Let's read Worm and its sequel Ward by Wildbow (One chapter/every day)

ImperatorV · Nov 19, 2019

Riley's trigger made me sad, and then angry. This interlude was probably one of the biggest emotional swings I've had from a work of fiction - it's usually very hard to get an emotional response out of me, but this did it. The thing that really got to me about Riley's trigger is this: She was running around for hours, while the Nine were hurting her family. Now, she has Bonesaw's power set. That includes things like viruses, airborne toxins, knock-out gas. She would easily have been able to rig up something to knock out or kill the Nine members, disguising it as part of a machine she built to fix up one of her family members. Here's the thing though: she didn't think of that. Little Riley was so innocent she literally didn't even consider hurting people as a solution to her problem.

Plus, her powerset is that of a medical tinker. Imagine, if you will, a girl so overwhelmingly nice and innocent that she doesn't even consider hurting her enemies as an option, with a medical powerset. The good that she could have done as a sweet little tinker doctor. Riley should, by all rights, have been one of the greatest heroes in the setting, an angel of healing. And Jack Slash took her, and turned her into Bonesaw. Someone who could have been one of the greatest forces for good in a dark world, turned into one of the most horrifying monsters. This is Jack's worst crime, IMO, and the most tragic of the many tragedies in Worm.

On the topic of redemption, I believe that pretty much anyone can be redeemed, so these revelations didn't change anything about that. This interlude did make me hope we'd actually get to see good-aligned Riley at some point.

I, uh, actually didn't think of anything for Gray Boy's power. I just shrugged, assumed I'd find out later, and kept reading. Very uncreative of me I know.

blackarrow · Nov 19, 2019

ImperatorV said:
Riley's trigger made me sad, and then angry. This interlude was probably one of the biggest emotional swings I've had from a work of fiction - it's usually very hard to get an emotional response out of me, but this did it. The thing that really got to me about Riley's trigger is this: She was running around for hours, while the Nine were hurting her family. Now, she has Bonesaw's power set. That includes things like viruses, airborne toxins, knock-out gas. She would easily have been able to rig up something to knock out or kill the Nine members, disguising it as part of a machine she built to fix up one of her family members. Here's the thing though: she didn't think of that. Little Riley was so innocent she literally didn't even consider hurting people as a solution to her problem.

Plus, her powerset is that of a medical tinker. Imagine, if you will, a girl so overwhelmingly nice and innocent that she doesn't even consider hurting her enemies as an option, with a medical powerset. The good that she could have done as a sweet little tinker doctor. Riley should, by all rights, have been one of the greatest heroes in the setting, an angel of healing. And Jack Slash took her, and turned her into Bonesaw. Someone who could have been one of the greatest forces for good in a dark world, turned into one of the most horrifying monsters. This is Jack's worst crime, IMO, and the most tragic of the many tragedies in Worm.

On the topic of redemption, I believe that pretty much anyone can be redeemed, so these revelations didn't change anything about that. This interlude did make me hope we'd actually get to see good-aligned Riley at some point.

I, uh, actually didn't think of anything for Gray Boy's power. I just shrugged, assumed I'd find out later, and kept reading. Very uncreative of me I know.

I don't think that Riley was able to do something to hurt Jack and his people back then. She was too young, too inexperienced (she only had her power for a day) and Jack probably had Hatchet Face, the one who could block powers. Just like Amelia (an experienced and very powerful parahuman) couldn't do anything against Bonesaw because of the Hatchet Job, Riley couldn't do anything because of Hatchet Face and her age. This and yes, she was innocent. A little innocent child. I can compare her with Alan when he was Sphere. Two good souls destroyed by literal monsters. But I hate Jack more than Simurgh anyway (because Jack was supposed to be human and act like a human while Simurgh doesn't have any choice on the matter- she can't change what she's and how she was programmed to think and act).

You seem to be a kind soul if you believe in redemption. I rarely believe in redemption and even if there are some bad people that can have the potential to be redeemed, Jack is NOT one of these people. I see Jack as far beyond any redemption. Maybe only total brainwashing and personality remodeling from scratch can redeem him (if I have to think at another method apart from death or a fate worse than death) . But I don't think that someone should waste efforts and time with brainwashing and remodeling Jack.

Xexilf · Nov 19, 2019

I kinda sympathized with Bonesaw/Riley somehow even before this, so yes i gave her a second chance. I also think that trigger seemed the worst i had seen.

For Gray Boy... In my mind his description (probably not even all that fitting) made him look like (and thus blend with) some other malevolent english schoolboy characters in my mind, namely young tom riddle in the chamber of secrets movie and son of mine in doctor who-the family of blood. Im not sure why that association became so strong, but it serverely impacted how i viewed the character.
For his power, i thought it had to be something really horrible, related to the monochrome thing, but i didnt come up with anything plausible until i saw what it was.

The Richmaster · Nov 19, 2019

You're thoughts on the clones were as interesting as I thought they'd be.
Oddly enough, I never actually made any connection with Riley possibly having a crush on Eli; she specifically mentions having started puberty in this chapter so it's not impossible.

My original thoughts for this interlude were actually pretty similar to yours in regards to the pity I felt for Riley and horror at Jack... and also relief for Rey no longer suffering; he was an idiot for messing with Endbringers but he didn't deserve to be Bonesaw'd.
My original thoughts on Gray Boy were along the lines of "This is someone that Jack and Bonesaw both fear... he might play a big role in the coming End of the world"

However, above all things, one thing shown by this is Wildbow's talent for making the readers feel for just about anyone.

I think this chapter might be hitting me a bit harder than it usually would because I just read a certain part of Ward which loosely connects thematically so I guess the empathy that I already felt was amplified through that lens.

it was the interlude arc, if anyone was wondering

blackarrow · Dec 1, 2019

Hello, my dear friends. Too busy, with very little time for myself "sighs"

. So, last time, my heart cried tears of blood, all thanks to Wildbow and his sick imagination. Only someone like Wildbow can create such a horrible monster like Bonesaw and an absolute innocent victim like Riley and combine them in the same body. He basically created what Bonesaw always liked to create: a Frankenstein of a character. Sin and innocence in the same person. Evil and goodness in the same being. The triumph of a beast with a such a dark mind and the struggles of a trapped child inside the body of the beast. Bonesaw vs Riley. Who's gonna win? Of course I want Riley to win and take her life back from the monsters that stole it from her: Jack and Bonesaw. Bonesaw/Riley are one of the best and most fascinating Wildbow's characters, also the one with one of the most tragic backstories. A literally soul crushing backstory

. A sick, demented, tragic backstory and only I know how much I cried when and after I read it. Of course, now you know this too. I just want that everything will end well for Riley and she'll finally find her well-deserving happiness. Of course, doesn't mean that I'll ever forget and forgive all the shit that Bonesaw did, even if I want only what is good for Riley. Because, I can hate as much as I want the monster but still feel a deep pity for the poor child struggling to survive, right?
Alright, time for a new Arc. I think I understand the meaning of the name of the last Arc: Scarab. Wasn't the supposed name of Taylor's Passenger. Glaistig Uaine clearly said that the Passenger's name is Queen Administrator and I trust the "Mad" Fairy when it comes to her knowledge about Passengers. In Egyptian mythology, the scarab was a symbol for immortality and cycle of rebirth. S9 just cloned themselves, creating this cycle of rebirth and resurrection. Scarab was referring at what S9 did to themselves

. I was quite wrong with my prediction about the Arc's title but isn't a crime because I couldn't know the true meaning before finishing reading the Arc. The next Arc is called Sting. Weaver is going to sting everyone with her sting, like a heroic bee she's now. S9 clones have reasons to be afraid, eh? Hope this time I won't be wrong Sting 26.1

One of Rachel's dogs growled, long and loud, an alien, unsure sound.

The smell. Summer heat, the mingled scent of blood, shit and overripe bodies, with traces of other things in the wind. Caustic chemicals, ozone, smoke, burned flesh and plastic.

Welcome to Killington. Heart of the Green Mountains.

"They got the children too," Cozen whispered, as she averted her eyes from a mother who had died holding her child, both burned black. The only parts of their body that hadn't burned were patches of skin in the shapes of numbers. Two-fifty-four. Two-fifty-five.

Two of the Red Hands, Getaway and Rifle, had come along for the ride. They were sticking close by her, and formed a small contingent with Grue as a consequence. Getaway wore a cowl with a hood that peaked in the front, to the center of his mask. His costume had straight, clean lines, as though he'd modeled it after a car.

Of course they got children, I thought. I had to bite back a retort. Why was she here, if she wasn't ready for this?

But she wasn't a fighter. None of the Red Hands were, really. They were professional thieves. Break in, get out, sell the goods.

I glanced again at Cozen, saw her looking at me in turn. Catching me looking, really.

"What?" she asked.

You don't need to be here. You'll be happier in the long run if you aren't.

I led the way as our group rounded a corner, and saw the smouldering wreckage of the helicopter, smoke still streaming skyward.

The collision apparently hadn't been enough to topple the corpse that stood upright in the middle of the intersection, desiccated. A number was drawn on the mummy's chest in blood. Number thirty-six.

I could make out a tripwire strung between him and another corpse, a woman. She had apparently been shot execution style, propped upright on her knees. A number, again, had been drawn out in the midst of the blood spatter from the original wound. Number two-sixty-five.

The tripwire was almost obvious, coated in congealed blood.

This should be the most IRONIC NAME for a city I've ever heard. Killington. Killing+ to(w)n. No wonder why S9 Clones choose this town to proclaim their existence. Just look at its name. This should be a life lesson. Never name your town Killing if you don't want to have a band of cloned murderhobos with supernatural/alien powers as your unexpected guests

. They already committed atrocities. RIP poor Killington citizens. Oh, God, children...

Of course, S9 won't stay true to their name if they don't kill children. Don't be surprised, Cozen, they're capable of every atrocity you can possible imagine. Oh, poor Cozen, she's like a villain Cuff. She obviously hate seeing these horror, yet she was willing to help the heroes because she wanted to fight against this indescribable evil. Just like Cuff who hated fighting against Behemoth, yet she still did it. I guess that Grue is lucky to have this woman as his wife. She may be a villain, but she have her heart in the right place. She's a good human being. I like her

. I really like her, no matter what Weaver have to say about her. Well, Weaver, stop being jealous on this woman. She didn't stole your man. You lost him. You lost him from the moment when you decided to become a hero. Well, don't worry. You still have some possibilities left. Golem, Tecton? If you all will survive to Jackpocalypse, of course. Now isn't the right time for romance. Neither for jealousy. Understand, Weaver? Stop thinking bad about her. If she decided to help you and your team, despite not liking at all the situation and not being a killer, then she must be respected for her choice, not judged like: "you should not be here" or something between the lines. "sighs" Weaver, Weaver...

Red string, I thought. In Japanese superstition, it was the string that bound lovers.

The pieces suggested Crimson and Winter. Neither was Japanese, but the idea of mingling romantic imagery with violence in that way fit them. The red knight and the soldier.

I pointed to indicate. "Obvious tripwire here. Covered in blood. Connects to the two bodies and… I think claymores, at the base of that building over there. There are other tripwires around it. Look too hard at it, miss the others. I think there's a pressure plate, too. I'm not sure what to call that."

I led the way around the trap. I left a trail of dead bugs behind us as we made our way to the center, murdering them with larger bugs and mashing them into the ground. A path.

We circled around eight teenage girls, sitting in a circle, crowns of splintered wood nailed through their skulls.

I looked up. Number eight sat on the bulb of a street light, a long dress blowing in the wind, directly above the circle. Her crown was the tallest, and for her to be so rigid, there had to be a whole assortment of planks nailed to her.

"Nine Kings," I said.

"They've resurrected all of the old members. Cloned them," Revel said.

"Got a live one!" Imp called out, interrupting my thoughts. "…Kind of alive."

I turned to look. A fat man was shifting in a restless way, his chest rising and falling quickly in unsteady movements. One arm jerked.

"Or a trap," I responded. "I doubt he's in a state to fill us in on anything. We'll move on, wait for heroes to follow the path I'm marking. They'll handle medical care for wounded."

"That's fucked up," Rifle said. "We could at least put him out of his misery, then."

This city is doomed

. Nothing can safe Killington anymore, maybe only if they'll completely nuke it so nothing, except for smoke and ash, can remain behind. Either people are killed in absolute horrible ways, their dead bodies are turned into traps and the ones who are still alive are probably used as traps too. I don't think there are people left that can still be saved. I doubt that there are unhurt/SAFE survivors left. And I thought that Brockton Bay was hell on earth. I agree with Rifle, Cozen's man. The few survivors should be put out of their misery, because this is not life for them anymore, only an endless suffering until they'll eventually die

. I hate when innocents die but I hate more when they suffer without any escape. For the love of God, if you're human enough, fucking kill them and allow them to find their peace (of course, I don't think I'll ever personally kill an innocent if I'll find myself in this situation, even one in deep suffering, but I'll ask someone who's tough enough to do it, even beg them, because I know that death is much more better for these poor, unfortunate souls). Cozen is stronger that she probably know herself. To continue to walk deep inside the heart of that pure hell show true strength of heart and mind

.

"I'm not willing to get close enough to check," I said. "And I'm not willing foryou to get close either."

Then she stopped. The fat man deflated in an instant as a small collection of what looked like trilobites found their way out of his rear end. Slick with gore, they darted forward a short distance on their hundreds of little legs, then turned our way, bristling with spines. Tails trailed behind each of them, twice as long as the foot-long creatures, narrow, with stingers on the ends.

I could hear a hissing, but I wasn't sure if it was from the creatures or the way the spines rubbed against one another.

"Breed's power," I said. "They're mostly harmless, for now."

"For now," I answered Rifle. "They start off the size of a lemon, lurk in spots where they can get access to orifices or sites of injury, or like you see here, corpses. Inside beer bottles, in toilet bowls, bedcovers, on the underside of kitchen tables, even inside food. Then they burrow inside, wait until the target is still and quiet for an hour or two, paralyze the target, and emit pheromones to call others of their kind to them. They devour the target from the inside out, molt once or twice as they digest the fats and proteins they ate, then find a new target. It's a process that takes a week to two weeks, depending on the availability of food sources."

"They aren't a danger to us," I said. "Probably. They choose easier targets over harder ones, and there are enough corpses around here that we aren't worth the trouble. What we should worry about is the later stages. When they're about the size of a full-grown human being, they'll do two or three major molts with big physical changes, gaining some natural weapons, including a pellet-spit that kind of acts like a shotgun blast with fragments that dissolve into flesh-melting acid."

"Breed's creatures. Can you control them?" this from Revel, taking advantage of the stunned silence.

I glanced up at the body the things had invaded. I tailored my response so both Revel and the Undersiders could make sense of it. "I can't control those things, and I can't sense them either."

Breed's power is so cool in the most horrible way possible. He can create trilobites like creature than can grow as big as humans and kill their victims with flesh-melting acid. He's a Master, right? Really a horrible cool power for a Master who doesn't control humans. I'm very biased, I know, but most of the creepiest powers belong to Masters

. This is a sad truth. Breed and Nilbog will get along very well if they will ever get to know each other. Well, I'm still surprised that S9 never decided to visit Nilblog and try to recruit him. Maybe because Jack decided that Nilblog is too unstable even for them? Who knows, but the King of the Monsters Garden would have been an excellent addition to S9: powerful, scary, sadistic psychopath, doesn't give a fuck about human life, great imagination...truly a S9 material. I think that Jack just missed a HUGE opportunity.
I wonder how they'd have promoted Breed's power if he was a hero instead of a serial murderer. His power wouldn't be such a hero power material especially in the eyes of the public. His power is worse than Weaver's power. Weaver can control butterflies too and everyone like butterflies, but Breed is limited only at summoning flesh eating trilobites. I'm imagining Protectorate Director of public image trying hard to make his power more attractive to the public. Something like:
-This is Breed, he's a hero, a Master, and his power is to...summon tiny little creatures with many tiny little legs. They're very cute and fluffy, I personally guarantee it. As defense, they bite villains with their adorable little fangs...❤
People from everywhere: Awwwwwwwwww ❤.
Weaver: I would like to add something. They're trilobites that like to burrow inside living people or corpses or even in your food until they're big enough to spit acid and dissolve your skin till bone...
Half of people from everywhere: Yuuuuuuuuuuck 🤮.
The other half: furiously write endless Breed's fanfics.

"I don't know. Yeah, if your instincts tell you to go, then get going now," I said. I pointed at the ground around a hose. There was a puddle that had spread beneath the hose's opening. My bugs had died on contact with it. "Acid, not water. Don't walk in it. Rachel, watch your dogs."

"You don't think we can hold it together?" Cozen asked.

"I'm spooked," Imp said. "Can I go home and sit on the couch in my underwear, eating cake? I'll cross my ingers for you guys, if you want."

"It's her project," Grue said. "My orders are to follow her orders."

I could see how little she liked that.

But she maintained a professional demeanor. "Accepted. You realize we don't have to follow your orders?"

Grue nodded, silent.

"Everything Jack does is for effect. The same way a dog sort of raises its hackles to look bigger, tougher, or the way we used our reputation to seem more unstoppable than we were, Jack keys his actions for psychological effect. All of this is to scare, to drive us to hesitate when it comes to confronting him, push us to think of ways to avoid dealing with him instead of ways to catch up to him and beat his face in. Or, conversely, some personality types might get pushed to be reckless, to deal with him so he couldn't bother them anymore."

There was a voice from beneath the other tarp. A strangled scream.

"What was that?"

"A recording," I lied. Then I elaborated. "It's a trap. Two tarps, have to guess the right one. Guess the wrong one and you blow up. This one. Move the tarp."

"The tape's already in the machine, you can hit play to start it," the man sitting at the edge of the stairs said.

"Wait, Weaver, stop. Who was that?" Revel asked.

"Who?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"Look to your right."

"Here," the man said. "Let me get that for you."

"He's dangerous," Revel said.

I shook my head a little, releasing the man's wrist. "I appreciate the offer, sir, but let's be safe and make sure this isn't a trap."

I doubt that Cozen can't hold herself together as you suggest, Weaver. So far, she's holding together pretty well

. She doesn't have any problem. The problem is YOU, Weaver, precisely your jealousy. Its not the right time to treat your allies like shit because you're plagued by jealousy, Weaver, don't piss me off. You LEFT Grue not viceversa and its not fair to act like a super-possessive ex girlfriend who want for her former boyfriend to be forever alone only because he doesn't belong to her anymore. Its not fair neither nice towards him. Leave Cozen alone, she's a great woman in her own way and if you ever loved Grue, be HAPPY that he found his happiness. You know better than everyone all the shit he went through, you should see the happiness as something that Grue DESERVES and don't fight it. No, I don't think that Weaver is being pragmatic here. Cozen proved to be a strong woman in her own way and Weaver have no right to treat her as someone who can't handle the situation. This is jealousy talking through Weaver's mouth. Nothing but jealousy, baby

.
I don't trust the unknown guy who offered to help them. He must be a S9 member. Weird that Revel is the only one who believe that he's dangerous, everyone else have no problem with him, except for Weaver who's worried that he might be hurt by a trap. Revel talks with them through communications and she's aware that something about him in not right so his power doesn't affect the communications. Does he have the power to make people believe that he's harmless? That would be a very SCARY power for a S9 member to have. Imagine this guy being like the perfect killer, someone like Imp, but instead making himself unnoticeable, he wins people's trust. Imagine his poor victims being killed by someone they TRUST. This is the definition of the PURE HORROR, more horror than whatever Breed is doing with his trilobites pets

. WHERE THE FUCK IS TATLLETALE WHEN THEY NEED HER (hell, they always need Tattletale by their side, they can't do too much shit without her)? She'll instantly know what is wrong with this guy. Unless he affects her power too.

"Tattletale, are you there?" I asked.

"I am."

"Tattletale?" Revel asked. "Damn all of you. It doesn't matter. Listen, Taylor, Master and Stranger protocols are in effect. Your perceptions are altered, understand?"

I felt my heart quicken a little at that. "I understand."

"There is a person to your right. Not a teammate, former or current. I need you to kill that person, don't ask why, don't think too much about it. Draw your knife."

"I got this. Taylor, do me a favor, give the order to 'go dark'."

"Go dark," I said.

To my left, Grue surrounded himself in thick darkness.

A spray of blood leaped from the man's throat. We each stepped away, and I hurried forward to stop Rachel from backing into the other tarp. We watched in stunned silence as blood poured from the wound.

Imp appeared as she booted the bleeding man in the small of the back. He rolled down the stairs, leaving spatters and sprays of blood as he made his way down, and then collapsed in a pile of bodies. He started screaming, a gurgling sound.

Nice Guy, I thought. I'd badly underestimated the severity of his power. I'd known he would be in their roster, had kept it in mind throughout, even told myself to be ready for him, and then the moment we ran into him, well, he was another face in the crowd. The connection wasn't possible.

"Thank you, Tattletale," Revel said.

"All good."

Ok, I was right about this power of this FUCKER. He's a Master and Stranger. He can make people believe that he's harmless and NICE. He calls himself Nice Guy, after all. He's the kind of guy who will smile nicely, with convince you to become his friend then will kill you with the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP

. The worst kind of power. I already have problems trusting people and very few things scare me more than someone gaining my trust only to hurt me afterwards. I HATE this guy's power, I HATE IT, I HATE IT...If it wasn't for Tattletale, who saved their ass, almost everyone except for Golem would be dead, and nobody would have bat an eyelid because Nice Guy is THE MOTHERFUCKING NICEST GUY AROUND. Tattletale is a life savior and this is one of Worm's universal constant - nobody can argue against

. Grue's power was just as useful as it was when Coil made Undersiders believe that Skitter was a traitor. It showed Nice Guy true power giving them the occasion to kill him. I was wrong when I said that Damsel of Distress clone will be the first who'll die in her fight against the good guys. It was a Nice Guy instead who wasn't nice enough for Tattletale.
I so hate this guy's power "deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep sighs"

"What was he going to do?" Golem asked.

"Probably ask you all to stand there and stay still while he murdered each of you in turn," Tattletale said.

"Yay us," Imp said.

She got more powerful, I thought. She'd been able to speak while using her power. Nuances.

"Press play."

I hit the button.

"This message is intended for Theodore Anders. Kaiser's son. Stop the video here and go find him. Time is of the essence, I should say. How muchessence and time you have available depends on how incompetent you heroes are. Hurry now, I'll wait."

There was a pause, then Jack started speaking. "You missed the deadline, Theodore. Simple game of hide and seek, and you had two years to do it, to find and kill me. You failed."

"That pain you feel, that self loathing? The fear and dawning realization of what you've done? Capture that, Theodore Anders. Hold on to that feeling and use it, because I'm pulling your leg."

"If you fail to kill me, I disband the Nine."

"What?" Imp asked. "What?"

I frowned. Not what I expected.

"No. They're obedient and servile only when I require them to be. If you fail in your task, then I'll give them one last task, to kill the one thousand people we agreed to in the terms of our wager, and then I'll disband the group. They'll be free to run rampant, to do as they see fit. Wreak chaos. I'll take a vacation, sit back with a Mai Tai and watch the show."

"Fuck me," Tattletale said.

"Fuck," I echoed her, agreeing.

Well, fuck, Jack is not original at all. He copies famous fictional or real serial killers 😡. Jack the Ripper, Joker, now Jigsaw (setting traps, leaving video messages for his victims), this man have zero imagination, despite his brilliance. Disappointing "shakes her head". Jack, you're very smart, you hate to get bored, you love originality then...why the fuck you don't try to be original and create your own style instead of stealing other monsters' personal style?
I think is not such a bad idea to disband S9. Jack thinks that they'll be more savage if they'll be on their own but I don't think he's right. If they work alone, they'll be easily located (by Dragon who have eyes everywhere) and get killed. Yes, they'll kill probably tons of people, but acting under Jack's control make them more dangerous. If they're not coordinated by Jack's evil brilliance, most of them are just dumb brutes who can be easily eliminated. Jack is either very sure that his team can handle themselves if left alone -clearly a mistake to have such an overconfidence in his people (who, let's be honest, are not very bright- most of them

) or this is nothing but a scare tactic he's using in order to make Golem more desperate and hopeless. He's very, very good at manipulating people like this. Golem, this monster is just playing with you, thinking that you'll become too emotionally weak to defeat him. Man up, don't listen his poisoned words, find him and kill him with the first occasion. No hesitation, please. A single second of hesitation and you and everyone else are TOASTED. Because Jack never hesitates.

"Five days, Theodore. Noon on the twenty-fourth. I look forward to meeting you."

"The restrictions stand," I agreed. I explained for the benefit of the others. "We treat this as a Simurgh situation. Control feedback, control exposure. Anyone and everyone that potentially comes in contact with Jack could be a factor in Dinah's end of the world scenario. Powerful individuals are especially important in this. The more powerful they are, the more important it is to minimize or prevent contact."

"But what about the nearly-three-hundred lunatic psycho people with crazy powers that he's threatening to unleash on the world?"

"We'll deal with them," I said. "With your okay, Chevalier?"

He fell silent.

"Chicago and Brockton Bay teams."

"I was going to say-"

"Work with me here, and if we're all standing at the end, I'm yours. Whatever you want to use me for, however, it doesn't matter. If this blows over and the end of the world doesn't happen, like some think it won't, then the deal stands."

"Whatever you need," Chevalier said. "You realize we're pinning a lot on you?"

"On Golem more than me," I said. "We're going to cheat our way through this, bend every rule, but it all hinges on Golem being able to hold his own."

Golem turned around and walked away.

"Golem," I said.

Chevalier is too precious for this world ❤. He trusts Weaver, despite her not being exactly a goody-two shoes hero and he offers her his help. I'd fucking RIOT if Chevalier will die. He's one of the heroes that should survive no matter what. Well, surviving against all the odds is not something new for him. He already survived to two huge fuckers, Perdition and Behemoth, he WILL survive to these huge fuckers too

. He's a natural born survivor.
"takes a deep breath" Nice Guy's power is now in my top 3 of most hated powers. The first one is Mannequin's power (precisely how evil Alan decided to use his power as Mannequin), then Nice Guy's power then Heartbreaker's power. All these powers are related to my main fears: fear of mannequins, fear of being betrayed by people I trust and fear for being controlled by people

. Fuck this not very Nice Guy and his not very nice power. Now, everytime when a male hostage will miraculously survive, I'll believe that he's a Nice Guy. Well, Nice Guy can pretend that he's a random hero or villain too, helping against S9 and nobody will even ask themselves who the fuck is this random guy. Fuck Nice Guy and fuck his power. What kind of fucked up power Gray Boy have to make him more scary than Nice Guy because nothing should be more scary than this Master Stranger power?

He was already halfway down the stairs. He used the panels at his waist to form an even footpath, with hands turned at right angles, positioned where he could put his feet on them.

"Golem!" I called out. I handed my phone to Grue, then hurried after him.

"You care about the people who died, and you're thinking about them that way for a good reason. That's not putting you on a path to being like either of them."

"I hear you guys talking about it, and you're right there, in your element. This is something that you've been working on for a long time, and there's almost an excitement to you. Like you've been in a kind of stasis for the entire time I've known you, and only now are you really coming back to life."

"It's not like that," I said.

"You're his nemesis, Weaver. I'm the reason he's here, the reason these people died like this. But you're his counterpart, his mirror. You've got that same excitement Jack has, you think along the same lines, in strategy and counter-strategy. You thrive on conflict, just like he does. And I… I'm not like that."

"You're not to blame for them," I said. "The Nine would have killed anyways."

"I know. I get that. But I played a part in the sequence of events, and maybethese people wouldn't have been the ones to die if I hadn't made that wager with Jack… and I guess I think everyone else that cares has better things to do. You trained me, the others trained me. I- I guess I'm as ready as I could ever be. I'll fight when the time comes, wade through the gauntlet he sets in his wake and I'll succeed or fail. But I'm not a strategist, and these people need someone to mourn them. Let me be useful in my own way, right here, right now."

I couldn't articulate my thoughts.

I definitely agree with Golem. He reads Weaver so good, he's 100% right about her

. Weaver is so much like Jack, she's like a heroic version of Jack. Her personality is very similar in many ways with Jack's personality, the main difference between them is that Jack is a destructive monster and Taylor is a savior and a hero. But they both are: -very excited about conflict and violence (as Golem observed), ready anytime to jump into a fight and accept any challenge no matter how fucked up and dangerous is for them;
-they're both social darwinists, believing in survival of the fitest and the superiority of the strong over the weak. But with a difference: Jack wants to eliminate all the weak people so only the strong will survive (as he personally said), Taylor wants to protect the weak thinking that they can't protect themselves (see her reactions around Parian, Cuff, even Cozen -isn't only jealousy but also a natural need to protect Cozen). Since I'm a huge Homestuck trash, if Jack and Taylor were trolls, Taylor would be a beforus highblood troll (protect the weak trolls) and Jack would be an alternian hightblood troll (cull the weak trolls)

.
-they're both pretty cold utilitarianists but with another difference. Jack is ready to sacrifice anything for the greater good of HIMSELF. Taylor is ready to sacrifice anything for the greater good of other people.
-they both have brilliant minds and are excellent strategists.
-All in all, Taylor is the heroic Jack and Jack is the monster Taylor. The mirror images of what each other could have been if they were to choose different ways.
This Arc is already pretty good

. Golem have the challenge of his life ahead and only the training he received from the "good Jack", his intelligence and willpower can help him against the evil Jack.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

The Richmaster · Dec 2, 2019

Your thoughts here were pretty interesting to see take form.

blackarrow said:
I think is not such a bad idea to disband S9. Jack thinks that they'll be more savage if they'll be on their own but I don't think he's right. If they work alone, they'll be easily located (by Dragon who have eyes everywhere) and get killed. Yes, they'll kill probably tons of people, but acting under Jack's control make them more dangerous. If they're not coordinated by Jack's evil brilliance, most of them are just dumb brutes who can be easily eliminated. Jack is either very sure that his team can handle themselves if left alone -clearly a mistake to have such an overconfidence in his people (who, let's be honest, are not very bright- most of them ) or this is nothing but a scare tactic he's using in order to make Golem more desperate and hopeless. He's very, very good at manipulating people like this. Golem, this monster is just playing with you, thinking that you'll become too emotionally weak to defeat him. Man up, don't listen his poisoned words, find him and kill him with the first occasion. No hesitation, please. A single second of hesitation and you and everyone else are TOASTED. Because Jack never hesitates.

The thing here is that you're working with information that Jack doesn't have access to and also underestimating some of the clones:
1. Jack has no way of no quite the extent of Dragon's surveillance; he'd be aware that she was operating more suits than before but probably hasn't had a chance to think how that effected everything else
2. he is unaware of Cauldron's alliance to stop the end of the world
2.1. He is also seemingly unaware that Bonesaw got Contessa'd
3. While the heroes would be able to clean most of the former members up, you should remember that they wold still be a threat in the meantime; for example let's imagine that a Manton clone was hidden in a city centre somewhere away from cameras. How many people could he kill before the heroes arrived? Jack's threat is basically this sort of scenario happening at dozens or hundreds of location across the US
4. a lot of the clones might have bonesaw modifications to them increasing the threat they represent

blackarrow said:
Chevalier is too precious for this world ❤. He trusts Weaver, despite her not being exactly a goody-two shoes hero and he offers her his help. I'd fucking RIOT if Chevalier will die. He's one of the heroes that should survive no matter what. Well, surviving against all the odds is not something new for him. He already survived to two huge fuckers, Perdition and Behemoth, he WILL survive to these huge fuckers too . He's a natural born survivor.

Okay, first off, I think you're being harsh on Behemoth; it doesn't deserve to be put on the same list as Cody

Second, yeah; Chevalier has an amazing balance of interesting character, cool power and being a moral person while also knowing how to make tough calls. He's one of the few characters in Worm that I've never seen anyone actively dislike.

blackarrow said:
"takes a deep breath" Nice Guy's power is now in my top 3 of most hated powers. The first one is Mannequin's power (precisely how evil Alan decided to use his power as Mannequin), then Nice Guy's power then Heartbreaker's power. All these powers are related to my main fears: fear of mannequins, fear of being betrayed by people I trust and fear for being controlled by people . Fuck this not very Nice Guy and his not very nice power. Now, everytime when a male hostage will miraculously survive, I'll believe that he's a Nice Guy. Well, Nice Guy can pretend that he's a random hero or villain too, helping against S9 and nobody will even ask themselves who the fuck is this random guy. Fuck Nice Guy and fuck his power. What kind of fucked up power Gray Boy have to make him more scary than Nice Guy because nothing should be more scary than this Master Stranger power?

Generally speaking, Masters, Stranger, Tinkers and Thinkers are considered to be the "scary powers" by most of the fandom and that aligns pretty well with the way you described your fears here.

blackarrow said:
I definitely agree with Golem. He reads Weaver so good, he's 100% right about her . Weaver is so much like Jack, she's like a heroic version of Jack. Her personality is very similar in many ways with Jack's personality, the main difference between them is that Jack is a destructive monster and Taylor is a savior and a hero. But they both are: -very excited about conflict and violence (as Golem observed), ready anytime to jump into a fight and accept any challenge no matter how fucked up and dangerous is for them;

Yeah, that's been noted a lot; one of the more well-known fanfics is Weaver Nine, in which they reverse Taylor and Jack's roles... I never actually got around to reading it myself so I can't say if it's good (I got distracted by something a few chapters in and never got back to it; that sort of thing happens a lot with me).

blackarrow said:
-they're both social darwinists, believing in survival of the fitest and the superiority of the strong over the weak. But with a difference: Jack wants to eliminate all the weak people so only the strong will survive (as he personally said), Taylor wants to protect the weak thinking that they can't protect themselves (see her reactions around Parian, Cuff, even Cozen -isn't only jealousy but also a natural need to protect Cozen). Since I'm a huge Homestuck trash, if Jack and Taylor were trolls, Taylor would be a beforus highblood troll (protect the weak trolls) and Jack would be an alternian hightblood troll (cull the weak trolls) .

Homestruck is one of those things on my list of things to read but at my current rate, I'm not sure when I'd actually get to it

blackarrow said:
-they're both pretty cold utilitarianists but with another difference. Jack is ready to sacrifice anything for the greater good of HIMSELF. Taylor is ready to sacrifice anything for the greater good of other people.

And this line reminds me of a line I recently heard, 2why does anyone do anything? Sheer utter boredom", which I find Jack fits more the more I think abour it

blackarrow · Dec 8, 2019

Hello, my buddies. Time to see what kind of more horrors Killing-ton have prepared for our fearless heroes and villains (I googled Killington and, to my great surprise, I discovered that is a real city in US. A real city called like this doesn't sound very good to me and I pray that nothing bad will ever happen to this city and its citizens. But, again, there's another city in US called Hell and if everything is fine with this city then I should not be worried for Killington, right? After all, its not like our world have "people" like S9 traveling from city to city and wreaking havoc in their way, right? I'm curious to know how our Earth- an Earth where powers doesn't exist and parahumans are considered to be fictional characters- is called on Earth Bet or other Earths belonging to Wormverse. Does is have another hebrew letter like Gimel or Dalet or it is known only as Earth Prime or simply Earth? In Marvel universe our Earth is designed as Earth-1218 so it is numbered just like other parallel Earths. I'm very curious about this small, but important to me, detail

). Anyway, I have to admit that I have a deep respect and admiration for everyone (yes, including Cozen who isn't as weak as you believe her to be, Taylor "death glares") traveling through the ruins and terror of Killington with the mission to stop Jack. Everyone is so brave and strong, I wouldn't have not even half of their strength, even if I'll be as powerful as Eidolon+ Contessa+ Number Man. If I have their powers combined I'll still not go there because: I'm a fucking emotional coward who can't stand seeing people massacred everywhere, especially children, and no matter how much of a scary parahuman I'd be, I'll faint in the first minutes I'll step inside Killington

. Powers are not enough, one need strength of mind and soul to go there and face these horrors and still remain sane enough to remember their mission and continue to fight for humanity. I'm not like these HEROES (for example, I had numerous chances to visit Auschwitz and Chernobyl- they're very close to my country anyway- but I refused everytime because I knew that once I'll be there, the shadows of the atrocities/tragedy that happened there will torture me during my entire visit and a long time after that

. I know that I couldn't face them and leave them behind me once I'll go and return from there. So, better for me to stay away from these poisoned shadows than having them tormenting my life. My emotions are usually very strong and maybe this is one of the main reasons why I love the bravery of these characters so much: they have something that I don't have -they can keep their emotions under their control and not let them take the lead (Golem and Cozen seem more emotional type but even they are incredible strong given the circumstances). Hat's off to you, my strong girls and boys. Go and kick Jack and his Nightmares' ass

Sting 26.2

It started at the center of town, a rolling plume of fire, sparks and smoke that seemed to almost lurch skyward, in fits and starts. Each set of charges that went off pushed the flame up through the smoke of the ones that had come before.

Killington was officially gone, the buildings leveled, the bodies and bloodstains scoured from the earth.
Families wouldn't get to put their loved ones to rest the way they wanted, but that was on the Nine, not on us. There was no safe way to recover the bodies, to ensure that there weren't any traps or time delayed tricks in each and every one of the corpses. It also meant Breed's minions were torched before they reached an adult stage.

I bent down and began collecting the pieces of paper. I could feel the raised bumps on the pages as I brushed them free of specks of dirt and leaves. Each set of bumps corresponded with a letter or punctuation mark, which had been printed over the dots in thick, bold, letters.

I gathered the pages into file folders, then clipped them shut, stacking them on the patio chair. I made my way to the patio table, bending down to collect the pages as they made their way to me. The writing on these was different; the letters were drawn in thick, bold strokes, fat, almost as if I'd drawn them in marker. My notes: thoughts, things that needed clarification, ideas.

I was still getting organized when Defiant appeared, ascending the stairs on the far end of the porch.

The heroes are finally destroying and burning Killington. This is the best solution, as I already said. The city was beyond saving, there were probably very few survivors left and these survivors are either Nice Guys or too mutilated to ever be healed without a powerful healer like Amelia. I'm saying something kind of opposite to my principles, but better to kill these people than let them suffer until they'll die because of the sustained wounds (I'm more against prolonged suffering that simply death anyway). RIP, Killington citizens, you'll never be forgotten if the Jackapocalypse will be stopped

. They deserve a fucking monument dedicated to powerless victims of psychotic parahumans (NO, I'm not playing here the anti-parahuman card, far away from me this repugnable way of thinking, I'm just express my hate towards S9 and all the evil parahumans who prey on innocent powerless (parahumans or not because even parahumans can be powerless against these bastards) victims. Evil parahumans are just as bad as anyone else who's evil and have zero respect for human life. But the victims of S9 surely deserve a monument, just like the victims of Endbringers. They're all victims of different type of monsters

.
What the fuck Cauldron is doing in the meantime? Doesn't look like they are trying to help, not at all. I expected them to send at least Number Man, knowing that there are 9 Harbingers that represent a great danger for the heroes and villains involved in this war and Number Man should know his clones better than anyone else. Why Cauldron doesn't do anything yet? They probably expect Riley to betray Jack and give Contessa the control over S9 clones but so far, Riley still struggle against Bonesaw and doesn't seem like she's close to a victory against the monster that keep her prisoner inside her own mind. Bonesaw is still loyal to Jack and I really hate how Contessa doesn't do anything but wait and wait and wait and wait...How much she'll wait? If I didn't know that Cauldron (as bad as they're) want to save the world, then I can almost swear that they want Jack to win and destroy the world (this is how they seem like with their annoying lack of action and help). I still hold onto my (small) hope that they'll finally decide to help the good guys and they probably don't help now because they don't want to mess with Golem's personal fight and create the opportunity for Jack to kill the promised people (including Aster) in the name of Golem. They want to see if Golem can handle the challenge without external help. If he can't then they'll have to help, right? RIGHT

?
Meanwhile, in Cauldron's headquarters:
Contessa: This whole effort to stop the end of the world scenario made me so tired and bored. Especially bored.
Doctor Mother: Same here, my dear. Would you like to play poker while other people are sacrificing their lives to save our ass from total extermination?
Contessa: This is a...pretty good idea. But you know that I'll beat you again, Doctor.
Doctor Mother: I know, I know. I just want a little distraction while people are dying around us, Contessa. Not even our banker's habit to not wear pants can distract me anymore.
Contessa: Glad to help.
Well, at least, they're doing SOMETHING.

"Pyrotechnical's stuff?" I asked, distracting myself.

"And some of Dragon's. Are you ready to go?"

He walked beside me as we made our way down to where the craft had landed. His suit had been augmented and altered, and he now stood a foot and a half taller than he had when I'd first met him. Broad 'toes' on either side of his boots helped stabilize him, while his gloves ended in clawed gauntlets that extended a little beyond where his hands should be. His spear was longer, and both ends of the weapon were heavy with the devices he'd loaded into it.

On his forearms, shoulders and knees there were panels that were like narrow shields, each three or four feet long, each marked with designs like a dragon's wings, or with a dragon's face engraved on the front, mouth open, with red lights glowing from within. Wings on his back served less to let him fly and more to accentuate his movements, a more complex, bulkier system than I had with my flight pack. Then again, I was only a hundred and thirty pounds at five feet, ten inches in height, and Defiant must have weighed six hundred pounds, with all that armor.

I nodded. "But we don't want to stand back and wait when people could be hurt, or when every second that passes is a second that Jack could be making contact with that critical person. Causing a certain trigger event, saying the wrong thing to the wrong individual…"

"I spoke with Alcott," he said.

I drew in a breath, then sighed. "What does she say?"

"The numbers haven't changed dramatically. The window's closed, but not considerably, which suggests a lot of things."

"Okay," I said.

"Ninety-three point eight percent chance the world ends," Defiant said.

"Six point two percent chance we'll pull this off," I said.

"It remains tied to him. If we kill him in the next ninety hours, the chances vastly, vastly improve. Depending on how we kill him, it could mean reducing things to a mere twenty-two percent chance or a one percent chance."

"Every time I think about it, I can't help but think it's a trigger event," I said. "Someone getting a power that finally breaks something essential, or a power without the limits that keep other powers in check. But I don't want to think along those lines if it keeps me from seeing the obvious."

More interactions between Weaver and Defiant. Defiant have a short of flying pack now. Welp, now he went full Iron Man. Speaking about Defiant as Wormverse Iron Man, I think I have candidates to assemble a parahuman originals Avengers team, with a single exception: Thor. So, Defiant as Iron Man (with Dragon serving as his artificial intelligence F.R.I.D.A.Y.), Miss Militia as Captain America, Lung as evil Hulk (I kind of want to see a fight between someone whose power is fueled by conflict as Lung and someone whose power is fueled by rage as Hulk. Its almost impossible to predict who will be the winner but Lung have the problem that once he'll become strong enough to beat Hulk, his power will leave him and Hulk can retaliate easily

), Foil as Hawkeye, Contessa as Black Widow (both of them are badass assassins) but I have no idea about Thor. Any suggestion will be welcomed because I can't let my ideal parahuman Avengers team incomplete like this.
Either Jack will use Scion to end the world or he'll cause to someone such a shocking trigger event that they'll get a power strong enough to let them literally destroy the world. Since he can't do anything to Golem because he already have powers, what if Jack will use Aster for his demented plans? Aster must be now 2 years old, a toddler. They said that children who got powers are more powerful than adults, and we already saw this with Bonesaw and Vista. The younger they're, they're more vulnerable to their Passenger influence and more malleable, they become not only more powerful but more in synch with their Passenger. Aster is very, very young and if Jack will cause her a trigger event, she'll be unable to control her power and she'll probably be powerful enough to break the planet in half with a burst of energy or simply her mind

. What if Aster is the second scenario for the end of the world and this is what Jack wants when he challenged Golem? To scare the poor toddler so much that she'll trigger?
Golem will never forgive himself if this will happen even if it will not be technically his fault. Poor Golem, in this moment, being Golem is suffering

.

Each wore armor in gun-metal and black, with parallels to the standard PRT uniforms I was more familiar with.
Their helmets, however, had three eyeholes, with blue lenses glowing faintly from beneath. Two lenses for their eyes, a third for a camera. The armor was bulky, offering thick protection around the neck and joints, with a heavy pack on the back for both oxygen and for the computers they wore.

I could see Narwhal, standing off to one side, two of the Dragon's Teeth flanking her. Masamune wasn't present, but from what I knew of the guy, he wasn't even close to being a front-lines combatant. They'd recruited him from the ruined area of Japan, a somewhat crazed hermit, and gave him work in figuring out how to mass produce their stuff without the maintenance issues snowballing out of control, like tinker tech tended to do in large quantities.

I looked at the assembled capes. The Undersiders, two Wards teams, the Protectorate, the Guild. Clockblocker, Vista and Kid Win were in the other Wards team. A little older. Clockblocker had expanded his costume, adding some light power armor that seemed primarily focused on holding a heavy construction at his back. Vista, for her part, was a little taller, her hair longer, tied in a french braid that was clipped just in front of one shoulder. She was packing a heavier gun. Probably something Kid Win had made.

Passenger, I thought. Been a while, trying to figure out how to make peace with the fact that you're there, that you're affecting me somehow, taking control whenever I'm not in my own mind. I think we've made strides. I've sort of accepted that you're going to do what you're going to do, whether that helps me or hurts me.

So maybe, just maybe, you could help me out today. Whatever it is you do, whatever motivates you, I can continue to play along, but I need a bit of backup here.

All the lovable heroes are here. Clockblocker. Vista. Kid Win, who's hardly a kid anymore and (sadly for him) not very good at winning a fight. I think he should change his codename as Kid Tech or Tech Wizard (sounds even better once this kid will no longer be a kid

). Let's see how long he'll survive against what will be probable the last fight of his life. I like him and I want him to win and survive but...I'm not Wildbow (cause, if I'd be, all my favorite good guys will survive, lol).
Dragon's Teeth sound like they are pure badass. I don't know why, but everytime when I try to imagine them, I have the fucking stormtroopers appearing in my mind. Stormtroopers with black armors, yes, but still...those fucking assholes

.
I like how Weaver talks with her Passenger. Well, isn't exactly a dialogue because her Passenger can't obviously talk back, its more like a monologue than anything else, but is nice that she's so much in synch with the Queen Administrator and the alien doesn't try to strip her from her humanity as other Passengers are doing with their hosts, which shows how much her Passenger respects her. Yep, as I said before, each Passenger have their own personality, just like humans, and maybe they're Passengers who respect their hosts enough to work with them, instead of subjugating them. Weaver is a good host, conflictual enough to appease the royal Passenger, and the Queen doesn't probably need to control her or doesn't feel like its necessary. Or maybe she doesn't like to turn her host into a mindless zombie. I don't know about the other Passengers, but I know something about Queen Administrator. A Passenger who doesn't try to casually control her host (she took control only in exceptional causes, when she had to save Taylor's life) and treat her like a partner instead of a slave is on my liking. I like Queen Administrator so far

.
Btw, I developed a theory about why Passengers need human hosts. They want to feed from their negative energies they release everytime when they get involved in a conflict. This is the reason why Passengers prefer conflictual hosts (yes, I think they choose people who are already violent, depressed, antisocial, have severe mental problems, because these people usually release plenty of negative energy around them, and these baby alien need this energy as their every day food. They give these people powers so they can fight- knowing that these hosts can easily get angry and aggressive- and they absorb using their alien means the negative energy resulted after such a fight). No Passengers make their hosts more violent, I think, their hosts are already violent people and once they get powers they become even more violent people, appeasing the aliens. Real life, baby, we don't need someone to make us violent

. The violence is in our blood, in our mind, in our very flawed and brutal human nature. Now, if someone will give us permanently loaded guns, how many of us will resist the temptation to use them as we like? I will tell you, not many. We don't have these "guns" yet we still attack each other like we're wild animals in jungle. Fucking human nature (to be fair, humans have a lot of qualities too, but they're also flawed to the core).

A thick white mist lingered throughout an area. It was early in the morning, and that might have played a role, but there were no people. Even for a smaller city like Schenectady, that wasn't so usual. At nearly eight in the morning, there should have been people leaving for work, people running errands.

"We see you," The words were like a whisper, barely audible. "See you standing there. Oh, I do hope you're not Theodore. Tell me you aren't, because it means we get to play all we want."

"Screamer," I informed the others. Early Nine member, psychological warfare, pressure, distraction. Sound manipulation. Her power meant her voice didn't get quieter as it traveled great distances. That wasn't the full extent of-

"Mantis," I said, voicing the password, "Don't respond to her. It's what she wants. Take out Cherish ASAP, if she's here, Screamer after that."

"I'm hurt. I rate second after the new girl who barely lasted a month?"

I could feel the effect as my bugs entered the radius of Winter's power. She wasn't concentrating it, so it was mild at best. Slowing the movements of molecules, cutting down the ambient temperature, to the point that the moisture in the air froze. It also affected my bugs. Torpor.

For anyone within, it would include a mental torpor.

If the only members of the Nine who were present were Crimson, Winter, Cherish and Screamer, then this was a fight that involved attrition. Attacking Russia in the wintertime. Psychological warfare, emotional warfare, the effects of Winter's power… it meant that Winter's guns and Crimson's power were the only physical threats.

They were going easy on him at the outset.

"Let's ensure your friends aren't in a good state to mop up. We'll start with this Weaver. Why don't you cut off your toes, Weaver? Keep you from running after us."

I frowned.

"Oh, you've got an alternative? Something you can cut off or throw away? Yes. Let's put off the self-mutilation and have you throw that off the edge of a building."

Chances were good that she was in Cherish's company, getting information from the source.

Another city turned into hell by S9, Schenectady

. Another day of nightmares for our fearless good guys. I don't like this comparison with Russia because its scare me. We know that Russia is virtually invincible in its element (winter) and we have plenty of historical examples of dictators thinking that it was a good idea to attack Russia during winter then getting their ass kicked by pissed off russians. I really don't want this city infected with S9 elements to become as invincible as Russia, this is way I don't like this comparison. You have 5 days to win and find Jack, otherwise he'll release his monsters upon the world. I call it bluff- he won't do that because he knows that he'll be supremely fucked if he'll remain alone, without anyone to protect him (Jack's true power is in his people, without his people he's vulnerable, with all Bonesaw's safeguards and his personal power, he's vulnerable. He hates to be vulnerable. He likes to be strong. He'll not give up at what makes him strong for a stupid bet. Jack is the man who doesn't know when to give up. Just like Weaver

).
Screamer is already super-annoying with her voice manipulation and her attempt to make Weaver mutilate or even kill herself. She acts exactly like a bully and I'm convinced too that she works with Cherish. She couldn't know about Weaver's old suicidal tendencies since she never met her but Cherish knows thanks to their interactions and her power (besides, we know that the original Cherish had a habit to use her Master power to make people kill themselves). These bitches work together. What a fucked up combination or powers and personalities, cause Screamer's personality seems to not be very different compared with Cherish's personality. Weaver, be strong, don't let yourself be influenced by these monsters. Now you have plenty of reasons to want to live: for your teammates, your friends, your father, the whole world. Fuck, I'm not sure I like this Chapter as much as I liked the previous one. I came here to read about cool fights not supernatural bullying

. I had enough with bullying in the early Chapters (and my personal life) "siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighs".

"What if she tosses it, then walks into the mist?" Golem suggested.

No, not Golem. Her. Screamer. An easier suggestion to acknowledge if I thought it came from a teammate.

"Not buying it, huh?" he asked. She asked.

I want to kill myself.

My own voice, indistinguishable from the one in my head. Fuck me. She had a bead on me, now.

"Aw," Screamer whispered. "Golem's refusing my deal, and Cherish says you're not playing along with the rest of it, so I'm gonna have words with some of the others."

In the midst of a small duplex, there were two young women huddled together on an upper floor. There were computers arranged around them, and each was playing a different video. In some cases, it was the same video playing, just from a different point in time. Me in the lunchroom with Defiant and Dragon. The New Delhi Endbringer fight. Golem on the news with Campanile.

Cherish, why you don't go to your original and keep her company on the bottom of the ocean because all she have are the voices inside her head and she'll probably feel better about her fate if she have a blood sister with her down there

? I mean, this will be the best thing you can do and I'll be eternal grateful to you, have my promise. God, Regent sacrificed his life to save another life and his sister got to survive both as original and as clones. Isn't fair at all

. Seeing how awful Cherish clones are, I feel like I'm missing Regent so much. "sighs" now that you located them, the next reasonable step is to fucking kill them, right, Weaver? I would like to see Winter/Crimson as next enemies, they'll be much more fun that Screamer/Cherish, that's for sure. Anyone is more fun than Nice and helpful hostages or bitches that are trying to make people kill themselves.
Can't believe Screamer actually used Weaver's voice to convince her to become suicidal. That bitch is smart and she's pretty resourceful with her power. Unlucky for her, Weaver was strong enough to fight against the temptation, ultimately refusing to do what she "told herself" to do, despite being initially attracted by the idea. Weaver changed so much during these 2 years and can't say that I don't like (well, there are also parts about her that I dislike, I can't deny it)

.

My bugs had died inside the area of cold. The people inside wouldn't be doing much better. I had to send another batch in. This time, I knew the destination.

And all of that raised the question of what Winter and Crimson were doing. I scanned the building. Nothing on the top floor, or the next lowest. Further downstairs, a number of people were in the sway of Winter's power, their thoughts slowed to a crawl.

The basement of the same building. Winter, Crimson, and their hostages. Some would be the ones from Killington. Others were ones that had fallen into the sway of Winter's torpor. Crimson was feeding on them.

And a hand emerged from the center of the street, large enough that it could hold a car inside it. Crimson paused as he watched it appear.

Golem advanced to the edge of the roof and created more hands, trying to bind the villain to the street. An arm lock, a headlock…

Screamer and Cherish had to know what we were doing, yet they weren't moving. Cockiness?
No. They had to have an escape route.

Finally, evil Elsa and Crimson enter into action

. I mean...Winter and Crimson, that's it

. Now the fight is getting more interesting, no more fucking psychological warfare where a bitch uses her voice manipulation and another bitch uses her emotions control to fuck with people' minds and make them almost commit suicide. Oh, God, this nightmare ended and now I'm blessed to read about Winter freezing everything, including people's thoughts and Crimson feeding from them to power up. Yep, much more better than any Screamer, Cherish and Nice Guy. Yes, yes, yes, thousands of times yes

. Now I like this Chapter, yep. Crimson is such a beast, he's able to destroy Golem's stone hands like they're nothing for him. How many victims he absorbed in order to become so powerful? His power is very ugly, seem to need constantly victims to be strong enough to fight his foes, like a vampire who can't live without drinking the necessary blood. Fuck, I'd rather kill myself than have this power. Some powers are like curses for the parahumans but looks like Crimson is a psycho who isn't bothered at all about his power and the things he's doing with it

.
This city is another compromised city, eh? Dragon have to burn it to the ground after the good guys will finish their job of hunting and destroying S9 clones. Poor Dragon, she started as someone ready to sacrifice her armors to save a villain and now she burns entire cities

. But since she treats this whole disaster as Simurgh quarantine, its part of her program to isolate and destroy the contaminated parts, including whole cities. I was going to say that Defiant's modifications to her program made her like this then I remember that she killed the parahumans affected by Simurgh when she attacked Earth Aleph so its part of Richter's original programming. Poor Dragon though.

Crimson was three stories up the side of the building when Screamer used her namesake power. She could ensure that everyone within a mile's radius could hear her voice as if she was right next to them, and she used it now, producing a high-pitched, full volume scream, right in my ears. In Golem's ears. Everyone's ears.

Bugs flowed into Screamer's open mouth, much as they had with Alexandria.

Stinging bugs attacked Cherish, going for the eyes, nose and mouth. Screamer choked. Somewhere in the midst of it, they managed to give a signal. It wouldn't be Screamer. Cherish? Creating an emotional push?

Her dynamic with Crimson was one of synergy. She captured people so he could feed. He was the front line so she could safely attack from range. She slowed down opponents so he could advance. He was immune to her munitions fire, in large part.

Winter raised her grenade launcher and fired. Golem managed to vault himself away as he had earlier, a shallow movement that was forceful enough to nearly launch him off the building. He rolled on landing as the grenade disintegrated a corner of the building.

Wanton took hold of the bag and emptied it of its contents. Razor blades, caltrops, hooks and my threads joined the miniature maelstrom, and Crimson was slowly bound. He tore some free, but it found its way into his flesh again a moment later.

In that same moment, Chuckles made an appearance. He moved so fast it was almost as though he teleported, appearing beside the two girls. My bugs barely had time to make contact and try to get a sense of him before he was moving again, holding the two villains this time.

I didn't dare hope it would stay this simple. We still needed to find a way to narrow down Jack's location, killing him. He already had an advantage, wearing us down, costing us time, and he surely had some intel on us.

Crimson and Winter were very experienced warriors but they're finally defeated after the combined effort of everyone. Just two of them, they're still 8 more Crimsons and 8 more Winters in other cities. More doomed cities

. At least one Screamer and one Cherish were killed, but they're still 8 more of each. 8 more Nice Guys. Fuck

. And these aren't the toughest clones. Siberians, Crawlers, Manequins, they're the real challenges. At least they aren't 9 Bonesaws. Anyway, this clone wars is already very cool (except when Nice Guys and Cherishs take control over action), the second coolest clone wars after the one against Echidna's clones (so far, can't top that one but looks promising)

.
Nice and exciting Arc.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

KnownParadox · Dec 8, 2019

I'm personally excited. No specifics on whether or not you've passed the point, or at the point, or even before the point of Stuff. But...

Can't wait to see you continue reading Worm.

blackarrow · Dec 9, 2019

Your thoughts here were pretty interesting to see take form.

The thing here is that you're working with information that Jack doesn't have access to and also underestimating some of the clones:
1. Jack has no way of no quite the extent of Dragon's surveillance; he'd be aware that she was operating more suits than before but probably hasn't had a chance to think how that effected everything else
2. he is unaware of Cauldron's alliance to stop the end of the world
2.1. He is also seemingly unaware that Bonesaw got Contessa'd
3. While the heroes would be able to clean most of the former members up, you should remember that they wold still be a threat in the meantime; for example let's imagine that a Manton clone was hidden in a city centre somewhere away from cameras. How many people could he kill before the heroes arrived? Jack's threat is basically this sort of scenario happening at dozens or hundreds of location across the US
4. a lot of the clones might have bonesaw modifications to them increasing the threat they represent

I still think that Jack's threat is a BIG BLUFF. He's not stupid to give up at his people and fight alone because he knows that he'll lose in the next seconds after he takes the decision. Not even Weaver is willing to fight alone and we already know that she and Jack have same mindset (only their moral values and alignment are very different. And the fact that Taylor is a monument of sanity compared with Jack). So, he's bluffing to force Golem to commit mistakes and defeat him more easy this way. Its another type of shitty psychological warfare that Jack and his people are so good at playing with their victims.

Okay, first off, I think you're being harsh on Behemoth; it doesn't deserve to be put on the same list as Cody

Second, yeah; Chevalier has an amazing balance of interesting character, cool power and being a moral person while also knowing how to make tough calls. He's one of the few characters in Worm that I've never seen anyone actively dislike.

Yep, I'm being very harsh with Behemoth. Its stupid for me to compare a monster who put his own personal vendetta over millions of lives with Behemoth. I feel so bad

.

I...actually dislike something about Chevalier. "takes a deep breath" He's not good with... inspirational speeches. Now I'm waiting for the first stone to be thrown at me

.

Generally speaking, Masters, Stranger, Tinkers and Thinkers are considered to be the "scary powers" by most of the fandom and that aligns pretty well with the way you described your fears here.

For me, they're scary and disturbing exactly in this order: Masters, Tinkers, Thinkers and Strangers. Canonically, they have a whole Master-Stranger Protocol (I'm pretty curious about this protocol btw. I bet it sounds like this: don't trust X or Y because they're Masters and they can subtly manipulate you or you're already manipulated by them. Trust your instincts and people who aren't manipulated by these Masters...something like this) so everyone know what a disturbing powerhouse Masters (and Stranger, especially if someone have both Classifications) can be.

Yeah, that's been noted a lot; one of the more well-known fanfics is Weaver Nine, in which they reverse Taylor and Jack's roles... I never actually got around to reading it myself so I can't say if it's good (I got distracted by something a few chapters in and never got back to it; that sort of thing happens a lot with me).

I'm VERY interested about this fafic

.

Homestruck is one of those things on my list of things to read but at my current rate, I'm not sure when I'd actually get to it

Homestuck is good (yep, it have its own plenty of bad moments but is generally good). If you like a story about fascinating characters (both humans and aliens), fascinating worlds, powers, different cultures, incredible twists and turns, very silly and stupid moments, plenty of emotional moments, good (or bad) dialogues, pretty good (or bad) fights, some very evil and frustrating but still interesting villains and fascinating friendship between characters with different personalities/culture and even different biology, then Homestuck is your story

. Reading Homestuck was one of the most exciting, annoying, beautiful, ugly, cool, lame experience of my life

. Hussie is a mad genius. He's like an evil artistic Tinker 1 of our world.
Btw, Homestuck 2 exists. Everyone who is interested can take a look Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon

And this line reminds me of a line I recently heard, 2why does anyone do anything? Sheer utter boredom", which I find Jack fits more the more I think abour it

There are real life serial killers whose main reason for killing was "utter boredom". Jack illustrates perfectly these monsters.

The Richmaster · Dec 9, 2019

Overall, I agree with a lot of what you said this chapter and personally did enjoy the actions scenes and seeing a bit of how the ENE Wards had grown during the timeskip.
There are a few things you commented on that I'm not sure how to reply to without potentially spoiling anything so I'm keeping this brief.

blackarrow said:
More interactions between Weaver and Defiant. Defiant have a short of flying pack now. Welp, now he went full Iron Man. Speaking about Defiant as Wormverse Iron Man, I think I have candidates to assemble a parahuman originals Avengers team, with a single exception: Thor. So, Defiant as Iron Man (with Dragon serving as his artificial intelligence F.R.I.D.A.Y.), Miss Militia as Captain America, Lung as evil Hulk (I kind of want to see a fight between someone whose power is fueled by conflict as Lung and someone whose power is fueled by rage as Hulk. Its almost impossible to predict who will be the winner but Lung have the problem that once he'll become strong enough to beat Hulk, his power will leave him and Hulk can retaliate easily ), Foil as Hawkeye, Contessa as Black Widow (both of them are badass assassins) but I have no idea about Thor. Any suggestion will be welcomed because I can't let my ideal parahuman Avengers team incomplete like this.

For Thor, there are a couple of ways you you could with him:
- He's heroic and a little old-timey - Chevalier
- This is the powerhouse you call when things get bad who means well but doesn't always fully understand what's happening - Legend
- His whole thing is elemental power/storms - Exalt

Eidolon fills the role of Doctor Strange due to being a middle-aged guy with a flow-y cloak who keeps pulling ridiculous powers/answers out of nowhere

blackarrow said:
I...actually dislike something about Chevalier. "takes a deep breath" He's not good with... inspirational speeches. Now I'm waiting for the first stone to be thrown at me .

I don't think his speeches were that bad; they're not great but he kind of ends up with the bad situations to deal with

Also, I was referring to him as a whole rather than any specific attribute; I mean, I'm not saying he's flawless or anything, just that I have heard people who say the really hate certain characters but Chevalier never comes up in those discussions

blackarrow · Dec 10, 2019

Ok, I found my new background image. This is so PERFECT. Exactly how I always imagined Bonesaw. The most innocent looking monster. This picture helped me to understand the meaning of Breadth and Depth, a meaning that I really didn't noticed. Perfect. I wonder if the Passenger's form is headcanon or canon cause it will be really cool if Passengers can modify their form after their hosts physical aspects, trying to look as similar with them as possible for these aliens. All in all, this piece of art is fabulous, I'm officially in love with it 😍.

CREDIT: Abyranss's Art Dump

D'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW (I hate myself for liking cute fanart of such repulsive mass murderers 😭. But I can't really help it)

CREDIT: Abyranss's Art Dump (THIS ARTIST IS SO GOOD, I SWEAR ❤)

All the Undersiders. All of them.

CREDIT: reddit.com: over 18?

All the Undersiders in their costumes this time. I swear, the most innocent Undersider is also the most creepy looking one with her mask one. Ladies and gentleman: Parian and her Mask of Nightmares

(her lover and lieutenant looks so freaking cool in comparison ❤)

CREDIT: reddit.com: over 18?

blackarrow · Dec 10, 2019

The Richmaster said:
Overall, I agree with a lot of what you said this chapter and personally did enjoy the actions scenes and seeing a bit of how the ENE Wards had grown during the timeskip.
There are a few things you commented on that I'm not sure how to reply to without potentially spoiling anything so I'm keeping this brief.

For Thor, there are a couple of ways you you could with him:
- He's heroic and a little old-timey - Chevalier
- This is the powerhouse you call when things get bad who means well but doesn't always fully understand what's happening - Legend
- His whole thing is elemental power/storms - Exalt

Eidolon fills the role of Doctor Strange due to being a middle-aged guy with a flow-y cloak who keeps pulling ridiculous powers/answers out of nowhere

I don't think his speeches were that bad; they're not great but he kind of ends up with the bad situations to deal with

Also, I was referring to him as a whole rather than any specific attribute; I mean, I'm not saying he's flawless or anything, just that I have heard people who say the really hate certain characters but Chevalier never comes up in those discussions

Good choices for Thor and another good choice for Doctor Strange. I think that Eidolon fills the role of a male Scarlet Witch (since she's a late Avengers member) too because his powers are random (he can't choose which powers to use only their utility) and Scarlet Witch's powers are random too (she can only activate her hexes but she can't choose her powers) and both of them have limitless powers. I can imagine Eidolon getting sick and tired of all the shit he have to fight against and screaming to the sky: NO MORE PARAHUMANS! In a non-Worm setting, that will be great but in Worm setting he'll probably end up creating a few hundreds of Endbringers that will kill every single parahuman in the world. Yep, because this is how Worm works

.

You're right, Chevalier is too good for that world. He's more like the classical perfect type of hero than the complicated, flawed, villainous type of hero that Taylor is. There are basically 4 characters that I can't find any single bad thing to say about them (from my POV): Chevalier, Jessica, Legend and Weld. For example, I can say about Vista that she's too fatalistic and pessimistic, about Tattletale that she have an annoying mouth at times and she's a villain, about Gregor that while he's such a good guy he's a mercenary too but I can't say anything bad about the first 4 mentioned people. My friend told me that there are people judging Legend because he was Cauldron. Well, these people are wrong to judge him because once he found out about Cauldron's stinking shit he left, he never remained there a single moment. He didn't know about what Cauldron did behind him, he lived with the illusion that they're shining and ethical heroes, just like he's, he wasn't someone like Alexandria who actively committed crimes for Cauldron, he was an idealistic, naive and total innocent member. Its like a young doctor works for a while in a hospital then he finds out that the hospital staff steal organs from patients to sell them on black market. Its not the young doctor's fault for not knowing, right? I'd have really dislike Legend if he would have choose to remain despite everything and continue doing Alexandria's job but his final decision to leave showed that this man have high morals and he should not be judged for things outside his control

.

PS: There's another person I can't say a bad thing about. Nice Guy. He's just too NICE, I trust him with my life 😀 🤝 😇🔪

= 💀

ImperatorV · Dec 10, 2019

king208 said:
Ward is cruel.

Dude, did you not notice the staff banner at the bottom of the thread? No spoilers, even in spoiler boxes.

king208 · Dec 10, 2019

ImperatorV said:
Dude, did you not notice the staff banner at the bottom of the thread? No spoilers, even in spoiler boxes.

I honestly did not see it, my apologies I've deleted the post.

The Richmaster · Dec 12, 2019

blackarrow said:
Good choices for Thor and another good choice for Doctor Strange. I think that Eidolon fills the role of a male Scarlet Witch (since she's a late Avengers member) too because his powers are random (he can't choose which powers to use only their utility) and Scarlet Witch's powers are random too (she can only activate her hexes but she can't choose her powers) and both of them have limitless powers. I can imagine Eidolon getting sick and tired of all the shit he have to fight against and screaming to the sky: NO MORE PARAHUMANS! In a non-Worm setting, that will be great but in Worm setting he'll probably end up creating a few hundreds of Endbringers that will kill every single parahuman in the world. Yep, because this is how Worm works .

... I want to say more but spoilers

blackarrow said:
You're right, Chevalier is too good for that world. He's more like the classical perfect type of hero than the complicated, flawed, villainous type of hero that Taylor is. There are basically 4 characters that I can't find any single bad thing to say about them (from my POV): Chevalier, Jessica, Legend and Weld. For example, I can say about Vista that she's too fatalistic and pessimistic, about Tattletale that she have an annoying mouth at times and she's a villain, about Gregor that while he's such a good guy he's a mercenary too but I can't say anything bad about the first 4 mentioned people. My friend told me that there are people judging Legend because he was Cauldron. Well, these people are wrong to judge him because once he found out about Cauldron's stinking shit he left, he never remained there a single moment. He didn't know about what Cauldron did behind him, he lived with the illusion that they're shining and ethical heroes, just like he's, he wasn't someone like Alexandria who actively committed crimes for Cauldron, he was an idealistic, naive and total innocent member. Its like a young doctor works for a while in a hospital then he finds out that the hospital staff steal organs from patients to sell them on black market. Its not the young doctor's fault for not knowing, right? I'd have really dislike Legend if he would have choose to remain despite everything and continue doing Alexandria's job but his final decision to leave showed that this man have high morals and he should not be judged for things outside his control .

The four you mentioned are all pretty good options for moral characters in Worm
- Legend is a bit more questionable thought, since he did note that he never really trusted Doctor Mother and did have some suspicions but he trusted Rebecca and David enough to handle it and didn't bother to think more on it

Nobody · Dec 12, 2019

The Richmaster said:
- Legend is a bit more questionable thought, since he did note that he never really trusted Doctor Mother and did have some suspicions but he trusted Rebecca and David enough to handle it and didn't bother to think more on it

On the other hand there's the whole letting the Siberian eat that one guy to stall for time IIRC.

The Richmaster · Dec 13, 2019

Nobody said:
On the other hand there's the whole letting the Siberian eat that one guy to stall for time IIRC.

Yeah, part of me pretty much shrugged at that, due to how powerful the Siberian is, obviously they would need to set things up properly before taking her on... I mean, this is a threat big enough that they called in the Protectorate Big 4 and backup to deal with; not setting up properly risks letting her escape and keep rampaging.

The problem is that they didn't actually know how reality-screwing the Siberian was so they couldn't actually stop her with the information they had at the time.

Legend leaving the victim to the Siberian's ministrations wasn't good by any measure, and he clearly hates that he did so, but he also has a duty to do things as best as possible.

edit: thinking about it, the thing that really detracts from Legend for me would be the whole Battery and Assault thing when considering how skeezy it is in a reread

blackarrow · Dec 20, 2019

Hello, my friends. I'm very ready for another round of pure madness with S9 clones trying to screw our good guys in every way they can: mind control, voice control, emotions control, nice people, vampiric powers, you know, pretty normal stuff if you live on Earth Bet and you're trying to stop evil clones created after evil people from destroying the world

. So, we had Nice Guy, an example of what Breed's power can do, Scream and Cherish, Winter and Crimson and a mention of what S9 It ( better known as Chuckles in the context) can do. We still have a lot of clones of these guys left+ more guys that we still don't know too much about them+ the usual guys that we know but they'll be stronger because the'll be many. I'm sure that Jack will keep Harbingers and Gray Boy to be his last defenses because they're the strongest parahumans in his team. Harbingers have Number Man's OP powers and Gray Boy is S9 Boogeyman. Bonesaw and Hookwolf will be used as Jack's bodyguards in case if his last defenses will fall too. If you're interested to know my opinion about the old new S9 members and their powers so far, I already have a list starting with the scariest one and ending with the least scary and I'll explain my judgement:
-Nice Guy is the scariest one (nothing is more scary than someone winning your trust then backstabbing you. This is almost not even a power because in real life there are plenty of people skilled enough to make others trust them until they show their real face and intentions). Someone like Nice Guy can be scary even without having a superpower

.
-Screamer: she manipulates people using sounds and voices. Her power is scary because if she's paired with someone who know well enough a person then she can use her power to fuck with that respective person's mind and break them mentally/emotionally, like she almost did with Weaver. Plus she make people to lose their trust in each other

.
-Breed/Crimson: their powers are horrible, absolute disgusting and they always have to sacrifice other human beings so they can continue using their powers.
-Winter: her power is pretty dangerous but not as bad as Breed or Crimson. I mean, you can survive if your movements and thoughts are slowed down for a while if you are lucky to not have Crimson feeding from you.
This is my partial opinion about the old new S9 monsters. Lets see if the others who will appear in the next towns will change this list somehow. Anyway, I highly doubt that there's someone who'll top Nice Guy, not even Gray Boy with his PROBABLY time powers, no matter how frightening they must be Sting 26.3

"Hey, Weaver?"

I had to twist around to look at Crucible. We were in the hallway just outside a set of elevators, windows on one side, doors at either end of the hallway leading into offices. This was something of a waiting game, as Tecton and Revel got their teams into position to support Golem.

"I wanted to say thanks," Crucible said, "Appreciate the invite. Hundreds of superpowered lunatics, some of the scariest guys around, and that's not even the scariest part of all of this! But Chevalier's all, 'Weaver specifically asked if you'd help.' How the hell am I supposed to say no to him?"

"It's Chevalier. Important guy."

"-And you've got a thing for Weaver," the Ward I hadn't yet met said. It was a girl, flanked by five shadowy silhouettes of herself, who were sitting around her on the other side of the hallway. I'd read up on her, and I knew her as Toggle. The 'baby' of the team, it seemed, at fourteen. She held what looked like a mace, but it, along with the layered body armor she wore, had circles of light glowing in shifting colors.

"Clocksie," Clockblocker said, deadpan, "Has been the target of a lot of criticism, because he was in charge of the Wards at the time a lot of stuff went down. Some dingbats online speculated that I had a thing for Weaver, and it took off. The people online like to find stuff that fills in blanks, and there were a hell of a lot of blanks around the whole thing with Weaver defecting, and our pseudo-truce with the Undersiders."

Clockblocker ignored her. "-Except we barely even get to do that, because Tattletale's always a few steps ahead. Then, to top it all off, I hear about the Weaver-Clockblocker thing every single day, to the point that it's sad. Salt in a wound."

RIP Schenectady, another city completely destroyed because it couldn't be saved

. Next city, please. Welcome to the team, Toggle. Try not to die, ok? You're only 14, you're a kid. Her power reminds me of Crusader's power. She seems that she can summon shadow clones of herself and switch from one to another, making them tangible according to her choice or something like this. I'd like to see her power in action as soon as possible. But without her dying, ok?
Well, Clockblocker, I'm not like your rabid shipping fandom and I don't ship you with Weaver. Maybe only as friends but I don't personally think that you'll make a good couple. Besides, she already have 2 suitors, Tecton and Golem (again, not canon, but I really hope that one of them will win her heart...."slaps herself" Fuck, what I'm talking about? This is the END OF THE FREAKING WORLD, S9 Clones mutilate/torture/kill plenty of innocents, Dragon burns cities to the ground and all I care is about a girl and her harem of suitors. I deeply and shamefully apologize for my weird-ass mind 😭). Just one last thing: Dennis, be happy. I don't ship you with Taylor not now not ever. Be happy. That's it, end of discussion.
I have a strange theory (more like a comparison with other works). This whole moving from city to city to fight and defeat S9 Clones seem like a descent into Hell to me. With each city of horrors, the fights become more terrible, frightening, the enemies become stronger and more cruel and I'm more and more worried for the lives of the good guys (heroes, villains, I don't care, everyone who fight to stop S9 is a good guy in my books). Yes, I can go so far to compare this whole Arc with the parahuman version of Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. 9 circles of the Inferno and each circle more horrible than the last one (each city is more horrible than the last one). There are 9 clones of each member, except for Jack, Bonesaw and Gray Boy. Each S9 member is more dangerous than the previous ones. At the bottom of this infernal war, there's Jack. The last piece. The most important piece. At the bottom of Hell, there's Lucifer. The King of the Hell. The last Evil. The most important Evil. Jack is literal Satan, without any attempt to make a lame meme. Bet that there will be 9 cities, 9 challenges with Jack being the last and most important one. I know that my theory/comparison is one of the weirdest theories/comparison I had/I made about anything related to Worm but its a too much of an interesting and wacky theory/comparison to not express it here. Again, sorry for my tired mind

. Well, but there's a truth somewhere. The Hell moved from Brockton Bay over the whole earth. Nowhere will be safe for people who can't fight. Do you hear, Bonesaw? Eli won't be safe ANYWHERE. You still have time to change your damn mind, release Riley from her prison and allow her to fight Jack on her own terms. Its not too late.

Doors, windows, cracks, vents, all protected.

I could estimate seven apartments per floor. One on the ground floor, for the building manager. Assuming they weren't bachelor apartments, that suggested fifty-five to sixty people in total, trapped within, along with hostages and an unknown number and composition of the Nine.

"See, I don't think it's the wrong power in the wrong hands," Clockblocker said. "I think it's a joke. Humanity destroys itself, and all these powers, they just open the door to let it happen. It's not going to be some villain overlord or even a monster like Jack who does it. I'm more liable to believe the world ends because of some deluded, fat, pimply faced punk kid that lives off pizza and mountain dew. There's no damn point to it, but sometimes I look at the idiots, the selfish assholes and the maniacs that fill this world and I think that's all we deserve."

"Thank you," Clockblocker said. "For so eloquently demonstrating what I was saying about us deserving it."
"No problemo," Imp said.

"That doesn't exist, does it?" Toggle asked. "Case fifty-three porn?"

"Everything exists," Kid Win said.

Well, Clockblocker, I understand that you're tired, nervous, scared, you lost your hopes but I don't agree with the way you're thinking. You're so fatalistic that you can give a lesson or two to Vista herself. You sound like a very pessimistic asshole who hate humanity

. For every maniac that fill this world, there's a good and sane person. For every selfish asshole, there's a selfless hero. For every evil monster, there's a caring and compassionate human being. The world is not entirely black, there's plenty of white between the black spots. And some spots are even grey, just look at Weaver- she'a not the best hero but she's not the worst person either. You have to think at the good people in the world, these people deserve to be saved, to be protected, to be cherished. You have to fight for them, fight to preserve what is good and beautiful and innocent in your world. You can't lose hope because if you lose hope then you can say that your fight is over. There's no reason to continue fighting if not for hope and not for the goodness that still exist in people. I don't like how this young man is losing his hope. Well, I think Imp supports him not because she necessarily agree with him, but she's Imp and she likes the attention and she believes that if she's edgy as fuck then she gets the attention that she thinks she deserves (kinda funny how someone with Imp's power like attention). Plus, she always like to piss people off and she thinks that if she agrees with Clockblocker and the others do not then they'll be terrible pissed. Clockblocker, either abandon this fight, change your opinions or keep them for yourself. You'll only make others lose their hopes too. Losing hope is not good for their spirit. And remember that you still have a father that you love. You don't really believe that your father deserve to die too after everything you did to save him, right

?
Of course Case 53 porn (fuck Case 53, Irregulars sound so much better) exist. Anything that can be transformed into porn EXIST. For example, if you're really curious to see Irregular porn then you can give Imp a camera, send her to whatever place Faultline and her crew are staying now, and have her record whatever Gregor and Shamrock are doing in their bedroom. Don't worry, she'll be happy to do it, after all she spied on Taylor and HER OWN BROTHER, spying on Irregulars fucking their brains out will be piece of cake for her

. Then you'll have some Irregulars porn to watch in your free time between fights. And maybe Clockblocker will find a more interesting activity to take his mind away from stupid thoughts.

"More wholesome than you'd think," Foil said. "Playing into every stereotype ever, moving in before we'd even been on a date, but it's nice."

"Nice?" Clockblocker said. "Not what I expected. Not that I'm not happy for you, but-"

She shifted position, resting her head on Parian's shoulder. "It's… free. Pleasant. The times between the fights with the brain-shatteringly terrifying god-monsters, anyways. Cooking breakfast, having breakfast cooked for you, going on walks with the dogs, maybe a bit of bodyguard duty while Parian handles a meeting, whatev, picnic for lunch, patrol the territory, do stuff for my University course, whoever didn't cook breakfast makes dinner…"

"-they've got crazy good interior design, what with Parian and all," Imp finished. She made a smug little sound, like she was very pleased with herself.

Golem engaging. 3x Burnscar, 3x Shatterbird, 2x Winter, 1x Skinslip, 1x Psychosoma identified.

"We're going in blind. We suspect there's at least two Mannequins, but that's it. Mannequin specializes in indirect attacks. Catching people off guard, while being durable and flexible enough that he can escape from any situation that doesn't go his way. I hope the rest of you have read up on the other members of the Nine, past and present."

Vista used her power as we got closer. I could see a depression appearing in the wall, as if a giant, invisible finger were pressing into it.

A hole appeared, and a small explosion tore out through the space, opening the hole wider. We staggered, and some of our smaller members were even thrown to the ground.

Nice that Foil is happy with her new life as a villain and with her girlfriend. These girls DESERVE to be happy with each other

. Imp, crazy after attention as I said already. But she's funny so there's no problem for me. Imagine how much they'd have bothered everyone if Regent was still alive. The team they made together was pure fun. For me, of course, because their victims never found them to be very funny. "sighs" Regent...
This whole super sealed building remind me of Mannequin's work. Yes, this is Mannequin's work. Better said, 9 Mannequins' work. The good guys are basically trapped inside a maze of traps and things that can kill. Fuck, exactly what I wanted. Mannequins attacking inside their own playground. Fuck me, fuck S9, fuck Mannequin, fuck Simurgh, what I did to deserve this? WHAT? First city- Nice Guy. Second city- Screamer and Cherish. Third city- Mannequin's building. Wildbow is playing with my MAIN FEARS and THINGS THAT I HATE like they're nothing in his skilled hands. I generally love Wildbow but, in moments like this one, I feel like he pisses me off 🙀.
Btw, my best friend told me something very interesting about Jack's power. She confirmed my theory that Jack have a second power but she didn't told me what kind of power this monster possesses. She just told me that I'll never guess it. Maybe now but I'll still try. His second power seem the ability to influence parahumans to do what he wants, without even questioning their own actions (Bonesaw). Seem like a Master power to me. Knowing that Masters trigger when they feel alone and isolated and knowing that Jack was locked all alone into basement by his crazy parents who also lied him that the world ended, its very possible that he triggered with the first and second power (at the same time) because he was feeling alone and isolated from a "dying" world. But my question is why he couldn't control Number Man, when he was Harbinger and left him? Either Jack didn't really cared about Harbinger leaving despite his very useful power or Habinger was somehow immune to Jack's secondary power. Or Jack can only control weak minded parahumans (or parahumans who are too young to fight his control) and Harbinger's mind was too STRONG for him. Anyway, my theory about Jack's other power is that he have a limited control over parahumans, convincing them to help him, work for him or listen him. Thinkers probably are all immune to his power (he couldn't bring Tattletale under his control, he couldn't convince Harbinger to stay), as well as parahumans with strong mind/will (Weaver).

We were braced for the detonation this time. I kept bugs close to get a sense of what was going on. The moment there was a gap, the air rushed out, cold and wet, and was followed soon after by a crushing manifestation of a small iceberg.

"It's designed like that, to use air pressure and air flow and whatever else to keep bugs and debris out."

"Of course you know that," Imp said. "Because of the bugs."

This was a more refined use of her power. She drew on the exterior of the building, and created a depression, but the goal this time wasn't to create a hole. She extended the depression inward, but she fed enough of the surrounding material into it to keep the resulting walls intact.

It stopped, and she merged it into another wall. I couldn't see the wall, but I could sense it with my bugs. To my eyes, it was a black void, a hole too deep for my bugs to reach.

She paused, then began opening an experimental hole in the far wall. I pulled my bugs back to make it easier for her.

"Murder Rat," Grue said. "Three of her. I can… kind of sense what others are sensing around me, and there's a glimmer of something that might be a teleportation power. I don't trust myself to use it without any ability to sense where I'm going. Breeds… And… I can't even get a bead on this guy's powers."

A man, easily eight feet tall, muscular and broad-shouldered, sitting at a computer chair with one foot propped up on a desk. His chest was bare, his pants no doubt a normal size, but rendered skintight by his sheer mass, left unzipped. He was watching something violent on a laptop as he sat there. The hostages who weren't strung up with chains were in the room, cowering behind him as a full cluster. In the midst of them, there was something that looked like a coffin.

"Entering the fray. Looks like Mannequins, Murder Rats, Breeds and one Hatchet Face hybrid."

I was so caught up in it that I nearly missed it. A figure in the ducts.

We had to walk around in a semicircle before we found ourselves by the elevators and stairwells of the lobby.
The stairwell was framed by two bodies, hung by their feet. No wounds were visible.

I felt with my bugs, and I could sense warmth from them. Still alive.

Breed.

What were we even supposed to do with his victims?

Fuck, Mannequins in the ducts, their favorite method of attacking, looks like. Well, at least wasn't so bad like the first time when Coil was unlucky enough to be visited by the original Mannequin and I was unlucky enough to see that bastard in action. Good for Vista for being armed with something else besides her power. All parahumans should learn how to use fireguns and have these LIFE SAVIOR things with them all the time. Powers are not enough to protect them. If an enemy can't be affected by certain powers but is vulnerable to bullets then use the guns to fuck them up. If they're trapped in a situation where they can't use their powers, then a gun will be their guardian angel. I'm surprised that PRT never trained the parahumans into using fireguns (not for killing but for defending themselves; they can shoot their enemy in leg or hand, for example and they'll be still alive) and hand to hand combat. PRT SUCKS for thinking that if a parahuman have superpowers then nothing can hurt or kill them

. Bullshit, train your Wards/Protectorate like real soldiers, their powers alone won't save them from shitty situations like THIS ONE. But PRT sucked in many ways so...why I'm surprised? (btw Miss Militia must be NRA favorite superhero and the living symbol of the Second Amendment). Guns are cool if you know how and when to use them and Vista and Tattletale seem to understand it

.
The muscular man sitting in front of the laptop (Hatchet Face) must be watching CASE 53 PORN. Guys, you should leave him alone until he finishes his job. You just can't interrupt a man from doing his JOB? That will be rude. Even if he's an evil clone, he still have the right to finish his job

.
What you'e doing with Breed's victims? Kill them. Its the only solution. Hate when mercy killing become the last solution but I doubt that even someone like Scapegoat can save them.

She lashed out, striking, only her target was exposed skin, this time. Vista's face, Crucible's jaw. Bastard's shoulder.

And then she kicked the wall, drawing her shoulders together as she slid between Clockblocker's legs, her nose pointed at the gap in the railing.

Clockblocker shifted his foot to make contact with the long blades at her toes, touching her, and froze her in place.

"My face," Vista whispered.

"Put pressure on it," Crucible said. His own face was bleeding badly, but he didn't even seem to notice.

"It's going to take a long time to heal," Clockblocker said. "Pretty much guarantees a scar. But we stopped the bleeding, which is better than most get."

"We die," Imp said, with an odd cheerfulness. "Horribly, gruesomely. They'll break or sever our arms and legs and cap them with Mannequin's stuff so we don't bleed out, and then they'll let Breed's bugs devour us from the inside out."

I ship Clockblocker with Imp. They both have such a "positive" vision of life

. The difference is that Imp is funny. Clockblocker is more serious but they'll get along. I swear, if Clockblocker's power would have allowed him to keep his enemies frozen as much as he'd like, even for days or years, he'd have been one of the most powerful parahumans on earth: imagine him freezing Eidolon and keeping him like this for years. Maybe only Contessa (because of her precog power) and Number Man (too fast for Clockblocker) would have been stronger than a Clockblocker with unlimited freezing time but all others would have been screwed. Clockblocker had so much wasted potential (because of his Passenger that limited his power) just like Leet (the ability to be the potentially biggest and greatest Tinker in the world utterly screwed by his Passenger). Imagine Clockbloker and Leet having their abilities unrestricted. The actual Triumvirate would be JOKE compared with them. But I'm quite glad that Leet's Passenger likes to mess with him. Leet is NOT a nice person and he'd go all unstoppable mad scientist vs the world if his Passenger wasn't a jerk. Finally, a Passenger did something RIGHT

.
Vista's battle wounds: -the wounds she got after her fight with Hookwolf (and she survived to the mass-murderer nazi with the power to turn himself into almost unstoppable robotic monster wolf).
-the wounds she got after she was buried alive by Echidna (and she survived to Shatterbird, a serial killer with absolute control over sand and glass).
-Shadow Fucking Stalker pinned her to the floor yet she BURNED her with some very truthful words.
-Now a Murder Rat almost dissolved half of her face but she didn't even cried in pain and she continues to help others fighting.
VISTA IS THE NATURAL BORN SURVIVOR. NOBODY CAN PUT HER DOWN. NOBODY. I'll always refuse to believe that this girl can ever be defeated or killed. She's just the most hardcore parahuman that isn't the main character

.
Gosh, I hope that Ward's protagonist will be Vista. She's a Ward, she's unbeatable, she have a kick ass power, she's smart, brave, have a heart of a true hero, she'll be a protagonist that we need and deserve.

Mannequin would be fireproof, though. Even an extreme heat like Crucible could create wouldn't have an effect. Still, it meant one was contained.

Clockblocker threw out lines of silk, then froze them. The dog lunged, and the Mannequins were sandwiched between the dog and the silk.

One had landed on my shoulder. I tried to pull it free and failed, stabbed at the legs with my knife, only for it to fold them into its carapace. It lashed at the lens of my mask with its spike-tipped tail. It didn't penetrate, and rolled off my shoulder before I could get a hold on it.

The others weren't faring a lot better. Crucible shouted something incoherent as he used both hands to stop a softball sized creature from advancing on his mouth. Its millipede-like limbs left bloody tracks in his skin as it made excruciating progress towards the orifice.

It was a critical distraction as we were dealing with highly mobile foes. A Murder Rat leaped up to find a grip on the underside of the stairs we were standing on, then vaulted herself to one side and up, slipping between the bars and into our midst.

Clockblocker paused the most dangerous ones, closest to mouths, anuses and private parts, to ears and nostrils. We backed away as he freed us of the worst of them, and Crucible barred the path with his superheated forcefield.

"I'm not… I'm not useful," Toggle said.

"Different threats, you would be," Crucible said. "Fuck, this stings."

"Go home, Eidolon. You aren't a help here."

"I'm to take orders from the one who murdered Alexandria?"

I hope that Hatchet Face will finish doing his job before he will be killed by the good guys

.
Eidolon, you should not be there. Maybe Jack will find a way to control him and use him against his enemies. Imagine Eidolon in Jack's hands. Imagine Jack being the master over such limitless power. Nope, someone should give a ticket to nopetrain with the destination to nopeEarth

. More nope than having all the Mannequins left lurking in ducts. Eidolon, you should not call Weaver a murderer when you and your dear Alexandria probably murdered thousands of people while working for Cauldron for year. You hypocrite asshole. You and Alexandria are the real monsters not someone like Weaver, besides I'm sure you're responsible for Endbringers' existence (accidentally or not, you'll be still the biggest mass-murderer on the face of Earth Bet if my theory is true). Yet, you talk bullshit about Weaver who's only trying to protect people and warn you of a real bad situation. You're too blind to see that your presence there is not only not needed (the good guys can handle the situation pretty fine) but something bad will happen if someone so powerful like you decide to intervene in matters that should not present immediate interest for you. GO FUCKING AWAY, don't make me hate you like I hated Alexandria (the truth is, I already have plenty of reasons to hate you

).
Eidolon is obsessed with conflict and violence. I know that he wants to be useful but he's too much conflictual especially in bad timing situations (even some of the bad guys are less conflictual than him). A solid proof that his Passenger used his violent nature to create something so utterly destructive and aggressive like Endbringers.

"I'm here to help. That's all. Attacking me now would be like the violation of the Endbringer Truce."

"You're one of the biggest dangers, Eidolon. Jack's supposed to be the catalyst for an event, a great catastrophe. Are you honestly telling me that there's no danger here? That you're absolutely certain that you don't have a weakness he could capitalize on?"

Tyrant.

I recognized the other half of the pair. Hatchet Face and King together.

Untouchable. King's power took any physical harm he suffered and transferred it among his pawns. People he'd touched within the last twenty-four hours. Hatchet Face's power meant we couldn't even use abilities to circumvent it. Tyrant here had the enhanced strength each of the two had possessed, the enhanced durability.

"Are you saying you're blameless, little murderer?" Eidolon asked, just above us. "That you don't have a potential for evil?"

She shot Tyrant, and the bolt pierced his brain.

He collapsed onto his hands and knees, then staggered, starting to rise.

Another bolt through the spine.

A third through the heart.

I waited long moments before turning my attention to the crowd at the far end of the room. They were already moving, running like they could make their way downstairs and escape out the front doors.

I drew my knife, stepping into their path.

"Kept it a secret from you guys, kept it a secret from the public. You can do a lot with a solid forcefield bubble."

"Last chance, Nyx," I told the 'boy'. "Last words? Share a juicy tidbit?"

The 'boy' faded away. An illusion in an illusion. It was only a woman with pale red skin, overlarge black eyes and vents along her hairline, the back of her neck and down the backs of her arms. A fog seeped out from the holes. A small Cauldron emblem was tattooed on her face like a beauty mark.

"Nilbog," I said.

So many things happened in such a short time.
-Weaver convinced Eidolon to fly away but he's still a jerk who see himself as an absolute indispensable hero. Well, you're not indispensable, you jerk. Weaver showed you that they don't need you, especially when they have to fight someone like Jack who's so good at manipulating parahumans.
-Nyx have the power to create convincing illusions. Her power remind me of the power of a villain from X-Men, Mastermind. Two fucking jerks, both of them

. Crucible did good when he killed her. No evil clone should have their life spared. They're evil, murderous, demented, devoid of any humanity clones of some evil, murderous, demented, devoid of any humanity originals. Allow a clone to live and you're responsible for more hundreds of innocents killed by the respective clone

.
-I hate Breed's power but still not nearly as much as I hate Nice Guy and Screamer's powers.
-No power in the world can stop Foil from killing a bastard. Nobody is immune against Foil

. SOOOOOOOOO GOOOOD....that Foil is one of the nicest villains. Imagine Jack having someone like Foil. Any protection/power of the good guys would be a fucking joke for Foil.
-Tyrant wasn't only the Hatchet Face but a Frankenstein monster between Hatchet Face and King. Now we know King's power, kind of similar with Scapegoat's power. Scapegoat can transfer the wounds he took from the people he healed to other people through touching. King can transfer his wounds to other people that he already touched within the last 24 hours. Fuck, how in the hell Harbinger and Jacob managed to kill him? Yes, I know that Harbinger backstabbed him and Jacob gutted him and I think that King didn't touched any of them within the last 24 hours otherwise Harbinger would have been the one with a back wound and Jacob the one with his intestines outside. Cool power for a murderous villain to have. But not cool enough for Foil

.
-Crucible have a villainous power (burn people to death inside his forcefields). NOT A NICE POWER, HERO DUDE. But he's an example of a hero with an ugly power just like Mannequin is a villain with one of the most useful and beneficent powers. Not the powers matter but the person that is using them. Good guys can have the worst powers, bad guys can have the best powers. The powers are not evil or good. Their users are the ones who are either evil or good

.
-Jack is going to recruit Nilbog. I'm stuck between YAY and OH SHIT. YAY because I was right when I said that Jack made a big mistake for not recruiting Nilbog and now Jack is decided to correct it, OH SHIT because....oh shit. Well, its going to be pretty funny if Nilbog will be like: NO and attack S9 Clones, including Jack, but Jack have his own methods to convince people to join him or at least to consider the possibility.
-Next Chapter...welcome to Nilbog Hill? Good guys walking deeper into the Otherworld? I'll listen this during the whole reading and liveblogging

PERFECT for the mood.
Good night and sleep well, my friends.

Unaligned Player · Dec 20, 2019

blackarrow said:
Well, Clockblocker, I understand that you're tired, nervous, scared, you lost your hopes but I don't agree with the way you're thinking. You're so fatalistic that you can give a lesson or two to Vista herself. You sound like a very pessimistic asshole who hate humanity . For every maniac that fill this world, there's a good and sane person. For every selfish asshole, there's a selfless hero. For every evil monster, there's a caring and compassionate human being. The world is not entirely black, there's plenty of white between the black spots. And some spots are even grey, just look at Weaver- she'a not the best hero but she's not the worst person either. You have to think at the good people in the world, these people deserve to be saved, to be protected, to be cherished. You have to fight for them, fight to preserve what is good and beautiful and innocent in your world. You can't lose hope because if you lose hope then you can say that your fight is over. There's no reason to continue fighting if not for hope and not for the goodness that still exist in people. I don't like how this young man is losing his hope. Well, I think Imp supports him not because she necessarily agree with him, but she's Imp and she likes the attention and she believes that if she's edgy as fuck then she gets the attention that she thinks she deserves (kinda funny how someone with Imp's power like attention). Plus, she always like to piss people off and she thinks that if she agrees with Clockblocker and the others do not then they'll be terrible pissed. Clockblocker, either abandon this fight, change your opinions or keep them for yourself. You'll only make others lose their hopes too. Losing hope is not good for their spirit. And remember that you still have a father that you love. You don't really believe that your father deserve to die too after everything you did to save him, right ?

1 Hating Humanity on a basic level is perfectly reasonable.
2 Benevolence does exist but is comically outnumbered and outweighed by Malevolence and Ambivalence.
3 Hope for a better future is not required to struggle on to make it a reality, and quite frankly I find the insinuation insulting.
4 Yes it would be wise for Clock not to share these thoughts as not many people are capable of being Determined Defeatists'.

blackarrow · Dec 20, 2019

The Richmaster said:
Yeah, part of me pretty much shrugged at that, due to how powerful the Siberian is, obviously they would need to set things up properly before taking her on... I mean, this is a threat big enough that they called in the Protectorate Big 4 and backup to deal with; not setting up properly risks letting her escape and keep rampaging.

The problem is that they didn't actually know how reality-screwing the Siberian was so they couldn't actually stop her with the information they had at the time.

Legend leaving the victim to the Siberian's ministrations wasn't good by any measure, and he clearly hates that he did so, but he also has a duty to do things as best as possible.

edit: thinking about it, the thing that really detracts from Legend for me would be the whole Battery and Assault thing when considering how skeezy it is in a reread

Yep, Legend kind of bothered me when he let that guy die but I understand his reason- he didn't have much of a choice left. That was the only bad stuff that he ever did. But he couldn't save that guy because Siberian was too powerful and unbeatable for him. Legend is like a parahuman Superman but Siberian was impossible to be defeated as long as Manton was alive. Legend was unable to save that guy without risking to get killed himself by Siberian. Then Siberian would have killed that guy too. Besides, as you said, he didn't know too much about Siberian or about Manton. He worked with the few information he had at the moment.
Battery and Assault didn't bothered me at all. Yes, Ethan was a little annoying with the way he choose to express his crush for Jamie but he was ultimately a sweet, funny and good with children guy (Jamie accepted his love and they're happy together...lucky girl

). Why should I be bothered when he made her such a happy woman until the moment when she tragically died? "sighs" where is my bad boy turned hero now? I miss him, he must feel worse than Dennis is feeling.

blackarrow · Dec 20, 2019

Unaligned Player said:
1 Hating Humanity on a basic level is perfectly reasonable.
2 Benevolence does exist but is comically outnumbered and outweighed by Malevolence and Ambivalence.
3 Hope for a better future is not required to struggle on to make it a reality, and quite frankly I find the insinuation insulting.
4 Yes it would be wise for Clock not to share these thoughts as not many people are capable of being Determined Defeatists'.

1) I generally love humanity (even if I don't usually trust people) and in MY opinion Dennis is wrong. Some people that I trusted hurt me very much but this doesn't mean that I should stop loving humanity and wishing it the best.
2) There are more good people (even gray people) than evil people both in our world and in Dennis's world. Even Cauldron, despite acting like total monsters, have ultimately good purposes (if we're to believe Doctor Mother). Cauldron are some of the grayest people you can ever imagine to exist (more black than white but the white is still visible at times if you look very, very, very close).
3) If Dennis and everyone else will stop fighting for a better future then Jack will win and a future will stop existing. Only hope and concern for others can determinate someone to fight to make things better, once they lost the hope and they stop caring then they lost everything. Hope that you'll survive, hope that you'll save your loved ones, hope that you'll save strangers who doesn't mean nothing for you but ultimately they're fellow human beings who probably deserve to be saved.
4) I'm an optimistic person and pessimistic/fatalistic people depress me. Dennis depressed me because such a young man like him should not think like this. I understand him but I hated his mindset. Thanks God with Aisha, she's not very optimistic either (or she pretends not to be just to piss people off) but she was funny and she made me laugh.

Unaligned Player · Dec 20, 2019

blackarrow said:
1) I generally love humanity (even if I don't usually trust people) and in MY opinion Dennis is wrong. Some people that I trusted hurt me very much but this doesn't mean that I should stop loving humanity and wishing it the best.
2) There are more good people (even gray people) than evil people both in our world and in Dennis's world. Even Cauldron, despite acting like total monsters, have ultimately good purposes (if we're to believe Doctor Mother). Cauldron are some of the grayest people you can ever imagine to exist (more black than white but the white is still visible at times if you look very, very, very close).
3) If Dennis and everyone else will stop fighting for a better future then Jack will win and a future will stop existing. Only hope and concern for others can determinate someone to fight to make things better, once they lost the hope and they stop caring then they lost everything. Hope that you'll survive, hope that you'll save your loved ones, hope that you'll save strangers who doesn't mean nothing for you but ultimately they're fellow human beings who probably deserve to be saved.
4) I'm an optimistic person and pessimistic/fatalistic people depress me. Dennis depressed me because such a young man like him should not think like this. I understand him but I hated his mindset. Thanks God with Aisha, she's not very optimistic either (or she pretends not to be just to piss people off) but she was funny and she made me laugh.

1 Hating humanity and wishing it the best are very much not mutualy exclusive.

2 Even should the forces of Benevolence outnumber the forces of Malevolence, the forces of Malevolence are still very much in charge of the grand scheme, and the forces of Ambivalence will just allow everyone to carry on towards the same downward spiral.

3 I quite frankly find your insulation that hope is the Only way for a person to work towards a better future insulting.

4 Yeah most people depend on the delusion of optimism to function so I agree Dennis should probably keep it to himself.

blackarrow · Dec 21, 2019

Unaligned Player said:
1 Hating humanity and wishing it the best are very much not mutualy exclusive.

2 Even should the forces of Benevolence outnumber the forces of Malevolence, the forces of Malevolence are still very much in charge of the grand scheme, and the forces of Ambivalence will just allow everyone to carry on towards the same downward spiral.

3 I quite frankly find your insulation that hope is the Only way for a person to work towards a better future insulting.

4 Yeah most people depend on the delusion of optimism to function so I agree Dennis should probably keep it to himself.

1) But the problem with Dennis is that he seem to hate humanity and doesn't wish it the best. On the contrary, he said that it deserves whatever will happen with it, meaning that he doesn't even care if they will win and saved it or they will fail and doom it. Not even Taylor was ever so fatalistic as Dennis which is quite sad because Dennis was a fun and pleasant guy. He changed a lot as people around him noticed

2) When you said that forces of malevolence are working against the world I suppose you are referring exclusively at the Worm universe not the real world because there are not such thing like forces of malevolence working against us unless you believe in conspiracy theories. As for these forces of malevolence in Worm, I can see just two and humanity is not responsible for either of them. Jack and his gang (you just can't blame the humanity because these monsters exist- they are the ones responsible for their decisions and actions. Ok, you can blame the environment they grew into but even so humanity is not to be blamed for what Jack's parents did to him or for Winter being turned into a child soldiers). People who tormented them were the bad apples, the few assholes that exist, unfortunatelly, only to make other people lives a mysery. Also, their option to evolve into monsters belonged only to them, they were plenty of people with a horrible childhood who became good persons once they reached the aduldhoood, depends of each individual.
If you are referring- by forces of malevolence- at Passengers conspiring against humanity, well, its not humanity's fault for them. Not humans created them or allowed them to manipulate them like puppets. This is beyond any human control- you can't really blame humanity for these alien bastards probably working against it. Eidolon might be responsible for Endbringers but it was still his Passenger fault for their creation, not his, unless he created them on purposes not acccidentally.
All in all, I don't see how humanity, as a whole, is responsible for any of these evils so it doesn't really deserve to perish.
3) My mistake, hope and/or the love they hold for the most important people in their lives is what should make a person working for a better fluture. Probably, their own desire to survive too. Dennis is hopeless and he seems to not care about his loved ones anymore either but I guess that his desire to survive is what make him keep going. But still is very depressing hearing him saying those things.
4) If I were there I would have bitch slapped him until he will stop saying bullshit. I wouldn't want such openly fatalistic people in my team. I also noticed that Vista doesn't sound so fatalistic anymore or she is just keeping her opinions for herself. Smart girl.

The Richmaster · Dec 21, 2019

blackarrow said:
Well, Clockblocker, I'm not like your rabid shipping fandom and I don't ship you with Weaver. Maybe only as friends but I don't personally think that you'll make a good couple. Besides, she already have 2 suitors, Tecton and Golem (again, not canon, but I really hope that one of them will win her heart...."slaps herself" Fuck, what I'm talking about? This is the END OF THE FREAKING WORLD, S9 Clones mutilate/torture/kill plenty of innocents, Dragon burns cities to the ground and all I care is about a girl and her harem of suitors. I deeply and shamefully apologize for my weird-ass mind 😭). Just one last thing: Dennis, be happy. I don't ship you with Taylor not now not ever. Be happy. That's it, end of discussion.

Friendship is the best ship

blackarrow said:
I'm surprised that PRT never trained the parahumans into using fireguns (not for killing but for defending themselves; they can shoot their enemy in leg or hand, for example and they'll be still alive) and hand to hand combat. PRT SUCKS for thinking that if a parahuman have superpowers then nothing can hurt or kill them . Bullshit, train your Wards/Protectorate like real soldiers, their powers alone won't save them from shitty situations like THIS ONE. But PRT sucked in many ways so...why I'm surprised? (btw Miss Militia must be NRA favorite superhero and the living symbol of the Second Amendment). Guns are cool if you know how and when to use them and Vista and Tattletale seem to understand it .

The wards were spcificall meant o not be soldiers

blackarrow said:
What you'e doing with Breed's victims? Kill them. Its the only solution. Hate when mercy killing become the last solution but I doubt that even someone like Scapegoat can save them.

blackarrow said:
-Weaver convinced Eidolon to fly away but he's still a jerk who see himself as an absolute indispensable hero. Well, you're not indispensable, you jerk. Weaver showed you that they don't need you, especially when they have to fight someone like Jack who's so good at manipulating parahumans.

blackarrow · Dec 21, 2019

AN ADORABLE VISTA FOR YOUR SOUL ❤

CREDIT: Gay idiot (u/Uberpigeon) - Reddit

AN EXCELLENT PORTRAYED SKITTER 🐝

CREDIT: Ari Ibarra (u/ariirf) - Reddit

BADASS TRIUMVIRATE DOING BADASS STUFF

CREDIT: christoefour (u/christoefour) - Reddit

THE MOST ACCURATE TOGGLE FANART

CREDIT: DrStalker
LOVE IT, MAN

Let's read Worm and its sequel Ward by Wildbow (One chapter/every day)

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