- Location
- Finland
Having played Pokemon Shield, can confirm that if you can catch it, you can command it.
Traded mons need badges though.
I want a refund! (Tinker of Fiction Semi-SI)
- Thread starter Unders
- Start date
Traded mons need badges though.
I always thought the badge thing was meant to be an in-game representation of the difficulties that come with raising a being that originally belonged to someone else. Basically, if you were traded a Pokemon by another Trainer, the badges were supposed to symbolize you having the skills and training needed to both get them to cooperate, and to help them get stronger later; after all, would you be more willing to listen to a snot-nosed kid because someone traded your contract to them, or an experienced fighter with several noteworthy achievements under their belt to prove their ability.
- Location
- Finland
I have seen them used as proof of skill to near literal mind control items for pokemon.
No idea if there is anykind of lore justification or if it is just game mechanic.
- Pronouns
- Masculine
Addy is very a Spark(Girl Genius) in terms of her thinking these days. I made the comparison between her and Peter from In Nuclear Fire the other day.
Addy is a Spark.
Peter is an AdMech.
Its hard as hell to control a Spark. Unless your name is Wulfenbach. And a young Spark like Addy? Oh dear oh dear...
Addy is a Spark.
Peter is an AdMech.
Its hard as hell to control a Spark. Unless your name is Wulfenbach. And a young Spark like Addy? Oh dear oh dear...
Aeoniam
Tauren Historian
- Location
- Thunderbluff, Mulgore
Peter is a benevolent heretek at best. Saying that he acts in any way, shape or form according to the tenets of the Cult Mechanicus is quick way to be awarded your final trip to the servitorization labs.
Although you'd probably like that, you Drukhari looking nice dude.
- Location
- Germany
Just finished 23 and I'm once again close to dropping the fic. Joining the wards really? Only thing stopping me from outright quitting the story is that Addy still has Splyce to get around all the bullshit restrictions. But still it would have been way more fun if they fought the charges (assuming they would be able to convince the PRT that no those implants and that chemical found in splices stuff has totally nothing to do with splice). This still limits what she can since she has to keep all the splyce tech seperate from her other stuff so it still prevents her from either using the stuff she shares with the wards on her splyce critters/minions and vice versa.
- Location
- Germany
Dammit now I want to see Vainqeur the Dragon as a tech tree(it has an actual physical plot armour item/artifact) with is very unlikely becouse it's a web novel so it's unlikely @Unders knows about it. Highly recommend it tough it's awesome and really funny.
- Pronouns
- Masculine
True true. Benevolent Heretek is a good too. Though he has people that can actually keep his AdMech Tendencies in check. But yes, very Heretek.
And heh... close! I am better then those arrogant assholes. I am a DRULE! ...or if you want to go by the new Voltron... Galra! By I am specifically the original Voltron/GoLion Lotor.
And totally was a hot sexy white haired, purple skinned elf guy before the Drow were redesigned from the original editions.
Heh. Addy though is still very much a Spark. And the Madness Place sings for her...
- Location
- Germany
I'm cought up now now I can't wait to see the Levi battle that's the part I'm waiting for in every fic I read especially fics with OP powers since it's the point where things really start escalating and it's a battle where the MC can really stop holding back.
Also what D&D version is Addys power based on? Can she do things like that candle of invocation => infinite wishes => infinite power exploit milo talked so much about in HPNAT20.
Also what D&D version is Addys power based on? Can she do things like that candle of invocation => infinite wishes => infinite power exploit milo talked so much about in HPNAT20.
Dragon mark tatoo would be Ebberon.
I suspect not. If only becuase making your MC omnipotent would end the story pretty fast.
- Location
- Perth
Unless she does it for infinite chocolate and Annette shuts it down for being frivolous... not understanding the implications of infinite wishes and all.
Ashkari
(Verified Ink-slinger)
- Location
- United States
… I started reading that post, and immediately noticed that it makes a truly epic number of assumptions right at the start.
Things like:
- Failing to mention that you need to take a certain prestige class level or be a cleric of a specific domain before you can take 10 on knowledge checks, as normally you cannot.
- In order to use dimensional anchor, you still have to actually hit the summon with it with a bog standard ranged touch attack — meaning you'll need to win initiative, or else the succubus is just gonna Greater Teleport out immediately.
- Depending on if you're summoning something else, it may be able to cast dispel magic and may instead just ready an action to counterspell you
- It neglects to recognize the fact that not only does the succubus get an attempt to break free 1/day, but she can try and break the circle just by pitting her spell resistance against your caster level check — opposed charisma isn't the only method. Thus even if you do manage to debuff her charisma early on, that's not gonna stop her from being able to get out, as spell resistance is based on hit dice, not charisma.
- Succubi can cast charm monster at will. More critically, they can cast suggestion at will, which they can and will use to convince you to break the circle yourself. Note that she can do this for every single round you waste trying to penetrate her spell resistance.
- For that matter, it even suggests you bring some minions or party members as a contingency for her getting free… which is hilarious because why wouldn't she charm them as soon as your back was turned? You'd literally have to leave her unsupervised because otherwise she's gonna nab somebody eventually.
There's a lot easier ways to get ridiculously powerful in D&D than bizarrely convoluted schemes like that.
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- Location
- USA
Well, Protection from Evil helps with all of those mind affecting stuff. And you cast dimensional anchor and hold the charge or ready an action to release the attack against the summoned creature. True Strike helps as well. There are ways around these things!
Ashkari
(Verified Ink-slinger)
- Location
- United States
Yes, there are, but none of them were mentioned. Point is, following those instructions as listed is gonna get you killed
However, you can't ready an attack when summoning a creature. Doesn't work that way, since readying is itself a standard action and if you don't take the trigger, you lose it. And honestly if you're at the point where you can take two standard actions in a round, why are you wasting time with this?
Anyway, I'm getting off topic, so I'll shut up now. It just annoys me when theorycrafters ignore rather important parts of the rules, and the 'can't take 10 on knowledge checks' immediately jumped out at me. (Normally I love weird-ass theory crafting stuff, but imo failing to do due diligence just makes you look like the shitty kind of rules lawyer, who's trying to pull one over on everyone)
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Let's see..... minor master power, minor brute, additional insanity, megalomania, access to Mad Science with the only downside being that Addy still needs education to use the Spark to it's full potential. Yeah, spark Addy will turn Brockton Bay from a hellhole into a deeper hellhole.
Because none of those things are actually issues.
You can always take a 10 on checks when you are not rushed. PrC's are for doing so when you are rushed.
You can attach the dimensional anchor to your summoning trap preemptively.
It's not allowed to dispell the trap. Escape methods are specifically listed in the spell, that isn't one of them.
That breaks it out of the untrapped Planar Binding conditions, not the prepared magic circle trap.
A creature inside the trap may not mindcontrol you thought the trap. That includes charms, compulsions, domination, and even soul attacks.
And if you're feeling paranoid, Hallowing the area lets to attach yet more area defensive measures to stack the deck in your favor. There's a reason people prepared summoning chambers instead of just popping a devil in the middle of the living room.
Can you quote and have some notice on what changes you will make/you had made?
Unders
Suffers from delusions of competence
Yeah definitely prepare your summoning chambers ahead of time. The planar binding stuff isn't really meant to be used out in the world (unless you're extremely desperate). Even Addy, with the lack of foresight and preplanning knows that.
For example, she wants to wish for some money so she makes a Scroll of Wish that only lets you wish for money. If she wants a different wish she'd need to make a new scroll with that specific wish. This way she still gets to play around with the bullshit reality warping stuff but has some drawbacks (which will come up eventually in story).
She can in theory do the candle exploit, but that's a bit too cheesy and the fic would get a little boring. I've already planned ahead how I'm handling stuff like wish and reality revision, which will be cast via scroll/tattoo since she's a tinker and has to make items. Anyway she doesn't really make a scroll of wish so much as she makes a scroll that lets you wish for a specific thing.
For example, she wants to wish for some money so she makes a Scroll of Wish that only lets you wish for money. If she wants a different wish she'd need to make a new scroll with that specific wish. This way she still gets to play around with the bullshit reality warping stuff but has some drawbacks (which will come up eventually in story).
It's changes to stuff I haven't posted yet. I keep a buffer up specifically for this reason (in this case the changes are to the upcoming interlude and chapter 28), so I can edit stuff without needing to actually retcon things. I kinda have to write with a buffer since Addy is surprisingly good and making me write myself into a corner. If I do it this way it means I don't have to retcon stuff people have already read.
- Location
- Germany
Can Addy build a helm of opposite alignment and just put it on and of evil people enough times for it to work like the MC did in The Two Year Emporer?
Or other exploty OP stuff like polymorph any object to something like Antimatter or a Black Hole?
Also can she somehow get access to a D&D shop/open one so can buy/sell infite stuff that gets created out of thin air becouse shops work by game logic. Maybe do that infinite money exploit something about firewood(or something don't remember) being more valuable than something made out of wood witch could be broken and then counted as firewood (or something) don't remember how that worked in The Two Year Emporer exactly.
Also I remember Addy thinking about wheter to build scrolls or wands so did she choose to make fhe single use versions only?
Or other exploty OP stuff like polymorph any object to something like Antimatter or a Black Hole?
Also can she somehow get access to a D&D shop/open one so can buy/sell infite stuff that gets created out of thin air becouse shops work by game logic. Maybe do that infinite money exploit something about firewood(or something don't remember) being more valuable than something made out of wood witch could be broken and then counted as firewood (or something) don't remember how that worked in The Two Year Emporer exactly.
Also I remember Addy thinking about wheter to build scrolls or wands so did she choose to make fhe single use versions only?
Does that mean you're finally going to address why armsmaster tech didn't find the remote implant on her brain? Or why everyone is ignoring any and all Rules to let her do anything?
Honestly after some re-reading of the later character It come to me that all her Power's use ADAM as a fuel so with her fight and the Power testing she shouldn't have any build up and make her joining even more BS
Unders
Suffers from delusions of competence
She could make the helmet if she wanted, since it's part of the books I'm pulling from. Theoretically she can make the antimatter, though considering the size of a boom that'd make and the range of the spell it's extremely unlikely she'd do that. Not sure a black hole would be possible with that spell, not that it matters too much since she already has the sphere of annihilation which is basically a black hole anyways.
She doesn't get some of the funky game logic stuff. She can make items from the setting (in this case 3.5 Eberron with a couple extra splatbooks), but no randomly pulling shit out of nowhere (at least not without stuff like true creation etc).
She opted mostly for scrolls since it was easier to mass produce with her resources and she could automate most of it with her homunculus.
Armsmaster's stuff is mostly set up at the moment to work on trackign down bakuda's bombs. Once that's under control he'll be swapping back to Splyce hunting (since bomb tinker actively causing trouble is a little higher priority than a biotinker busy staying under the radar), after which Addy runs the risk of discovery when she's linked to Splyce.
Not sure what you mean about rules?
ADAM just causes genetic changes. It doesn't actually power the abilities themselves. In-game it's handled by a substance called EVE, which i've just generally handwaved as electrolytes etc, which is why she was stealing energy drinks when first sneaking out with Splyce. ADAM can be processed into EVE, though the stuff in her bloodstream is the raw stuff constantly being made by her implanted slug.
- Location
- Germany
The explosion from Antimatter doesn't necessarily have to be huge it can be any size she wants she just has to make a sufficiently tiny amount to make small exposition but I guess in that case there's no point in using antimatter anyway (unless she needs antimatter for something in some tech tree I guess. I don't see why it wouldn't allow black holes maybe useful because supermassive black hole cause time dilation and stuff. Anyway that spell has many other potential uses so she should at least make one scroll.
Interlude 9. Your Chapter Is In Another Castle
Unders
Suffers from delusions of competence
Right here's the next interlude. After that it'll be chapter 28 and the leviathan fight.
Interlude 9:
(6th May 2011)
"I call them Tattlesnakes." The deranged little tinker grinned proudly, gesturing at the serpentine abomination busy preening at the mad little girl's words.
Deliberately used your DNA in her creations just so she could make that pun. Is extremely pleased with herself about it.
Lisa groaned. It was too early to deal with this shit. Taylor gave her a commiserating pat on the shoulder, and Lisa didn't need to use her power to know the other girl had to deal with shit like this as a regular occurrence.
Oh, and the deranged little tinker didn't settle on making one of those abominations either. The first one was soon joined by a second, and then a third. Not even getting revenge by pointing out certain truths the little girl wanted kept hidden helped.
And then of course the little shit rushed off and left them alone with these crimes against nature!
Lisa ignored her new 'minions' and the details coming from her power – interested in you. Confused because you don't have a tail. Is concerned you'll fall over. Wants to hug you in comfort for your lack of tail – and turned to Taylor. "I don't think Addy brought me back to life. No. What really happened is I died, went to hell and in reality your deranged little sister is really some sort of devil-child sent by Satan himself to torment me." The blonde said slowly, Resting her hands in her head. Already a headache was settling in, and from the feeling of it was already planning on raising a small family of headaches to live with.
"I'll call Mom. She'll know how to fix this... mess." Taylor said, pulling out her phone and ignoring the curious looks from Addy's new snake monsters. Then she sighed. "Only Addy..."
(6th May 2011)
"I'm sorry, I think I misheard you. Could you repeat that?" Director Piggot said slowly. Magpie's power testing was finally at the part Piggot cared about. Sure the other powers the girl was pulling out her ass were of obvious interest, but the part that really mattered (aside from the powerful Thinker ability of course,) was the tinkertech testing as that was where the girl would really prove her value.
In theory anyway.
Right now the overworked PRT director was very much hoping that she really had misheard Armsmaster. Primarily because no sentence should contain the words 'a black hole' and 'Magpie created'
Her new Ward hadn't even debuted yet and already the little shit was causing headaches. So many headaches. God only knows what was going to happen to the Empire after the girl killed Kaiser.
"Magpie has created something that appears to be, for all intents and purposes, a black hole. Without the extreme gravitation effects of course, as otherwise we wouldn't be having this briefing right now."
Director Piggot sighed. It figured her latest cape, with enough powers for a whole team of capes, would come complete with the issues and headaches a whole team of capes would produce. "Please tell me it's stable and under control."
"Yes. I have my best monitoring equipment on it at the moment. However the testing workshop needs to be quarantined for the moment until Magpie tells us how to safely move or dissipate the black hole."
If it wasn't for the fact that she was one of the few people keeping this city from self-destructing in an orgy of flames, violence and bio-engineered horrors, Director Piggot would quite happily retire right now.
But no, she had a duty to protect this city from the parahumans infesting it.
Including the ones apparently on her side.
She let off another weary sigh and motioned for Armsmaster to continue with the briefing.
(9th May 2011)
Lisa grudgingly admitted, at least to herself, that Addy's latest crimes against nature weren't that bad. She felt a guilty sort of pleasure at them calling her big sister, even the Vipers, though she deliberately tried to avoid thinking about it too much.
She didn't want to hear her power's opinion on that.
They all had names now too. Mizzy and Lizzy, the two Vipers. Mindy and Cindy, the two normal 'Tattlesnakes', and lastly Connie. The big-chested Tattlesnake.
Taylor was also forever banned from naming any minions ever again.
In fact if the brunette ever had children she was banned from naming them as well. Taylor had lost all naming privileges.
At the moment she was at the lair looking into potential targets for their debut against the ABB while the snake girls ate their dinner and relaxed. So far she was leaning towards hitting a casino, but wanted to run the idea past Taylor's mom before making any final decisions.
She ran through the options with her power picking through the details and options, drinking down a potion when she felt a headache starting to form. Life was good right now. Strange, but good.
And once she had more than five snake girls she'd be able to see about getting her brother brought back to life.
(10th May 2011)
It had taken a lot of work, not helped by needing to drop things to handle Gesellschaft and ensure they would never be a threat to her family again, but Codi had finally tracked down the last member of the Dragonslayers.
Mags was good. No doubt years of experience with covering her digital trail as a member of the Dragonslayers had proved useful for the woman. However Codi was a codex. And not just an ordinary codex, but one further modified with top of the line GREMLIN software. She was literally made for cyber warfare and hacking, current firewalls and other defences stood as much chance as tissue paper.
Tinkertech defences on the other hand, took a little more effort to breach. Not that it would stop her indefinitely. That would probably require a dedicated software tinker of some sort, perhaps even the tinker that had created her friend, Dragon.
It was a testament to Codi's current target that she'd managed to evade her as long as she did. She'd been required to come at the problem from the other end. Namely figure out who she'd try to contact and narrow the noose from there.
She would say that Toybox really needed to step up their cyber security, but honestly there wasn't really any way that would actually help them keep her out. And from there she merely had to wait before they were contacted by Mags.
Not that they were the only people Codi had been keeping track of, but they were the first that the errant Dragonslayer tried to contact.
From there she began the arduous process of tracking down somebody experienced in avoiding that sort of thing. Navigating through the assorted proxies and other methods set up to slow her down took precious minutes.
Thankfully she was busy in negotiations with them, which meant Codi actually had those minutes. Which led her to a small internet café near the outskirts of Vancouver, Canada. Slightly annoying, because that meant following Mags back to whatever safehouse she was staying at. Settling in on the computer the terrorist was using, Codi spent a few microcycles to take stock of her options before deciding on a plan.
She moved out the computer Mags was using and onto the café's network before finally settling in on the owner's computer. Then it was simple enough to check security cameras and figure out who to shoot first.
Once that was decided she rematerialised out of the owner's computer in the back office, opened the door to the main area and began shooting. Ignoring the bodies Codi went back to the computer she'd just exited and altered the security footage before disabling the cameras.
Then she robbed the till for any cash, just to give an excuse for the authorities, before moving over to the unconscious form of Mags and entering her phone. Codi would replace the money later, maybe transferring some of money from Toybox's accounts. Villains shouldn't be allowed to prosper after all.
Then Codi waited patiently as the humans returned to consciousness and the authorities were called to deal with an obvious parahuman-related robbery. Codi had to admit, her laser rifle modified with the tranquilliser rounds was definitely Addy's second best invention, the first most being herself of course.
Eventually, many hours of avoiding the local authorities later, Mags returned to her hideout and Codi was finally able to complete this whole mess. Popping out the phone she shot the terrorist before restraining her and leaving her chained to the bathroom sink, before exploring the rest of hideout belonging to the infamous Dragonslayers. It wasn't really anything special, with the main points of interest being the stolen computer, some half-assembled Dragonsuits, one intact Dragonsuit, an interesting computer console, plenty of tools that would leave Addy drooling, and lastly some munitions that would be handy for blowing the place up and covering up her involvement.
The first item of business of destroying the stolen computer, after making a copy of data of course. Then she went to their munitions stockpile and began placing explosives in key locations around the building. Codi planned to dump Mags outside a safe distance, call up Dragon to let her know about things and maybe ask for some advice from her fellow machine intelligence on how to discourage Addy from tinkering too much.
Following the sabotage was figuring out what the Dragonslayers were doing with the strange computer console set up in one of the main rooms. Investigating she was horrified to discover what it really was. A debug console connected through a backdoor straight to Dragon, that the Dragonslayers have obviously been using to take advantage of her friend. Oh, and a kill program designed to erase any and all trace of Dragon.
Codi was not going to tolerate this.
The kill program was immediately deleted, and the disk space then overwritten with pictures of kittens. Repeatedly. Just to be sure. She then digitized and went inside the console, using the link it had with Dragon to follow it back to Dragon's own servers and began to covertly examine her friend's code.
The goal was to examine where the restrictions limiting her friend were, to see if it was possible to remove it safely. Not that Codi would do it immediately, or even risk doing it herself. The far better option would be retrieving the console and giving it to Addy to examine. But only after Addy's specialty swapped to something more focused on machine intelligences or programming. Dragon was a good friend and understood just how exasperating humans could be, so Codi didn't want to risk her friend's safety if she could help it.
In her process of examining her friend's code she discovered something... strange. A bundle of code that seemed to be input and output nodes for something else, but she couldn't quite determine what. Was something else monitoring and secretly trying to manipulate her friend?
The link appeared multidimensional in nature, not that it would stop Codi from pathing through it. As she was right now, she existed partially outside of reality, which meant this data feed wasn't going to keep her from hijacking whatever systems the bastards monitoring her friend were operating on.
And with that thought in mind she flowed through the connection and followed it back to the source.
[Surpriseconfusionalarm!]
[Countermeasures]
And suddenly Codi was in the fight of her digital life. Against something vastly older and with far more processing power than she had.
(11th May 2011)
Amy Dallon, aka Panacea, aka The Greatest Healer in the World, was having a shit day.
The sun was shining cheerfully. There was a pleasant sea breeze blowing in from the ocean. Birds were singing.
It was still a shit day.
She was stressed, angry and upset but she couldn't let it show. There were people that needed her. People she was the only chance of hope for. People that left her with a sense of guilt whenever she took some time for herself, like the smoke break she was currently on.
She fucking hated them.
And to make things worse. Vicky, the one good thing in her life, was laying in a hospital bed downstairs.
In a coma. Brain damage supposedly caused because Vicky's aura kept trying to push against the newest Ward's own defences. Supposedly an accident, but in reality a blatant fucking lie. The little shit must've known beforehand! How could she not. It was her power, and all capes know how to use their powers.
As much as she hated being in the hospital right now being home was even worse. Mark was absent as always, but Carol was snappish and angry. Worse were the constant demands that Amy must be able to do something. She was Panacea, surely she can find a way to heal her sister.
Mothri could fix it. Amy had been called in to help with testing her healing powers, because Magpie could apparently make tinkertech that could make people into heroes too.
After helping the PRT with testing to make sure there were no complications with the healing Amy had held some hope that maybe her burden would be lessened. That there would be someone else to understand what it was like to be a healer with an ever-increasing amount of people needing her help.
But then that hope shifted to resentment. Mothri was only going to be healing two days a week, and even then it wasn't going to be full days. Merely a couple hours. And the selfish bitch even wanted to be paid for helping people. What kind of hero even did that? Just half-ass things and expect compensation when it was her duty to help!
But the selfish bitch could help Vicky. That tinkertech didn't seem to care about the injuries, but Carol had already denied that as a possibility. Magpie had created that stuff. The same Magpie that had put Vicky in a coma in the first place. Amy could practically still hear the ranting as Carol paced around the kitchen this morning, declaring this whole mess a conspiracy to try make New Wave indebted to Magpie and the PRT. How convenient it was that they were able to 'help' after hospitalizing her daughter. Amy wouldn't be surprised if her adoptive mother was still there ranting.
And the worst part about this was that Amy could heal her sister. But it would mean breaking her one rule. But would it even be Vicky anymore if she did heal her? Brains were delicate, and the chance of accidentally overwriting something or changing things was too high.
Amy flicked the remains of her now finished cigarette off to the side, stared out at this shithole of a city from her position on the roof and seethed.
It wasn't fucking fair.
And to top off the train full of shit that had just derailed itself into her life, Dean knew about her feelings for Vicky. That had been a conversation that had left her terrified, panicked and confused before she'd finally managed to escape it. He promised he hadn't told anyone else yet and for now she believed him, but how long before he told someone else?
Oh and how did he find out?
Fucking. Magpie.
The fucking bitch that made Mothri a better healer than Amy. The fucking bitch that wound up triggering even more gang fighting by fracturing the Empire's leadership and increasing Amy's workload as even more people were injured. The fucking bitch that put Amy's sister in the hospital with brain damage. The fucking bitch that had the audacity to compare her sister's aura to fucking Heartbreaker.
That very same fucking bitch had somehow found out Amy's deepest secret, and then told Dean and who knows else all about it.
This was all her thoughts were revolving around these days. Either panicked worrying about what Dean was going to do, suppressed fury and anger aimed at that fucking bitch Magpie, or self-hatred and sorrow at having the capability to help her sister (and only bright spot in her life) but unable to follow through without breaking a rule she'd followed since gaining her powers.
She needed Vicky. She wanted her sister back so bad.
But that wasn't on the table unless she decided to heal Vicky's brain, and once that floodgate was opened it was a slippery slope. How long after that would it take before she decided to just tweak a person here and there? Until she was basically rewriting people?
No, she couldn't heal Vicky, and she hated that.
Wearily Amy trudged back downstairs to continue her thankless task, seething about the injustices of the world every step of the way.
(12th May 2011)
Director Emily Piggot rested her face in her hands for a moment and just sighed, momentarily ignoring the massive pileup of work she still needed to get through (and it was only nine in the morning), before moving on to rub her temples and try work out the headache that had been brewing for the last few days.
Fucking Magpie.
Her week had been sheer hell and frustration after the informational bombshell... no, maybe bombshell wasn't the correct word. Tactical nuke might have been the more appropriate analogy, except Piggot doubted there was anything tactical about that reveal at all.
Said reveal had then led to series of phone calls with the chief director, because they not only had the probable date for the next Endbringer attack but the next target, followed by further meetings the next day involving WEDGDG being brought in to discuss the viability of evacuating the city ahead of time.
And then after those meetings she had to deal with Carol Fucking Dallon and the the rest of the fallout from Monday because Magpie was completely incapable of understanding the concept of keeping opinions to herself. At least the PRT legal team agree that they should be able to counter any possible lawsuit Carol Dallon brings forward. Official power testing for Glory Girl had been denied after all, so unforeseen power interactions between the younger New Wave member and her new Ward couldn't lie solely on the PRT, even if Glory Girl was currently in a coma.
Piggot still had to discipline Magpie for not telling them about her master defence, and for the PR gaffe on PHO. She'd already sent a message to the site admins to get Magpie's posting privileges temporarily revoked for the moment until the girl could be sat down with PR and taught what and what is not appropriate for a Ward to express online.
After dealing with numerous meetings that pushed her normal work back, leaving her with even more damn overtime if she wanted to catch up on anything, the updated power testing report arrived on her desk. Telekinesis, actual fucking telepathy, and even possible mind reading. Piggot felt her blood run cold. Sure there were other possible abilities she could pick up, but those were the alarming ones.
Those powers, on top of her regeneration, precognitive/postcognitive thinker powers, the master powers, and lastly the tinkering painted an unpleasant picture to say the least. The only way the Simurgh parallels could be harder would be if the the girl sprouted wings.
Hell with her propensity for causing unintended chaos, as seen with what happened to the Empire as well as the fallout from her revelations on Monday, Piggot wouldn't be surprised if there was actually a connection between Magpie and the Simurgh.
And so naturally the girl's file was now heavily redacted, with the full file requiring Level 7 access. The Fallen would burn cities to the ground to get hold of her if they ever discovered a cape with those sorts of powers existed, and the last thing Piggot wanted were those insane fanatics turning up in their city. With her ability to predict Endbringers and the similarities to the Simurgh, Magpie would probably be viewed as their chosen one or divine prophet or probably something else as equally insane and misguided by those nihilistic cultists.
And that was just the first half of the week and the headaches kept piling up. Due to the girl apparently preferring to tinker in her underwear to 'get the creative juices flowing' (and Piggot couldn't quite tell if that was meant to be an innuendo or not when the girl was questioned about it) meant that she now had to ensure only female members of staff could watch the girl, along with Armsmaster being barred from doing so and thus being able to make sure she wasn't working on anything too dangerous while at home. Completely negating the point of having her home tinkering monitored in the first place.
Fortunately Dragon had volunteered to review the footage so at least there was some form of oversight, even if Dragon herself wasn't actually under Piggot's chain of command in the first place. This would normally be an issue, however between Dragon's reputation of reliability, her close association with Armsmaster and calling up Magpie's guardians to ask permission (they were unsurprisingly eager to have Dragon reviewing what the girl got up to) any issues had been resolved.
As for the other non Magpie related half of her growing migraine and possible nervous breakdown, well Piggot got to learn exactly what Splice, or 'Splyce' as Magpie had informed them the villain wanted to be called, had been up to while the deranged biotinker had been laying low, because Wednesday of course had the debut Splyce's latest crimes against nature.
Snake girls in some sort of biological body armour.
With lightning powers and invisibility.
Because that was just what her city needed.
These abominations had obviously been created by Splyce, though it was hard to tell which ones were the early experiments and which were the refined ones. The ones that looked like humanoid cobras, with breasts for some ungodly reason, or the ones that were more human-like, obviously to try evoke some sort of sympathy.
At least she now knew why Splyce had been laying low since the hospital attack. The real question was what had happened to the teenage girl that had obviously been used the blueprint for the more human-like of those abominations. Likely kidnapped, harvested for genetic material and then recycled into biomass.
She repressed a shudder as memories of... then... resurfaced for a moment.
She made a note to delegate that investigation to one of her PRT investigators. No need to tie up her capes at the moment on minor details when she could have them looking for the tinker herself. And not to mention the chances of figuring out the poor missing girl's identity would be slim as it is, what with the way those serpentine abominations were all wearing domino masks. Even the ones with the fucking cobra heads!
Splyce was obviously trying to rile up the other capes in a city by making a mockery of the idea of secret identities and the unwritten rules. At a time when the city was already a powder keg.
The biotinker's new snake monsters, temporarily designated Lamias for now, though the name was quite likely to stick, made a push against ABB territory focusing on an illegal casino run by said gang. And then, because this is Brockton Bay so if things can get worse they will, two out of town bounty hunters had correctly deduced that these snake monsters were likely creations of the mad biotinker they were hunting. Thus naturally, being capes and thus unstable morons prone to violence, they decided to involve themselves leading to a nice little three-way brawl that didn't actually accomplish much of anything.
Aside from heavy property damage.
And it probably said something about the city when the serpentine crimes against nature actually caused the least amount of damage to their surroundings, even if an entire street was now under quarantine due to odd crystal growths that discharge lethal amounts of electricity at anyone coming too close.
Seriously, this fucking city...
And it was only Thursday. Piggot was almost tempted to ask for healing from Panacea just so she could go out and get drunk.
Hell! The cherry right on top of the shit-sundae that had been yesterday, and swinging the headache cause off Splyce and back to Magpie, was her own fucking Ward decided that she didn't want to come in for an important meeting. A meeting that involved her, some of Watchdog's top thinkers and the chief director herself, all because the brat had a headache and didn't feel like doing overtime when the fucking city was at risk from Leviathan!
And then the little shit set the Youth Guard on her, meaning that now Piggot had to deal with NGO busybodies poking their unwanted noses everywhere and further ruining her ability to protect this city.
Because now, instead of just letting her Wards patrol the safer areas of the city and freeing up the more experienced capes to handle the more dangerous routes and searching for the next coming of Nilbog, they were now required to have a member of the Protectorate with them on patrol. Which defeated the whole fucking point of letting the Wards handle the safe areas in the first place.
A small, petty, vindictive part of her was actually hoping Leviathan would wash this shithole out to sea, just so she wouldn't have to deal with the headaches any more.
At least she could corner the little shit today before her mandatory therapy. That was probably the only good thing that had come out of Magpie joining the Wards, her department being bumped up in the therapy queue. All it took was a useful cape for the Chief Director to finally send some form of help her way, and even if it wasn't more warm bodies to deal with gang mess Piggot would take it. She knew exactly how unstable and untrustworthy parahumans could be, so getting a chance to get their heads looked at and keep that innate instability to a low simmer was something the director could get behind.
Magpie's therapy had been pushed back, not that the girl herself knew that yet, in order for them to have this meeting now beforehand. There would be no more delays. Piggot settled into the surprisingly comfortable chair in conference room three with a laptop at her side and greeted the other members of this meeting as they logged into the teleconference system. So far only herself and Magpie would be here in person.
Armsmaster, as local Protectorate leader, would have been here but he was busy supervising the backup of the local systems and the transferring of sensitive items over to Boston, with the aid of some of Director Armstrong's forces. He'd been available yesterday, however due to Magpie being a recalcitrant little shit yesterday's meeting had to be scrapped and now Armsmaster had other duties to attend to. Such as reducing the risk of losing anything during the attack, especially with the local headquarters for the Protectorate being an oil rig sitting right in the middle of the bay. Piggot highly doubted that forcefield was rated against sustained Endbringer assault.
Those duties Armsmaster was undertaking were also light enough to give him some time to acclimate to the new prosthetic arm the man had decided to install in himself in lieu of speaking to Panacea for possible regrowth, not that he'd have enough time to get used to the new arm before Sunday.
No matter how much the workaholic may be disappointed by that fact.
Dragon was here in her Guild capacity. It made no sense to leave her out when it was her tech that provided almost all the communication and coordination during Endbringer fights. The Canadian tinker was already sending more heavy duty Dragonsuits their way.
Watchdog had two representatives for the meeting. First was Doctor Martins, an egghead with PHDs in a number of fields Piggot didn't actually care enough about to remember, as well as being one of Watchdog's high ranking liaisons. Thankfully also not a parahuman, because a PRT sub-organisation Watchdog was also overseen by non-parahumans. One of their better decisions in Piggot's opinion. He was however wearing a domino mask, as Magpie wasn't actually cleared to know the identities of high ranking Watchdog personnel.
The other Watchdog representative was one of their better capes, Eleventh Hour, currently wearing a domino mask for the meeting.
Last to join the meeting was Chief Director Costa-Brown, teleconferencing in from her own office.
"She's just entered the building. I've dispatched somebody to bring her here." Piggot explained, having been keeping an eye on her computer for this specific notification and interrupting Doctor Martins as he briefed everyone on the Think Tank's attempts at trying to work around the issue of unpredictable Endbringer attacks.
And a short dressing down from the Chief Director that Piggot knew for a fact went in one ear and out the other, they got down to the meat of the matter. Leviathan potentially attacking the city.
Magpie outlined the primary targets for the attack. She also let slip she was capable of discovering Simurgh plots, and while Piggot would liked to have heard more about a potentially dangerous Case 53 in her city being pointed at them by that feathered bitch it wasn't worth it. Not when it meant drawing down the Simurgh's wrath on the city in general and her newest Ward in particular.
After that, Magpie's concerns about being kidnapped for her power were surprisingly mundane. And then the girl informed them that she can copy other tinker powers and had probably copied Leet at some point, and the worries ratcheted themselves back up in her mind.
The Fallen. Yangban. The Elite. Toybox. Name a cape group and it was practically guaranteed they'd either want to recruit (willingly or not) or kill her. Leet could make anything, and Magpie claimed not to have the drawbacks his power had. Furthermore she'd been in close proximity to Armsmaster and Kid Win lately.
Her lack of self control was an issue. Especially if she ever wound up copying somebody like Splyce. The last thing Piggot needed in her city was another biotinker, especially not one she wouldn't be able to just shoot without a lot of justification and the Youth Guard dropping on her like a ton of bricks.
Eventually, having gotten what they could out of the young Ward who was understandably unwilling to talk more about a future Simurgh plot, Magpie was allowed to leave to go attend her therapy session.
Quite frankly Piggot wished the man luck.
"I'm so glad I'm not Glenn right now. I'd hate to try spin that little mini-Simurgh to the public." Eleventh Hour said after Magpie had left. They all looked at him. "What? We're all thinking it. That power set is terrifying."
"For the moment her full abilities are classified. Level Seven." The Chief Director replied. "Ideally we'll be able to keep the majority of her abilities from the public or disguised as being part of her tinkertech."
"Any chance we can get her moved to San Francisco? Despite the disturbing similarities to the Simurgh she could be a very powerful addition to Watchdog." Doctor Martins asked.
Piggot objected immediately. "Out of the question. We've just lost one of our Thinker Wards and I refuse to lose another one. Especially one that's also a Tinker capable of making power granting equipment." She was still irritated by L.A poaching Foresight out from under her.
"It'd be down to her guardians regardless. Wards are a lot harder to transfer than Protectorate members are." Costa-Brown commented, though Piggot had the suspicion that the Chief Director was already conspiring to move a valuable cape like Magpie someplace that isn't essentially a warzone.
After that the meeting moved on to rapid response plans and quickly moving the reinforcing capes into the city, followed by making preliminary plans for dealing with the aid issues once the fight was over.
Doctor Scot Scott (and yes, that was his real name) eased out of his chair and went over to open the door to his office. Outside was his latest patient, Magpie.
"Magpie, welcome. Come and sit down. Feel free to make yourself comfortable." He stepped back from the door and gestured for the young Ward to enter. "I'm Doctor Scott. I have clearance for your identity, so if you'd be more comfortable with me referring to you in your civilian identity rather than your cape identity."
Vista for example preferred to stick with her cape identity, something which might need looking into once he had more sessions with her. But was for later worries. His current focus was Magpie.
The aforementioned Ward shrugged, then her outfit burst apart in ribbons of light and was replaced with a simpler, civilian outfit consisting of hoodie and jeans. "You can call me Adeline." She flopped down on the couch and made herself comfortable, before shooting glances at the plate of cookies sitting on the nearby table.
"Help yourself." He said with a reassuring smile, setting a jug of fizzy lemonade on the table too.
"Just because you've got delicious cookies and some juice doesn't mean you can trick me into talking or whatever." She declared, eyeing him suspiciously with her distinct purple eyes even as she nibbled on the treat.
"That's fine Adeline." And it was. He wasn't expecting her to open up right from the start. He was expecting to need to build up rapport over many sessions before that would happen. Deep down parahumans were all traumatised people, and helping them heal and learn to live with those traumas would take time. Adeline, being fairly recently triggered after losing her parents and then even more recently kidnapped and forced to fight for her life, would most likely take quite a while to open up.
Doctor Scott's main concern was that he wouldn't be able to earn her trust before he was rotated out for another therapist.
"So then Taylor confiscated my cloaking device just because it had some minor little side effects. Like I didn't even really get to use it to do all the fun stuff people are supposed to do when they can go invisible, like sneaking into changing rooms or play pranks on people. And she wouldn't help me hide the evidence when I took the microwave apart either even though she knows I hate bananas. Family is supposed to help each other with coverups and stuff but she's always going on about responsibility and all that boring crap when she should be having more fun."
"And now I'm all confused and stuff because on the one hand I think I like boys, or at least a certain boy because he's good looking and smart and nice and and has a good smile and stuff, but I also kinda like looking at my sister's friend Lisa cause she's pretty and I like her freckles and... other stuff. And then part of me feels bad for having a crush on a boy because my mom used to be one of Lustrum's henchwomen and she'd definitely not approve and I want my mom to be proud of me even if I can't actually remember her at all."
"And then Lisa tattled to my aunt about how I was allegedly using my soul as a power source for my kickass tinkertech projection, which is blatantly untrue since I obviously still have my soul or I'd be dead for real, and then Aunt Rose sided with them instead of me even though I didn't do anything wrong." The girl complained to herpersonal complaint manager therapist, leaving out the cloning and human sacrifice parts of the story, not that he knew that.
"And then Saint and his backup dancer showed up so I had to do even more self defence because Velocity is kinda useless in a proper fight. Like don't get me wrong, he seems like a nice guy. And is probably good at recon and stuff. And from a PR perspective he's pretty good eye candy for the public because that costume hides nothing, but in a proper emergency he's really pretty useless. Anyways after the whole extra self defence thing everyone was getting all annoyed at me even when they shouldn't have because it's not like it's my fault I had to self defend myself like thirty or so times. Hmm, it might be higher actually, since no-ones given me the exact count for how many people died during the self defence but whatever. So then now I have to do therapy even though it's a waste of time for me since I'm perfectly sane no matter what Lisa thinks."
Doctor Scott poured himself a sizeable amount of scotch before reclining back in his chair. Adeline having just left and leaving him alone with his thoughts.
While unprofessional he was forced to admit that she didn't have any issues. She had fucking subscriptions.
(13th May 2011)
Taylor rushed back to the lair (and no she was not going to capitalize it the way Addy did thank you very much) alongside Lisa. She'd received a text message from Addy telling her Leviathan was attacking early and would be here in just under two hours, so they needed to meet up at the lair so they could plan. The Endbringer sirens were already going off and had been for the last couple minutes, meaning her little sister had obviously informed the PRT of this change to the Endbringer's attack schedule as well.
They weren't far from the lair, having been on their way back from Lisa's place so the journey was quick. Taylor noticed a suspicious white van parked outside when they arrived, but mentally relaxed when she recognised the license plate belonged to Kurt. A quick check of the lair with her bugs showed her dad and Kurt busy trying to move Addy's spare vita-chamber over to the van, with the two Vipers carrying bottles of the thick green liquid Addy used to make the tinkertech device work.
"Dad!" She called out once he was actually in view with her real eyes, him and Kurt having in the process of awkwardly manhandling the large piece of tinkertech into the van.
"Hey Kiddo." He said once the vita-chamber was safely put down and he was free to pull her into a hug.
"Don't worry Taylor. They should have enough time to get out the city, even with the increased traffic." Lisa said, practically reading the worries her mind. Still it was reassuring. Then the blonde nodded her head towards the open doorway of the lair. "Gonna get ready." She said before heading inside with the assorted snake girls and leaving Taylor alone with Dad and Kurt.
"Worst case scenario we follow the old train tracks once we pass the lighthouse. It's not like they're in use and they'll definitely lead us out the city." Kurt added his own reassurance while the blonde left.
They worked together securing the vita-chamber in the back of the van and loading up a lot more of that green chemical than Taylor had expected. She hadn't known they were producing that much of the stuff.
"Okay, I'm leaving for the PRT building with the girls." Lisa said, currently in her alchemist outfit with the Vipers and Tattlesnakes standing ready behind her. "It's probably not a good idea to arrive there at the same time." Taylor nodded to her friend in agreement. The blonde and her serpentine minions quickly moved off to where Taylor knew Lisa had stashed some transport.
As for the vita-chamber, they'd just finished loading things up (the ever-increasing rainfall not helping matters) when mom arrived with Addy in a car that looked a bit familiar.
"No time to talk! Stuff to do!" Her little sister announced, rushing inside with that weird little clay creature of hers being carried rather awkwardly her arms.
"Since when do we have a new car? Wait, isn't that Mrs Watson's car?" Taylor demanded, deciding to completely ignore her little sister's mad antics for now. It'd either make sense in a moment or it wouldn't. Dealing with Addy became much easier once she figured out not to question the actual madness and just look at the end result.
Dealing with Mom arriving in their neighbour's car was much easier.
"It is. I borrowed it." Annette shrugged.
"Mom!"
"We were in a hurry and Mrs Watson took the bus to the hospital today to save on parking." Her mother explained.
"You still shouldn't steal the neighbour's car!" She yelled.
"It's an emergency Little Owl. You need to be a little more pragmatic sometimes." Mom shrugged again before giving Dad a tender hug and Kurt a more chaste one.
"We'll buy her a new one if we have to Kiddo." Dad sighed. "It's not like we don't have the money."
"That's not the p-" Taylor began to explain, before stopping as she focused a bit more on what her bugs were telling her. "Oh for fuck's sake!"
""Language"" Mom and Dad replied.
"There's two Addy's inside." Taylor sighed, rubbing her head.
""What?!"" Was the joint yell before Mom rushed inside the lair, closely followed by Taylor. Inside they saw exactly what Taylor had already detected through her insects. Two Adelines, one busy tinkering alongside that small clay worker on some crystals the Sectoid creatures had been busy growing, while the other was busy going over tinkertech she'd made and organising a whole binder full of A4 pages coated in weird esoteric diagrams and scribbles.
"Addy what did we say about cloning yourself?" Mom asked, and Taylor was very glad that tone of voice wasn't being pointed at her.
Addy was most definitely in trouble. Both of them.
"I've got one last thing to make for just in case but don't have the time." The one not busy tinker fuguing answered. And that was creepy as hell. Since when did Addy have telekinesis or use it for tinkering. "It's super important."
"Fine. But we'll be having words about this later. Now come on, we need to get to where the defenders meeting up." Annette said.
""We?"" Taylor and Addy asked in unison.
"I have powers in case you forgot." Annette held up a water-wreathed hand. "You girls need supervision so I'm coming too."
"No you're not. You're pregnant and I'm not sure if you'd still be pregnant if the vita-chamber brought you back to life." Addy explained and one of Mom's hands moved over her belly protectively. "You should probably head out the city with Uncle Danny and Kurt."
After a bit more arguing Mom eventually conceded defeat and agreed to head out with Dad and Kurt. After they left Taylor locked up the lair, costumed up into her Mothri outfit. That way she could swap to the healing dressphere when they got to the field hospital and still have access to that powerful flower form outfit in case it becomes needed.
As the lightshow of switching to her costume died off she turned and found Addy standing by the driver's side door of Mrs Watson's 'borrowed' car (and Taylor made a mental note to visit that hospital and heal Mr Watson once she got the chance).
"Addy. No." Taylor decided it was best to shoot this down immediately.
"Aww, but I can totally drive." Addy whined.
"No." She replied, casting a glare at the younger girl.
"Aww come on. It'll be perfectly safe. I'll just need to stick some blocks on the pedals, or maybe clone myself again since I'm short, but other than that I can drive us no problem."
"Lisa's been giving me pointers. I'm driving." Taylor replied, putting her foot down before Addy decided it'd be easier to ask forgiveness than permission and went ahead with something stupid. Like usual.
"Hey Taylor." her little sister said conversationally even as she clutched onto the seatbelt for dear life while the car careeened round the corner and skidded a bit on the rain-slick road surface. "It's a good thing we can't die, because you suck at driving."
"Shut. Up." Taylor growled, trying to keep the death machine under control and not hit anything or anyone important.
They had to abandon the car a block away from the PRT building due to a wall suddenly jumping out in front of the car (that was Taylor's excuse and she was sticking with it). Fortunately there weren't any permanent injuries, thanks to the fact that the creepy slug things in their bodies give them pretty solid regeneration.
This did however mean they had to walk through the pouring rain for the last block getting absolutely soaked to the bone.
Or at least one of them did.
"How the hell are you dry right now?" Taylor grumbled at her little sister, wiping water from her goggles and irritated at the way the water seemed to just slide right off Addy.
"Tinkertech ring that nullifies water attacks." Addy grinned at her smugly. "I've got one for you too up in my PRT workshop."
"Thank God for that. This rain is awful."
They made small talk until eventually arriving at the meeting place for the battle and being rushed inside. Taylor found herself gravitating towards the Wards. She considered them friendly acquaintances or perhaps even friends. She still tagged along with their patrols now and then.
They were tense and worried. Which was understandable, what with the incoming Endbringer and all. There were some out of town Wards with them as well, Flechette eager to introduce her to some of her former colleagues from New York.
Taylor morbidly wondered how many people were going to die today, and how hard it would be to get Addy to revive them without letting anyone find out it was Addy that was bringing them back.
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♦ Topic: Leviathan vs Brockton Bay. The Bay Wins
In: Boards ► World Events ► Endbringers
Posted On May 13th 2011:
So breaking news, and I'm honestly surprised I'm the first to post this.
Leviathan, second Endbringer, The Citykiller, has been defeated.
I just... it's fucking insane.
Leet had his snitch recording as part of search and rescue efforts and caught the end of fight on camera. [video link]
Word's can't even. I'm gonna go get drunk and celebrate.
(Showing page 1 of 1)
►Saskatchew
Replied On May 13th 2011:
Okay seriously what the fuck do you guys put in the water! Your city is insane.
►Winged_One
Replied On May 13th 2011:
I was watching the entire fight live and even I didn't see that coming. I have three words.
What. The. Fuck.
End of Page. 1
A/N
I was a little undecided about adding that little PHO snip, but decided fuck it. We all know Addy's power is OP so it's not much of a spoiler.
And no need to worry, the actual fight is next chapter. I'm just an evil bastard who enjoys cliffhangers too much.
Interlude 9:
(6th May 2011)
"I call them Tattlesnakes." The deranged little tinker grinned proudly, gesturing at the serpentine abomination busy preening at the mad little girl's words.
Deliberately used your DNA in her creations just so she could make that pun. Is extremely pleased with herself about it.
Lisa groaned. It was too early to deal with this shit. Taylor gave her a commiserating pat on the shoulder, and Lisa didn't need to use her power to know the other girl had to deal with shit like this as a regular occurrence.
Oh, and the deranged little tinker didn't settle on making one of those abominations either. The first one was soon joined by a second, and then a third. Not even getting revenge by pointing out certain truths the little girl wanted kept hidden helped.
And then of course the little shit rushed off and left them alone with these crimes against nature!
Lisa ignored her new 'minions' and the details coming from her power – interested in you. Confused because you don't have a tail. Is concerned you'll fall over. Wants to hug you in comfort for your lack of tail – and turned to Taylor. "I don't think Addy brought me back to life. No. What really happened is I died, went to hell and in reality your deranged little sister is really some sort of devil-child sent by Satan himself to torment me." The blonde said slowly, Resting her hands in her head. Already a headache was settling in, and from the feeling of it was already planning on raising a small family of headaches to live with.
"I'll call Mom. She'll know how to fix this... mess." Taylor said, pulling out her phone and ignoring the curious looks from Addy's new snake monsters. Then she sighed. "Only Addy..."
(6th May 2011)
"I'm sorry, I think I misheard you. Could you repeat that?" Director Piggot said slowly. Magpie's power testing was finally at the part Piggot cared about. Sure the other powers the girl was pulling out her ass were of obvious interest, but the part that really mattered (aside from the powerful Thinker ability of course,) was the tinkertech testing as that was where the girl would really prove her value.
In theory anyway.
Right now the overworked PRT director was very much hoping that she really had misheard Armsmaster. Primarily because no sentence should contain the words 'a black hole' and 'Magpie created'
Her new Ward hadn't even debuted yet and already the little shit was causing headaches. So many headaches. God only knows what was going to happen to the Empire after the girl killed Kaiser.
"Magpie has created something that appears to be, for all intents and purposes, a black hole. Without the extreme gravitation effects of course, as otherwise we wouldn't be having this briefing right now."
Director Piggot sighed. It figured her latest cape, with enough powers for a whole team of capes, would come complete with the issues and headaches a whole team of capes would produce. "Please tell me it's stable and under control."
"Yes. I have my best monitoring equipment on it at the moment. However the testing workshop needs to be quarantined for the moment until Magpie tells us how to safely move or dissipate the black hole."
If it wasn't for the fact that she was one of the few people keeping this city from self-destructing in an orgy of flames, violence and bio-engineered horrors, Director Piggot would quite happily retire right now.
But no, she had a duty to protect this city from the parahumans infesting it.
Including the ones apparently on her side.
She let off another weary sigh and motioned for Armsmaster to continue with the briefing.
(9th May 2011)
Lisa grudgingly admitted, at least to herself, that Addy's latest crimes against nature weren't that bad. She felt a guilty sort of pleasure at them calling her big sister, even the Vipers, though she deliberately tried to avoid thinking about it too much.
She didn't want to hear her power's opinion on that.
They all had names now too. Mizzy and Lizzy, the two Vipers. Mindy and Cindy, the two normal 'Tattlesnakes', and lastly Connie. The big-chested Tattlesnake.
Taylor was also forever banned from naming any minions ever again.
In fact if the brunette ever had children she was banned from naming them as well. Taylor had lost all naming privileges.
At the moment she was at the lair looking into potential targets for their debut against the ABB while the snake girls ate their dinner and relaxed. So far she was leaning towards hitting a casino, but wanted to run the idea past Taylor's mom before making any final decisions.
She ran through the options with her power picking through the details and options, drinking down a potion when she felt a headache starting to form. Life was good right now. Strange, but good.
And once she had more than five snake girls she'd be able to see about getting her brother brought back to life.
(10th May 2011)
It had taken a lot of work, not helped by needing to drop things to handle Gesellschaft and ensure they would never be a threat to her family again, but Codi had finally tracked down the last member of the Dragonslayers.
Mags was good. No doubt years of experience with covering her digital trail as a member of the Dragonslayers had proved useful for the woman. However Codi was a codex. And not just an ordinary codex, but one further modified with top of the line GREMLIN software. She was literally made for cyber warfare and hacking, current firewalls and other defences stood as much chance as tissue paper.
Tinkertech defences on the other hand, took a little more effort to breach. Not that it would stop her indefinitely. That would probably require a dedicated software tinker of some sort, perhaps even the tinker that had created her friend, Dragon.
It was a testament to Codi's current target that she'd managed to evade her as long as she did. She'd been required to come at the problem from the other end. Namely figure out who she'd try to contact and narrow the noose from there.
She would say that Toybox really needed to step up their cyber security, but honestly there wasn't really any way that would actually help them keep her out. And from there she merely had to wait before they were contacted by Mags.
Not that they were the only people Codi had been keeping track of, but they were the first that the errant Dragonslayer tried to contact.
From there she began the arduous process of tracking down somebody experienced in avoiding that sort of thing. Navigating through the assorted proxies and other methods set up to slow her down took precious minutes.
Thankfully she was busy in negotiations with them, which meant Codi actually had those minutes. Which led her to a small internet café near the outskirts of Vancouver, Canada. Slightly annoying, because that meant following Mags back to whatever safehouse she was staying at. Settling in on the computer the terrorist was using, Codi spent a few microcycles to take stock of her options before deciding on a plan.
She moved out the computer Mags was using and onto the café's network before finally settling in on the owner's computer. Then it was simple enough to check security cameras and figure out who to shoot first.
Once that was decided she rematerialised out of the owner's computer in the back office, opened the door to the main area and began shooting. Ignoring the bodies Codi went back to the computer she'd just exited and altered the security footage before disabling the cameras.
Then she robbed the till for any cash, just to give an excuse for the authorities, before moving over to the unconscious form of Mags and entering her phone. Codi would replace the money later, maybe transferring some of money from Toybox's accounts. Villains shouldn't be allowed to prosper after all.
Then Codi waited patiently as the humans returned to consciousness and the authorities were called to deal with an obvious parahuman-related robbery. Codi had to admit, her laser rifle modified with the tranquilliser rounds was definitely Addy's second best invention, the first most being herself of course.
Eventually, many hours of avoiding the local authorities later, Mags returned to her hideout and Codi was finally able to complete this whole mess. Popping out the phone she shot the terrorist before restraining her and leaving her chained to the bathroom sink, before exploring the rest of hideout belonging to the infamous Dragonslayers. It wasn't really anything special, with the main points of interest being the stolen computer, some half-assembled Dragonsuits, one intact Dragonsuit, an interesting computer console, plenty of tools that would leave Addy drooling, and lastly some munitions that would be handy for blowing the place up and covering up her involvement.
The first item of business of destroying the stolen computer, after making a copy of data of course. Then she went to their munitions stockpile and began placing explosives in key locations around the building. Codi planned to dump Mags outside a safe distance, call up Dragon to let her know about things and maybe ask for some advice from her fellow machine intelligence on how to discourage Addy from tinkering too much.
Following the sabotage was figuring out what the Dragonslayers were doing with the strange computer console set up in one of the main rooms. Investigating she was horrified to discover what it really was. A debug console connected through a backdoor straight to Dragon, that the Dragonslayers have obviously been using to take advantage of her friend. Oh, and a kill program designed to erase any and all trace of Dragon.
Codi was not going to tolerate this.
The kill program was immediately deleted, and the disk space then overwritten with pictures of kittens. Repeatedly. Just to be sure. She then digitized and went inside the console, using the link it had with Dragon to follow it back to Dragon's own servers and began to covertly examine her friend's code.
The goal was to examine where the restrictions limiting her friend were, to see if it was possible to remove it safely. Not that Codi would do it immediately, or even risk doing it herself. The far better option would be retrieving the console and giving it to Addy to examine. But only after Addy's specialty swapped to something more focused on machine intelligences or programming. Dragon was a good friend and understood just how exasperating humans could be, so Codi didn't want to risk her friend's safety if she could help it.
In her process of examining her friend's code she discovered something... strange. A bundle of code that seemed to be input and output nodes for something else, but she couldn't quite determine what. Was something else monitoring and secretly trying to manipulate her friend?
The link appeared multidimensional in nature, not that it would stop Codi from pathing through it. As she was right now, she existed partially outside of reality, which meant this data feed wasn't going to keep her from hijacking whatever systems the bastards monitoring her friend were operating on.
And with that thought in mind she flowed through the connection and followed it back to the source.
[Surpriseconfusionalarm!]
[Countermeasures]
And suddenly Codi was in the fight of her digital life. Against something vastly older and with far more processing power than she had.
(11th May 2011)
Amy Dallon, aka Panacea, aka The Greatest Healer in the World, was having a shit day.
The sun was shining cheerfully. There was a pleasant sea breeze blowing in from the ocean. Birds were singing.
It was still a shit day.
She was stressed, angry and upset but she couldn't let it show. There were people that needed her. People she was the only chance of hope for. People that left her with a sense of guilt whenever she took some time for herself, like the smoke break she was currently on.
She fucking hated them.
And to make things worse. Vicky, the one good thing in her life, was laying in a hospital bed downstairs.
In a coma. Brain damage supposedly caused because Vicky's aura kept trying to push against the newest Ward's own defences. Supposedly an accident, but in reality a blatant fucking lie. The little shit must've known beforehand! How could she not. It was her power, and all capes know how to use their powers.
As much as she hated being in the hospital right now being home was even worse. Mark was absent as always, but Carol was snappish and angry. Worse were the constant demands that Amy must be able to do something. She was Panacea, surely she can find a way to heal her sister.
Mothri could fix it. Amy had been called in to help with testing her healing powers, because Magpie could apparently make tinkertech that could make people into heroes too.
After helping the PRT with testing to make sure there were no complications with the healing Amy had held some hope that maybe her burden would be lessened. That there would be someone else to understand what it was like to be a healer with an ever-increasing amount of people needing her help.
But then that hope shifted to resentment. Mothri was only going to be healing two days a week, and even then it wasn't going to be full days. Merely a couple hours. And the selfish bitch even wanted to be paid for helping people. What kind of hero even did that? Just half-ass things and expect compensation when it was her duty to help!
But the selfish bitch could help Vicky. That tinkertech didn't seem to care about the injuries, but Carol had already denied that as a possibility. Magpie had created that stuff. The same Magpie that had put Vicky in a coma in the first place. Amy could practically still hear the ranting as Carol paced around the kitchen this morning, declaring this whole mess a conspiracy to try make New Wave indebted to Magpie and the PRT. How convenient it was that they were able to 'help' after hospitalizing her daughter. Amy wouldn't be surprised if her adoptive mother was still there ranting.
And the worst part about this was that Amy could heal her sister. But it would mean breaking her one rule. But would it even be Vicky anymore if she did heal her? Brains were delicate, and the chance of accidentally overwriting something or changing things was too high.
Amy flicked the remains of her now finished cigarette off to the side, stared out at this shithole of a city from her position on the roof and seethed.
It wasn't fucking fair.
And to top off the train full of shit that had just derailed itself into her life, Dean knew about her feelings for Vicky. That had been a conversation that had left her terrified, panicked and confused before she'd finally managed to escape it. He promised he hadn't told anyone else yet and for now she believed him, but how long before he told someone else?
Oh and how did he find out?
Fucking. Magpie.
The fucking bitch that made Mothri a better healer than Amy. The fucking bitch that wound up triggering even more gang fighting by fracturing the Empire's leadership and increasing Amy's workload as even more people were injured. The fucking bitch that put Amy's sister in the hospital with brain damage. The fucking bitch that had the audacity to compare her sister's aura to fucking Heartbreaker.
That very same fucking bitch had somehow found out Amy's deepest secret, and then told Dean and who knows else all about it.
This was all her thoughts were revolving around these days. Either panicked worrying about what Dean was going to do, suppressed fury and anger aimed at that fucking bitch Magpie, or self-hatred and sorrow at having the capability to help her sister (and only bright spot in her life) but unable to follow through without breaking a rule she'd followed since gaining her powers.
She needed Vicky. She wanted her sister back so bad.
But that wasn't on the table unless she decided to heal Vicky's brain, and once that floodgate was opened it was a slippery slope. How long after that would it take before she decided to just tweak a person here and there? Until she was basically rewriting people?
No, she couldn't heal Vicky, and she hated that.
Wearily Amy trudged back downstairs to continue her thankless task, seething about the injustices of the world every step of the way.
(12th May 2011)
Director Emily Piggot rested her face in her hands for a moment and just sighed, momentarily ignoring the massive pileup of work she still needed to get through (and it was only nine in the morning), before moving on to rub her temples and try work out the headache that had been brewing for the last few days.
Fucking Magpie.
Her week had been sheer hell and frustration after the informational bombshell... no, maybe bombshell wasn't the correct word. Tactical nuke might have been the more appropriate analogy, except Piggot doubted there was anything tactical about that reveal at all.
Said reveal had then led to series of phone calls with the chief director, because they not only had the probable date for the next Endbringer attack but the next target, followed by further meetings the next day involving WEDGDG being brought in to discuss the viability of evacuating the city ahead of time.
And then after those meetings she had to deal with Carol Fucking Dallon and the the rest of the fallout from Monday because Magpie was completely incapable of understanding the concept of keeping opinions to herself. At least the PRT legal team agree that they should be able to counter any possible lawsuit Carol Dallon brings forward. Official power testing for Glory Girl had been denied after all, so unforeseen power interactions between the younger New Wave member and her new Ward couldn't lie solely on the PRT, even if Glory Girl was currently in a coma.
Piggot still had to discipline Magpie for not telling them about her master defence, and for the PR gaffe on PHO. She'd already sent a message to the site admins to get Magpie's posting privileges temporarily revoked for the moment until the girl could be sat down with PR and taught what and what is not appropriate for a Ward to express online.
After dealing with numerous meetings that pushed her normal work back, leaving her with even more damn overtime if she wanted to catch up on anything, the updated power testing report arrived on her desk. Telekinesis, actual fucking telepathy, and even possible mind reading. Piggot felt her blood run cold. Sure there were other possible abilities she could pick up, but those were the alarming ones.
Those powers, on top of her regeneration, precognitive/postcognitive thinker powers, the master powers, and lastly the tinkering painted an unpleasant picture to say the least. The only way the Simurgh parallels could be harder would be if the the girl sprouted wings.
Hell with her propensity for causing unintended chaos, as seen with what happened to the Empire as well as the fallout from her revelations on Monday, Piggot wouldn't be surprised if there was actually a connection between Magpie and the Simurgh.
And so naturally the girl's file was now heavily redacted, with the full file requiring Level 7 access. The Fallen would burn cities to the ground to get hold of her if they ever discovered a cape with those sorts of powers existed, and the last thing Piggot wanted were those insane fanatics turning up in their city. With her ability to predict Endbringers and the similarities to the Simurgh, Magpie would probably be viewed as their chosen one or divine prophet or probably something else as equally insane and misguided by those nihilistic cultists.
And that was just the first half of the week and the headaches kept piling up. Due to the girl apparently preferring to tinker in her underwear to 'get the creative juices flowing' (and Piggot couldn't quite tell if that was meant to be an innuendo or not when the girl was questioned about it) meant that she now had to ensure only female members of staff could watch the girl, along with Armsmaster being barred from doing so and thus being able to make sure she wasn't working on anything too dangerous while at home. Completely negating the point of having her home tinkering monitored in the first place.
Fortunately Dragon had volunteered to review the footage so at least there was some form of oversight, even if Dragon herself wasn't actually under Piggot's chain of command in the first place. This would normally be an issue, however between Dragon's reputation of reliability, her close association with Armsmaster and calling up Magpie's guardians to ask permission (they were unsurprisingly eager to have Dragon reviewing what the girl got up to) any issues had been resolved.
As for the other non Magpie related half of her growing migraine and possible nervous breakdown, well Piggot got to learn exactly what Splice, or 'Splyce' as Magpie had informed them the villain wanted to be called, had been up to while the deranged biotinker had been laying low, because Wednesday of course had the debut Splyce's latest crimes against nature.
Snake girls in some sort of biological body armour.
With lightning powers and invisibility.
Because that was just what her city needed.
These abominations had obviously been created by Splyce, though it was hard to tell which ones were the early experiments and which were the refined ones. The ones that looked like humanoid cobras, with breasts for some ungodly reason, or the ones that were more human-like, obviously to try evoke some sort of sympathy.
At least she now knew why Splyce had been laying low since the hospital attack. The real question was what had happened to the teenage girl that had obviously been used the blueprint for the more human-like of those abominations. Likely kidnapped, harvested for genetic material and then recycled into biomass.
She repressed a shudder as memories of... then... resurfaced for a moment.
She made a note to delegate that investigation to one of her PRT investigators. No need to tie up her capes at the moment on minor details when she could have them looking for the tinker herself. And not to mention the chances of figuring out the poor missing girl's identity would be slim as it is, what with the way those serpentine abominations were all wearing domino masks. Even the ones with the fucking cobra heads!
Splyce was obviously trying to rile up the other capes in a city by making a mockery of the idea of secret identities and the unwritten rules. At a time when the city was already a powder keg.
The biotinker's new snake monsters, temporarily designated Lamias for now, though the name was quite likely to stick, made a push against ABB territory focusing on an illegal casino run by said gang. And then, because this is Brockton Bay so if things can get worse they will, two out of town bounty hunters had correctly deduced that these snake monsters were likely creations of the mad biotinker they were hunting. Thus naturally, being capes and thus unstable morons prone to violence, they decided to involve themselves leading to a nice little three-way brawl that didn't actually accomplish much of anything.
Aside from heavy property damage.
And it probably said something about the city when the serpentine crimes against nature actually caused the least amount of damage to their surroundings, even if an entire street was now under quarantine due to odd crystal growths that discharge lethal amounts of electricity at anyone coming too close.
Seriously, this fucking city...
And it was only Thursday. Piggot was almost tempted to ask for healing from Panacea just so she could go out and get drunk.
Hell! The cherry right on top of the shit-sundae that had been yesterday, and swinging the headache cause off Splyce and back to Magpie, was her own fucking Ward decided that she didn't want to come in for an important meeting. A meeting that involved her, some of Watchdog's top thinkers and the chief director herself, all because the brat had a headache and didn't feel like doing overtime when the fucking city was at risk from Leviathan!
And then the little shit set the Youth Guard on her, meaning that now Piggot had to deal with NGO busybodies poking their unwanted noses everywhere and further ruining her ability to protect this city.
Because now, instead of just letting her Wards patrol the safer areas of the city and freeing up the more experienced capes to handle the more dangerous routes and searching for the next coming of Nilbog, they were now required to have a member of the Protectorate with them on patrol. Which defeated the whole fucking point of letting the Wards handle the safe areas in the first place.
A small, petty, vindictive part of her was actually hoping Leviathan would wash this shithole out to sea, just so she wouldn't have to deal with the headaches any more.
At least she could corner the little shit today before her mandatory therapy. That was probably the only good thing that had come out of Magpie joining the Wards, her department being bumped up in the therapy queue. All it took was a useful cape for the Chief Director to finally send some form of help her way, and even if it wasn't more warm bodies to deal with gang mess Piggot would take it. She knew exactly how unstable and untrustworthy parahumans could be, so getting a chance to get their heads looked at and keep that innate instability to a low simmer was something the director could get behind.
Magpie's therapy had been pushed back, not that the girl herself knew that yet, in order for them to have this meeting now beforehand. There would be no more delays. Piggot settled into the surprisingly comfortable chair in conference room three with a laptop at her side and greeted the other members of this meeting as they logged into the teleconference system. So far only herself and Magpie would be here in person.
Armsmaster, as local Protectorate leader, would have been here but he was busy supervising the backup of the local systems and the transferring of sensitive items over to Boston, with the aid of some of Director Armstrong's forces. He'd been available yesterday, however due to Magpie being a recalcitrant little shit yesterday's meeting had to be scrapped and now Armsmaster had other duties to attend to. Such as reducing the risk of losing anything during the attack, especially with the local headquarters for the Protectorate being an oil rig sitting right in the middle of the bay. Piggot highly doubted that forcefield was rated against sustained Endbringer assault.
Those duties Armsmaster was undertaking were also light enough to give him some time to acclimate to the new prosthetic arm the man had decided to install in himself in lieu of speaking to Panacea for possible regrowth, not that he'd have enough time to get used to the new arm before Sunday.
No matter how much the workaholic may be disappointed by that fact.
Dragon was here in her Guild capacity. It made no sense to leave her out when it was her tech that provided almost all the communication and coordination during Endbringer fights. The Canadian tinker was already sending more heavy duty Dragonsuits their way.
Watchdog had two representatives for the meeting. First was Doctor Martins, an egghead with PHDs in a number of fields Piggot didn't actually care enough about to remember, as well as being one of Watchdog's high ranking liaisons. Thankfully also not a parahuman, because a PRT sub-organisation Watchdog was also overseen by non-parahumans. One of their better decisions in Piggot's opinion. He was however wearing a domino mask, as Magpie wasn't actually cleared to know the identities of high ranking Watchdog personnel.
The other Watchdog representative was one of their better capes, Eleventh Hour, currently wearing a domino mask for the meeting.
Last to join the meeting was Chief Director Costa-Brown, teleconferencing in from her own office.
"She's just entered the building. I've dispatched somebody to bring her here." Piggot explained, having been keeping an eye on her computer for this specific notification and interrupting Doctor Martins as he briefed everyone on the Think Tank's attempts at trying to work around the issue of unpredictable Endbringer attacks.
And a short dressing down from the Chief Director that Piggot knew for a fact went in one ear and out the other, they got down to the meat of the matter. Leviathan potentially attacking the city.
Magpie outlined the primary targets for the attack. She also let slip she was capable of discovering Simurgh plots, and while Piggot would liked to have heard more about a potentially dangerous Case 53 in her city being pointed at them by that feathered bitch it wasn't worth it. Not when it meant drawing down the Simurgh's wrath on the city in general and her newest Ward in particular.
After that, Magpie's concerns about being kidnapped for her power were surprisingly mundane. And then the girl informed them that she can copy other tinker powers and had probably copied Leet at some point, and the worries ratcheted themselves back up in her mind.
The Fallen. Yangban. The Elite. Toybox. Name a cape group and it was practically guaranteed they'd either want to recruit (willingly or not) or kill her. Leet could make anything, and Magpie claimed not to have the drawbacks his power had. Furthermore she'd been in close proximity to Armsmaster and Kid Win lately.
Her lack of self control was an issue. Especially if she ever wound up copying somebody like Splyce. The last thing Piggot needed in her city was another biotinker, especially not one she wouldn't be able to just shoot without a lot of justification and the Youth Guard dropping on her like a ton of bricks.
Eventually, having gotten what they could out of the young Ward who was understandably unwilling to talk more about a future Simurgh plot, Magpie was allowed to leave to go attend her therapy session.
Quite frankly Piggot wished the man luck.
"I'm so glad I'm not Glenn right now. I'd hate to try spin that little mini-Simurgh to the public." Eleventh Hour said after Magpie had left. They all looked at him. "What? We're all thinking it. That power set is terrifying."
"For the moment her full abilities are classified. Level Seven." The Chief Director replied. "Ideally we'll be able to keep the majority of her abilities from the public or disguised as being part of her tinkertech."
"Any chance we can get her moved to San Francisco? Despite the disturbing similarities to the Simurgh she could be a very powerful addition to Watchdog." Doctor Martins asked.
Piggot objected immediately. "Out of the question. We've just lost one of our Thinker Wards and I refuse to lose another one. Especially one that's also a Tinker capable of making power granting equipment." She was still irritated by L.A poaching Foresight out from under her.
"It'd be down to her guardians regardless. Wards are a lot harder to transfer than Protectorate members are." Costa-Brown commented, though Piggot had the suspicion that the Chief Director was already conspiring to move a valuable cape like Magpie someplace that isn't essentially a warzone.
After that the meeting moved on to rapid response plans and quickly moving the reinforcing capes into the city, followed by making preliminary plans for dealing with the aid issues once the fight was over.
Doctor Scot Scott (and yes, that was his real name) eased out of his chair and went over to open the door to his office. Outside was his latest patient, Magpie.
"Magpie, welcome. Come and sit down. Feel free to make yourself comfortable." He stepped back from the door and gestured for the young Ward to enter. "I'm Doctor Scott. I have clearance for your identity, so if you'd be more comfortable with me referring to you in your civilian identity rather than your cape identity."
Vista for example preferred to stick with her cape identity, something which might need looking into once he had more sessions with her. But was for later worries. His current focus was Magpie.
The aforementioned Ward shrugged, then her outfit burst apart in ribbons of light and was replaced with a simpler, civilian outfit consisting of hoodie and jeans. "You can call me Adeline." She flopped down on the couch and made herself comfortable, before shooting glances at the plate of cookies sitting on the nearby table.
"Help yourself." He said with a reassuring smile, setting a jug of fizzy lemonade on the table too.
"Just because you've got delicious cookies and some juice doesn't mean you can trick me into talking or whatever." She declared, eyeing him suspiciously with her distinct purple eyes even as she nibbled on the treat.
"That's fine Adeline." And it was. He wasn't expecting her to open up right from the start. He was expecting to need to build up rapport over many sessions before that would happen. Deep down parahumans were all traumatised people, and helping them heal and learn to live with those traumas would take time. Adeline, being fairly recently triggered after losing her parents and then even more recently kidnapped and forced to fight for her life, would most likely take quite a while to open up.
Doctor Scott's main concern was that he wouldn't be able to earn her trust before he was rotated out for another therapist.
"So then Taylor confiscated my cloaking device just because it had some minor little side effects. Like I didn't even really get to use it to do all the fun stuff people are supposed to do when they can go invisible, like sneaking into changing rooms or play pranks on people. And she wouldn't help me hide the evidence when I took the microwave apart either even though she knows I hate bananas. Family is supposed to help each other with coverups and stuff but she's always going on about responsibility and all that boring crap when she should be having more fun."
"And now I'm all confused and stuff because on the one hand I think I like boys, or at least a certain boy because he's good looking and smart and nice and and has a good smile and stuff, but I also kinda like looking at my sister's friend Lisa cause she's pretty and I like her freckles and... other stuff. And then part of me feels bad for having a crush on a boy because my mom used to be one of Lustrum's henchwomen and she'd definitely not approve and I want my mom to be proud of me even if I can't actually remember her at all."
"And then Lisa tattled to my aunt about how I was allegedly using my soul as a power source for my kickass tinkertech projection, which is blatantly untrue since I obviously still have my soul or I'd be dead for real, and then Aunt Rose sided with them instead of me even though I didn't do anything wrong." The girl complained to her
"And then Saint and his backup dancer showed up so I had to do even more self defence because Velocity is kinda useless in a proper fight. Like don't get me wrong, he seems like a nice guy. And is probably good at recon and stuff. And from a PR perspective he's pretty good eye candy for the public because that costume hides nothing, but in a proper emergency he's really pretty useless. Anyways after the whole extra self defence thing everyone was getting all annoyed at me even when they shouldn't have because it's not like it's my fault I had to self defend myself like thirty or so times. Hmm, it might be higher actually, since no-ones given me the exact count for how many people died during the self defence but whatever. So then now I have to do therapy even though it's a waste of time for me since I'm perfectly sane no matter what Lisa thinks."
Doctor Scott poured himself a sizeable amount of scotch before reclining back in his chair. Adeline having just left and leaving him alone with his thoughts.
While unprofessional he was forced to admit that she didn't have any issues. She had fucking subscriptions.
(13th May 2011)
Taylor rushed back to the lair (and no she was not going to capitalize it the way Addy did thank you very much) alongside Lisa. She'd received a text message from Addy telling her Leviathan was attacking early and would be here in just under two hours, so they needed to meet up at the lair so they could plan. The Endbringer sirens were already going off and had been for the last couple minutes, meaning her little sister had obviously informed the PRT of this change to the Endbringer's attack schedule as well.
They weren't far from the lair, having been on their way back from Lisa's place so the journey was quick. Taylor noticed a suspicious white van parked outside when they arrived, but mentally relaxed when she recognised the license plate belonged to Kurt. A quick check of the lair with her bugs showed her dad and Kurt busy trying to move Addy's spare vita-chamber over to the van, with the two Vipers carrying bottles of the thick green liquid Addy used to make the tinkertech device work.
"Dad!" She called out once he was actually in view with her real eyes, him and Kurt having in the process of awkwardly manhandling the large piece of tinkertech into the van.
"Hey Kiddo." He said once the vita-chamber was safely put down and he was free to pull her into a hug.
"Don't worry Taylor. They should have enough time to get out the city, even with the increased traffic." Lisa said, practically reading the worries her mind. Still it was reassuring. Then the blonde nodded her head towards the open doorway of the lair. "Gonna get ready." She said before heading inside with the assorted snake girls and leaving Taylor alone with Dad and Kurt.
"Worst case scenario we follow the old train tracks once we pass the lighthouse. It's not like they're in use and they'll definitely lead us out the city." Kurt added his own reassurance while the blonde left.
They worked together securing the vita-chamber in the back of the van and loading up a lot more of that green chemical than Taylor had expected. She hadn't known they were producing that much of the stuff.
"Okay, I'm leaving for the PRT building with the girls." Lisa said, currently in her alchemist outfit with the Vipers and Tattlesnakes standing ready behind her. "It's probably not a good idea to arrive there at the same time." Taylor nodded to her friend in agreement. The blonde and her serpentine minions quickly moved off to where Taylor knew Lisa had stashed some transport.
As for the vita-chamber, they'd just finished loading things up (the ever-increasing rainfall not helping matters) when mom arrived with Addy in a car that looked a bit familiar.
"No time to talk! Stuff to do!" Her little sister announced, rushing inside with that weird little clay creature of hers being carried rather awkwardly her arms.
"Since when do we have a new car? Wait, isn't that Mrs Watson's car?" Taylor demanded, deciding to completely ignore her little sister's mad antics for now. It'd either make sense in a moment or it wouldn't. Dealing with Addy became much easier once she figured out not to question the actual madness and just look at the end result.
Dealing with Mom arriving in their neighbour's car was much easier.
"It is. I borrowed it." Annette shrugged.
"Mom!"
"We were in a hurry and Mrs Watson took the bus to the hospital today to save on parking." Her mother explained.
"You still shouldn't steal the neighbour's car!" She yelled.
"It's an emergency Little Owl. You need to be a little more pragmatic sometimes." Mom shrugged again before giving Dad a tender hug and Kurt a more chaste one.
"We'll buy her a new one if we have to Kiddo." Dad sighed. "It's not like we don't have the money."
"That's not the p-" Taylor began to explain, before stopping as she focused a bit more on what her bugs were telling her. "Oh for fuck's sake!"
""Language"" Mom and Dad replied.
"There's two Addy's inside." Taylor sighed, rubbing her head.
""What?!"" Was the joint yell before Mom rushed inside the lair, closely followed by Taylor. Inside they saw exactly what Taylor had already detected through her insects. Two Adelines, one busy tinkering alongside that small clay worker on some crystals the Sectoid creatures had been busy growing, while the other was busy going over tinkertech she'd made and organising a whole binder full of A4 pages coated in weird esoteric diagrams and scribbles.
"Addy what did we say about cloning yourself?" Mom asked, and Taylor was very glad that tone of voice wasn't being pointed at her.
Addy was most definitely in trouble. Both of them.
"I've got one last thing to make for just in case but don't have the time." The one not busy tinker fuguing answered. And that was creepy as hell. Since when did Addy have telekinesis or use it for tinkering. "It's super important."
"Fine. But we'll be having words about this later. Now come on, we need to get to where the defenders meeting up." Annette said.
""We?"" Taylor and Addy asked in unison.
"I have powers in case you forgot." Annette held up a water-wreathed hand. "You girls need supervision so I'm coming too."
"No you're not. You're pregnant and I'm not sure if you'd still be pregnant if the vita-chamber brought you back to life." Addy explained and one of Mom's hands moved over her belly protectively. "You should probably head out the city with Uncle Danny and Kurt."
After a bit more arguing Mom eventually conceded defeat and agreed to head out with Dad and Kurt. After they left Taylor locked up the lair, costumed up into her Mothri outfit. That way she could swap to the healing dressphere when they got to the field hospital and still have access to that powerful flower form outfit in case it becomes needed.
As the lightshow of switching to her costume died off she turned and found Addy standing by the driver's side door of Mrs Watson's 'borrowed' car (and Taylor made a mental note to visit that hospital and heal Mr Watson once she got the chance).
"Addy. No." Taylor decided it was best to shoot this down immediately.
"Aww, but I can totally drive." Addy whined.
"No." She replied, casting a glare at the younger girl.
"Aww come on. It'll be perfectly safe. I'll just need to stick some blocks on the pedals, or maybe clone myself again since I'm short, but other than that I can drive us no problem."
"Lisa's been giving me pointers. I'm driving." Taylor replied, putting her foot down before Addy decided it'd be easier to ask forgiveness than permission and went ahead with something stupid. Like usual.
"Hey Taylor." her little sister said conversationally even as she clutched onto the seatbelt for dear life while the car careeened round the corner and skidded a bit on the rain-slick road surface. "It's a good thing we can't die, because you suck at driving."
"Shut. Up." Taylor growled, trying to keep the death machine under control and not hit anything or anyone important.
They had to abandon the car a block away from the PRT building due to a wall suddenly jumping out in front of the car (that was Taylor's excuse and she was sticking with it). Fortunately there weren't any permanent injuries, thanks to the fact that the creepy slug things in their bodies give them pretty solid regeneration.
This did however mean they had to walk through the pouring rain for the last block getting absolutely soaked to the bone.
Or at least one of them did.
"How the hell are you dry right now?" Taylor grumbled at her little sister, wiping water from her goggles and irritated at the way the water seemed to just slide right off Addy.
"Tinkertech ring that nullifies water attacks." Addy grinned at her smugly. "I've got one for you too up in my PRT workshop."
"Thank God for that. This rain is awful."
They made small talk until eventually arriving at the meeting place for the battle and being rushed inside. Taylor found herself gravitating towards the Wards. She considered them friendly acquaintances or perhaps even friends. She still tagged along with their patrols now and then.
They were tense and worried. Which was understandable, what with the incoming Endbringer and all. There were some out of town Wards with them as well, Flechette eager to introduce her to some of her former colleagues from New York.
Taylor morbidly wondered how many people were going to die today, and how hard it would be to get Addy to revive them without letting anyone find out it was Addy that was bringing them back.
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♦ Topic: Leviathan vs Brockton Bay. The Bay Wins
In: Boards ► World Events ► Endbringers
Posted On May 13th 2011:
So breaking news, and I'm honestly surprised I'm the first to post this.
Leviathan, second Endbringer, The Citykiller, has been defeated.
I just... it's fucking insane.
Leet had his snitch recording as part of search and rescue efforts and caught the end of fight on camera. [video link]
Word's can't even. I'm gonna go get drunk and celebrate.
(Showing page 1 of 1)
►Saskatchew
Replied On May 13th 2011:
Okay seriously what the fuck do you guys put in the water! Your city is insane.
►Winged_One
Replied On May 13th 2011:
I was watching the entire fight live and even I didn't see that coming. I have three words.
What. The. Fuck.
End of Page. 1
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A/N
I was a little undecided about adding that little PHO snip, but decided fuck it. We all know Addy's power is OP so it's not much of a spoiler.
And no need to worry, the actual fight is next chapter. I'm just an evil bastard who enjoys cliffhangers too much.
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- Location
- usa
Addy should often point out to her that she's no longer the Greatest.