CaesriusPolybius
Worldgate Mechanic
- Location
- United States. Ish.
Anytime you think that, question it! Just use this helpful question:
Do Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo?
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Marsyas
- Start date
Do Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo?
- Location
- Australia
I've heRd that before but I don't remember the reference.
- Location
- Australia
That is a completely grammatically correct sentence.
- Location
- Australia
It's a perfectly cromulent sentence.
CaesriusPolybius
Worldgate Mechanic
- Location
- United States. Ish.
It actually is perfectly valid. Using synonyms gives you this: "Do Buffalo bison that Buffalo bison bully, bully Buffalo bison?"
(which, while also grammatically valid, is worse, so shuffling word order slightly gives you this: "Do bison from Buffalo NY that bison from Buffalo NY bully, bully bison from Buffalo NY?" )
Oh founding fathers, why the fuck didn't you switch to Latin when you had the chance?
Information: Thread Locked For Review of Comments
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
thread locked for review of comments
Due to people not being able to keep it in their pants when dealing with underaged characters and shipping, I am locking the thread for review.
Stop: Never do this again
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
never do this again
You have just spent some sixteen hundred words making suggestive, and often as you yourself described them puerile, comments about a trio of underaged characters. This is an absurdly flagrant violation of Rule Six, and as such will be earning you 75 [EDIT: Reduced to 50 on Appeal] points and a two week threadban. Any further misbehaviour in this thread will result in a permanent threadban.
thread policy
The thread is reopened, with a new banner above the reply box. Read it,read it again, and then make sure you follow it.
Last edited by a moderator:
VorpalMedia
Inter-Dimensional Techie
- Location
- Wonderland Data Nexus 472b
I've seen them used on SB. In particular on A Skittering Heart (Worm/Kingdom Hearts) and Queen of Blood (Worm/Castlevania).
This on is a bit vague as it gives the impression that any shipping is bad.
- Location
- Australia
Probably just the more "lewd" variety that Datcord was engaged in, as amusing as it was.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Just don't go overboard, yeah? There's plenty of shipping that can stay within the rules, so long as you don't make the kind of posts that I infracted above.
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Mandabar
Waifu of choice is Rem. Give that girl some hugs!
- Location
- Florida, USA [Yes. Florida *FacePalm*]
Huh well then.
I'll miss his insightful analysis on the rest of the plot points till his threadban is over.
I guess he went past the line that he tries to not go over.
I'll miss his insightful analysis on the rest of the plot points till his threadban is over.
Obviously he either needs to do it on SB or Marsyas needs to wait until the threadban is over before he posts another chapter.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Finally making progress on the next chapter.
Here, have a tiny snippet, wherein Taylor and Vicky are meeting their new trainer:
Here, have a tiny snippet, wherein Taylor and Vicky are meeting their new trainer:
Vicky still wasn't happy to be here, and it showed a little in her attitude. She regarded Egalité with an annoyed look. "So what's your power, anyway?" she asked.
"Proportionate response."
I blinked. Proportionate response? What kind of superpower was that? "What?"
Egalité grinned. "You'll see."
"Proportionate response."
I blinked. Proportionate response? What kind of superpower was that? "What?"
Egalité grinned. "You'll see."
3.5 - Rivals
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
3.5 - Rivals
Disclaimer: The following is a fanfic. Worm belongs to Wildbow. The Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha franchise is owned by various corporate entities. Please support the official release.
Thanks to @Cailin for beta-ing!
----------------
Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, and after my first full week of classes at Arcadia High, I was starting to think I could get used to being happy, and actually enjoying school. Given my past experience, that probably meant the other shoe was going to drop any minute now. … There was supposed to be an Endbringer attack some time next month.
God, that was morbid.
The week had been nice. I'd spent a lot of time with Vicky and Amy, and sometimes Dean came along. The first time he did, Vicky jokingly called it a double date. It was really embarrassing, but I knew she didn't mean anything by it, and she apologized when she saw how uncomfortable it made me and Amy. Also, it turns out there are more places to eat in Brockton Bay than just Fugly Bob's.
On Friday, we'd gone to Big Rico's Pizza, which was about a block and a half away from the downtown PRT Headquarters. Big Rico's had been there for eleven years now, and he claimed he never had any trouble from the gangs. Being close to the PRT Headquarters probably helped. It was really good. The man knew his pizza, and even if he didn't do anything too complicated, it was made to order, all the ingredients were fresh, and everything was made from scratch.
About the only thing making my week less than absolutely amazing was the fact that I was still waking up with full-body pain in the middle of the night. My eyes weren't hurting anymore, and it didn't hurt as much as it had before I'd gone to Philly, but it still sucked.
I woke up at 9:00 on Saturday morning. Correction: I woke up at 6:00 to Raising Heart's alarm, rolled over and went back to sleep until 9:00. For once, I wasn't a crippling mess of social anxiety spending all my time dreading the end of the weekend. It was a new experience for me, and I was determined to enjoy it for as long as it lasted.
I went through my normal Saturday routine. Shower, running, what should have been increasingly punishing exercise routines that were now barely making me sweat, brunch with dad, and a day spent doing four things at once. Yes, four; I was running four mental partitions now. I couldn't actually hold the fourth comfortably in full combat situations, but I realized yesterday that there was no reason I couldn't just collapse the fourth partition to free up mana and mental processing power when I needed to, and I had felt a little silly for not realizing it sooner.
1st partition: my actual awareness inside of my physical body, where I spent the afternoon doing my homework; 2nd partition: dedicated Image Training with Raising Heart in aerial combat; 3rd partition; continuing to refine my spell design work, trying to get all the potential bugs out of my new spells before I tried using them for real; 4th partition: keeping up on current events, browsing PHO, exchanging emails with Vista and occasionally texting Vicky and Amy.
The world was still what it was. Disaster relief was still ongoing for Tokyo after Behemoth's last attack; a good quarter of the Minato Ward had been turned into a blasted, radioactive wasteland, but the defending capes -- with assistance from the Protectorate -- had managed to drive him off before he could do worse, and they'd taken surprisingly few casualties for a Behemoth attack. The Slaughterhouse Nine were still on the loose. The daytime talk shows were all still dogpiling on Mouse Protector for the comment she made on Thursday poking fun at a formerly cheerful ward who had reinvented himself as a 'grim, angsty, serious' hero. It wouldn't have been a problem if there hadn't been a teenage boy secretly filming the whole thing with his cell phone. The internet was mostly taking Mouse Protector's side, particularly after the newly renamed 18 year old hero 'Bloodstryke' responded with an extended angry rant culminating with the words, "YOU DON'T GET IT! I'M DEEP NOW!" but it was still hard on PR. The official who had approved the name 'Bloodstryke' had been fired, but Bloodstryke was sticking with the name. Also, they weren't allowing news crews near the crash site in Quebec anymore, and given the information I'd shared with Dragon immediately before the news cameras were sent away, I wasn't sure if I should be worried or not.
Vicky showed up at the house at about 5:00, and it was only after I let her in and we walked into the living room that it occurred to me that I hadn't actually told Dad exactly who my new friends were. He knew their names were Vicky and Amy, but I hadn't actually spelled it out for him. Turns out, he'd connected the dots. Or maybe Raising Heart had told him.
"Hey Dad," I said.
He was sitting at the table by the sliding glass door doing some paperwork for his job with the union, and he looked up at the sound of my voice. "Taylor. Raising Heart."
"Hello, Danny," Raising Heart said. "Does your evening go well?"
Dad smiled. "Pretty well. Just working out the details of the new contract for the guys. Thanks for your help with that, by the way."
"You're welcome."
Raising Heart was helping Dad with his Union work? Huh. "Dad," I said, gesturing to Vicky, "this is Vicky. Vicky, this is my dad."
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Hebert," Vicky said
He rose to his feet with a smile and extended a hand. "It's an honor, Ms. Dallon," he said.
Vicky shook Dad's hand. "Did Taylor tell you I was going to be here today?" she asked.
Dad looked my way with an amused smile. "She told me her friend Vicky was coming over," he said.
"But not that her friend Vicky was Victoria Dallon?" Vicky asked. She shot me an amused look.
"Not in so many words, but when she told me about her new friends Vicky and Amy who went to Arcadia, I put it together."
I blushed and took a sudden and keen interest in my shoes. "... I was sure I'd mentioned it," I muttered.
"I thought you weren't supposed to start forgetting things until you were my age," Dad said.
I rolled my eyes, but didn't otherwise comment on the lame dad joke.
"We are still working out improved communication protocols between my Master and her father," Raising Heart said.
"I hear those are important," Vicky said dryly.
I blushed. "We'd better go," I said. We actually still had time, but I didn't want to give Dad and Raising Heart time to do more tag-team teasing.
"Be safe, Taylor," Dad said, giving me a serious look. "No fighting giant plant monsters without telling me first."
"Dad, I'll be fine. We're just going to train with some Boston Protectorate capes. And Glory Girl is going to be with me! I'll be perfectly safe."
Dad didn't look convinced. "I'm serious," he said.
"All right," I said, "I'll call before I fight any giant plant monsters."
"Or giant kittens," Dad said.
"Or giant kittens," I echoed dutifully.
"Or giant toddlers," Dad said.
"Now you're just making things up," I said, and turned to walk out the door.
Vicky watched the two of us with a smile on her face, but she followed after me.
"Or giant Stay Puft marshmallow men!" Dad called behind me. "Have fun, Taylor!"
"I will," I called. Then I shut the door and gave Vicky a longsuffering look.
Vicky just grinned. "Your dad seems nice," she said.
An exasperated sigh was my only reply.
Armsmaster's predicted travel time for Vicky to get from Brockton Bay to the Boston Protectorate headquarters was disturbingly accurate. It took us about 17 and a half minutes, with an average airspeed of 281.635 kph. Raising Heart plotted us a straight line course, which was probably for the best; we were going fast enough that Vicky's reaction times were just too slow for effective short-range maneuvering. Mostly our course followed Interstate 95, though we had to stay lower than we normally would have because of the planes landing at Logan International Airport. Seeing planes landing and taking off from above made me grin, and when I glanced at Vicky, I saw that she was grinning, too.
God but flying was awesome. And Boston was gorgeous, especially at night, and it was easy to get distracted just marveling at the brilliant city lights and the flow of cars-as-light through the streets. This high up, the sounds of the city were a distant, muted thing, but as we descended toward the roof of the Protectorate building, we could start to hear the honking of horns and the general buzz of the city.
[Raising Heart,] I said, [Open communications to Boston Protectorate Console.]
There was a slight click as she connected me to the local Console. [Comm channel open.]
"Console, this is Starfall and Glory Girl from Brockton Bay, requesting permission to land at the Protectorate Headquarters."
An unfamiliar woman's ringing soprano voice answered me: "Starfall, Boston Console. Permission granted. Please proceed to the helipad on the roof. You'll be met by a PRT officer and escorted from there. Over."
"Thanks, Console," I said. I wondered if I should add 'over' to the end of that, but by the time I'd come up with an answer, too much time had passed for it to still matter.
The Boston Protectorate Headquarters was just across Sudbury Street from the John F. Kennedy Federal building; it and the PRT headquarters (which was across Congress Street from the Protectorate building) were twin art-deco fortresses in the middle of Downtown Boston connected by a dramatic aerial bridge that spanned Congress Street to allow access between the buildings. It was honestly a little weird seeing the two buildings right next to each other like that; I was more used to seeing the physical separation between the two that we had in Brockton Bay.
We landed on the helipad on the roof of the 16-story Protectorate building; a man in a PRT uniform was waiting for us, and he nodded to us each as we landed. "Starfall and Glory Girl?" he asked.
"That's us," Vicky replied.
"If you'll come with me, we'll get you through the security screening as quickly as possible."
What else were we going to do? We followed him.
By the time we got through the security check, there were only 15 minutes before we were supposed to start with the brute training. The PRT officer led us into a training room where a very metal young man was waiting for us. No, really. As in 'made of metal.' Literally. His skin was a dusky dark grey metal with silver eyes and silver outlining his musculature. Build-wise, I guess he was a lot like Carlos if Carlos was made of metal?
"Glory Girl and Starfire?" he asked.
"That's them," the PRT officer replied.
Vicky and I exchanged glances. "Starfall," I corrected.
"Starfall. Sorry about that. I'm Weld. I hear you two are going to be training with Egalité today."
"Apparently," Vicky said.
"I'll be her assistant," Weld said, either not picking up on Vicky's desire to be elsewhere or just deciding not to comment. "Always nice to see more people with super-strength coming in for training. A lot of us underestimate just how useful it can be."
Vicky and I exchanged glances for the second time in as many minutes. "I thought this program was being run by Dr. Armstrong?" I asked.
Weld raised an eyebrow. "Dr. Armstrong is the director of the Boston PRT," he said. "He doesn't personally conduct the training of parahumans."
"Oh," I said, and let the subject drop. "Have you gone through this program yourself?" I asked.
Weld nodded. "Going through it right now, actually. We started last month."
"What do you think of it so far?"
"Egalité knows what she's doing. Her power makes it easier."
Vicky still wasn't happy to be here, and it showed a little in her attitude. She regarded Weld with only barely concealed impatience. "What is her power, anyway?" she asked. While she was speaking, the door to the training room hissed open.
"Proportionate response," said a woman's French-Canadian accented voice from the door.
Proportionate response? What kind of superpower was that? I turned to look at the source of the voice. "What?"
Egalité was a tall, muscular woman in a blue and white armored bodysuit with a mask and cowl that hid her hair and left the bottom half of her face exposed. She grinned when she saw that she had our attention. "You'll see," she said.
Why hello there, sinking feeling. Welcome back; it's almost like we're getting to be old friends.
After the introductions were done, Egalité looked at us thoughtfully. "I understand that you have been training on your own before coming here. Would you mind showing me what you've been doing?"
"Sure," I said.
We talked her through our normal routine as we did it, going through our warm-ups first: stretches, a couple laps around the training room, some of the normal exercises. "We've been working with Raising Heart to learn a style of martial arts," I said as we finished the warm-ups.
"This 'Raising Heart' is your teacher?" Egalité asked.
"Yes," Raising Heart said from her position just below my neck, her gem glowing in time to her words; even though I was in costume with my barrier jacket, I'd had her in her pendant form. "Though I'm better suited to the teaching of the theory and practice of aerial combat, I can also serve as a teacher for Strike Arts."
Egalité's reaction was odd. It wasn't quite surprise, and not recognition exactly, but Raising Heart maybe… reminded her of something? "A pleasure to meet you, Raising Heart," Egalité said. "Now what have you been teaching my students?"
Raising Heart went over the basics. At my request, she didn't say anything about where Strike Arts were from, but she didn't skimp on the magical details. Egalité stopped her explanation several times to ask questions, but she never did it rudely and was never dismissive of the idea of using 'magic,' though Weld got an expression on his face during the explanation that I can only describe as, "Oh God, one of Those People."
When the explanation was done, she had both Vicky and me demonstrate our auras, and then had us spar briefly just to show her the combat style in action.
When we were done with our demonstration, Egalité had that odd expression on her face again, and after she studied me for a few seconds, it gave way to recognition. "You're Nova's kid, aren't you." It wasn't a question; it was a statement.
I felt a shock like someone had just thrown a bucket of cold water on me. I stared at Egalité with wide eyes, momentarily stunned speechless.
"Who?" Vicky asked.
When I found my voice again, I asked, "You knew my mother?"
Egalité laughed. "You are! Wow, I haven't seen you since you were, what, two? You probably don't remember me."
I shook my head.
"Hell yeah, I knew your mother," Egalité said cheerfully. "We were pretty close before she hooked up with your dad. For a little while after, too. Then she retired, and I… well, that's another story."
Weld looked startled, and he furrowed his brow as he looked at Egalité. "Wasn't Nova the name of a villain who worked for Lustrum in the 90's?" he asked.
Vicky shot me a startled look. [Is that true?] she asked telepathically.
I only considered lying to Vicky for a second or two. [It's a long story, but yes,] I replied.
Egalité glanced in a Weldwards direction. "No credit for partial answers," she said with a very slight smile.
Weld blushed with embarrassment. And hey, Weld could blush! And it looked really weird when he did; his cheeks lightened into a pale silver-grey. "Her official rating was Striker 6 with Brute 4 and Mover 4 sub-ratings. Breaker was suspected but never confirmed."
And speaking of weird, hearing my own mom's PRT Threat Assessment was downright surreal. I really needed to talk to Egalité about Mom in private, and I had to resist the urge to insist on doing it right away; now was not the time.
"That's her," Egalité said with a nod to Weld, who was still looking at her like he was only now seeing her for the first time.
Seemingly unconcerned with Weld's reaction, Egalité returned her attention to Vicky and me. "Well," she said, "I have a good start for figuring out how to train you two, but I could use a little more information. Glory Girl, would you mind showing me what you can do?"
"You want me to spar with you?" Vicky asked. "Isn't that a little dangerous? I'm here because..." there was a slight, almost unnoticeable hesitation as she changed what she was going to say mid-sentence, "...I'm having a hard time holding back."
"You're not going to hurt me," Egalité said. "Do your worst."
I almost cringed at the almost word for word repeat of what I'd said to Vicky before she hit me so hard she knocked me off the roof of Clarendon and into the parking lot.
Vicky's actions here were dramatic; she went from zero to full speed pretty much instantly, using her flight to cheat her body into motion in a way that the human body just couldn't do under normal circumstances as she launched into a roundhouse kick. She didn't get her leg fully extended before Egalité stopped it with a knee to Vicky's shin, killing her momentum before it could really get going. Then Egalité countered with a front kick that knocked Vicky back with a cry of startled pain.
"What the hell?" Vicky asked, and a sense of outrage billowed out from her like a cloud, and even if I knew it was because of her aura, it didn't stop me from feeling it.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"That HURT," Vicky said.
I furrowed my brow. How had Egalité described her power? Proportional response?
Egalité took a step back. "Did I hurt you?" she asked.
Vicky thought about it, then shook her head, "No. I'm just not used to feeling pain."
"Your invulnerability is based on a force field, isn't it?" Egalité asked.
Vicky nodded.
"My power is letting me break through it."
Vicky scowled. "That is such bullshit," she said.
"How is that fair?" I asked at the same time.
Egalité raised an eyebrow. "It's exactly fair. My power puts us on a level playing field. That's how it works."
I gave Egalité an incredulous look. "Seriously?" I asked. Wait, how did 'leveling the playing field' play into 'proportional response?' Something told me I wasn't getting the full story.
"Yep," Egalité said. "Do you want to stop?"
Vicky lifted off into the air, and after a few moments, Egalité did the same. Vicky's eyes narrowed. "You can fly, too?"
"I can now," Egalité said.
Proportionate response. "You copy powers?" I asked.
"If that's what it takes," Egalité said. "I'm a Trump. My power puts me on a level playing field with what my opponent demonstrates. Doesn't quite work out on Endbringers, but what does? What that means for you two is that unlike almost any other trainer you could go to, I can actually put you through your paces up to and including full contact sparring without you having to worry about my safety."
Egalité looked us both over. "I'm sure both of you have your doubts about this. Maybe you don't really want to be here. If you don't, we can call this off right now and you can go back to working on your own. If you honestly think that's the best approach, then that's what you should do. But I can promise that if you train with me and give it your all, I'll not only train you in how to hold back, but also in how to be more effective in combat overall. Being strong is only part of the equation of combat. A lot of brutes focus way too much on being strong and forget that they also need skill. Knowing when and where to apply that strength is at least as important as having the strength to begin with." She looked to me. "Raising Heart said she taught you the theory and practice of aerial combat, right? I'm going to teach you both the theory and practice of hand to hand combat. The question I put to each of you is: are you up for it?"
Vicky and I exchanged glances, and then we both nodded.
"Yes," Vicky said.
"Yes," I echoed.
Egalité smiled. "Good. Let's get started, then. Weld? Get the equipment for the first exercise." She returned her attention to us. "In the mean time, let's fix your warm-ups."
----------
The Undersiders hit Blasto's workshop at 9:00 PM exactly. The entrance they'd chosen was accessible through a maintenance passageway in one of Boston's abandoned subway tunnels, and though it was protected by a series of security doors, cameras, and various creatures, the combination of Yuuno's and Tattletale's powers made those security measures a moot point.
They were coming in below Blasto's actual living space - that was on the upper floors of the workshop -- but they weren't actually interested in his living space. What they wanted was in the basement. After one last check to make sure everyone was ready, Tattletale gave Yuuno the okay, and the young ferret cast his spell; the vivid green of his magic aura lit the otherwise darkened subway tunnel, a secondary spell circle formed around his wrist, and a green sphere of energy expanded into being above his open palm. He didn't say anything; his mastery of this spell made a spoken trigger unnecessary.
The sphere of energy pulsed, and then it expanded outward into an eye-watering hypercube construct that enveloped them all: Tattletale, Yuuno, Bitch, Regent, Grue, and all three of Bitch's dogs. The construct vanished, taking them with it.
An instant later, the construct unfolded its way into three-dimensional space on the far side of Blasto's security doors, bringing the Undersiders along for the ride.
Yuuno found himself in a large open space. It was almost pitch dark, but the shining eyes of many of Blasto's creatures could be seen nonetheless. Another green spell circle lit up the room, revealing dozens of plant/animal hybrid creatures that seemed mostly made of claws and teeth.
Bitch's dogs began to grow as the Undersiders fell into a defensive formation around Yuuno and Tattletale.
"Any time, now, Yuuno," Regent said as the defending creatures closed in.
He needn't have worried; Yuuno established his bounded field, his barrier; it expanded out from him in a rush of power that left the air with a faintly shimmering purple tinge, and it took every single creature that was neither kitten nor Undersider nor one of Bitch's dogs away with it, denying their ability to exist within the field for its duration.
Grue let out the breath he'd been holding. "It worked," he said.
Tattletale smirked. "Of course it worked. Have I ever let you down?"
"Yes," Grue replied.
"Recently?"
"Not recently, no," Grue admitted.
They went to work, then. Now past Blasto's security and with him and all his creatures banished for the time being, the Undersiders had the run of the place, and everything was going like clockwork. Tattletale made her way to Blasto's main computer system. It was active; he'd been using it before they'd made him vanish. She took a moment to plug in a tinker-made USB drive, waited thirty seconds, and then pulled it back out again.
Grue and Bitch made their way down into the basement where the safe was waiting; they had it open in short order, and they collected their prize from a padded case within: an extremely intricate wood and silver mask.
Accord's mask. Or one of them, anyways. Someone had drawn a silly looking mustache on it with a Sharpie.
Ten minutes later, the Undersiders rendezvoused in front of their last target: a massive, new-looking blast door set into the wall. A sign above it read 'Kitten Containment,' and there were a dozen tiny kitten pawprints drawn around the words.
"So far so good," Grue said.
Something meowed from the corner of the basement. Then there was a crash as the source of the meow knocked a glass beaker off a shelf; the beaker didn't break, but it clattered loudly across the floor. The Undersiders each spun to face this new… threat?
A pair of identical kittens padded nervously into the light of their flashlights. "Mew," one said. "Mew," the other replied. They were fluffy, adorable tabby kittens with blue eyes and inquisitive expressions. "Mew," the first one said plaintively.
Yuuno's heart melted.
Tattletale moved to pick one up, and the the kitten moved eagerly into her arms and began to purr, rubbing its cheek against her hand. "Her name is…" Tattletale checked the collar. "Marvin."
Yuuno crawled down Lisa's arm to come face to face with Marvin, who tilted her head inquisitively at him. Yuuno tentatively reached out with his paw to scratch Marvin behind her ear, and Marvin leaned into the contact, her purr growing louder. Then she pulled her head back slightly and licked Yuuno's little nose with her sandpaper-rough tongue; Yuuno's whiskers twitched in response.
Lisa said nothing, but even she couldn't hide a soft smile at the sight.
Regent picked up the other kitten and examined her collar. "The Good Queen Snugglewumps," he read aloud. The Good Queen Snugglewumps didn't much care for being handled by Regent; she squirmed out of his hands, climbed up onto his shoulder making him cringe as her tiny little claws poked through his clothes, and then hopped onto the back of one of Bitch's partially transformed dogs: Angelica, and halfway through her transformation into a giant spiky armored rhino-dog thing.
The Good Queen Snugglewumps carefully made her way across the spikes and still sprouting armored plates and associated nastiness that made up Angelica's back, found a comfortable looking spot between the dog's shoulder-blades, sat down, curled herself up, and started purring loudly while she kneaded the giant spiky dog's back with her little kitten paws and claws.
Angelica looked over her shoulder at Bitch with a distinctly worried expression, and it almost made Yuuno laugh out loud to see how concerned the dog was by the fact that a kitten was on her back.
Bitch frowned at the kitten, scooped her off Angelica's back, and set her down on the floor. The kitten didn't stop purring, and as soon as she was on the floor, she started to rub her face against Rachel's legs.
Rachel looked like she had no idea what to do with this creature. "Can we go?" she asked.
"Mew," said the Good Queen Snugglewumps.
"Meow," said Marvin.
Tattletale reluctantly set Marvin down, and the group approached the Kitten Containment blast door in good spirits. Well, in good spirits except for Bitch, who was now glaring at the kittens. "Back," she snarled.
"Mew," said Marvin.
She bared her teeth, and the kittens backed up cautiously, and then retreated into the corners of the basement.
Tattletale opened the blast door.
------------
She remembered everything about the day she died. The memories didn't grow any dimmer, no matter how much time passed. She remembered waking up in her mother's bed, and she could hear her in another room. She got up, rubbed her eyes, and walked out of the bedroom to see Mother dressed and ready to leave for work. "Mama," she said, "Will you always be working this much?"
Mother looked sad, and she gathered the little girl into her arms and hugged her close, and the little girl felt safe and warm. "We should be turning the reactor on some time next week," Mother said. "Once that's done, I should be able to take some time off."
"Really?" the little girl asked.
"You bet," Mother said.
"Can we go on a picnic?" the little girl asked.
"We can go wherever you want."
"Promise?"
Mother smiled and looked her in the eye. "I promise."
After her mother had gone, the girl went out to the balcony to watch her drive away. Mother's old Familiar made breakfast about an hour later, and she ate it on the balcony. When she was finished, the Familiar ruffled her hair and started cleaning up. The little girl walked to the edge of the balcony and looked off in the direction where her mother had gone.
There was a flash of light in the distance. First a pillar of light that went straight up as far as she could see, and then… She don't know if there was an explosion or if she just went blind, but the world went white.
The next thing the girl knew, she was waking up in a strange room, with Mother looking down at her, crying. "There was an accident," Mother said, "You were hurt, and you've been asleep for a very long time." Then she gathered the girl up into a hug just like the one she'd given that morning, and the girl felt safe and warm.
She took the girl to her room, and even though they weren't on Midchilda anymore, everything looked the same. She told the girl to rest, and that when she was feeling better, they could go on their picnic.
"Aren't you busy with work?" the girl asked.
Mother shook her head. "Not anymore," she'd said. "Everything's fine now."
The girl used the wrong hand when she touched her mother's face. She didn't realize it right away. She'd always been left-handed before, and she used her right hand, and her mother noticed. "What's wrong?" the girl asked.
Her mother shook her head. "It's nothing. Nothing at all." Then she took the little gir's hand and smiled. "Everything is fine, Alicia."
The little girl -- Alicia -- had tried to use her left hand for things after that, but that just made it worse. Her mother always noticed how clumsy she was with her left hand, and it made her mother sad. That was when it started. It wasn't being right-handed alone that made her mother stop loving her, but it was the start.
Alicia thought maybe she'd died that day. She thought she'd died and Mother brought her back. When Linith was teaching her magic, she'd learned that resurrection was one of the few things that were impossible even with magic. Once a person was dead, once the brain stopped functioning, the person was gone. You could return a semblance of life to the body, and some of the worst weapons of the Belkan Wars did just that on a planetary scale, but the creature you made wasn't the person who had died.
On some worlds with more mystical systems of magic there were spirits and self-professed deities that claimed to shepard the souls of the dead, but they didn't have that kind of thing on Mid. Though the Saint Church had a different interpretation, for most Midchildans, alive/dead was an equation. Plug one value in, and you are alive. Plug in another, and you are dead. Your Linker Core breaks down, and all your body's energy flows back into the Dimensional Sea.
...She was pretty sure she had died that day.
"Fate."
She looked up at the sound of the name: her name. Mother wasn't comfortable with it, and Fate usually deferred to her mother, but not with this. Not with this one thing. It was a name given to her back when things had been bad, when Mother had been cold and uncaring. Before Fate had met the man who insisted that she call him Uncle Jail. Before Mother had started calling her "Alicia" again.
Fate Testarossa was a short teenage girl with long blonde hair and burgundy eyes. She dressed all in black save for the red accents and the rich scarlet on the underside of her cape, her red belt, and what looked like steel boots and gauntlets.
Arf was her familiar, currently in the form of a beautiful, busty twenty-something woman with long coppery burnt-orange hair and white-tipped wolf ears and a tail. Even with her long, black cape, Arf's barrier jacket was skimpy enough that it didn't look like it could possibly provide her any protection, but that didn't stop it from doing so.
They stood together on the roof of a Bostonian brownstone.
Fate looked to Arf. "It's time?" she asked.
Arf nodded, and when she smirked, it showed one of her fangs. "Looks like we're not the only ones coming today. Someone just put up a barrier around the site. Whoever they are, they must be feeling confident."
Fate brought up a holo-screen displaying the site now encased in the distinct shimmering purple of a bounded field. "Let's go," she said. A golden Midchildan spell circle sprang up at her feet as she cast her teleportation magic, altering it as she did so to account for the presence of the barrier.
Fate and Arf vanished.
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
3.5 - Rivals
Disclaimer: The following is a fanfic. Worm belongs to Wildbow. The Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha franchise is owned by various corporate entities. Please support the official release.
Thanks to @Cailin for beta-ing!
----------------
Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, and after my first full week of classes at Arcadia High, I was starting to think I could get used to being happy, and actually enjoying school. Given my past experience, that probably meant the other shoe was going to drop any minute now. … There was supposed to be an Endbringer attack some time next month.
God, that was morbid.
The week had been nice. I'd spent a lot of time with Vicky and Amy, and sometimes Dean came along. The first time he did, Vicky jokingly called it a double date. It was really embarrassing, but I knew she didn't mean anything by it, and she apologized when she saw how uncomfortable it made me and Amy. Also, it turns out there are more places to eat in Brockton Bay than just Fugly Bob's.
On Friday, we'd gone to Big Rico's Pizza, which was about a block and a half away from the downtown PRT Headquarters. Big Rico's had been there for eleven years now, and he claimed he never had any trouble from the gangs. Being close to the PRT Headquarters probably helped. It was really good. The man knew his pizza, and even if he didn't do anything too complicated, it was made to order, all the ingredients were fresh, and everything was made from scratch.
About the only thing making my week less than absolutely amazing was the fact that I was still waking up with full-body pain in the middle of the night. My eyes weren't hurting anymore, and it didn't hurt as much as it had before I'd gone to Philly, but it still sucked.
I woke up at 9:00 on Saturday morning. Correction: I woke up at 6:00 to Raising Heart's alarm, rolled over and went back to sleep until 9:00. For once, I wasn't a crippling mess of social anxiety spending all my time dreading the end of the weekend. It was a new experience for me, and I was determined to enjoy it for as long as it lasted.
I went through my normal Saturday routine. Shower, running, what should have been increasingly punishing exercise routines that were now barely making me sweat, brunch with dad, and a day spent doing four things at once. Yes, four; I was running four mental partitions now. I couldn't actually hold the fourth comfortably in full combat situations, but I realized yesterday that there was no reason I couldn't just collapse the fourth partition to free up mana and mental processing power when I needed to, and I had felt a little silly for not realizing it sooner.
1st partition: my actual awareness inside of my physical body, where I spent the afternoon doing my homework; 2nd partition: dedicated Image Training with Raising Heart in aerial combat; 3rd partition; continuing to refine my spell design work, trying to get all the potential bugs out of my new spells before I tried using them for real; 4th partition: keeping up on current events, browsing PHO, exchanging emails with Vista and occasionally texting Vicky and Amy.
The world was still what it was. Disaster relief was still ongoing for Tokyo after Behemoth's last attack; a good quarter of the Minato Ward had been turned into a blasted, radioactive wasteland, but the defending capes -- with assistance from the Protectorate -- had managed to drive him off before he could do worse, and they'd taken surprisingly few casualties for a Behemoth attack. The Slaughterhouse Nine were still on the loose. The daytime talk shows were all still dogpiling on Mouse Protector for the comment she made on Thursday poking fun at a formerly cheerful ward who had reinvented himself as a 'grim, angsty, serious' hero. It wouldn't have been a problem if there hadn't been a teenage boy secretly filming the whole thing with his cell phone. The internet was mostly taking Mouse Protector's side, particularly after the newly renamed 18 year old hero 'Bloodstryke' responded with an extended angry rant culminating with the words, "YOU DON'T GET IT! I'M DEEP NOW!" but it was still hard on PR. The official who had approved the name 'Bloodstryke' had been fired, but Bloodstryke was sticking with the name. Also, they weren't allowing news crews near the crash site in Quebec anymore, and given the information I'd shared with Dragon immediately before the news cameras were sent away, I wasn't sure if I should be worried or not.
Vicky showed up at the house at about 5:00, and it was only after I let her in and we walked into the living room that it occurred to me that I hadn't actually told Dad exactly who my new friends were. He knew their names were Vicky and Amy, but I hadn't actually spelled it out for him. Turns out, he'd connected the dots. Or maybe Raising Heart had told him.
"Hey Dad," I said.
He was sitting at the table by the sliding glass door doing some paperwork for his job with the union, and he looked up at the sound of my voice. "Taylor. Raising Heart."
"Hello, Danny," Raising Heart said. "Does your evening go well?"
Dad smiled. "Pretty well. Just working out the details of the new contract for the guys. Thanks for your help with that, by the way."
"You're welcome."
Raising Heart was helping Dad with his Union work? Huh. "Dad," I said, gesturing to Vicky, "this is Vicky. Vicky, this is my dad."
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Hebert," Vicky said
He rose to his feet with a smile and extended a hand. "It's an honor, Ms. Dallon," he said.
Vicky shook Dad's hand. "Did Taylor tell you I was going to be here today?" she asked.
Dad looked my way with an amused smile. "She told me her friend Vicky was coming over," he said.
"But not that her friend Vicky was Victoria Dallon?" Vicky asked. She shot me an amused look.
"Not in so many words, but when she told me about her new friends Vicky and Amy who went to Arcadia, I put it together."
I blushed and took a sudden and keen interest in my shoes. "... I was sure I'd mentioned it," I muttered.
"I thought you weren't supposed to start forgetting things until you were my age," Dad said.
I rolled my eyes, but didn't otherwise comment on the lame dad joke.
"We are still working out improved communication protocols between my Master and her father," Raising Heart said.
"I hear those are important," Vicky said dryly.
I blushed. "We'd better go," I said. We actually still had time, but I didn't want to give Dad and Raising Heart time to do more tag-team teasing.
"Be safe, Taylor," Dad said, giving me a serious look. "No fighting giant plant monsters without telling me first."
"Dad, I'll be fine. We're just going to train with some Boston Protectorate capes. And Glory Girl is going to be with me! I'll be perfectly safe."
Dad didn't look convinced. "I'm serious," he said.
"All right," I said, "I'll call before I fight any giant plant monsters."
"Or giant kittens," Dad said.
"Or giant kittens," I echoed dutifully.
"Or giant toddlers," Dad said.
"Now you're just making things up," I said, and turned to walk out the door.
Vicky watched the two of us with a smile on her face, but she followed after me.
"Or giant Stay Puft marshmallow men!" Dad called behind me. "Have fun, Taylor!"
"I will," I called. Then I shut the door and gave Vicky a longsuffering look.
Vicky just grinned. "Your dad seems nice," she said.
An exasperated sigh was my only reply.
Armsmaster's predicted travel time for Vicky to get from Brockton Bay to the Boston Protectorate headquarters was disturbingly accurate. It took us about 17 and a half minutes, with an average airspeed of 281.635 kph. Raising Heart plotted us a straight line course, which was probably for the best; we were going fast enough that Vicky's reaction times were just too slow for effective short-range maneuvering. Mostly our course followed Interstate 95, though we had to stay lower than we normally would have because of the planes landing at Logan International Airport. Seeing planes landing and taking off from above made me grin, and when I glanced at Vicky, I saw that she was grinning, too.
God but flying was awesome. And Boston was gorgeous, especially at night, and it was easy to get distracted just marveling at the brilliant city lights and the flow of cars-as-light through the streets. This high up, the sounds of the city were a distant, muted thing, but as we descended toward the roof of the Protectorate building, we could start to hear the honking of horns and the general buzz of the city.
[Raising Heart,] I said, [Open communications to Boston Protectorate Console.]
There was a slight click as she connected me to the local Console. [Comm channel open.]
"Console, this is Starfall and Glory Girl from Brockton Bay, requesting permission to land at the Protectorate Headquarters."
An unfamiliar woman's ringing soprano voice answered me: "Starfall, Boston Console. Permission granted. Please proceed to the helipad on the roof. You'll be met by a PRT officer and escorted from there. Over."
"Thanks, Console," I said. I wondered if I should add 'over' to the end of that, but by the time I'd come up with an answer, too much time had passed for it to still matter.
The Boston Protectorate Headquarters was just across Sudbury Street from the John F. Kennedy Federal building; it and the PRT headquarters (which was across Congress Street from the Protectorate building) were twin art-deco fortresses in the middle of Downtown Boston connected by a dramatic aerial bridge that spanned Congress Street to allow access between the buildings. It was honestly a little weird seeing the two buildings right next to each other like that; I was more used to seeing the physical separation between the two that we had in Brockton Bay.
We landed on the helipad on the roof of the 16-story Protectorate building; a man in a PRT uniform was waiting for us, and he nodded to us each as we landed. "Starfall and Glory Girl?" he asked.
"That's us," Vicky replied.
"If you'll come with me, we'll get you through the security screening as quickly as possible."
What else were we going to do? We followed him.
By the time we got through the security check, there were only 15 minutes before we were supposed to start with the brute training. The PRT officer led us into a training room where a very metal young man was waiting for us. No, really. As in 'made of metal.' Literally. His skin was a dusky dark grey metal with silver eyes and silver outlining his musculature. Build-wise, I guess he was a lot like Carlos if Carlos was made of metal?
"Glory Girl and Starfire?" he asked.
"That's them," the PRT officer replied.
Vicky and I exchanged glances. "Starfall," I corrected.
"Starfall. Sorry about that. I'm Weld. I hear you two are going to be training with Egalité today."
"Apparently," Vicky said.
"I'll be her assistant," Weld said, either not picking up on Vicky's desire to be elsewhere or just deciding not to comment. "Always nice to see more people with super-strength coming in for training. A lot of us underestimate just how useful it can be."
Vicky and I exchanged glances for the second time in as many minutes. "I thought this program was being run by Dr. Armstrong?" I asked.
Weld raised an eyebrow. "Dr. Armstrong is the director of the Boston PRT," he said. "He doesn't personally conduct the training of parahumans."
"Oh," I said, and let the subject drop. "Have you gone through this program yourself?" I asked.
Weld nodded. "Going through it right now, actually. We started last month."
"What do you think of it so far?"
"Egalité knows what she's doing. Her power makes it easier."
Vicky still wasn't happy to be here, and it showed a little in her attitude. She regarded Weld with only barely concealed impatience. "What is her power, anyway?" she asked. While she was speaking, the door to the training room hissed open.
"Proportionate response," said a woman's French-Canadian accented voice from the door.
Proportionate response? What kind of superpower was that? I turned to look at the source of the voice. "What?"
Egalité was a tall, muscular woman in a blue and white armored bodysuit with a mask and cowl that hid her hair and left the bottom half of her face exposed. She grinned when she saw that she had our attention. "You'll see," she said.
Why hello there, sinking feeling. Welcome back; it's almost like we're getting to be old friends.
After the introductions were done, Egalité looked at us thoughtfully. "I understand that you have been training on your own before coming here. Would you mind showing me what you've been doing?"
"Sure," I said.
We talked her through our normal routine as we did it, going through our warm-ups first: stretches, a couple laps around the training room, some of the normal exercises. "We've been working with Raising Heart to learn a style of martial arts," I said as we finished the warm-ups.
"This 'Raising Heart' is your teacher?" Egalité asked.
"Yes," Raising Heart said from her position just below my neck, her gem glowing in time to her words; even though I was in costume with my barrier jacket, I'd had her in her pendant form. "Though I'm better suited to the teaching of the theory and practice of aerial combat, I can also serve as a teacher for Strike Arts."
Egalité's reaction was odd. It wasn't quite surprise, and not recognition exactly, but Raising Heart maybe… reminded her of something? "A pleasure to meet you, Raising Heart," Egalité said. "Now what have you been teaching my students?"
Raising Heart went over the basics. At my request, she didn't say anything about where Strike Arts were from, but she didn't skimp on the magical details. Egalité stopped her explanation several times to ask questions, but she never did it rudely and was never dismissive of the idea of using 'magic,' though Weld got an expression on his face during the explanation that I can only describe as, "Oh God, one of Those People."
When the explanation was done, she had both Vicky and me demonstrate our auras, and then had us spar briefly just to show her the combat style in action.
When we were done with our demonstration, Egalité had that odd expression on her face again, and after she studied me for a few seconds, it gave way to recognition. "You're Nova's kid, aren't you." It wasn't a question; it was a statement.
I felt a shock like someone had just thrown a bucket of cold water on me. I stared at Egalité with wide eyes, momentarily stunned speechless.
"Who?" Vicky asked.
When I found my voice again, I asked, "You knew my mother?"
Egalité laughed. "You are! Wow, I haven't seen you since you were, what, two? You probably don't remember me."
I shook my head.
"Hell yeah, I knew your mother," Egalité said cheerfully. "We were pretty close before she hooked up with your dad. For a little while after, too. Then she retired, and I… well, that's another story."
Weld looked startled, and he furrowed his brow as he looked at Egalité. "Wasn't Nova the name of a villain who worked for Lustrum in the 90's?" he asked.
Vicky shot me a startled look. [Is that true?] she asked telepathically.
I only considered lying to Vicky for a second or two. [It's a long story, but yes,] I replied.
Egalité glanced in a Weldwards direction. "No credit for partial answers," she said with a very slight smile.
Weld blushed with embarrassment. And hey, Weld could blush! And it looked really weird when he did; his cheeks lightened into a pale silver-grey. "Her official rating was Striker 6 with Brute 4 and Mover 4 sub-ratings. Breaker was suspected but never confirmed."
And speaking of weird, hearing my own mom's PRT Threat Assessment was downright surreal. I really needed to talk to Egalité about Mom in private, and I had to resist the urge to insist on doing it right away; now was not the time.
"That's her," Egalité said with a nod to Weld, who was still looking at her like he was only now seeing her for the first time.
Seemingly unconcerned with Weld's reaction, Egalité returned her attention to Vicky and me. "Well," she said, "I have a good start for figuring out how to train you two, but I could use a little more information. Glory Girl, would you mind showing me what you can do?"
"You want me to spar with you?" Vicky asked. "Isn't that a little dangerous? I'm here because..." there was a slight, almost unnoticeable hesitation as she changed what she was going to say mid-sentence, "...I'm having a hard time holding back."
"You're not going to hurt me," Egalité said. "Do your worst."
I almost cringed at the almost word for word repeat of what I'd said to Vicky before she hit me so hard she knocked me off the roof of Clarendon and into the parking lot.
Vicky's actions here were dramatic; she went from zero to full speed pretty much instantly, using her flight to cheat her body into motion in a way that the human body just couldn't do under normal circumstances as she launched into a roundhouse kick. She didn't get her leg fully extended before Egalité stopped it with a knee to Vicky's shin, killing her momentum before it could really get going. Then Egalité countered with a front kick that knocked Vicky back with a cry of startled pain.
"What the hell?" Vicky asked, and a sense of outrage billowed out from her like a cloud, and even if I knew it was because of her aura, it didn't stop me from feeling it.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"That HURT," Vicky said.
I furrowed my brow. How had Egalité described her power? Proportional response?
Egalité took a step back. "Did I hurt you?" she asked.
Vicky thought about it, then shook her head, "No. I'm just not used to feeling pain."
"Your invulnerability is based on a force field, isn't it?" Egalité asked.
Vicky nodded.
"My power is letting me break through it."
Vicky scowled. "That is such bullshit," she said.
"How is that fair?" I asked at the same time.
Egalité raised an eyebrow. "It's exactly fair. My power puts us on a level playing field. That's how it works."
I gave Egalité an incredulous look. "Seriously?" I asked. Wait, how did 'leveling the playing field' play into 'proportional response?' Something told me I wasn't getting the full story.
"Yep," Egalité said. "Do you want to stop?"
Vicky lifted off into the air, and after a few moments, Egalité did the same. Vicky's eyes narrowed. "You can fly, too?"
"I can now," Egalité said.
Proportionate response. "You copy powers?" I asked.
"If that's what it takes," Egalité said. "I'm a Trump. My power puts me on a level playing field with what my opponent demonstrates. Doesn't quite work out on Endbringers, but what does? What that means for you two is that unlike almost any other trainer you could go to, I can actually put you through your paces up to and including full contact sparring without you having to worry about my safety."
Egalité looked us both over. "I'm sure both of you have your doubts about this. Maybe you don't really want to be here. If you don't, we can call this off right now and you can go back to working on your own. If you honestly think that's the best approach, then that's what you should do. But I can promise that if you train with me and give it your all, I'll not only train you in how to hold back, but also in how to be more effective in combat overall. Being strong is only part of the equation of combat. A lot of brutes focus way too much on being strong and forget that they also need skill. Knowing when and where to apply that strength is at least as important as having the strength to begin with." She looked to me. "Raising Heart said she taught you the theory and practice of aerial combat, right? I'm going to teach you both the theory and practice of hand to hand combat. The question I put to each of you is: are you up for it?"
Vicky and I exchanged glances, and then we both nodded.
"Yes," Vicky said.
"Yes," I echoed.
Egalité smiled. "Good. Let's get started, then. Weld? Get the equipment for the first exercise." She returned her attention to us. "In the mean time, let's fix your warm-ups."
----------
The Undersiders hit Blasto's workshop at 9:00 PM exactly. The entrance they'd chosen was accessible through a maintenance passageway in one of Boston's abandoned subway tunnels, and though it was protected by a series of security doors, cameras, and various creatures, the combination of Yuuno's and Tattletale's powers made those security measures a moot point.
They were coming in below Blasto's actual living space - that was on the upper floors of the workshop -- but they weren't actually interested in his living space. What they wanted was in the basement. After one last check to make sure everyone was ready, Tattletale gave Yuuno the okay, and the young ferret cast his spell; the vivid green of his magic aura lit the otherwise darkened subway tunnel, a secondary spell circle formed around his wrist, and a green sphere of energy expanded into being above his open palm. He didn't say anything; his mastery of this spell made a spoken trigger unnecessary.
The sphere of energy pulsed, and then it expanded outward into an eye-watering hypercube construct that enveloped them all: Tattletale, Yuuno, Bitch, Regent, Grue, and all three of Bitch's dogs. The construct vanished, taking them with it.
An instant later, the construct unfolded its way into three-dimensional space on the far side of Blasto's security doors, bringing the Undersiders along for the ride.
Yuuno found himself in a large open space. It was almost pitch dark, but the shining eyes of many of Blasto's creatures could be seen nonetheless. Another green spell circle lit up the room, revealing dozens of plant/animal hybrid creatures that seemed mostly made of claws and teeth.
Bitch's dogs began to grow as the Undersiders fell into a defensive formation around Yuuno and Tattletale.
"Any time, now, Yuuno," Regent said as the defending creatures closed in.
He needn't have worried; Yuuno established his bounded field, his barrier; it expanded out from him in a rush of power that left the air with a faintly shimmering purple tinge, and it took every single creature that was neither kitten nor Undersider nor one of Bitch's dogs away with it, denying their ability to exist within the field for its duration.
Grue let out the breath he'd been holding. "It worked," he said.
Tattletale smirked. "Of course it worked. Have I ever let you down?"
"Yes," Grue replied.
"Recently?"
"Not recently, no," Grue admitted.
They went to work, then. Now past Blasto's security and with him and all his creatures banished for the time being, the Undersiders had the run of the place, and everything was going like clockwork. Tattletale made her way to Blasto's main computer system. It was active; he'd been using it before they'd made him vanish. She took a moment to plug in a tinker-made USB drive, waited thirty seconds, and then pulled it back out again.
Grue and Bitch made their way down into the basement where the safe was waiting; they had it open in short order, and they collected their prize from a padded case within: an extremely intricate wood and silver mask.
Accord's mask. Or one of them, anyways. Someone had drawn a silly looking mustache on it with a Sharpie.
Ten minutes later, the Undersiders rendezvoused in front of their last target: a massive, new-looking blast door set into the wall. A sign above it read 'Kitten Containment,' and there were a dozen tiny kitten pawprints drawn around the words.
"So far so good," Grue said.
Something meowed from the corner of the basement. Then there was a crash as the source of the meow knocked a glass beaker off a shelf; the beaker didn't break, but it clattered loudly across the floor. The Undersiders each spun to face this new… threat?
A pair of identical kittens padded nervously into the light of their flashlights. "Mew," one said. "Mew," the other replied. They were fluffy, adorable tabby kittens with blue eyes and inquisitive expressions. "Mew," the first one said plaintively.
Yuuno's heart melted.
Tattletale moved to pick one up, and the the kitten moved eagerly into her arms and began to purr, rubbing its cheek against her hand. "Her name is…" Tattletale checked the collar. "Marvin."
Yuuno crawled down Lisa's arm to come face to face with Marvin, who tilted her head inquisitively at him. Yuuno tentatively reached out with his paw to scratch Marvin behind her ear, and Marvin leaned into the contact, her purr growing louder. Then she pulled her head back slightly and licked Yuuno's little nose with her sandpaper-rough tongue; Yuuno's whiskers twitched in response.
Lisa said nothing, but even she couldn't hide a soft smile at the sight.
Regent picked up the other kitten and examined her collar. "The Good Queen Snugglewumps," he read aloud. The Good Queen Snugglewumps didn't much care for being handled by Regent; she squirmed out of his hands, climbed up onto his shoulder making him cringe as her tiny little claws poked through his clothes, and then hopped onto the back of one of Bitch's partially transformed dogs: Angelica, and halfway through her transformation into a giant spiky armored rhino-dog thing.
The Good Queen Snugglewumps carefully made her way across the spikes and still sprouting armored plates and associated nastiness that made up Angelica's back, found a comfortable looking spot between the dog's shoulder-blades, sat down, curled herself up, and started purring loudly while she kneaded the giant spiky dog's back with her little kitten paws and claws.
Angelica looked over her shoulder at Bitch with a distinctly worried expression, and it almost made Yuuno laugh out loud to see how concerned the dog was by the fact that a kitten was on her back.
Bitch frowned at the kitten, scooped her off Angelica's back, and set her down on the floor. The kitten didn't stop purring, and as soon as she was on the floor, she started to rub her face against Rachel's legs.
Rachel looked like she had no idea what to do with this creature. "Can we go?" she asked.
"Mew," said the Good Queen Snugglewumps.
"Meow," said Marvin.
Tattletale reluctantly set Marvin down, and the group approached the Kitten Containment blast door in good spirits. Well, in good spirits except for Bitch, who was now glaring at the kittens. "Back," she snarled.
"Mew," said Marvin.
She bared her teeth, and the kittens backed up cautiously, and then retreated into the corners of the basement.
Tattletale opened the blast door.
------------
She remembered everything about the day she died. The memories didn't grow any dimmer, no matter how much time passed. She remembered waking up in her mother's bed, and she could hear her in another room. She got up, rubbed her eyes, and walked out of the bedroom to see Mother dressed and ready to leave for work. "Mama," she said, "Will you always be working this much?"
Mother looked sad, and she gathered the little girl into her arms and hugged her close, and the little girl felt safe and warm. "We should be turning the reactor on some time next week," Mother said. "Once that's done, I should be able to take some time off."
"Really?" the little girl asked.
"You bet," Mother said.
"Can we go on a picnic?" the little girl asked.
"We can go wherever you want."
"Promise?"
Mother smiled and looked her in the eye. "I promise."
After her mother had gone, the girl went out to the balcony to watch her drive away. Mother's old Familiar made breakfast about an hour later, and she ate it on the balcony. When she was finished, the Familiar ruffled her hair and started cleaning up. The little girl walked to the edge of the balcony and looked off in the direction where her mother had gone.
There was a flash of light in the distance. First a pillar of light that went straight up as far as she could see, and then… She don't know if there was an explosion or if she just went blind, but the world went white.
The next thing the girl knew, she was waking up in a strange room, with Mother looking down at her, crying. "There was an accident," Mother said, "You were hurt, and you've been asleep for a very long time." Then she gathered the girl up into a hug just like the one she'd given that morning, and the girl felt safe and warm.
She took the girl to her room, and even though they weren't on Midchilda anymore, everything looked the same. She told the girl to rest, and that when she was feeling better, they could go on their picnic.
"Aren't you busy with work?" the girl asked.
Mother shook her head. "Not anymore," she'd said. "Everything's fine now."
The girl used the wrong hand when she touched her mother's face. She didn't realize it right away. She'd always been left-handed before, and she used her right hand, and her mother noticed. "What's wrong?" the girl asked.
Her mother shook her head. "It's nothing. Nothing at all." Then she took the little gir's hand and smiled. "Everything is fine, Alicia."
The little girl -- Alicia -- had tried to use her left hand for things after that, but that just made it worse. Her mother always noticed how clumsy she was with her left hand, and it made her mother sad. That was when it started. It wasn't being right-handed alone that made her mother stop loving her, but it was the start.
Alicia thought maybe she'd died that day. She thought she'd died and Mother brought her back. When Linith was teaching her magic, she'd learned that resurrection was one of the few things that were impossible even with magic. Once a person was dead, once the brain stopped functioning, the person was gone. You could return a semblance of life to the body, and some of the worst weapons of the Belkan Wars did just that on a planetary scale, but the creature you made wasn't the person who had died.
On some worlds with more mystical systems of magic there were spirits and self-professed deities that claimed to shepard the souls of the dead, but they didn't have that kind of thing on Mid. Though the Saint Church had a different interpretation, for most Midchildans, alive/dead was an equation. Plug one value in, and you are alive. Plug in another, and you are dead. Your Linker Core breaks down, and all your body's energy flows back into the Dimensional Sea.
...She was pretty sure she had died that day.
"Fate."
She looked up at the sound of the name: her name. Mother wasn't comfortable with it, and Fate usually deferred to her mother, but not with this. Not with this one thing. It was a name given to her back when things had been bad, when Mother had been cold and uncaring. Before Fate had met the man who insisted that she call him Uncle Jail. Before Mother had started calling her "Alicia" again.
Fate Testarossa was a short teenage girl with long blonde hair and burgundy eyes. She dressed all in black save for the red accents and the rich scarlet on the underside of her cape, her red belt, and what looked like steel boots and gauntlets.
Arf was her familiar, currently in the form of a beautiful, busty twenty-something woman with long coppery burnt-orange hair and white-tipped wolf ears and a tail. Even with her long, black cape, Arf's barrier jacket was skimpy enough that it didn't look like it could possibly provide her any protection, but that didn't stop it from doing so.
They stood together on the roof of a Bostonian brownstone.
Fate looked to Arf. "It's time?" she asked.
Arf nodded, and when she smirked, it showed one of her fangs. "Looks like we're not the only ones coming today. Someone just put up a barrier around the site. Whoever they are, they must be feeling confident."
Fate brought up a holo-screen displaying the site now encased in the distinct shimmering purple of a bounded field. "Let's go," she said. A golden Midchildan spell circle sprang up at her feet as she cast her teleportation magic, altering it as she did so to account for the presence of the barrier.
Fate and Arf vanished.
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Sakuya's Butler
A refined Butler to a knife wielding Mistress.
- Location
- ↓, ↘, → + Punch
Considering some of the spells that Taylor now has access to, I highly doubt that Egalité can truly match her. And I don't mean the big ones either. Because several of those spells do NOT work on principles that a Shard would be able to copy successfully. Badly emulate via other abilities, possibly, such as using a kind of telekinesis to mimic Axel Shooter, but not actually directly copy it 1:1. That'd require an active linker core that was above a certain level of development AND a corona potentia.
That and 'Nova' likely never ever showed off the full extent of her abilities, let alone the true depth of her inventory of spells. So Egalité is assuming quite a bit, and its probably going to bite in the proverbial ass. At the same time, the instant Egalité does get blasted and DOESN'T manage to tank it fully, or even at all, will be a huge red flag for the PRT that Taylor/Starfall is something out of the ordinary. They'll likely give her a trump rating, which technically, she's not, and never will be (that'd be Hayate), but that's only because they don't fully understand her abilities yet. Once they do, they'd likely yank the Trump rating, and instead ratchet her Blaster rating up 3-4 ranks.
On the other hand, any/all of Taylor' physical enhancements? Yeah, Egalité would be able to match her with ease. No questions at all about that.
That and 'Nova' likely never ever showed off the full extent of her abilities, let alone the true depth of her inventory of spells. So Egalité is assuming quite a bit, and its probably going to bite in the proverbial ass. At the same time, the instant Egalité does get blasted and DOESN'T manage to tank it fully, or even at all, will be a huge red flag for the PRT that Taylor/Starfall is something out of the ordinary. They'll likely give her a trump rating, which technically, she's not, and never will be (that'd be Hayate), but that's only because they don't fully understand her abilities yet. Once they do, they'd likely yank the Trump rating, and instead ratchet her Blaster rating up 3-4 ranks.
On the other hand, any/all of Taylor' physical enhancements? Yeah, Egalité would be able to match her with ease. No questions at all about that.
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bluekun
I draw stuff (Commissions Slots Open)
- Location
- Home
Oh no you didn't.....
I see what you did there...
Doreen sends her regards...along with Speedball.
Balatro Philologus
Finds own avatar hilarious
By that point their may be quite a few people that the PRT know have magic†, they may just make a Mage category* and stick her under that.
†They may even know of the TSAB (and possibly the existence of anti-mage technology like AMF)
*Mage: {Kit-bashed from the tinker classification, reasoning in this kind of bracket}
Possesses an active Linker Core alongside the knowledge required to use it.
Expect certain Trumps to be ineffective. Limited impact and endurance depending on skill and Linker Core strength. Can artificially assume any number of other classifications, depending on Magic Style and Specialty. Style and Specialty should be appended to the classification when possible (i.e. Mid-Childs Style Bombardier, Belkan Style Support)
2+ Team is notified of Mage Classification. Disruption is encourage with the use of flashbangs.
{Flashbangs should make it difficult for low-level/deviceless mages to concentrate on their spells, so this remains unchanged}
5+ Consult Personel familiar with the mages style for potential capabilities. Possibility of collateral damage. Make note of any new spells for debriefing when possible.
{Styles can be written in books, taught to others and can have generalizations applied to them; so it isn't an onerous a task for the PRT to appoint at least one person per branch to be a magic styles consultant (even if said person can't use it}
9+ Deployment of Anti Magelink Fields authorized. Other Mages, Thinkers with applicable abilities, and liaisons should be contacted to better inform about capabilities and to answer immediate threats.
{This appears to be the level where you pull important personnel/resources from other duties/storage. I'm assuming AMF is likely to be rare/tinkertech for the PRT (if their aware of it at all) so that goes here. Consulting Thinkers is because some thinkers have powers ridiculously well suited for analyzing magic (and not all of them will have the ability to use it)}
*Mage: {Kit-bashed from the tinker classification, reasoning in this kind of bracket}
Possesses an active Linker Core alongside the knowledge required to use it.
Expect certain Trumps to be ineffective. Limited impact and endurance depending on skill and Linker Core strength. Can artificially assume any number of other classifications, depending on Magic Style and Specialty. Style and Specialty should be appended to the classification when possible (i.e. Mid-Childs Style Bombardier, Belkan Style Support)
2+ Team is notified of Mage Classification. Disruption is encourage with the use of flashbangs.
{Flashbangs should make it difficult for low-level/deviceless mages to concentrate on their spells, so this remains unchanged}
5+ Consult Personel familiar with the mages style for potential capabilities. Possibility of collateral damage. Make note of any new spells for debriefing when possible.
{Styles can be written in books, taught to others and can have generalizations applied to them; so it isn't an onerous a task for the PRT to appoint at least one person per branch to be a magic styles consultant (even if said person can't use it}
9+ Deployment of Anti Magelink Fields authorized. Other Mages, Thinkers with applicable abilities, and liaisons should be contacted to better inform about capabilities and to answer immediate threats.
{This appears to be the level where you pull important personnel/resources from other duties/storage. I'm assuming AMF is likely to be rare/tinkertech for the PRT (if their aware of it at all) so that goes here. Consulting Thinkers is because some thinkers have powers ridiculously well suited for analyzing magic (and not all of them will have the ability to use it)}
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- Pronouns
- Yes
Very nice, I really liked the trainer you have for them and her interactions with Taylor, Victoria and Weld were very well done, however a few things bugged me:
1)If Nova was a villain as opposed to a rogue or some edge case the only way Egalité could have seen Taylor is if she was consorting with a known villain...which is not something she'd admit in public and should have gotten a bit more of a reaction from Weld.
2)I liked that you have Weld able to blush, but I doubt the colors would match what most people associate with blushing so "like watching a statue blush" seems a bit odd, also I'd think Taylor would note what color he blushed.
3)Who is Dr. Armstrong? Last scene we saw Taylor and Victoria agree to go to him/her (I had been picturing the head of Boston PRT but no reason you have to stick with that) we now see them with Egalité and no mention of either her being Dr. Armstrong (which would mean she doesn't have a secret identity) or at what point was it decided that they'd have no contact with Dr. Armstrong.
4)The phrase "increasingly punishing exercise routines" seems to imply the routines are becoming more difficult for Taylor to perform, as opposed to mearly having more, and more difficult exercises in an objective sense to keep the level of difficulty constant for Taylor's improving abilities. This does not seem to match the description of Taylor and Victoria's exercise routine from last chapter.
5)Taylor and Victoria's exercise routine in the last chapter, and mentioned again here was push-ups, situps and a short run. That does not make sense if they had anyone who knew anything about training guiding them. Situps and push ups would be fairly pointless for anyone with superstrength and a jpog around the block shouldn't even count as a warmup for Taylor. For Victoria, given that her superstrength comes from her forcefield I'd expect stretches, and isometrics would be the only exercises that actually work for Victoria's body.
In general any exercise using weights (which includes situps, pullups and pushups, you're just using your own body as the weight) would be as useful for people with any significant superstrength as you doing weight lifting exercise with a pen as the weight - something Egalite should point out to them.
As Egalité says in the chapter, matching someone doesn't necasserily mean copying their powers. While she probably couldn't copy Taylor's powers she wouldn't even notice it as odd because her power does not always copy powers, sometimes it breaks/suppresses them or lets her ignore them as with Victoria's shield.
In other words - Yes, Egalite could definitely match Taylor's powers.
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- Pronouns
- Yes
She doesn't copy powers, she matches abilities. If that requires copying powers she does, if there's an easier way she doesn't copy the power and uses the easier way.
Castle_Bravo
The user formerly known as Nuke_Equestria
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Huh. That's... weird.
fadingMelody
(Verified Chaos Priestess) (Verified Shipper)
- Location
- Paradox Space
- Pronouns
- She/Her
No one does a slice like Big Rico's.
No one.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Egalité is herself a former villain. She worked for Lustrum alongside Annette. It's the reason her career in the Protectorate hasn't really gone anywhere.
Ick, yeah, that needs fixing.
I had meant to have her point this out, but I guess it got lost in the writing process.
This is basically correct.
Thanks for the feedback, @TheUnicorn. Revisions will be incoming later this evening (PST) when I have time to sit down and go over everything on my computer. Hard to do via cell phone.
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