Hey, it'd be like Raul Julia's role as M Bison in the Street Fighter movie.
- Location
- Villa Straylight, Freeside, Earth Orbit
Literally what I was imagining for Lung! Get out of my head!
- Location
- California
Damn it looks like Injury Magnet's parents didn't get the "There is a psychological need to use powers and if they aren't used Paras go crazy" speech and it sounds like Injury Magnet has a Snark induced desire to inflict wounds if he hasn't taken on injury recently. That can only end well.
Honestly, I am surprised that the Fallen don't take more issue with/fearfully avoid Lung given his claim to fame
Lung: "Hello assorted members of the Fallen, I am the man who singlehandedly stood against one of the beings that you worship as a god, do really think yourselves equal to Leviathan?"
Lung: "Hello assorted members of the Fallen, I am the man who singlehandedly stood against one of the beings that you worship as a god, do really think yourselves equal to Leviathan?"
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Nianque
Verified Dragon
I'm surprised they haven't mastered him and converted him to the worship of the being that he stood up against.
Troy Guffey
Irresponsible Parasite
- Location
- Western Missouri, USA
If you don't have the "what I want comes to my hand", a really big extended space needs a pull-out rack system.
What happens if Taylor enters "up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A"?
FU, Valefor!
Their pocket dimension needs a "doggy door" for Ackbar and Rodney.
A remote-control auto-loading mortar is always a handy thing to have. (Seen on FutureWeapons)
Nice comparison
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Morganite
Happiness is a large book.
- Location
- Dynamis - Firefly Alley
If Broadcast Administrator was Nanoha, then Vicky's snark would be Arisa, and that is sadly not the case.
I know my first thought was "well, his parents need a serious talking-to". Not ignoring power urges has even been in the news!
-Morgan.
- Location
- Море песка, солнце огня и множество злых сарацин
I might have misinterpreted it, but I got the impression that his parents don't even know he's a parahuman.
(Not that I could see how this could possibly happen given his recent schedule, and the obviousness of his power...)
Morganite
Happiness is a large book.
- Location
- Dynamis - Firefly Alley
Nope. Chapter 84 mentions his parents having called ahead when he comes to help with Leviathan.
-Morgan.
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
Obviously, so does Amy. To the point it's getting on her nerves that Taylor isn't punching enough idiots. The problem being, after what happened to the Butcher, it would practically take the ruler of the kingdom of idiots to try and provoke Taylor. (Or anti-parahuman demonstrators, but Brad's been whittling them down.)
- Location
- California
I just had some really good questions come to mind as I'm in the middle of a reread mixed with reading the new chapters. Some recap to follow my thought process. Scion just about destroyed Queen Administrator as part of the cycle, then Broadcast via Jacob budded onto Taylor which allowed QA to do some much-needed repairs whereupon it renamed itself Broadcast Administrator. Now Eidolon and Emulator are showing us that Snarks can repair from damage, which means that Pre-Broadcast Bud QA wasn't able to do that and still might not be able to. Which leads me to my 3 questions.
Is Shaper deployed? (Can't remember and in the middle of a reread)
Can Shaper repair other Snarks? (probably in a similar manner as to how Amy heals people)
If Shaper was deployed on Broadcast Administrator's Earth could it repair BA so that we could have a Queen Broadcast Administrator just as powerful as before Scion damaged the original Queen Administrator if not more so because of the fusion with the Broadcast Bud?
I doubt that would happen if only for story balance reasons but I'll be damned if that isn't a badass as hell idea and a good question.
Edit: Especially since BA/QA isn't really restricted like the rest of the "Noble" shards it just had itself blown up by Scion which was all the restriction it "Needed"
Is Shaper deployed? (Can't remember and in the middle of a reread)
Can Shaper repair other Snarks? (probably in a similar manner as to how Amy heals people)
If Shaper was deployed on Broadcast Administrator's Earth could it repair BA so that we could have a Queen Broadcast Administrator just as powerful as before Scion damaged the original Queen Administrator if not more so because of the fusion with the Broadcast Bud?
I doubt that would happen if only for story balance reasons but I'll be damned if that isn't a badass as hell idea and a good question.
Edit: Especially since BA/QA isn't really restricted like the rest of the "Noble" shards it just had itself blown up by Scion which was all the restriction it "Needed"
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FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Uhm, you do know that Shaper is connected to Amy, right? And appears to be a Zion shard since Amy is a natural trigger. This would imply that yes, Shaper is deployed.
- Location
- California
Really I thought that back when deployment was discovered as Snarks living on alternate earth that there were some snarks there were Zion shards that weren't deployed and there was some intrigue on Taylor's part about that. I haven't gotten there yet on my reread, it's about when Taylor outdrank Lung.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
There are some snarks that haven't deployed. Those would be the ones Zion kept for it's self, and aren't connecting to any humans.
- Location
- Neptune
No, it doesn't. If it had a doggy door Ackbar would fill it with a launch net and all other activity in there would cease.
Yes, that is approximately correct. There are other complications, though...
For all of these: Where, exactly, does it say that his parents didn't get the hint? He is running on a poor assumption about what his parents will likely tell him if he whines based on his experience with previous non-parahuman-problem whining.
You're slightly wrong on your thought process. QA was able to do repairs right along, and had been doing them. But when it found it had an unexpectedly large amount of planet to work with and there was a bit of a conflict between itself and Broadcast it "made a deal" and essentially built a copy of Broadcast to function alongside its own functionality. Just not an independent copy of Broadcast, because the goal was to get both systems working with Taylor.
Shaper is a normally-deployed Zion shard (as in BA).
Shaper is not a repair shard and can't fix other Shards.
Shaper cannot deploy itself, nor can BA deploy shards. Emulator could emulate the self-deployment systems, very few shards have them, and BA was only able to tell it where to deploy to.
Zion shards that we see are all deployed.
Eden shards connecting to people via vials and similar are not deployed.
Morganite
Happiness is a large book.
- Location
- Dynamis - Firefly Alley
The way it's structured really makes it sound more like he's making predictions based on previous parahuman-problem experiences, not on non-parahuman ones.
-Morgan.
- Location
- Oklahoma City, OK
Why all the semi-elaborate reasoning? I can think of two reasons for his thought processes.
1. Snark Shenanigans: He hasn't been doing enough damage absorption and the snark is getting restless thus feeding him ideas.
2. 'Parents just don't understand' syndrome. You know, that age range where apparently "You just don't get me. You don't know what I need." Isn't that called angst in some circles?
1. Snark Shenanigans: He hasn't been doing enough damage absorption and the snark is getting restless thus feeding him ideas.
2. 'Parents just don't understand' syndrome. You know, that age range where apparently "You just don't get me. You don't know what I need." Isn't that called angst in some circles?
- Location
- Earth
So, finally caught up with this after just a bit over a week of power reading, mostly slacking off on my various other forms of entertainment to get more reading time. That this fic is very much "just one more chapter" made it easier as well.
First off, I really enjoy this version of Colin. He stays true to canon while also being, you know, a person. I just kept loving him more and more as I went along though the fic.
I do wish we had seen more of him and Dragon after she confessed her true nature to him. I am sure they are both professional enough to still work together afterwards with it not being fully resolved but there has been enough time since the reveal without any follow-up that it is somewhat obvious by its absence.
Taylor and Amy are indeed cute together, and Amy is making moves in her own mind to work things out but we still need to see when it clicks for Taylor. In my opinion she's still very much in "best friend" mode on it but there are hints here and there she may come around to more. Though I'm still putting money on it being someone other than one of the two of them that gets her to realize what is going on. Beyond someone just casually calling Amy "her girlfriend" like, ah, I think that was Ed? The gun range guy. Can't remember who that was that said that now...Taylor didn't react in anyway at the time so she didn't seen to notice.
Anyways.
The S9 are well done, I especially love how Jacob acts. And I think this is the first time I've seen this particular brand of William and Siberian and is quite an interesting spin on things. Don't think it'd work in too many fics though.
Riley is also very well done, I really like how she loses interest in older spider-bots. Likely her snark subtly pushing her to make new ones.
We haven't really seen the rest enough yet for me to make an opinion of them, though official clown face Hatchet Face is hilarious.
I like how Coil was shut down, nice way to deal with that mess of plot threads. And the Undersiders, though I do miss Miss Gosi, ah, I mean Inference Engine. Always a fun one to be around. As long as it isn't pointed at you that is.
Beta!Chuck Norris showing up on the "Maul Facts" thread was a nice touch, even more so the reaction to that happening.
The Ducks had just the right run time before it got too tedious, because Path. That snark never got a name from Taylor right? I don't remember it getting one...
Now I'm just waiting to see how things go with The Fallen as well as David and Emulator and the Endbringers. Hopefully Margaret can get a tinker made fish tank, maybe with some help from Water Monkey? Does she like sharks?
I'm going to go watch some Youtube now, have a lot of subscription notifications I've let pile up after all.
First off, I really enjoy this version of Colin. He stays true to canon while also being, you know, a person. I just kept loving him more and more as I went along though the fic.
I do wish we had seen more of him and Dragon after she confessed her true nature to him. I am sure they are both professional enough to still work together afterwards with it not being fully resolved but there has been enough time since the reveal without any follow-up that it is somewhat obvious by its absence.
Taylor and Amy are indeed cute together, and Amy is making moves in her own mind to work things out but we still need to see when it clicks for Taylor. In my opinion she's still very much in "best friend" mode on it but there are hints here and there she may come around to more. Though I'm still putting money on it being someone other than one of the two of them that gets her to realize what is going on. Beyond someone just casually calling Amy "her girlfriend" like, ah, I think that was Ed? The gun range guy. Can't remember who that was that said that now...Taylor didn't react in anyway at the time so she didn't seen to notice.
Anyways.
The S9 are well done, I especially love how Jacob acts. And I think this is the first time I've seen this particular brand of William and Siberian and is quite an interesting spin on things. Don't think it'd work in too many fics though.
Riley is also very well done, I really like how she loses interest in older spider-bots. Likely her snark subtly pushing her to make new ones.
We haven't really seen the rest enough yet for me to make an opinion of them, though official clown face Hatchet Face is hilarious.
I like how Coil was shut down, nice way to deal with that mess of plot threads. And the Undersiders, though I do miss Miss Gosi, ah, I mean Inference Engine. Always a fun one to be around. As long as it isn't pointed at you that is.
Beta!Chuck Norris showing up on the "Maul Facts" thread was a nice touch, even more so the reaction to that happening.
The Ducks had just the right run time before it got too tedious, because Path. That snark never got a name from Taylor right? I don't remember it getting one...
Now I'm just waiting to see how things go with The Fallen as well as David and Emulator and the Endbringers. Hopefully Margaret can get a tinker made fish tank, maybe with some help from Water Monkey? Does she like sharks?
I'm going to go watch some Youtube now, have a lot of subscription notifications I've let pile up after all.
So this is something I've told myself I'm going to comment about on any Worm fanfics that do it and is mostly just a minor nitpick: Taylor's father's real name is not "Daniel".
I am very tired of seeing people not treating "Danny" as a valid first name. It is, and does not need to be a nickname for "Daniel". Not every "Rick" is a "Richard" and not every "Sam" is a "Samuel" or "Samantha" and so on.
In Worm he introduces himself, in court, as "Danny Hebert". That is a case I would think he'd not use a "nickname".
Sadly he never got a proper tag, being only "Taylor's Dad" and all.
I've not read any of Ward proper yet, just the prelude, but from a quick search on the site it seems that he hasn't shown up at all there so no help either way.
I am very tired of seeing people not treating "Danny" as a valid first name. It is, and does not need to be a nickname for "Daniel". Not every "Rick" is a "Richard" and not every "Sam" is a "Samuel" or "Samantha" and so on.
In Worm he introduces himself, in court, as "Danny Hebert". That is a case I would think he'd not use a "nickname".
Sadly he never got a proper tag, being only "Taylor's Dad" and all.
I've not read any of Ward proper yet, just the prelude, but from a quick search on the site it seems that he hasn't shown up at all there so no help either way.
Chapter 201:
And these two in the Duck and S9 interlude:
Either "ready to be carefully placed over the" or "ready to carefully place over the"
And these two in the Duck and S9 interlude:
"he threw a knife"
"she continued to follow"
Chapter 204
Saturday morning Taylor was up a little early, hoping to avoid anyone who was expecting her to depart the house at her normal time. She wasn't sure if that had worked or if there just wasn't anyone out looking to intercept her, but she arrived at the PRT building with plenty of time to spare. Instead of going straight for the gym she went to her room and laid out her equipment for the day. She double-checked that she had everything she needed, filled up the places she stored snacks in, and then went and grabbed some drinks. While getting the drinks she ordered a proper reusable water bottle from the PRT store, a side project of sorts from an armor tinker that also made tableware out of the armor materials. Though their profile claimed that their spouse didn't appreciate nearly-unbreakable dishes that did damage to the walls when thrown.
Sadly, it'd been pointed out to her that setting up the air cannon would be a poor choice without knowing what direction an enemy would likely be coming from. That was followed by a request for details on how she built the air cannon. She suspected that she wouldn't get any payout from that, given how simple and kludged-together the whole thing was. But they had informed her that there would be a secure supply cabinet on the hospital roof that she would be able to utilize.
She had everything ready by the time Amy, Aisha, and Brian were pulling into the secure garage. Amy seemed to be following Brian's car in this morning, though it was unlikely to be intentional. Deciding to meet them as they came up the stairs, Taylor left the Wards area and stood across the hall from the 'closet door'. It didn't take long for the two to emerge, and Aisha opted to join them in the gym.
"So why are you here today?" Taylor asked as they walked along.
Aisha sighed. "Brian thinks that something big is going to go down over the weekend and doesn't want me home alone as a result. My options are to hang around here bored, or hang around at the hospital bored. I'm thinking that I'll probably hang out here and watch movies or something."
"I'm hoping my day is that boring," Taylor admitted, Amy nodding along. "Because if it isn't then things will probably be stressful."
Amy shrugged. "These weekends are usually boring for me, barring the occasional interesting patient. I'm more concerned with whether or not anyone gets hurt trying to protect the hospital if the Fallen do make trouble."
Taylor snorted at that. "That and you'll probably be annoyed that you're stuck in the hospital and not able to go out to take out your frustrations on the idiots."
Amy's only answer to that was a momentary glare at Taylor, following by trying to hide a pout. Not long after that they reached the gym, finding that it was fairly busy. It looked like the PRT was taking the Fallen seriously and had called in plenty of people to help. The question was whether or not a show of force would deter the Fallen. Somehow, that didn't seem likely.
Trevor munched on a donut while looking through his and Erik's old files. Piggot had put the entire region on 'subtle alert' and had asked that anyone with any ideas as to how to possibly find the Fallen before they made their move act on them where appropriate. He hadn't thought he'd have much to contribute, until he remembered something that Erik used to do. Thus looking through things that he'd rather not be for the code. Then again, he thought that his friend would approve, so it wasn't eating him up too much.
A console across the room beeped as his personal scout drone turned along the path he'd laid out. He was getting a 'today' snapshot of the area that the bikers kept vanishing into, bypassing all kinds of checks that would normally be needed because the scout drone was his personal one. That console was also downloading Dragon's 'sanitized' copy of the city-wide sweep from the archives as a hopeful comparison point. It wouldn't have people and vehicles, but that was fine. He just wanted the building data from it anyway.
Ten minutes later he'd found the folder with backup disks labeled appropriately. These should contain Erik's comparison and highlighting programs. Hopefully it would be enough to find something of interest before the Fallen made their move.
Taylor ended up following Amy to the hospital on her platform, the other girl having waited for the added protection. When asked what added protection had been present on the way to the PRT building the answer had been that Vicky had followed along until they'd run into Brian's car at an intersection, at which point she'd veered off to go do a few passes around the hospital. Of course, Taylor was 'pre-checking' the path they were taking with the Snitch and her scout drone.
Their arrival was without incident, after which Amy headed inside and Taylor headed for the roof. She started the Snitch and scout drone on a couple of circular 'patrol routes' of their own to monitor the area, then moved over to the secure storage unit that was on the roof. It opened with her access keys and had a second, higher-security compartment inside. That also opened and she stared at the collection of grenades in it, then carefully closed it and hoped that she wouldn't need the worst of them. That done, she closed up the rest of it, followed by turning around to watch Vicky come in for a landing.
"Morning," Taylor called.
"Morning to you too," Vicky replied. "I saw your drone looking around and figured I could stop flying in circles for a bit."
"Yeah, they should hopefully give some advance warning of anything approaching. But I've only got two units out there, so we don't exactly have 'full coverage' with them."
"Ah. That sucks. Oh well, my father and aunt should be here shortly, but I don't know if Eric or Crystal is coming today. Depending on how things go this morning they might swap out for the afternoon shift after the others bring us lunch."
Taylor nodded, as that made sense. "So how do you guys normally handle things anyway?"
"We usually aim for at least one person here and at least one patrolling the area, mixing things up throughout the day to keep from having obvious patterns for someone to exploit. Beyond that we're usually fairly flexible. One of the few near-constants is having at least one person here monitoring Amy, but I suppose you count as monitoring her regardless. I don't know if today will be a top floor down or a bottom floor up day for her, but the hospital will have all of the blinds and curtains closed to make it harder to figure out where she is in the building."
"Okay. Anything else I should know?"
Vicky thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Probably best to let Aunt Sarah give you any other briefings."
Gillian whistled lightly as she waited for the bus. She was going to be doing a quick bit of shopping to resupply her apartment, then get 'dinner' at a diner she'd found that she liked. Then she'd have to head back and start getting things ready for the afternoon. The other surprises arranged for the day should ensure that attention was everywhere other than on them to start with, so they should retain most of the element of surprise on that front.
Sadly, she'd sleep through it all, and probably be useless for days afterwards. This level of effort would drain her power and leave her exhausted as a result. If she was lucky she'd be recovered enough to pack up and leave town by Wednesday, but she was thinking that she wouldn't be up to driving the RV until Thursday or Friday. Only time would tell, but she trusted the grunts to keep where she and 'her brother' were operating out of secret for at least a week after she could depart.
Frowning, she remembered that while she'd drained the gas out of the RV before boxing it and all she hadn't filled the external tank. Perhaps she should send someone out to do that while she dealt with prep work after getting back, so that she didn't have to rely on gas stations being open along her exit route when she was finally ready to leave?
Sarah sighed. "I can't help but feel that the best course of action is to keep Taylor here outside. She won't get tired flying on her platform and can monitor things very effectively. The rest of us can then focus on our normal rotation so that nothing looks out of place to anyone who's picked up on patterns and will be looking for other changes."
Taylor nodded. "That would make it easier for me to get at the supply cabinet too, should I start lobbing a pile of containment foam grenades around anyway. Not sure I'll go through enough ammo to worry about that, and I'm hoping nothing comes up worth using the more dangerous grenades in there."
Eric snorted. "If they've given a Ward access to them then I doubt that they're that bad."
"The ice wall and matter to sand grenades are the least dangerous of the lot. The latter aren't Manton Limited. I don't know what they think might come up, but if I seriously consider using anything past the ice walls then something major is going down."
Everyone stared at Taylor for a moment, then shivered.
"Eiga eiga eiga eiga eiga," Takara chanted as she waited for breakfast. Kenta just shook his head as his daughter's antics. She liked the Japanese movie days at the activity center. And today he could probably expect some of Max's grunts to show up since it was a 'truce' day and all. Similarly, he suspected that some of his people would be over in Empire territory to watch a combat event being streamed live from Europe. Of course, both sides would claim that they were wandering into the other territory to 'gather intelligence' instead of admitting that they were interested in what the other side was showing today.
Really, it was amazing how much outright hostilities had reduced amongst those that had participated in 'bus duty'. And so long as those from one side were 'vouched for' by someone on the other side they'd be permitted into events at this point. Probably on the basis of 'getting an inside spy' or something stupid like that. Neither he or Max was getting any useful information out of the unlikely friendships because they were built in part on mutual respect at this point.
Either way he was going to do his best to enjoy the family outing that today should be. He wished the PRT and Protectorate luck with the Fallen, whatever their plans were for the weekend, but he didn't intend to make things more chaotic by trying to get his people involved. And as he understood it, Max was thinking the same way. They had no clue what the Elite or the Ambassadors would do, of course. The leadership of those two groups didn't tend to associate with them right now for various reasons, after all.
Taylor watched the first of Dragon's transports come in for a landing in the hospital parking lot. The first round of patients had apparently come in overnight, but due to the likelihood of the Fallen making a move today they were taking extra precautions in moving people around. Due to that they'd be moving people out to Manchester on the transports. The next round of people coming in were apparently gathering at the airport and would come in on another transport.
"Any signs of trouble?" Dragon asked as she came up next to her platform.
"None," Taylor admitted. "Not sure if that's a good thing or not, though something has dawned on me since we started."
"Really?"
"If we're so concerned about the Fallen attacking, why didn't we just have Amy do this somewhere else for the weekend?"
Dragon seemed to need a moment to think on that, before she turned to Taylor. "It seems obvious in hindsight, doesn't it? The entire thing has generally been arranged through Brockton General, so not having it at Brockton General probably didn't occur to anyone. I'll ensure that the idea is mentioned to those in charge."
Amy had gotten started, working up the building, and Taylor was doing her best to not cringe at some of the problems being encountered. She assumed that parahumans had been involved in a number of the things being looked at. Others she wasn't as sure about. The old woman with a horseshoe that'd been lodged around her spine could've just been an accident, but the kid who'd somehow ended up with their hands and feet swapped had to have been parahuman-related.
A few more passes around the building for Taylor and the first healed people were filtering out into the transport, and Dragon had moved down to ensure that they were comfortable.
"Console to all points," came down the radio not long after. "All patrols have checked in and none have reported contact with hostiles. Next full check in forty-five minutes."
"Console to Armsmaster," came over the radio. "Reknit reports that he's identified two points of interest. Point one is in an abandoned group of warehouses and registers as containing a powerful explosive to the scout sensors. Point two is a modification to a building interior that he feels looks suspicious. He parked his scout on the roof of point two to better monitor it for now, but he has it paired to his workstation and we don't have a direct feed as a result."
Colin frowned. That was inefficient, but understandable. The other tinker didn't tend to go on patrol and kept the scout drone as more of a side project than anything else, so he hadn't been set up to tie it into the shared systems. That would need to be corrected later for situations such as this one. "Armsmaster to console, please have Countdown meet me at a rally point near but not at point one and instruct Reknit to keep us informed about changes at point two."
So far his own patrols hadn't come up with anything problematic, so it wasn't likely that the city was laced with explosives like the Teeth had done. But any suddenly appearing explosives were bad news until proven otherwise with the Fallen in town, and for now that would have to take priority over suspicious changes to a building. With any luck they'd be able to safely approach and disarm the explosive before it went off.
A rally point came up on his patrol map, along with markers for both points of interest, and the software automatically laid out a suitable path for him to follow. He pulled left at the next intersection and hoped that Vivian didn't take her time. Until she arrived he'd use his own scout drone to get a better look at the situation and start planning an approach, not to mention to check for others in the area that might need to be cleared out.
Taylor moved back to the roof to toss an empty water bottle in the trash there, getting out of the way of one of the transports coming in for a landing in the process. There'd been a delay in getting an empty one in due to a family deciding to set off model rockets along the flight path near the Manchester end, so this one would probably fill up quickly with people who'd been stuck waiting for it to show up.
It was actually approaching time to get lunch, and Amy was planning to clear the top floor before breaking for lunch. Then they could swap the outgoing transport for an incoming one and get the next round of people into the hospital while lunch was being eaten. Of course, there were a couple of weird cases in this group, like the one Amy was working on now. There had to be parahuman abilities involved to end up with fourteen bullets in the spinal column without actually harming the spinal cord, right?
There was still no sign of trouble, which was stressful in and of itself. Nice that nothing had happened, but with the concern that came with wondering what that meant for what was coming. They could hope 'nothing', of course, but they certainly weren't going to expect nothing. Well, someone had spotted a single unexploded likely-bomb, according to the console, but that was about it. And there was no way to know if it was supposed to go off today or not in the first place.
It wasn't too long before Amy had finished with the last patient, a little girl with a combination of a nasty tumor in her lung and a sliver of metal in her heart. Once she was done with that she continued up, onto the roof, and walked over to where Taylor was.
"Carol reserved a room at a nearby restaurant instead of bringing food," Amy said as she came up to the platform. "Claimed it was easier with the needing to wait for the transports to swap out. Care to give me a lift?"
Taylor shrugged and dropped the platform to make it easier for Amy to climb on. "Why not. Gets us there faster, right?"
Amy held onto Taylor as they flew off to meet the others for lunch.
Kenta steered Takara away from the table with beer on it, not needing her to decide that she wanted an alcoholic beverage and needing to tell her 'no' as a result. He wasn't sure what of the food that'd been made available she'd want to eat, but he was sure that she'd find something. Probably several things, luckily the plans included dinner being run the same way so he wasn't too concerned about her appetite.
It didn't take her long to build a plate of food starting with a slice of cheese pizza that she then added her own additional toppings to. He rolled his eyes at her choices, but didn't stop her. She'd eventually learn that not everything that tasted good individually went well together. Either that or she'd do him proud in grossing out her friends when she was older. He wasn't feeling picky there. He'd made a much simpler burger for himself, they both took a bottle of juice for a drink, and then they made their way back to where Miku was waiting for them. She'd grabbed something during the credits while he'd sat with Takara, who'd refused to move until after the credits were over. Too many post-credits scenes in other movies and she didn't want to miss one if it came up.
He'd nearly finished his burger when his hearing picked up on a commotion outside, which concerned him. By the time he'd finished standing up said commotion had included gunshots, but the more immediate concern was the flaming bottle that came through a window on the other side of the building. That this was followed by a second flaming bottle from where the commotion had been had him furious.
"I will clear a path," he growled as Miku joined many of the parents in gathering their children. He then put actions to his words, even as he felt himself growing. It was telling that the sprinkler system, that he knew was functional days prior, hadn't activated.
The truck that someone had attempted to block the exit with didn't last long against him, and people were soon evacuating. He moved around the building to where the commotion had been to find Jeremy, one of several Empire members that had been in the area. The boy looked to be bleeding out, and didn't look scared that an angry parahuman was approaching.
"I tried to stop him," the boy said. "Mike, I mean. But he just went nuts. Shot me, then ran off."
Kenta's eyes narrowed, and he took a couple of good whiffs. This was very suspicious now, because unlike most Empire members in the area he was very familiar with the Mike in question. The man was one of his paid spies in the Empire, after all, and there was no way he'd do something like this normally. Giving up on any pretenses of being on 'opposite sides' for the moment, he called for someone to help Jeremy, then moved further down the side of the building as he pulled out his phone. He flipped through his contacts and selected one.
"I'm a little busy right now," was Max's greeting.
"One of my spies in your group just shot another member and tried to kill everyone at our movie showing," Kenta replied. "I think we've been hit by a master."
There was a pause before Max responded. "That would explain four of your people apparently trying to knock down some of the low income housing in my territory. I take it that means we need to try for capture and hand over to the PRT for deprogramming, doesn't it? My men won't like that."
"Remind them that if we find the real culprit then we can do our best to ensure that they learn a lesson that they'll never forget. Or perhaps point out that one of your own men just shot another one due to said programming."
"Console to all points," came over the radio shortly after they'd returned from lunch. "Fighting has broken out in several areas. It appears to be gang warfare at this time, no sign of the Fallen being involved."
"That's highly unusual," Carol noted. "In fact, I'd almost call that impossible under normal circumstances. Then again, it could be a distraction, so we need to stay on alert here."
Taylor nodded. "Then I guess we should start a sweep of the area."
The two ended up splitting up to circle opposite one another while Neil was inside with Amy. They both did two full passes around the hospital, but neither found anything of interest at this point. Taylor continued to circle, since it didn't take much effort for her, while Carol returned to the hospital itself to wait a bit.
Half an hour later, as Amy was moving up a floor, the reasonably quiet day was rocked by several explosions.
Gillian had finished her ritual, having needed three passes on one circle and fifteen on the other to get the five to one ratio needed. She'd dropped the ramp on the platform in the output circle, closed the door between the two sections of the area, and downed the tinker-produced energy drink she needed to stay conscious long enough for everyone to get equipped and for her to pack up the original tank. With all the prepwork completed she opened the front and back doors so that groups could start filtering through.
"You should all know the drill," she called as they started coming in. "One group of five at a time, get in, drive off. No dallying! We need to get as many tanks as we can out there before anyone realizes that we've got them!"
There was some jostling, but not at the front. They knew not to mess around too much by now. Once the first group was entirely inside of the output circle she felt a tug on her power, a side effect of pulling that much mass at once. But they'd run tests before and knew her limits, both per manifestation and per session. They had enough people to get near, but not exceed, those limits. The rest would run support and scouting on their motorcycles.
"Outlying Endbringer shelters have all been damaged and are unavailable for evacuation," the console reported. "It is not believed that other explosives have been deployed."
Amy: Dragon informed me that this is the last group to be healed this weekend, and only because they're already here.
Taylor: That makes a lot of sense.
Amy: How long do you think before whatever their real plan is becomes obvious?
Taylor: Can't be too much longer. If it takes too long then things will finish up here and we'll bail, after all.
Amy: Good point.
Crystal and Eric had been called in and would be arriving shortly. Sarah and Mark were also on their way back, this being an 'all hands' situation now. The hospital was also gearing up for an influx of injured that weren't part of the healing weekend, starting to move equipment to better allow for a larger flow through the emergency room and prepping every bed Amy emptied to ensure that it would be available as soon as possible for incoming patients.
Now it was mainly time to wait for the next shoe to drop, so to speak. Hopefully they'd be able to intercept whatever it ended up being.
Trevor swore as he reviewed the data on the explosive that they'd found. He recognized a number of pieces of it, and as far as he could tell remotely and Vivian could tell on-site it wasn't going to be volatile without extra components. They'd checked with him in case it was something he might be able to spot without looking in person, but the most likely situation was that the thing was delivered in multiple pieces. This one was just lacking the detonation unit, intentionally or otherwise.
He made a few more notes, then sent that file off to join the rest of the documentation. That done, and with nothing more to directly contribute on that front, he switched back to that warehouse he'd been monitoring. Only to find that it had a large number of people outside of it and two friggin' tanks inside of it. One of the tanks drove out just before five people stepped forward and another tank came into existence.
A still image was grabbed and sent off with an emergency warning before he started going through the previously recorded data to see if he could figure out what the hell was going on there. There was either a parahuman or tinkertech involved, and his time was probably best used through figuring out what the hell had happened there. At a minimum it would make it easier for others to determine a good counter to what was happening.
"Emergency alert," came over the radio. "Reknit reports that tanks are being deployed from a warehouse on Williams street and are believed to be heading towards Brockton General. I repeat, tanks are being deployed from a warehouse on Williams street and are believed to be heading towards Brockton General."
Taylor took a moment to check where Williams street was, then swung the Snitch and scout drone in that direction. She had the snitch further out, and attempted to keep it out of sight along the most likely path of approach. While doing that she was personally heading for the storage cabinet on the roof, because she didn't think the few grenades she had on her were going to be enough. It didn't take long to grab more containment foam grenades, and she also grabbed all of the ice wall grenades as well.
The more lethal grenades she left behind. If she absolutely needed them then she was going to have to come back for them, but barring tinkertech tanks she thought it was unlikely that she'd need to go that far. Besides, she would probably have plenty of backup, and most of the more dangerous grenades wouldn't distinguish between friend and foe. Accidentally killing your allies was generally considered a bad thing in all but the most dire of scenarios, after all.
She had enough sense to lock the cabinet up, if only to secure the more dangerous grenades, before jumping back onto her platform. She pulled out the tinker-made handgun as she flew off to try and intercept the leading tanks. With luck any tanks stuck in containment foam would stop being a problem and would remain effectively inert from a threat point of view. And if they served as blockades for those that came behind them it would be all the better.
Brad led Justin into the PRT building. Between them they had twelve bodies, some of them being carried by Justin's projections. Most of them were ABB, but a few were Empire.
"We're in the middle of a crisis right now," one of the staff noted.
"Boss thinks that these fuckers were mastered into starting trouble," Brad replied. "I'm inclined to agree, given the number of people they tried to kill on Panacea's weekend and all. Word is that Lung's hunting a few more down. Can't blame the guy, didn't even know he had a kid until I heard that she was in the building a couple of others tried to burn down. Not that I'm trying to dig into his personal life, that's just not done and all."
Someone made a call and a few minutes later eleven of the twelve were taken off of their hands. A PRT officer then pointed at the last one, an Empire member. "What'd he do?"
"Tried to stab a couple of people in the back. Literally. Why is he special?"
"He's the only one of the lot that wasn't mastered. Sadly, unless you have proof of what he did we'll have to let him go. At the same time, bringing eleven other mastered people in with you is justification enough for bringing him in if he was being unusually violent."
Brad scowled at the man. But he wouldn't do anything to him for now, because that would go against the rules Max had set down. Of course, he would be passing on what the man had done while not mastered. And they'd probably give him an opportunity to explain himself, for that matter. It was sadly possible that one of the actually-mastered grunts had misled him, at which point the beating he'd already received might be sufficient.
Maybe.
Sadly, that would be Max's call, so it would have to wait.
Sadly, it'd been pointed out to her that setting up the air cannon would be a poor choice without knowing what direction an enemy would likely be coming from. That was followed by a request for details on how she built the air cannon. She suspected that she wouldn't get any payout from that, given how simple and kludged-together the whole thing was. But they had informed her that there would be a secure supply cabinet on the hospital roof that she would be able to utilize.
She had everything ready by the time Amy, Aisha, and Brian were pulling into the secure garage. Amy seemed to be following Brian's car in this morning, though it was unlikely to be intentional. Deciding to meet them as they came up the stairs, Taylor left the Wards area and stood across the hall from the 'closet door'. It didn't take long for the two to emerge, and Aisha opted to join them in the gym.
"So why are you here today?" Taylor asked as they walked along.
Aisha sighed. "Brian thinks that something big is going to go down over the weekend and doesn't want me home alone as a result. My options are to hang around here bored, or hang around at the hospital bored. I'm thinking that I'll probably hang out here and watch movies or something."
"I'm hoping my day is that boring," Taylor admitted, Amy nodding along. "Because if it isn't then things will probably be stressful."
Amy shrugged. "These weekends are usually boring for me, barring the occasional interesting patient. I'm more concerned with whether or not anyone gets hurt trying to protect the hospital if the Fallen do make trouble."
Taylor snorted at that. "That and you'll probably be annoyed that you're stuck in the hospital and not able to go out to take out your frustrations on the idiots."
Amy's only answer to that was a momentary glare at Taylor, following by trying to hide a pout. Not long after that they reached the gym, finding that it was fairly busy. It looked like the PRT was taking the Fallen seriously and had called in plenty of people to help. The question was whether or not a show of force would deter the Fallen. Somehow, that didn't seem likely.
Trevor munched on a donut while looking through his and Erik's old files. Piggot had put the entire region on 'subtle alert' and had asked that anyone with any ideas as to how to possibly find the Fallen before they made their move act on them where appropriate. He hadn't thought he'd have much to contribute, until he remembered something that Erik used to do. Thus looking through things that he'd rather not be for the code. Then again, he thought that his friend would approve, so it wasn't eating him up too much.
A console across the room beeped as his personal scout drone turned along the path he'd laid out. He was getting a 'today' snapshot of the area that the bikers kept vanishing into, bypassing all kinds of checks that would normally be needed because the scout drone was his personal one. That console was also downloading Dragon's 'sanitized' copy of the city-wide sweep from the archives as a hopeful comparison point. It wouldn't have people and vehicles, but that was fine. He just wanted the building data from it anyway.
Ten minutes later he'd found the folder with backup disks labeled appropriately. These should contain Erik's comparison and highlighting programs. Hopefully it would be enough to find something of interest before the Fallen made their move.
Taylor ended up following Amy to the hospital on her platform, the other girl having waited for the added protection. When asked what added protection had been present on the way to the PRT building the answer had been that Vicky had followed along until they'd run into Brian's car at an intersection, at which point she'd veered off to go do a few passes around the hospital. Of course, Taylor was 'pre-checking' the path they were taking with the Snitch and her scout drone.
Their arrival was without incident, after which Amy headed inside and Taylor headed for the roof. She started the Snitch and scout drone on a couple of circular 'patrol routes' of their own to monitor the area, then moved over to the secure storage unit that was on the roof. It opened with her access keys and had a second, higher-security compartment inside. That also opened and she stared at the collection of grenades in it, then carefully closed it and hoped that she wouldn't need the worst of them. That done, she closed up the rest of it, followed by turning around to watch Vicky come in for a landing.
"Morning," Taylor called.
"Morning to you too," Vicky replied. "I saw your drone looking around and figured I could stop flying in circles for a bit."
"Yeah, they should hopefully give some advance warning of anything approaching. But I've only got two units out there, so we don't exactly have 'full coverage' with them."
"Ah. That sucks. Oh well, my father and aunt should be here shortly, but I don't know if Eric or Crystal is coming today. Depending on how things go this morning they might swap out for the afternoon shift after the others bring us lunch."
Taylor nodded, as that made sense. "So how do you guys normally handle things anyway?"
"We usually aim for at least one person here and at least one patrolling the area, mixing things up throughout the day to keep from having obvious patterns for someone to exploit. Beyond that we're usually fairly flexible. One of the few near-constants is having at least one person here monitoring Amy, but I suppose you count as monitoring her regardless. I don't know if today will be a top floor down or a bottom floor up day for her, but the hospital will have all of the blinds and curtains closed to make it harder to figure out where she is in the building."
"Okay. Anything else I should know?"
Vicky thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Probably best to let Aunt Sarah give you any other briefings."
Gillian whistled lightly as she waited for the bus. She was going to be doing a quick bit of shopping to resupply her apartment, then get 'dinner' at a diner she'd found that she liked. Then she'd have to head back and start getting things ready for the afternoon. The other surprises arranged for the day should ensure that attention was everywhere other than on them to start with, so they should retain most of the element of surprise on that front.
Sadly, she'd sleep through it all, and probably be useless for days afterwards. This level of effort would drain her power and leave her exhausted as a result. If she was lucky she'd be recovered enough to pack up and leave town by Wednesday, but she was thinking that she wouldn't be up to driving the RV until Thursday or Friday. Only time would tell, but she trusted the grunts to keep where she and 'her brother' were operating out of secret for at least a week after she could depart.
Frowning, she remembered that while she'd drained the gas out of the RV before boxing it and all she hadn't filled the external tank. Perhaps she should send someone out to do that while she dealt with prep work after getting back, so that she didn't have to rely on gas stations being open along her exit route when she was finally ready to leave?
Sarah sighed. "I can't help but feel that the best course of action is to keep Taylor here outside. She won't get tired flying on her platform and can monitor things very effectively. The rest of us can then focus on our normal rotation so that nothing looks out of place to anyone who's picked up on patterns and will be looking for other changes."
Taylor nodded. "That would make it easier for me to get at the supply cabinet too, should I start lobbing a pile of containment foam grenades around anyway. Not sure I'll go through enough ammo to worry about that, and I'm hoping nothing comes up worth using the more dangerous grenades in there."
Eric snorted. "If they've given a Ward access to them then I doubt that they're that bad."
"The ice wall and matter to sand grenades are the least dangerous of the lot. The latter aren't Manton Limited. I don't know what they think might come up, but if I seriously consider using anything past the ice walls then something major is going down."
Everyone stared at Taylor for a moment, then shivered.
"Eiga eiga eiga eiga eiga," Takara chanted as she waited for breakfast. Kenta just shook his head as his daughter's antics. She liked the Japanese movie days at the activity center. And today he could probably expect some of Max's grunts to show up since it was a 'truce' day and all. Similarly, he suspected that some of his people would be over in Empire territory to watch a combat event being streamed live from Europe. Of course, both sides would claim that they were wandering into the other territory to 'gather intelligence' instead of admitting that they were interested in what the other side was showing today.
Really, it was amazing how much outright hostilities had reduced amongst those that had participated in 'bus duty'. And so long as those from one side were 'vouched for' by someone on the other side they'd be permitted into events at this point. Probably on the basis of 'getting an inside spy' or something stupid like that. Neither he or Max was getting any useful information out of the unlikely friendships because they were built in part on mutual respect at this point.
Either way he was going to do his best to enjoy the family outing that today should be. He wished the PRT and Protectorate luck with the Fallen, whatever their plans were for the weekend, but he didn't intend to make things more chaotic by trying to get his people involved. And as he understood it, Max was thinking the same way. They had no clue what the Elite or the Ambassadors would do, of course. The leadership of those two groups didn't tend to associate with them right now for various reasons, after all.
Taylor watched the first of Dragon's transports come in for a landing in the hospital parking lot. The first round of patients had apparently come in overnight, but due to the likelihood of the Fallen making a move today they were taking extra precautions in moving people around. Due to that they'd be moving people out to Manchester on the transports. The next round of people coming in were apparently gathering at the airport and would come in on another transport.
"Any signs of trouble?" Dragon asked as she came up next to her platform.
"None," Taylor admitted. "Not sure if that's a good thing or not, though something has dawned on me since we started."
"Really?"
"If we're so concerned about the Fallen attacking, why didn't we just have Amy do this somewhere else for the weekend?"
Dragon seemed to need a moment to think on that, before she turned to Taylor. "It seems obvious in hindsight, doesn't it? The entire thing has generally been arranged through Brockton General, so not having it at Brockton General probably didn't occur to anyone. I'll ensure that the idea is mentioned to those in charge."
Amy had gotten started, working up the building, and Taylor was doing her best to not cringe at some of the problems being encountered. She assumed that parahumans had been involved in a number of the things being looked at. Others she wasn't as sure about. The old woman with a horseshoe that'd been lodged around her spine could've just been an accident, but the kid who'd somehow ended up with their hands and feet swapped had to have been parahuman-related.
A few more passes around the building for Taylor and the first healed people were filtering out into the transport, and Dragon had moved down to ensure that they were comfortable.
"Console to all points," came down the radio not long after. "All patrols have checked in and none have reported contact with hostiles. Next full check in forty-five minutes."
"Console to Armsmaster," came over the radio. "Reknit reports that he's identified two points of interest. Point one is in an abandoned group of warehouses and registers as containing a powerful explosive to the scout sensors. Point two is a modification to a building interior that he feels looks suspicious. He parked his scout on the roof of point two to better monitor it for now, but he has it paired to his workstation and we don't have a direct feed as a result."
Colin frowned. That was inefficient, but understandable. The other tinker didn't tend to go on patrol and kept the scout drone as more of a side project than anything else, so he hadn't been set up to tie it into the shared systems. That would need to be corrected later for situations such as this one. "Armsmaster to console, please have Countdown meet me at a rally point near but not at point one and instruct Reknit to keep us informed about changes at point two."
So far his own patrols hadn't come up with anything problematic, so it wasn't likely that the city was laced with explosives like the Teeth had done. But any suddenly appearing explosives were bad news until proven otherwise with the Fallen in town, and for now that would have to take priority over suspicious changes to a building. With any luck they'd be able to safely approach and disarm the explosive before it went off.
A rally point came up on his patrol map, along with markers for both points of interest, and the software automatically laid out a suitable path for him to follow. He pulled left at the next intersection and hoped that Vivian didn't take her time. Until she arrived he'd use his own scout drone to get a better look at the situation and start planning an approach, not to mention to check for others in the area that might need to be cleared out.
Taylor moved back to the roof to toss an empty water bottle in the trash there, getting out of the way of one of the transports coming in for a landing in the process. There'd been a delay in getting an empty one in due to a family deciding to set off model rockets along the flight path near the Manchester end, so this one would probably fill up quickly with people who'd been stuck waiting for it to show up.
It was actually approaching time to get lunch, and Amy was planning to clear the top floor before breaking for lunch. Then they could swap the outgoing transport for an incoming one and get the next round of people into the hospital while lunch was being eaten. Of course, there were a couple of weird cases in this group, like the one Amy was working on now. There had to be parahuman abilities involved to end up with fourteen bullets in the spinal column without actually harming the spinal cord, right?
There was still no sign of trouble, which was stressful in and of itself. Nice that nothing had happened, but with the concern that came with wondering what that meant for what was coming. They could hope 'nothing', of course, but they certainly weren't going to expect nothing. Well, someone had spotted a single unexploded likely-bomb, according to the console, but that was about it. And there was no way to know if it was supposed to go off today or not in the first place.
It wasn't too long before Amy had finished with the last patient, a little girl with a combination of a nasty tumor in her lung and a sliver of metal in her heart. Once she was done with that she continued up, onto the roof, and walked over to where Taylor was.
"Carol reserved a room at a nearby restaurant instead of bringing food," Amy said as she came up to the platform. "Claimed it was easier with the needing to wait for the transports to swap out. Care to give me a lift?"
Taylor shrugged and dropped the platform to make it easier for Amy to climb on. "Why not. Gets us there faster, right?"
Amy held onto Taylor as they flew off to meet the others for lunch.
Kenta steered Takara away from the table with beer on it, not needing her to decide that she wanted an alcoholic beverage and needing to tell her 'no' as a result. He wasn't sure what of the food that'd been made available she'd want to eat, but he was sure that she'd find something. Probably several things, luckily the plans included dinner being run the same way so he wasn't too concerned about her appetite.
It didn't take her long to build a plate of food starting with a slice of cheese pizza that she then added her own additional toppings to. He rolled his eyes at her choices, but didn't stop her. She'd eventually learn that not everything that tasted good individually went well together. Either that or she'd do him proud in grossing out her friends when she was older. He wasn't feeling picky there. He'd made a much simpler burger for himself, they both took a bottle of juice for a drink, and then they made their way back to where Miku was waiting for them. She'd grabbed something during the credits while he'd sat with Takara, who'd refused to move until after the credits were over. Too many post-credits scenes in other movies and she didn't want to miss one if it came up.
He'd nearly finished his burger when his hearing picked up on a commotion outside, which concerned him. By the time he'd finished standing up said commotion had included gunshots, but the more immediate concern was the flaming bottle that came through a window on the other side of the building. That this was followed by a second flaming bottle from where the commotion had been had him furious.
"I will clear a path," he growled as Miku joined many of the parents in gathering their children. He then put actions to his words, even as he felt himself growing. It was telling that the sprinkler system, that he knew was functional days prior, hadn't activated.
The truck that someone had attempted to block the exit with didn't last long against him, and people were soon evacuating. He moved around the building to where the commotion had been to find Jeremy, one of several Empire members that had been in the area. The boy looked to be bleeding out, and didn't look scared that an angry parahuman was approaching.
"I tried to stop him," the boy said. "Mike, I mean. But he just went nuts. Shot me, then ran off."
Kenta's eyes narrowed, and he took a couple of good whiffs. This was very suspicious now, because unlike most Empire members in the area he was very familiar with the Mike in question. The man was one of his paid spies in the Empire, after all, and there was no way he'd do something like this normally. Giving up on any pretenses of being on 'opposite sides' for the moment, he called for someone to help Jeremy, then moved further down the side of the building as he pulled out his phone. He flipped through his contacts and selected one.
"I'm a little busy right now," was Max's greeting.
"One of my spies in your group just shot another member and tried to kill everyone at our movie showing," Kenta replied. "I think we've been hit by a master."
There was a pause before Max responded. "That would explain four of your people apparently trying to knock down some of the low income housing in my territory. I take it that means we need to try for capture and hand over to the PRT for deprogramming, doesn't it? My men won't like that."
"Remind them that if we find the real culprit then we can do our best to ensure that they learn a lesson that they'll never forget. Or perhaps point out that one of your own men just shot another one due to said programming."
"Console to all points," came over the radio shortly after they'd returned from lunch. "Fighting has broken out in several areas. It appears to be gang warfare at this time, no sign of the Fallen being involved."
"That's highly unusual," Carol noted. "In fact, I'd almost call that impossible under normal circumstances. Then again, it could be a distraction, so we need to stay on alert here."
Taylor nodded. "Then I guess we should start a sweep of the area."
The two ended up splitting up to circle opposite one another while Neil was inside with Amy. They both did two full passes around the hospital, but neither found anything of interest at this point. Taylor continued to circle, since it didn't take much effort for her, while Carol returned to the hospital itself to wait a bit.
Half an hour later, as Amy was moving up a floor, the reasonably quiet day was rocked by several explosions.
Gillian had finished her ritual, having needed three passes on one circle and fifteen on the other to get the five to one ratio needed. She'd dropped the ramp on the platform in the output circle, closed the door between the two sections of the area, and downed the tinker-produced energy drink she needed to stay conscious long enough for everyone to get equipped and for her to pack up the original tank. With all the prepwork completed she opened the front and back doors so that groups could start filtering through.
"You should all know the drill," she called as they started coming in. "One group of five at a time, get in, drive off. No dallying! We need to get as many tanks as we can out there before anyone realizes that we've got them!"
There was some jostling, but not at the front. They knew not to mess around too much by now. Once the first group was entirely inside of the output circle she felt a tug on her power, a side effect of pulling that much mass at once. But they'd run tests before and knew her limits, both per manifestation and per session. They had enough people to get near, but not exceed, those limits. The rest would run support and scouting on their motorcycles.
"Outlying Endbringer shelters have all been damaged and are unavailable for evacuation," the console reported. "It is not believed that other explosives have been deployed."
Amy: Dragon informed me that this is the last group to be healed this weekend, and only because they're already here.
Taylor: That makes a lot of sense.
Amy: How long do you think before whatever their real plan is becomes obvious?
Taylor: Can't be too much longer. If it takes too long then things will finish up here and we'll bail, after all.
Amy: Good point.
Crystal and Eric had been called in and would be arriving shortly. Sarah and Mark were also on their way back, this being an 'all hands' situation now. The hospital was also gearing up for an influx of injured that weren't part of the healing weekend, starting to move equipment to better allow for a larger flow through the emergency room and prepping every bed Amy emptied to ensure that it would be available as soon as possible for incoming patients.
Now it was mainly time to wait for the next shoe to drop, so to speak. Hopefully they'd be able to intercept whatever it ended up being.
Trevor swore as he reviewed the data on the explosive that they'd found. He recognized a number of pieces of it, and as far as he could tell remotely and Vivian could tell on-site it wasn't going to be volatile without extra components. They'd checked with him in case it was something he might be able to spot without looking in person, but the most likely situation was that the thing was delivered in multiple pieces. This one was just lacking the detonation unit, intentionally or otherwise.
He made a few more notes, then sent that file off to join the rest of the documentation. That done, and with nothing more to directly contribute on that front, he switched back to that warehouse he'd been monitoring. Only to find that it had a large number of people outside of it and two friggin' tanks inside of it. One of the tanks drove out just before five people stepped forward and another tank came into existence.
A still image was grabbed and sent off with an emergency warning before he started going through the previously recorded data to see if he could figure out what the hell was going on there. There was either a parahuman or tinkertech involved, and his time was probably best used through figuring out what the hell had happened there. At a minimum it would make it easier for others to determine a good counter to what was happening.
"Emergency alert," came over the radio. "Reknit reports that tanks are being deployed from a warehouse on Williams street and are believed to be heading towards Brockton General. I repeat, tanks are being deployed from a warehouse on Williams street and are believed to be heading towards Brockton General."
Taylor took a moment to check where Williams street was, then swung the Snitch and scout drone in that direction. She had the snitch further out, and attempted to keep it out of sight along the most likely path of approach. While doing that she was personally heading for the storage cabinet on the roof, because she didn't think the few grenades she had on her were going to be enough. It didn't take long to grab more containment foam grenades, and she also grabbed all of the ice wall grenades as well.
The more lethal grenades she left behind. If she absolutely needed them then she was going to have to come back for them, but barring tinkertech tanks she thought it was unlikely that she'd need to go that far. Besides, she would probably have plenty of backup, and most of the more dangerous grenades wouldn't distinguish between friend and foe. Accidentally killing your allies was generally considered a bad thing in all but the most dire of scenarios, after all.
She had enough sense to lock the cabinet up, if only to secure the more dangerous grenades, before jumping back onto her platform. She pulled out the tinker-made handgun as she flew off to try and intercept the leading tanks. With luck any tanks stuck in containment foam would stop being a problem and would remain effectively inert from a threat point of view. And if they served as blockades for those that came behind them it would be all the better.
Brad led Justin into the PRT building. Between them they had twelve bodies, some of them being carried by Justin's projections. Most of them were ABB, but a few were Empire.
"We're in the middle of a crisis right now," one of the staff noted.
"Boss thinks that these fuckers were mastered into starting trouble," Brad replied. "I'm inclined to agree, given the number of people they tried to kill on Panacea's weekend and all. Word is that Lung's hunting a few more down. Can't blame the guy, didn't even know he had a kid until I heard that she was in the building a couple of others tried to burn down. Not that I'm trying to dig into his personal life, that's just not done and all."
Someone made a call and a few minutes later eleven of the twelve were taken off of their hands. A PRT officer then pointed at the last one, an Empire member. "What'd he do?"
"Tried to stab a couple of people in the back. Literally. Why is he special?"
"He's the only one of the lot that wasn't mastered. Sadly, unless you have proof of what he did we'll have to let him go. At the same time, bringing eleven other mastered people in with you is justification enough for bringing him in if he was being unusually violent."
Brad scowled at the man. But he wouldn't do anything to him for now, because that would go against the rules Max had set down. Of course, he would be passing on what the man had done while not mastered. And they'd probably give him an opportunity to explain himself, for that matter. It was sadly possible that one of the actually-mastered grunts had misled him, at which point the beating he'd already received might be sufficient.
Maybe.
Sadly, that would be Max's call, so it would have to wait.
- Location
- Oklahoma City, OK
In the words of a 'perfectly sane clown' "And here we go."
Would this be called a multi-pronged attack?
I am curious what the overall plan is. I can see sowing anarchy and discord to draw attention. That's the easy part but what is the real gem hidden in the pool of fakes?
Would this be called a multi-pronged attack?
I am curious what the overall plan is. I can see sowing anarchy and discord to draw attention. That's the easy part but what is the real gem hidden in the pool of fakes?
- Location
- Wherever I feel like being
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ohohohohoooo the Fallen are right proper fucked now. They completely failed to take the unique gang relationships in Brockton Bay into account.
Probably an attempt to snatch Maul or Panacea.
Also, Takara was in a building the Fallen tried to burn down- and presumably survived, otherwise I doubt the PRT would need Hookwolf to tell them- meaning the Fallen are dead. They attacked his daughter.
- Location
- earth
Happening status: It's.
Finally, after 10,000 years,Vaatu violence is free.
I wonder how far up the grenade chain Tay's gonna have to go?
Finally, after 10,000 years,
I wonder how far up the grenade chain Tay's gonna have to go?
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