sense of "Dealing with <person/company>/using <thing> is a PITA"...again referencing process. I don't think I've ever heard it used directly to describe an object, rather than the process of using (or otherwise dealing with) an object. Form: "X is a PITA" where X is a verb-object pair ("dealing with Y", "applying for Z", "finding Z") or otherwise refers to a process.
Some people actually enjoy situations that others would describe this way, e.g. creating digital artwork pixel-by-pixel. Most other PITA-or-not possibilities that come to mind for me are trivial but repetetetetive sorts of things, especially those that could be easily automated (partially or fully)...but I'm comfortable creating such automations so if I have to do something often enough I tend to automate the process, and the learn-do-automate process makes it more interesting and less irritating.
PITA nearly always refers to a process (less often a repeatedly-encountered situation), is predictable-but-annoying, and you have no more-reliable, less-annoying options for getting X done, so you are forced to deal with it. Often used in the sense of "Dealing with <person/company>/using <thing> is a PITA"...again referencing process. I don't think I've ever heard it used directly to describe an object, rather than the process of using (or otherwise dealing with) an object. Form: "X is a PITA" where X is a verb-object pair ("dealing with Y", "applying for Z", "finding Z") or otherwise refers to a process.
Some people actually enjoy situations that others would describe this way, e.g. creating digital artwork pixel-by-pixel. Most other PITA-or-not possibilities that come to mind for me are trivial but repetetetetive sorts of things, especially those that could be easily automated (partially or fully)...but I'm comfortable creating such automations so if I have to do something often enough I tend to automate the process, and the learn-do-automate process makes it more interesting and less irritating.
The "PR evaluation" by Mister Lorenz last chapter (188) could appropriately be described as a PITA, at least by most involved, though Mister Lorenz probably doesn't think so.
Isnt my realname
This isn't my real name.
- Location
- Not Here
Well, yes. And congratulations on turning an off-the-cuff joke into an actually informative explanation, I absolutely was not expecting that.
Kinsfire
Verified {Redacted}
- Location
- New Jersey
Don't remember the author or story at the moment, but I remember a BtVS fanfic where the author lampshaded that in a scene - Oz and Xander carrying on an entire conversation with the word "Dude". (And I believe that they wrote it so that the reader could follow the conversation...*laugh*
Chapter 189 - October 29, 2011
Saturday brought with it a few items, including another unadministered world in the Bureau's space joining the kingdom. The likely invasion attempt was being bumped up sooner than expected because someone in the Bureau had noticed the fleet coming together and questions were being asked, meaning heading out before planetary leadership could tell the military leader to stand down and blaming a lack of communication on 'operational security'. Amy wanted to make an appearance as Rainbow going after a group of parahumans targeting kids, and Tracey had sent a request to add a Mouse Protector device to the 'goose company' routines as a currently-standalone device operating throughout North America.
...the latter had required some more focus on Taylor's end to figure out what was going on. Suzy had worked with the three to make a Mouse Protector device to help people and screw with her enemies at the same time and now it needed to be dropped into the automatic routines so it would show up at times. Which required working around the geese while also not necessarily being on the list of devices that Ethan could manage, but letting Suzy manage things directly if desired made sense. It was pretending to be her, after all.
A quick pass on all of that had followed, and then Taylor had moved to her own list of projects and tasks. Ensuring that the Aces had something to do this afternoon, provided that Nanoha passed her electrical safety final exam this morning, was first on the list. The Wolkenritter were currently more focused on things back on Midchilda, but it looked like they should be cleared to get their augmentation units and internal devices tomorrow and that would open them up for more open wandering around Earth Bet to help out. Making a local appearance or two of her own was probably not a horrible idea either, beyond showing up to pick up Rainbow, but she was going to take a look at her dyson sphere project in person this morning.
The last of the dozen Apples was also supposed to finish testing and join the operational groups today, and the construction facilities in the two instances of Callisto that had been turned into shipyards were working on Coconut One and Two now. Partially as a proof of concept, and partially so that Coconut Two could be sent to the Bureau's space once completed to have one out there if no problems were found in the 'build six Apples, each of which builds thirty-six Blueberries' phase of things after they came online.
...building a couple more after that would actually be a major help in both emergency evacuations and in speeding up the dyson sphere project too, so if Coconut One and Two worked out then she'd probably queue up Three and Four before switching the shipyards back to building Apples.
Dennis's morning had started with meeting up with PRT staff to check the props being brought to Dinah's school today, which had turned into 'help prep some' and 'pick out last-minute substitutions'. Chris was there as well, as they were 'sneaking in' most of his stuff ahead of time so that the Wards would be there for as little of the setup as they could manage. Not that it was going to be hard to do that, since most of it didn't look like technology at all. Just a bunch of props, but the PRT staff had to be shown how to handle them.
One of the bigger 'tells' that Dinah was involved were the porcelain dolls, but a bunch of old and somewhat-creepy looking dolls wasn't quite enough to scream that Doll was involved before she did her proper reveal. The PRT also wasn't aware that telekinesis spells were going to be used to control the various dolls, to play up the 'Doll can do things with other dolls' thing established with her stunt during her reveal.
"I don't think we discussed how to handle needing to be able to use the door to get you three in," one of the PRT staff noted. "We won't be able to cover it up fully like the windows."
"Do we have any signs that say something about an office or staff only?" Chris asked. It was honestly not a horrible idea, making the door part of the theme.
"I think there might be something like that in storage room four," came from across the room. "I'll go check."
Hopefully Dinah liked the few things they'd needed to switch out for her side of things. The original coffin she'd liked had been smaller than reported and she wouldn't have fit in it, so they'd had to choose a different one, and some of the outfits for the dolls had fallen apart in storage.
Using Janus to fix up the few dolls that needed some work for their heads to easily turn was fairly easy, even if volunteering to get all their outfits on was proving to be more annoying than expected. Getting clothing onto dolls was tricky when dealing with limited range of motion and Dinah having her clothing 'come with' her powers had likely saved a lot of trouble getting changed.
Nanoha sat down in the classroom, having needed to travel to where her test was being administered. Raising Heart was settling in at her own table across the room, though that one was smaller to fit her fairy form's size.
"Welcome to your electrical safety examination," the teacher device greeted them as it entered the room. "Normally this would be more of a formality, but you two appear to have been stubborn and decided to not bother with the simulations referred to in your introductory materials. As such, we need to ensure that you properly understand the written materials and classroom instruction instead of reviewing how you handled yourselves in the simulations."
...a quick check of the provided introductory materials showed that there were, in fact, references to 'self-paced simulations' and instructions for accessing them at the bottom of page three. Based on the disgusted look on Raising Heart's face, she'd also checked and spotted that detail.
Unfortunately, it was far too late to actually run through the simulations, but this was a very good lesson in ensuring that you read everything.
Amy's morning had started with having completely forgotten about her planning the night before...and being reminded by a response from the kingdom's systems. Referencing a list of over sixteen thousand reasons her plan was unworkable, but also bringing up that the 'goose company' was already working on taking out all of the 'drug trades' on Earth Bet that weren't acceptable in the kingdom.
Some digging had revealed that Taylor had rigged the kingdom to find any substances that would trigger 'required healing' in less than a few months of regular use to be 'excessively dangerous'. If you'd need healing once or twice a year then it was monitored, and needing healing every couple of years or longer was essentially unrestricted. By those standards, coupled with the kingdom's 'injured enough to trigger healing' thresholds, tobacco and a number of hard drugs were already banned. On the other hand, a number of substances seen as a problem on Earth Bet were seen as perfectly fine.
Beyond the basics, delivery method was a factor as well. The more likely something was to cause someone else to need healing by being nearby when you were partaking, the less likely it was legal in the kingdom. That the kingdom could mitigate any such risks entirely was explicitly not a factor in that calculation. Which meant that even if tobacco had been allowed, smoking generally wasn't. There were a couple of 'ceremonial exceptions' baked into the laws, but that was about it for exceptions.
Asking the kingdom's systems for any prohibited substance also apparently got you a 'no, but we have a bunch of alternatives'. And the 'bunch of alternatives' were incredibly varied and comprehensive. You could basically have the kingdom tailor things for your desired effect, on demand, so long as you had credits to spend.
Digging into that had come to a halt though, because an alert had fired that today's targets were getting ready to head out. They were 'low priority' for a number of reasons, but they still grabbed kids off the streets and sold them off. Even if the bulk of the kids they grabbed could be said to end up with healthier lives than they'd had on the streets.
If not for the 'brainwash the kids' part of things they might not have come up as a target at all, honestly.
"Are you sure you don't want my help?" Missy asked as Amy was trying to decide what to put on today's shirt.
"Only if you want to come along as a young fox girl," Amy replied, causing the younger girl to look disgusted with the idea. "Yeah, didn't think so."
"But you're going after an entire group."
"One of whom makes candy that makes anyone who eats it 'suggestible', another a tinker that seems to specialize in hypnotizing helmets, and the last three early victims of the first two that they decided were useful when they triggered. The only one of those three with any combat skills is a brute, with the other two being used for locating targets and keeping the authorities away. Oh, and their weapons of choice are various kinds of machine guns. Without any enhancement from powers."
"...they use gatling guns and custom-built sniper rifles."
Amy blinked. "What?"
"The sniper rifles are excessively large custom caliber anti-brute monstrosities, but they're single-shot even if they set up a dozen of them at a time. As for the rest of the non-pistols, they're all hand-cranked repeating firearms, all but two being gatling guns."
That...didn't help explain much of anything. "Whatever. The point is that none of it is a threat to Rainbow anyway."
Missy's eye twitched a little, but she nodded. "Okay. Would you at least take a proper 'toy' with you?"
"Er, what?"
A moment later there was a kid-sized machine gun on the table. "Guns are toys, because they're not really dangerous. So bringing your own when you know that they have this kind of toy would make sense."
That was a pretty good argument. "How does this one work? Because not knowing how to use my 'toys' would be worse. And is this an 'Expanse special'?"
"Yes on the latter, but I put most of the work into the 'bottomless magazine'. It's loaded with thirty thousand rounds, at a little over eight hundred rounds per minute, but it also has multiple fire modes. Single, three, six, and twelve rounds per trigger pull if you want them instead of full auto."
Amy blinked a couple of times. "I actually remember a little about how they manage the one and three round modes, but how did you get six and twelve in?"
"More cog wheels."
That...didn't explain much. Picking the gun up to look at the Belkan-marked selector switch showed that the entire thing was incredibly light though. But...weirdly hard to move? "Are you sure that it's loaded?"
"Yes. The way space is twisted for the magazine and some of the mechanism ensures that gravity essentially pulls the exposed mass in multiple directions. Gives it sufficient inertia to be controllable but without the weight you'd expect from it."
"...physics isn't supposed to work that way."
"Only if you don't properly understand physics."
Perhaps it would be a good idea to not ask too many more questions, lest Missy decide to drag out the math...
Colin had managed to take the day off, but had gotten distracted by alerts about plans for Earth Bet. Admittedly, he wasn't sure if the kingdom's systems would tell him about anything Taylor or Hive was setting up, but he'd decided that he at least wanted warning of anything others might be doing. Most of the items that had come up so far were minor, but he'd spent a good portion of the morning trying to figure out what the hell had set Amy off enough to want to cause international chaos.
...followed by getting a summary of what the 'goose company' was working on in regards to the international drug trade. Ensuring that crops around the world had low yields due to a series of 'unfortunate accidents' and contaminants, creating problems in processing facilities, and if they could manage it they wanted to drag some parahuman battles through fields and facilities to let the collateral damage do a bunch of work for them. Taylor had apparently ensured that they wouldn't just set most locations storing drugs on fire, but that was far from the only option for ruining things.
The plan to use an automated insect control routine to ensure that several buildings suffered extreme termite damage was honestly an interesting one, though unfortunately wouldn't work on all of the targeted wood buildings due to the treatments used on many of them. Arranging for sinkholes and a couple of other foundation issues, problems with animals, and at least one landslide were also on the list of potential 'solutions'.
All Amy's misguided plan had done was bump up the priority of the tobacco producers having problems. Slightly.
"Would you like to watch Rainbow's impending appearance?" Dragon asked, getting his attention.
"Is it being live streamed?" Colin questioned.
"She hasn't set it to be."
"Then perhaps it would be best to hold off until it becomes more general knowledge so that we don't accidentally reveal that we already know details that we shouldn't."
"I can't believe you completely missed the simulations," Fate said, shaking her head. "They're fun too!"
"We still passed," Nanoha retorted.
"Just barely." And according to the kingdom's systems, the two had grabbed the simulations after their exam and were likely running through them right now. "But it means that we can do our first training mission thing this afternoon."
"Do we know what our assignment is yet?"
"Targeting some of these 'parahumans' that like to cause trouble to interrupt their fun."
"...that was somewhat implied as a general aspect of things."
"And that's the best we've got. We should get a briefing after lunch, or perhaps during lunch if we decide to head that way sooner. Hayate also spent part of the morning discussing potential 'field trips' for Vivio's class."
That had Nanoha blinking. "Field trips?"
"To Belka, the kingdom's homeworld, and possibly to Earth Bet."
"...I can see why they'd visit the first two, but not the third."
"She wasn't entirely clear on things, but I think she was more limited on that. Perhaps she was just asking about Vivio and her friends going for that one? Might make an interesting training exercise for the three, once they've got some more training done."
Nanoha looked unconvinced, but didn't argue the point.
Robin had originally thought that it was stupid to be the one intercepting an attacking fleet, but Linza had annoyingly effective pouting and the kingdom's systems said that they could handle it. Waking up HK was apparently optional, even. On the other hand, seeing how HK dealt with an invading fleet with only the Ample Celerity sounded too interesting to miss, so they'd accepted the offer and moved to the interception point. In the dimensional sea.
Oddly enough, the fleet of ships did stop, and Robin had sighed before making sure that he was in his alternate male form. Some of this might end up shown back on Earth Bet and they didn't need to explain things to anyone that recognized him.
"Unknown vessel," the flagship transmitted. "Identify yourself."
"This is the Ample Celerity," Robin replied. "Civilian transport registered to Please Ignore the Secret Kingdom on a humanitarian mission profile."
There was a pause before the response came. "Move aside or surrender."
"Sadly, I volunteered to stop your doomed invasion attempt. Though I am a bit confused, since my sensors don't list your fleet as having any weapons. Surely you didn't think that just parking in orbit of Belka was going to be enough to 'conquer' it?"
Robin was actually quite confused about that side of things, but heard Linza giggling about it behind him. She'd obviously picked up on something he hadn't. Frowning, he double-checked the sensor data, and found that the fleet was preparing to use light show emitters of some kind. A moment later the Ample Celerity was the focus of a number of beams of colored lights, to no apparent lasting effect.
"That wasn't even an interesting light show," Robin commented.
"They can't hurt us," Linza said between giggles.
"It was just a light show, not an attack."
"But...how did you ignore our strongest weapons?" came over from the flagship.
Robin blinked. "Weapons? That light show was weapons? Seriously?"
"...light show? LIGHT SHOW?"
"My sensors say you just used light show emitters." Though as soon as he said it, he realized that perhaps the sensor parsing routines were being cheeky about something that had no hope of harming the ship.
There was pause, perhaps out of rage, before a response came back that sounded like it was being spat through clenched teeth. "Well, you have no weapons, so can't hope to stop us."
It only took a moment to deploy the defense turret, and there was a snort from the connection to the flashship. Automated systems proposed hitting all the 'light show emitters' and there was an option for doing so automatically, so he selected that. A moment later a single beam of light lashed out from the Ample Celerity...and twisted around the fleet in front of them to hit each and every emitter from angles that were reasonably safe for the overall integrity of the ships.
At this point it was obvious that not only would HK have been overkill, but they'd likely have had to deal with him whining that there was no challenge here.
"My system is recommending hitting your engines next and making you wait for someone to come fetch you," Robin said after a moment. "Unless you'd like to surrender?"
"Er, yes," came the very spooked sounding response. "Surrender sounds lovely right now."
Taylor had arrived to 'pick up' Rainbow after two hours of 'playing', ready to 'scold' the girl for being reckless while the construction drones and nurse devices she'd brought with her dealt with the physical damage. Most of the damage was actually from the group Amy had wanted to stop, their various guns having punched a lot of holes in things as they'd attempted to kill Rainbow before the girl successfully hit enough of them with short bursts of her much less powerful gun.
It had looked like she was playing a cross between tag and paintball, but with live ammo instead of anything safer. The entire time she'd also acted like a little girl, right up until the last individual in the group that she'd gotten in the chest instead of in a limb. At that point she'd acted confused about why there was a significant injury at all, and that had been the trigger to show up. The subtle remote healing on the rest of those hit to keep them from having severe issues was likely going to be completely unnoticed in any final analysis.
"Auntie Minerva!" Rainbow yelled as she bounced over. "Why do they have toys that they can't play with safely?"
"They aren't toys here," Taylor replied. "Because they don't have personal shields and their buildings are much less sturdy than ours are."
"That's silly. Why would they want weak buildings? And personal shields are important!"
"Because they don't know how to make the buildings stronger and don't have magic to cast shields with."
...it was honestly impressive how well the 'confused because that made no sense to the child' look came across. This was also nothing like Taylor had been expecting the conversation to go. Then again, that seemed to be going around today, as Robin hadn't expected to end up taking in a nine year old. The military idiot that had decided to take Belka by force wasn't going to be able to take care of Roza from the prison he was likely going to end up in and somehow that had ended up with Robin taking the girl in.
Then again, he must have a soft spot for the girls if he wasn't just handing them off to the kingdom to find a good home for them.
Cleaning up the mess from Rainbow's little 'game', and explaining to her that different cultures had different ideas of what constituted toys and basic safety depending on their capabilities, took half an hour. The parahumans had their powers stripped, their present victims were given decent care, and the local authorities took custody of everyone. Then Rainbow was loaded into a Cabbie while Taylor stayed to discuss potential options for helping the brainwashed victims.
Hayate frowned as they were shot at with physical bullets by the gang that they'd been sent to help local law enforcement capture. They'd flinched the first few times they were hit, but it was quickly becoming obvious that there was no threat here. "We didn't even get to tell them why we're here before they started shooting."
"I'd be more annoyed if this wasn't obviously a test to see if we can manage appropriate levels of response," Nanoha noted. "...except that I'm realizing that most of my arsenal is, er, nowhere near weak enough for this. Maybe just shoot the bullet? Repeatedly? Because we don't want to level the building and I think that's the result if I go with anything I normally use in a fight."
"It is an unusual situation for us," Rein added. "We could...walk up to them and restrain them without otherwise attacking, perhaps? The only one that's predicted to give us any trouble is their leader."
"Are we sure this is a test and not a lesson?" Fate asked, causing the rest of the group to turn to her. "I mean, this feels like we've been thrown at an enemy that is to us what we were to Minerva."
That...was likely quite accurate, though it also felt like every problem on Earth Bet was going to feel like that kind of thing. They'd been given a list of people to avoid using magic on because their shard-granted powers were dangerous around mana, but weren't expecting to run into any of them. Minerva had even said that she was tweaking 'collection parameters' to ensure that those kinds of abilities were taken out of circulation sooner rather than later.
On the other hand, this would be a bit harder if they hadn't updated their barrier jackets with information from the kingdom. They normally didn't spec quite so much into physical defense, given how infrequently they had to deal with that kind of threat.
In the end, they split up and did their best to subdue each person with minimal harm, with Nanoha taking to the air and playing overwatch. Plus shooting anyone that tried to escape with bullets to knock them out. She and Raising Heart also had an area search active to help them ensure they got everyone, but it didn't seem like anyone was trying to hide.
The only partial problem was the leader, who had been holed up in a well-protected office in the middle of the top floor of the building. But he wasn't exactly ready for a lightsaber to cut a hole in the wall. Despite being granted incredible strength by his shard connection, he couldn't use it against them because their barrier jackets were easily up to the task of protecting them. From him and the bomb he tried to use against them.
"I vote we split up and each take one of the other locations from the list," Fate said as the law enforcement officers secured the scene. "All four of us in one spot was overkill."
"Two of us should go to the one with the three parahumans," Nanoha offered. "Both because they have ranged options that might be annoying to deal with and because they might be annoying to grab if they try to run."
"Or we just take some of those security devices," Hayate replied. "Let them set up the perimeter before we go in."
"...still think the three parahumans should have two people. I think one of them can fly too?"
"Oh. A mid-air battle does sound annoying, if it comes down to that, so having a second person there wouldn't be a horrible idea."
Doll had arrived with Clockblocker and Kid Win, snuck into the school through the side door when nobody was looking, and spent several minutes being gushed over by the two that were going to be playing 'shopkeepers'. Some minor rearranging of the dolls on the shelves to make a spot for her smaller self, and ensuring that the replacement coffin wasn't going to be a problem for her larger self, had followed. Slightly better covering of some of the light sources in the room was needed as well, and Kid Win had turned on most of his stuff to provide just enough light to be able to see if your eyes were already somewhat dark-adjusted from the previous rooms.
A quick scan of the rest of the route showed that they probably had the most realistic-looking room in the entire setup. None of the desks that had been moved around looked like desks, serving as supports for things like the 'main counter' and various other 'tables'. There were some cabinets full of questionable-looking items, signs that warned that some of the rigged items were cursed, and of course the three primary 'interaction points' for the real fun.
The last one was where Clockblocker was hidden behind a display, positioned to make it impossible to exit the room with his power. A group discovering that would be told that perhaps they hadn't spent enough time browsing, the store not liking people to leave too soon. Kid Win had actually ended up slumped in a rocking chair on the other side of that door from Clockblocker, with a sign requesting that the cursed occupant not be touched.
Doll was responsible for the other two, at least when Kid Win wasn't triggering things to react to people getting too close to them. Her smaller self hidden in the display of dolls was responsible for having them turn to look at those who entered the room when they were unobserved, as well as creepily giggling to get attention. Then her larger self was going to be in the coffin, jump-scaring groups. How she did so was going to vary with how close they were to her though, because reaching out to grab someone wasn't going to work if they were too far away.
The clever little foot pedal for controlling whether the hinges on the coffin were silent or intentionally squeaky was definitely a nice touch though. Silent for reaching out to grab someone unnoticed, or squeaky to draw attention when everyone had stopped too far away to grab.
"Test group in five minutes!" was yelled by one of the teachers as they started down the hallway, passing through each room and helping turn off lights in the hallway with the stupid little tool that was needed there. When he reached their room he shook his head. "Too bad that you're not in the running for the 'best room' prize, due to 'outside help' being considered a disqualification. Do remember to give a good showing for the cameras the test group is wearing anyway."
Doll wasn't going to be satisfied unless the test group screamed like scared little girls, personally. They weren't supposed to know that the Wards were here ahead of time, so shouldn't be expecting the surprise...
Danny had looked over some of the day's events for himself after dinner, snorting at the details that were going to be made available to the public. "An entire fleet, ignored and disarmed by a single civilian vessel?"
"I'm more annoyed that the automated systems decided that the bulk of the Bureau's weapon systems are only 'light show emitters'," Taylor admitted.
"...you didn't do that yourself?"
"Nope. Hive didn't either. Automated threat assessment routines decided that they were only good for putting on a light show, and marked them as such. They're still potentially dangerous to individuals without ship-grade shielding, but a lot of things that aren't weapons are still dangerous."
"Huh. And of course, you've already had a demonstration of what a proper weapon looks like when that moon was taken out."
"Yeah. And tomorrow I should be recording a demonstration of how difficult it is to cause significant damage to a kingdom city."
"Oh?"
"Lining up the repeated asteroids properly took a bit to get right, though getting suitable explosives into the last one was the biggest headache. I've also got a 'runaway conversion' bomb demonstration lined up, with permission from the Bureau. They're getting several ships into position to monitor both demonstration locations."
"Huh. How much panic is that likely to cause?"
"Predictions say a lot, on all counts. What the kingdom's defenses can handle, the ability to set up a live demonstration that would trivially overwhelm anything the Bureau could bring to bear on short notice to stop it, the idea of what could happen if the conversion bomb hit an inhabited planet instead of an asteroid. We've actually figured out how to stop the conversion bombs though, even if we're still in 'dodge or redirect' on Missy's 'obliterate an area' attack and a couple of other shard-originating items."
That...did sound like it was going to result in 'brown pants' moments for the Bureau. And possibly Earth Bet, if any of the footage was shared here. Not that the kingdom wasn't already seen as impossible to defeat by the local governments. "I suppose that it's a good thing that it looks like the 'Aces' did well with their stuff today."
Taylor snorted. "They barely caused any injuries. Treated the whole thing as a 'use as little force as possible' exercise the entire way through, and the comments from the various law enforcement groups was that they'd like someone a little more violent next time."
A quick check showed that she was telling the truth. Perhaps parahumans had made their society a little too punch-happy? Or perhaps they were just annoyed that groups they'd been unable to do anything about for years had been subdued so easily.
...the latter had required some more focus on Taylor's end to figure out what was going on. Suzy had worked with the three to make a Mouse Protector device to help people and screw with her enemies at the same time and now it needed to be dropped into the automatic routines so it would show up at times. Which required working around the geese while also not necessarily being on the list of devices that Ethan could manage, but letting Suzy manage things directly if desired made sense. It was pretending to be her, after all.
A quick pass on all of that had followed, and then Taylor had moved to her own list of projects and tasks. Ensuring that the Aces had something to do this afternoon, provided that Nanoha passed her electrical safety final exam this morning, was first on the list. The Wolkenritter were currently more focused on things back on Midchilda, but it looked like they should be cleared to get their augmentation units and internal devices tomorrow and that would open them up for more open wandering around Earth Bet to help out. Making a local appearance or two of her own was probably not a horrible idea either, beyond showing up to pick up Rainbow, but she was going to take a look at her dyson sphere project in person this morning.
The last of the dozen Apples was also supposed to finish testing and join the operational groups today, and the construction facilities in the two instances of Callisto that had been turned into shipyards were working on Coconut One and Two now. Partially as a proof of concept, and partially so that Coconut Two could be sent to the Bureau's space once completed to have one out there if no problems were found in the 'build six Apples, each of which builds thirty-six Blueberries' phase of things after they came online.
...building a couple more after that would actually be a major help in both emergency evacuations and in speeding up the dyson sphere project too, so if Coconut One and Two worked out then she'd probably queue up Three and Four before switching the shipyards back to building Apples.
Dennis's morning had started with meeting up with PRT staff to check the props being brought to Dinah's school today, which had turned into 'help prep some' and 'pick out last-minute substitutions'. Chris was there as well, as they were 'sneaking in' most of his stuff ahead of time so that the Wards would be there for as little of the setup as they could manage. Not that it was going to be hard to do that, since most of it didn't look like technology at all. Just a bunch of props, but the PRT staff had to be shown how to handle them.
One of the bigger 'tells' that Dinah was involved were the porcelain dolls, but a bunch of old and somewhat-creepy looking dolls wasn't quite enough to scream that Doll was involved before she did her proper reveal. The PRT also wasn't aware that telekinesis spells were going to be used to control the various dolls, to play up the 'Doll can do things with other dolls' thing established with her stunt during her reveal.
"I don't think we discussed how to handle needing to be able to use the door to get you three in," one of the PRT staff noted. "We won't be able to cover it up fully like the windows."
"Do we have any signs that say something about an office or staff only?" Chris asked. It was honestly not a horrible idea, making the door part of the theme.
"I think there might be something like that in storage room four," came from across the room. "I'll go check."
Hopefully Dinah liked the few things they'd needed to switch out for her side of things. The original coffin she'd liked had been smaller than reported and she wouldn't have fit in it, so they'd had to choose a different one, and some of the outfits for the dolls had fallen apart in storage.
Using Janus to fix up the few dolls that needed some work for their heads to easily turn was fairly easy, even if volunteering to get all their outfits on was proving to be more annoying than expected. Getting clothing onto dolls was tricky when dealing with limited range of motion and Dinah having her clothing 'come with' her powers had likely saved a lot of trouble getting changed.
Nanoha sat down in the classroom, having needed to travel to where her test was being administered. Raising Heart was settling in at her own table across the room, though that one was smaller to fit her fairy form's size.
"Welcome to your electrical safety examination," the teacher device greeted them as it entered the room. "Normally this would be more of a formality, but you two appear to have been stubborn and decided to not bother with the simulations referred to in your introductory materials. As such, we need to ensure that you properly understand the written materials and classroom instruction instead of reviewing how you handled yourselves in the simulations."
...a quick check of the provided introductory materials showed that there were, in fact, references to 'self-paced simulations' and instructions for accessing them at the bottom of page three. Based on the disgusted look on Raising Heart's face, she'd also checked and spotted that detail.
Unfortunately, it was far too late to actually run through the simulations, but this was a very good lesson in ensuring that you read everything.
Amy's morning had started with having completely forgotten about her planning the night before...and being reminded by a response from the kingdom's systems. Referencing a list of over sixteen thousand reasons her plan was unworkable, but also bringing up that the 'goose company' was already working on taking out all of the 'drug trades' on Earth Bet that weren't acceptable in the kingdom.
Some digging had revealed that Taylor had rigged the kingdom to find any substances that would trigger 'required healing' in less than a few months of regular use to be 'excessively dangerous'. If you'd need healing once or twice a year then it was monitored, and needing healing every couple of years or longer was essentially unrestricted. By those standards, coupled with the kingdom's 'injured enough to trigger healing' thresholds, tobacco and a number of hard drugs were already banned. On the other hand, a number of substances seen as a problem on Earth Bet were seen as perfectly fine.
Beyond the basics, delivery method was a factor as well. The more likely something was to cause someone else to need healing by being nearby when you were partaking, the less likely it was legal in the kingdom. That the kingdom could mitigate any such risks entirely was explicitly not a factor in that calculation. Which meant that even if tobacco had been allowed, smoking generally wasn't. There were a couple of 'ceremonial exceptions' baked into the laws, but that was about it for exceptions.
Asking the kingdom's systems for any prohibited substance also apparently got you a 'no, but we have a bunch of alternatives'. And the 'bunch of alternatives' were incredibly varied and comprehensive. You could basically have the kingdom tailor things for your desired effect, on demand, so long as you had credits to spend.
Digging into that had come to a halt though, because an alert had fired that today's targets were getting ready to head out. They were 'low priority' for a number of reasons, but they still grabbed kids off the streets and sold them off. Even if the bulk of the kids they grabbed could be said to end up with healthier lives than they'd had on the streets.
If not for the 'brainwash the kids' part of things they might not have come up as a target at all, honestly.
"Are you sure you don't want my help?" Missy asked as Amy was trying to decide what to put on today's shirt.
"Only if you want to come along as a young fox girl," Amy replied, causing the younger girl to look disgusted with the idea. "Yeah, didn't think so."
"But you're going after an entire group."
"One of whom makes candy that makes anyone who eats it 'suggestible', another a tinker that seems to specialize in hypnotizing helmets, and the last three early victims of the first two that they decided were useful when they triggered. The only one of those three with any combat skills is a brute, with the other two being used for locating targets and keeping the authorities away. Oh, and their weapons of choice are various kinds of machine guns. Without any enhancement from powers."
"...they use gatling guns and custom-built sniper rifles."
Amy blinked. "What?"
"The sniper rifles are excessively large custom caliber anti-brute monstrosities, but they're single-shot even if they set up a dozen of them at a time. As for the rest of the non-pistols, they're all hand-cranked repeating firearms, all but two being gatling guns."
That...didn't help explain much of anything. "Whatever. The point is that none of it is a threat to Rainbow anyway."
Missy's eye twitched a little, but she nodded. "Okay. Would you at least take a proper 'toy' with you?"
"Er, what?"
A moment later there was a kid-sized machine gun on the table. "Guns are toys, because they're not really dangerous. So bringing your own when you know that they have this kind of toy would make sense."
That was a pretty good argument. "How does this one work? Because not knowing how to use my 'toys' would be worse. And is this an 'Expanse special'?"
"Yes on the latter, but I put most of the work into the 'bottomless magazine'. It's loaded with thirty thousand rounds, at a little over eight hundred rounds per minute, but it also has multiple fire modes. Single, three, six, and twelve rounds per trigger pull if you want them instead of full auto."
Amy blinked a couple of times. "I actually remember a little about how they manage the one and three round modes, but how did you get six and twelve in?"
"More cog wheels."
That...didn't explain much. Picking the gun up to look at the Belkan-marked selector switch showed that the entire thing was incredibly light though. But...weirdly hard to move? "Are you sure that it's loaded?"
"Yes. The way space is twisted for the magazine and some of the mechanism ensures that gravity essentially pulls the exposed mass in multiple directions. Gives it sufficient inertia to be controllable but without the weight you'd expect from it."
"...physics isn't supposed to work that way."
"Only if you don't properly understand physics."
Perhaps it would be a good idea to not ask too many more questions, lest Missy decide to drag out the math...
Colin had managed to take the day off, but had gotten distracted by alerts about plans for Earth Bet. Admittedly, he wasn't sure if the kingdom's systems would tell him about anything Taylor or Hive was setting up, but he'd decided that he at least wanted warning of anything others might be doing. Most of the items that had come up so far were minor, but he'd spent a good portion of the morning trying to figure out what the hell had set Amy off enough to want to cause international chaos.
...followed by getting a summary of what the 'goose company' was working on in regards to the international drug trade. Ensuring that crops around the world had low yields due to a series of 'unfortunate accidents' and contaminants, creating problems in processing facilities, and if they could manage it they wanted to drag some parahuman battles through fields and facilities to let the collateral damage do a bunch of work for them. Taylor had apparently ensured that they wouldn't just set most locations storing drugs on fire, but that was far from the only option for ruining things.
The plan to use an automated insect control routine to ensure that several buildings suffered extreme termite damage was honestly an interesting one, though unfortunately wouldn't work on all of the targeted wood buildings due to the treatments used on many of them. Arranging for sinkholes and a couple of other foundation issues, problems with animals, and at least one landslide were also on the list of potential 'solutions'.
All Amy's misguided plan had done was bump up the priority of the tobacco producers having problems. Slightly.
"Would you like to watch Rainbow's impending appearance?" Dragon asked, getting his attention.
"Is it being live streamed?" Colin questioned.
"She hasn't set it to be."
"Then perhaps it would be best to hold off until it becomes more general knowledge so that we don't accidentally reveal that we already know details that we shouldn't."
"I can't believe you completely missed the simulations," Fate said, shaking her head. "They're fun too!"
"We still passed," Nanoha retorted.
"Just barely." And according to the kingdom's systems, the two had grabbed the simulations after their exam and were likely running through them right now. "But it means that we can do our first training mission thing this afternoon."
"Do we know what our assignment is yet?"
"Targeting some of these 'parahumans' that like to cause trouble to interrupt their fun."
"...that was somewhat implied as a general aspect of things."
"And that's the best we've got. We should get a briefing after lunch, or perhaps during lunch if we decide to head that way sooner. Hayate also spent part of the morning discussing potential 'field trips' for Vivio's class."
That had Nanoha blinking. "Field trips?"
"To Belka, the kingdom's homeworld, and possibly to Earth Bet."
"...I can see why they'd visit the first two, but not the third."
"She wasn't entirely clear on things, but I think she was more limited on that. Perhaps she was just asking about Vivio and her friends going for that one? Might make an interesting training exercise for the three, once they've got some more training done."
Nanoha looked unconvinced, but didn't argue the point.
Robin had originally thought that it was stupid to be the one intercepting an attacking fleet, but Linza had annoyingly effective pouting and the kingdom's systems said that they could handle it. Waking up HK was apparently optional, even. On the other hand, seeing how HK dealt with an invading fleet with only the Ample Celerity sounded too interesting to miss, so they'd accepted the offer and moved to the interception point. In the dimensional sea.
Oddly enough, the fleet of ships did stop, and Robin had sighed before making sure that he was in his alternate male form. Some of this might end up shown back on Earth Bet and they didn't need to explain things to anyone that recognized him.
"Unknown vessel," the flagship transmitted. "Identify yourself."
"This is the Ample Celerity," Robin replied. "Civilian transport registered to Please Ignore the Secret Kingdom on a humanitarian mission profile."
There was a pause before the response came. "Move aside or surrender."
"Sadly, I volunteered to stop your doomed invasion attempt. Though I am a bit confused, since my sensors don't list your fleet as having any weapons. Surely you didn't think that just parking in orbit of Belka was going to be enough to 'conquer' it?"
Robin was actually quite confused about that side of things, but heard Linza giggling about it behind him. She'd obviously picked up on something he hadn't. Frowning, he double-checked the sensor data, and found that the fleet was preparing to use light show emitters of some kind. A moment later the Ample Celerity was the focus of a number of beams of colored lights, to no apparent lasting effect.
"That wasn't even an interesting light show," Robin commented.
"They can't hurt us," Linza said between giggles.
"It was just a light show, not an attack."
"But...how did you ignore our strongest weapons?" came over from the flagship.
Robin blinked. "Weapons? That light show was weapons? Seriously?"
"...light show? LIGHT SHOW?"
"My sensors say you just used light show emitters." Though as soon as he said it, he realized that perhaps the sensor parsing routines were being cheeky about something that had no hope of harming the ship.
There was pause, perhaps out of rage, before a response came back that sounded like it was being spat through clenched teeth. "Well, you have no weapons, so can't hope to stop us."
It only took a moment to deploy the defense turret, and there was a snort from the connection to the flashship. Automated systems proposed hitting all the 'light show emitters' and there was an option for doing so automatically, so he selected that. A moment later a single beam of light lashed out from the Ample Celerity...and twisted around the fleet in front of them to hit each and every emitter from angles that were reasonably safe for the overall integrity of the ships.
At this point it was obvious that not only would HK have been overkill, but they'd likely have had to deal with him whining that there was no challenge here.
"My system is recommending hitting your engines next and making you wait for someone to come fetch you," Robin said after a moment. "Unless you'd like to surrender?"
"Er, yes," came the very spooked sounding response. "Surrender sounds lovely right now."
Taylor had arrived to 'pick up' Rainbow after two hours of 'playing', ready to 'scold' the girl for being reckless while the construction drones and nurse devices she'd brought with her dealt with the physical damage. Most of the damage was actually from the group Amy had wanted to stop, their various guns having punched a lot of holes in things as they'd attempted to kill Rainbow before the girl successfully hit enough of them with short bursts of her much less powerful gun.
It had looked like she was playing a cross between tag and paintball, but with live ammo instead of anything safer. The entire time she'd also acted like a little girl, right up until the last individual in the group that she'd gotten in the chest instead of in a limb. At that point she'd acted confused about why there was a significant injury at all, and that had been the trigger to show up. The subtle remote healing on the rest of those hit to keep them from having severe issues was likely going to be completely unnoticed in any final analysis.
"Auntie Minerva!" Rainbow yelled as she bounced over. "Why do they have toys that they can't play with safely?"
"They aren't toys here," Taylor replied. "Because they don't have personal shields and their buildings are much less sturdy than ours are."
"That's silly. Why would they want weak buildings? And personal shields are important!"
"Because they don't know how to make the buildings stronger and don't have magic to cast shields with."
...it was honestly impressive how well the 'confused because that made no sense to the child' look came across. This was also nothing like Taylor had been expecting the conversation to go. Then again, that seemed to be going around today, as Robin hadn't expected to end up taking in a nine year old. The military idiot that had decided to take Belka by force wasn't going to be able to take care of Roza from the prison he was likely going to end up in and somehow that had ended up with Robin taking the girl in.
Then again, he must have a soft spot for the girls if he wasn't just handing them off to the kingdom to find a good home for them.
Cleaning up the mess from Rainbow's little 'game', and explaining to her that different cultures had different ideas of what constituted toys and basic safety depending on their capabilities, took half an hour. The parahumans had their powers stripped, their present victims were given decent care, and the local authorities took custody of everyone. Then Rainbow was loaded into a Cabbie while Taylor stayed to discuss potential options for helping the brainwashed victims.
Hayate frowned as they were shot at with physical bullets by the gang that they'd been sent to help local law enforcement capture. They'd flinched the first few times they were hit, but it was quickly becoming obvious that there was no threat here. "We didn't even get to tell them why we're here before they started shooting."
"I'd be more annoyed if this wasn't obviously a test to see if we can manage appropriate levels of response," Nanoha noted. "...except that I'm realizing that most of my arsenal is, er, nowhere near weak enough for this. Maybe just shoot the bullet? Repeatedly? Because we don't want to level the building and I think that's the result if I go with anything I normally use in a fight."
"It is an unusual situation for us," Rein added. "We could...walk up to them and restrain them without otherwise attacking, perhaps? The only one that's predicted to give us any trouble is their leader."
"Are we sure this is a test and not a lesson?" Fate asked, causing the rest of the group to turn to her. "I mean, this feels like we've been thrown at an enemy that is to us what we were to Minerva."
That...was likely quite accurate, though it also felt like every problem on Earth Bet was going to feel like that kind of thing. They'd been given a list of people to avoid using magic on because their shard-granted powers were dangerous around mana, but weren't expecting to run into any of them. Minerva had even said that she was tweaking 'collection parameters' to ensure that those kinds of abilities were taken out of circulation sooner rather than later.
On the other hand, this would be a bit harder if they hadn't updated their barrier jackets with information from the kingdom. They normally didn't spec quite so much into physical defense, given how infrequently they had to deal with that kind of threat.
In the end, they split up and did their best to subdue each person with minimal harm, with Nanoha taking to the air and playing overwatch. Plus shooting anyone that tried to escape with bullets to knock them out. She and Raising Heart also had an area search active to help them ensure they got everyone, but it didn't seem like anyone was trying to hide.
The only partial problem was the leader, who had been holed up in a well-protected office in the middle of the top floor of the building. But he wasn't exactly ready for a lightsaber to cut a hole in the wall. Despite being granted incredible strength by his shard connection, he couldn't use it against them because their barrier jackets were easily up to the task of protecting them. From him and the bomb he tried to use against them.
"I vote we split up and each take one of the other locations from the list," Fate said as the law enforcement officers secured the scene. "All four of us in one spot was overkill."
"Two of us should go to the one with the three parahumans," Nanoha offered. "Both because they have ranged options that might be annoying to deal with and because they might be annoying to grab if they try to run."
"Or we just take some of those security devices," Hayate replied. "Let them set up the perimeter before we go in."
"...still think the three parahumans should have two people. I think one of them can fly too?"
"Oh. A mid-air battle does sound annoying, if it comes down to that, so having a second person there wouldn't be a horrible idea."
Doll had arrived with Clockblocker and Kid Win, snuck into the school through the side door when nobody was looking, and spent several minutes being gushed over by the two that were going to be playing 'shopkeepers'. Some minor rearranging of the dolls on the shelves to make a spot for her smaller self, and ensuring that the replacement coffin wasn't going to be a problem for her larger self, had followed. Slightly better covering of some of the light sources in the room was needed as well, and Kid Win had turned on most of his stuff to provide just enough light to be able to see if your eyes were already somewhat dark-adjusted from the previous rooms.
A quick scan of the rest of the route showed that they probably had the most realistic-looking room in the entire setup. None of the desks that had been moved around looked like desks, serving as supports for things like the 'main counter' and various other 'tables'. There were some cabinets full of questionable-looking items, signs that warned that some of the rigged items were cursed, and of course the three primary 'interaction points' for the real fun.
The last one was where Clockblocker was hidden behind a display, positioned to make it impossible to exit the room with his power. A group discovering that would be told that perhaps they hadn't spent enough time browsing, the store not liking people to leave too soon. Kid Win had actually ended up slumped in a rocking chair on the other side of that door from Clockblocker, with a sign requesting that the cursed occupant not be touched.
Doll was responsible for the other two, at least when Kid Win wasn't triggering things to react to people getting too close to them. Her smaller self hidden in the display of dolls was responsible for having them turn to look at those who entered the room when they were unobserved, as well as creepily giggling to get attention. Then her larger self was going to be in the coffin, jump-scaring groups. How she did so was going to vary with how close they were to her though, because reaching out to grab someone wasn't going to work if they were too far away.
The clever little foot pedal for controlling whether the hinges on the coffin were silent or intentionally squeaky was definitely a nice touch though. Silent for reaching out to grab someone unnoticed, or squeaky to draw attention when everyone had stopped too far away to grab.
"Test group in five minutes!" was yelled by one of the teachers as they started down the hallway, passing through each room and helping turn off lights in the hallway with the stupid little tool that was needed there. When he reached their room he shook his head. "Too bad that you're not in the running for the 'best room' prize, due to 'outside help' being considered a disqualification. Do remember to give a good showing for the cameras the test group is wearing anyway."
Doll wasn't going to be satisfied unless the test group screamed like scared little girls, personally. They weren't supposed to know that the Wards were here ahead of time, so shouldn't be expecting the surprise...
Danny had looked over some of the day's events for himself after dinner, snorting at the details that were going to be made available to the public. "An entire fleet, ignored and disarmed by a single civilian vessel?"
"I'm more annoyed that the automated systems decided that the bulk of the Bureau's weapon systems are only 'light show emitters'," Taylor admitted.
"...you didn't do that yourself?"
"Nope. Hive didn't either. Automated threat assessment routines decided that they were only good for putting on a light show, and marked them as such. They're still potentially dangerous to individuals without ship-grade shielding, but a lot of things that aren't weapons are still dangerous."
"Huh. And of course, you've already had a demonstration of what a proper weapon looks like when that moon was taken out."
"Yeah. And tomorrow I should be recording a demonstration of how difficult it is to cause significant damage to a kingdom city."
"Oh?"
"Lining up the repeated asteroids properly took a bit to get right, though getting suitable explosives into the last one was the biggest headache. I've also got a 'runaway conversion' bomb demonstration lined up, with permission from the Bureau. They're getting several ships into position to monitor both demonstration locations."
"Huh. How much panic is that likely to cause?"
"Predictions say a lot, on all counts. What the kingdom's defenses can handle, the ability to set up a live demonstration that would trivially overwhelm anything the Bureau could bring to bear on short notice to stop it, the idea of what could happen if the conversion bomb hit an inhabited planet instead of an asteroid. We've actually figured out how to stop the conversion bombs though, even if we're still in 'dodge or redirect' on Missy's 'obliterate an area' attack and a couple of other shard-originating items."
That...did sound like it was going to result in 'brown pants' moments for the Bureau. And possibly Earth Bet, if any of the footage was shared here. Not that the kingdom wasn't already seen as impossible to defeat by the local governments. "I suppose that it's a good thing that it looks like the 'Aces' did well with their stuff today."
Taylor snorted. "They barely caused any injuries. Treated the whole thing as a 'use as little force as possible' exercise the entire way through, and the comments from the various law enforcement groups was that they'd like someone a little more violent next time."
A quick check showed that she was telling the truth. Perhaps parahumans had made their society a little too punch-happy? Or perhaps they were just annoyed that groups they'd been unable to do anything about for years had been subdued so easily.
- Location
- Hiding under your bed
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"Working for the weekend" by dogbertcarroll. Jesse and Xander, not Oz.
as far as I can see both of you are referring to the same fanfic.
Windborne
Devourer of Stories
- Location
- Oregon
Fun chapter as always, Dinah trying to be horrifying is cute as always, Rainbow using a machine gun on Villains is hilarious and oddly appropriate. Nanoha continues to prove she's a kinasthetic learner over book learning. At least she passed her test. Amy finding out Tobacco is already illegal was highly satisfying, good riddance. Robin waking up HK and somehow getting yet another little girl to watch over is odd. At least if I'm interpreting Taylors reactions to the "Invasion" correctly, so I could be wrong. Light Show Emitters is pretty funny. I wonder if the system has guns and various cannons listed as "defective firework launchers". They are pretty shit at making pretty fire work shows after all.
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- Location
- Here
AH, a sane set of policies for drug classification. Wonderful!
Excellent! There is a sane world out there after all.