- Location
- Poland
More stable than you think, moving a ladder is easy and paint is thick, I never spilled any ; )
- Location
- Here
Most who work with paint on a semi-regular basis may well think of doing this.
Neither Taylor nor Amy work with paint on any real basis before this event.
As such, neither were likely to think about it.
More importantly, since they are using rollers, then they would need somewhere level to put the tray.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Personally, I wouldn't trust the stability of a bit of rope tying the paint can to the ladder. Then again, as was mentioned they need a level surface for the roller pan.
Chapter 264
Arriving at school on Monday showed that most of the student body was focused on the Endbringers having left and what that meant. A couple of people threw questions about Takara Taylor's way, and others were interested in the video that she'd posted from shooting at Vicky the day before. Though in the latter case the questions were almost all being ignored, since they seemed to be variations on wanting to see an uncensored version of the last shot.
Throughout the day it became obvious that none of the teachers were accepting 'freaking out over the Endbringers' as a valid excuse for not having completed the assignments due, not that Taylor had to worry about that. Except that two different teachers had singled Taylor out to point out that she had a potentially valid excuse for spending extra time focusing on the Endbringers, in case it turned into an attack that had to be dealt with. That she had her assignments completed and turned in meant that nobody else in those classes had an excuse.
Several students glared at her for that, but she ignored them.
After school Taylor headed to the PRT building to prepare for meetings. She was slightly surprised to find out that Takara was already there, but probably shouldn't have been. Or at least, she shouldn't expect the girl to be in school without knowing if she even attended school compared to being homeschooled. And dealing with things regarding her having powers could easily explain not being in school as well, for that matter.
Still, today was unlikely to end up having any need to be in-costume, so Taylor started by checking things around the Wards area. They'd actually locked what had been Sandy's room, a warning coming up if you tried to open it regarding the chances for getting sunburn from the lights in there, and what had been Rosa's workshop had been emptied out and labeled as a spare room for the time being. One with plenty of power and water hookup points, admittedly.
Though on her way back out of the personal areas she noticed that Takara's door had a password override unit installed. An optional feature that none of the other Wards had bothered with before now, though perhaps they already knew that she'd have issues with her phone? When approached the unit defaulted to a Japanese input method, which probably made it more secure than it might otherwise be. Assuming, of course, that the door had been locked in the first place, which it wasn't currently.
Missy and Chris arrived very close to one another, Chris showing that he'd gotten his upgrade kit installed by arriving via pocket dimension portal. Aisha took longer to arrive, apparently having taken the bus, and joined the other three by grabbing a snack and dropping onto one of the couches.
"Why are we all just sitting here?" Chris eventually asked.
"Because we all arrived here with plenty of time to spare," Taylor answered.
"I meant why aren't we showing that we're being good Wards and being early by waiting in the meeting room set aside for this, simultaneously showing that those making us wait are wasting our time by doing so?"
"We're supposed to be meeting here, so we are."
"Oh. So we just have to wait for the rest of the meeting to come to us?"
"Yep. Though now that I look, we might be able to speed that up by leaving and coming back in." The other three gave Taylor looks at that. "Well, not Aisha, but she's the only one who triggered her door alert. The rest of us arrived without passing through the door, so the alerts didn't fire."
There was a pause, before Missy shrugged. "If that's the only indication they're using then I think we wait them out. After all, there's no reason to expect you to check for that kind of thing."
"True."
The scheduled meeting start time came and went, with the four of them sitting there goofing off. Half an hour after the start time Taylor's phone finally rang, and she actually pulled out the phone and put it on speaker.
"Maul here," Taylor answered.
"Good afternoon," Hannah's voice came over the phone. "May I ask where you are?"
"I'm in the Wards common area with the other Wards, minus Giga Ryū who appears to be undergoing cold temperature testing."
"We're bored waiting for the meeting to start as well," Missy added. "Though if it doesn't start in fifteen minutes then regulations say we can go home."
There was a pause, and a sigh. "And I suppose that Kid Win is there with you?"
"Of course," Chris answered.
"Right. We'll be down shortly."
The call disconnected and Taylor put her phone away. The four of them then quickly cleaned up what little mess they'd made while waiting. They were waiting patiently when Director Piggot led Colin and Hannah into the room.
"Good afternoon," Director Piggot greeted. "Now, I'm positive that one of these two can tell me where we went wrong by now, but I'm also positive that at least one of you can point it out as well."
Taylor nodded as the other three Wards pointed at her. "Would you like the short answer or the complete overview?"
Director Piggot looked at Colin and Hannah, who both looked curious, before sighing. "The complete overview."
"You put door alerts on the main door to the Wards area. You ignored the back door, so anyone coming in through it wouldn't have been picked up. The alerts also only fire for the person who opened the door, based on access key, so if one of us opened the door for the others then you'd not get alerted for all of us. Your alert was also low enough by security level that we all could've overridden it at this point, which would've kept it from firing. That three out of the four of us didn't come in through the doors at all, and instead used pocket dimension portals directly into the room, means that the door alerts never had a chance to fire. And even if you had put alerts on the portal frame, which it supports and would automatically happen if you used the 'Wards common area' alert group, I at least have clearance to open a portal without using the frame. As far as I can tell, 'used the beacon to open a portal in the general area' doesn't appear to support alerts being attached to it, presumably because the beacon can't actually say that a portal was opened in that case and instead can only say that it was used as an initial target point for possibly opening a portal. All of the various entry methods would've been covered if you'd set 'entered the area' alerts for us on the entire Wards area."
Colin nodded at that. "And the latter will also cover any other methods for entering the area that come up in the future, such as other teleportation abilities."
Director Piggot turned to stare at Colin. "And you'd figured all of that out as well already?"
"I hadn't given it that much thought. I'd only picked up on you not using the appropriate alert group, but hadn't considered all of the other ways that could've been bypassed. Though I'll note that they could still likely override the 'entered the area' alerts, and any of them entering without their phone turned on wouldn't properly trigger those either. There is no perfect solution, and using multiple only gets you so far as well. I'd recommend attaching a request to things to have someone let you know when everyone has arrived to cover the other possibilities. As a side bonus, that would give you someone else to blame if you're not informed."
"Right, that would be nice, wouldn't it." She shook her head. "Right. We're here for two different topics. The first is that Vista is a known target of a group looking to abduct her for unknown reasons, but ones that are likely to include attempts at brainwashing or the use of master abilities. At the same time, from what we know of their methods so far they shouldn't be a threat. Thus we're going with a very basic precaution set, that is that even if doing non-patrol activities that Vista is to be accompanied by another Ward, a Protectorate member, or a PRT squad. Any questions on that?"
Missy frowned. "Only in that I don't understand why that required bringing us together to have a meeting about it."
"We'll get to that in a minute. Anyone else?"
Taylor shrugged. "I'm finding myself pleasantly surprised that they don't have any interest in grabbing me or Amy."
"That is a good point, honestly. Is that all?" It was quickly obvious that no more comments or questions were coming, so Director Piggot nodded. "Very well. The reason that I decided to make this a meeting instead of a memo is that I want all of us to see how Miss Hebert did with her bus painting before she has a chance to convince someone else to redo it for her. Specifically, I want her available to see the initial reactions, instead of getting a more filtered opinion later. She didn't disappoint and appears to have filed the paperwork last night to indicate that she was done with the bus, so I'd like to do that now."
Taylor's eye twitched at that, but she didn't complain outright. Admittedly, she had considered not telling the other Wards that she'd finished the paint job and instead just having the PRT paint department redo it. Even if the entire thing was no longer eye-searingly bad, she wasn't exactly happy with her complete failure to do a proper fade effect along the sides of the bus. It shouldn't have been that hard to get somewhat decent. Or at least more decent than she'd managed.
The seven of them made their way to the secure garage, after Aisha and Chris both opted not to bother with masks given that everyone that should be down there was cleared for identities anyway. Taylor wasn't sure if she should be surprised that their arrival prompted a collection of others to gather to see the final result of things, since she'd basically escaped notice by finishing the bus up on what was for most of them a day off. That this included Sherrel was the least surprising aspect of that. Grumbling to herself, she went to where the bus was parked and pulled it out into the larger section of the garage where everyone would be able to see it.
She delayed getting out of the bus for a minute, but figured that she had to hear them mock her for the horrible fade eventually. Upon getting out of the bus and coming around to where everyone was standing she found that most of them were just staring at the bus.
"Well?" she finally said.
Sherrel pointed at the bus. "That is your first attempt at painting a vehicle?"
"Yes, and I'd appreciate it if you took my lack of experience into account before telling me how horrible the paint job is."
"I painted that thing four times before giving up and going for the intentionally horrible neon stripes out of frustration over being unable to get a flat color to come out right. And I'm the bullshit vehicle tinker! Then you come along and make it look like it's fucking traveling through the clouds on your first try?"
That had Taylor blinking, and she turned to look at the bus. And, ignoring her cringing over the 'fade' being nowhere near consistent, she could now see what Sherrel was talking about. The 'horrible fade' was perfectly horrible to accomplish a consistent effect of wisps of cloud along the side of the bus. It was, in fact, too good to be an accident.
Taylor: Okay, there's no way that I did that on my own.
Amy: Did what?
Taylor: Screw up my fade attempt on the bus just right to make it something entirely different.
<UMR: Data>
That was almost, but not quite, worthy of a facepalm. Of course her tinker snark would decide that the bus's purpose included 'look cool' and would ensure that the paint job was suitably cool as a result. Why wouldn't it, beyond having had to be convinced that the previous paint job was a safety hazard?
On the other hand, it did explain why she hadn't 'given up' on the fade idea after the initial pass had gone horribly. Not noticing that she was in 'tinkering' mode was annoying, but it made a lot more sense than her just being stubborn and seeing something that obviously wasn't working through to its completion. And apparently she didn't have to worry about being mocked for the paint job being absolutely horrible, but at the same time couldn't take proper credit for it either. After all, if she'd tinker-painted it then it wasn't her skill on display anymore.
She idly wondered just how many other things were going to end up with that kind of annoying distinction in the future, but was distracted by being dragged around the bus so that the maintenance department could gush over the details that she'd gotten into the paint job.
That evening Taylor ended up showing her father pictures of the bus. Amy had actually traveled to the PRT building to see it in person, and Director Piggot had insisted on scheduling a PR event for Saturday in order to show the bus off. She'd even mumbled something about 'bragging rights', and Taylor hadn't asked for details, but part of that was holding off on posting official pictures of the bus until then. Or unofficial pictures, for that matter.
They'd taken a couple dozen pictures, of course, and then abused the sensor drone systems to get a full three-dimensional rendering of the entire bus for promotional purposes. There were even plans to have a bunch of t-shirts made up for use with the t-shirt cannon, though hopefully those would be more along the lines of 'pictures of the Wards' instead of 'pictures of the bus'. Because who would want pictures of the bus on their shirt?
And for added protection, the bus was now parked in the 'visitor' lot of the Broadcast Administrator pocket dimension, ensuring that no curious PRT staff could get pictures ahead of time. That this would allow for other tricks on Saturday was a side bonus, not that they couldn't have made things work without doing that. Though she didn't like the comment that'd been made about it preventing 'possible sabotage'. Shouldn't the garage be a little more secure than that if they trusted it enough for it to have a normal parking spot there?
Either way, they had a few days of 'normal' before then. Missy had opted to ignore the non-patrol request for her time for now and wanted to go out on patrol, so they'd be doing that tomorrow. Whether they'd be doing 'two groups of two' or 'one group of three on a more dangerous route with the fourth on console' was undecided right now.
At least it looked like they hadn't screwed up Takara's costume, since she was cleared for patrolling in Brockton Bay. Not to the same degree as any of the older Wards, temperature-range wise, but she should be good for anything they normally got.
Tuesday morning Taylor woke to a couple of alerts on her phone. Apparently someone had decided to test Kenta, found where he was currently staying, and fired a rocket propelled grenade at the house in the middle of the night. Only to hit the condemned house next door instead, but that was enough to wake everyone up. That led to Kenta and Lee chasing the idiot that had made the attempt, only to not actually get him.
No, the pleasure of getting the man apparently went to Takara, who had gone full-dragon in dragon-print pajamas and somehow gotten ahead of the teleporting duo. She'd been caught on security cameras tormenting the man, up until he tried to stab her with a knife. Which she took from him and started attacking him with from random points. Kenta and Lee had arrived to see this happening and apparently opted to not interfere, instead Lee was seen leaving and returning with pants and a cell phone for Kenta.
From that, Taylor gathered that if Takara had a clear enough 'target' that they didn't even need to be near her for her powers to properly lock on to them. Which probably meant that once she'd decided on a target that it was quite possibly going to be literally impossible to escape her. The problem there was going to be keeping track of her if she ever locked onto a long-range teleporter.
Waking her up in the middle of the night also didn't alleviate her need to sleep, given that she obviously fell asleep in Kenta's arms shortly after the man she'd been attacking was arrested by the police. That he'd run to the police cruiser to get away from Takara had been amusing, and she was intelligent enough to let him do so.
Taylor did dig up phone numbers and sent a message informing the four adults that none of the available footage showed Takara giving up the knife, so unless that happened outside of the posted footage then they should check to see if she still had it.
Unsurprisingly, gossip when they finally got to school was entirely focused on Takara. Split between several different conversational lines, one of which Missy ended up admitting that she didn't know how to feel about. No longer being the ENE Wards 'Little Miss Badass' annoyed her, because she'd only somewhat recently gotten that label. But graduating to being an older badass meant that she wasn't being seen as a kid anymore.
Of course, among those talking about that was a general thought that the entire ENE Wards counted as a team of badasses right now. Except that they excluded Aisha, as super-hiding-skills weren't right for a badass and she hadn't been reported as participating in larger battles. Which meant that Taylor was probably going to have to deal with the girl trying to find a way to prove that she was a badass, so as to not be outdone by Takara.
That was likely going to be annoying.
Hopefully it wouldn't be something that was going to start today, compared to Aisha taking time to come up with a way to prove that she was a badass at some point in the future.
Kenta had snorted when he got the message from Miss Hebert. Of course they'd gotten the knife away from Takara, the police had needed it as evidence. Though he'd easily admit that he was impressed that the detail had been noticed in the first place, since he'd only realized it when the police had asked about the knife. Then again, he'd had the distraction of needing to take care of her as she fell asleep, so it wasn't entirely his fault for not thinking about the knife at that point.
Of course, even if the police hadn't needed the knife then he'd eventually have taken it from Takara anyway. It was the wrong size for her hands, was low quality construction, and hadn't been well maintained. No, that was the entirely wrong knife for her in a number of ways, especially given some of the limits of her powers. Instead, since she seemed to take to the knife so well, Lee was going to ensure that she had proper training and then a special order of six identical knives would be given to her instead. Ones that were in the proper style for her, sized properly, and were of decent construction. Complete with a special harness to hold all of them at once.
Granted, the PRT would probably want Takara to go through their own knife lessons before allowing her to take the knives on patrol with her, but that was okay with him. It was entirely possible that they'd teach her things that Lee didn't, if only due to coming at things from a different cultural background, and that could give her tricks that Lee hadn't thought of. Convincing Miku, on the other hand, was probably going to take a little more effort.
Taylor sighed as she got into costume, thinking about Aisha. Who had just volunteered to run the console to get extra time to study, as Brian had apparently told her that if she wanted to get more dangerous equipment then she had to get her grades up before he'd sign any of the paperwork for it. Which was probably a masterstroke on Brian's part, because it was likely that the girl would lose interest before she got her grades up to whatever level he'd insisted on, and if she didn't then she'd proven that she was more responsible by getting them there.
There was no way in hell that the other three were going to point out that 'has more dangerous weapons' didn't automatically lead to 'is more badass'. Especially given that her entire power set involved people forgetting about her and thus drastically reducing her chances of being remembered for being a badass. Instead, she was probably going to be remembered more as some form of 'sneaky' and/or 'cheating', which wasn't bad in and of itself but didn't easily lead to 'badass'.
Oh well. It easily solved the 'who runs the console today' issue while they ran a more dangerous, at least on paper, route. Though today would be a mixed route, with Taylor being in the air and both Chris and Missy on the ground. Partially because Chris had been cleared to run a new weapon configuration that wasn't entirely compatible with his hoverboard yet, and partially because it was a lot easier for idiots to attack them if they were on the ground. Taylor was actually the 'emergency backup' today, as Missy wanted to see how many people were willing to go after her on patrol.
Still, this was likely to be one of the few three-person patrols they'd get for the next few months without having Takara along in some capacity, so they should make the best of it. To that end, having the Snitch and scout drone out was going to be a must. Or perhaps having Missy carrying the Snitch would be the better course of action, since her visor didn't have the integrated sensor system and she was hoping to be the center of attention?
It wasn't long before the three of them were off. Chris and Missy left together through the front door, while Taylor took off from the roof to shadow them on her platform.
They hadn't gotten permission to 'bait the idiots' by posting their intended route before going out, which meant that the start of their patrol was fairly boring. But eventually people picked up on the route that Chris and Missy were following, though they obviously couldn't know which of the variants they were using. They also hadn't used routes from this set much since the routes were all changed, but they'd intentionally picked one that they had used before. At Missy's insistence.
Thus it was that as they approached a specific intersection, one of the few places that the route compressed down by force to a single street due to the neighboring buildings, that they found a trap had been laid out. As soon as Chris and Missy were crossing the intersection the trap was sprung, a cage of force appearing to contain them even as gas started to be released into the cage.
The two looked around, and a very careful check of the cage was done, before they opted to go non-verbal on the console text channel.
V: I think that's knockout gas.
K: And whatever this field is, it's holding the gas in with us.
M: It's a magnetic containment force field that relies on the six generator points being very precisely positioned to function. Exact distances, perfectly spaced from each other, that kind of thing.
There was a pause as they processed that, and Aisha was the first to pipe up about it.
C: They're trying to trap Vista with a trap that depends on things being the correct distance from one another?
C: What kind of moron are we dealing with here?
M: The kind that's looking impatient around the corner, assuming that the parahuman around the corner is responsible. I think they're expecting the knockout gas to be knocking those two out.
K: Yeah, that isn't happening right now.
V: Can I break the stupid trap, or do we want to wait for them to come and whine at us about the gas not working?
K: I vote for the latter unless there's some sign that the gas is actually working on us.
M: Works for me, though only if it takes less than, say, ten minutes.
P: We concur, but I'm dispatching a squad to your approximate location now as well. Hopefully this one we can hold onto, but if it takes longer than ten minutes for them to arrive then please hold off on doing anything.
Well, that settled some of that, though it only took eight minutes for the parahuman to come around the corner, stopping at the edge of the force field. He was wearing a blue and red set of power armor that had plus and minus signs around it and that covered the lower half of his face. Some of that seemed to be because he had a rebreather and oxygen tank integrated into the armor. "Why the hell aren't you two knocked out yet?"
Missy snorted. "You expect air freshener to knock us out?"
He blinked at that. "Air freshener? I know I didn't put air freshener into the knockout gas canisters." He then shook his head. "I suppose it doesn't matter much. The field should easily stop you from calling for help, and eventually the oxygen levels will drop to the point where you collapse anyway."
Chris chuckled at that. "You know, you've made several mistakes."
"Oh? And what would a brat like you know?"
"You used knockout gas that doesn't work on us for starters. We've already got help on the way, because apparently you don't know how our phones work. You've failed to ensure that we don't have backup available outside of the force field. Oh, and the biggest mistake is using a force field that relies on precise distances to trap Vista."
Missy took that as her cue to expand space between two of the generator units behind them and crunch space between the two between them and the man. The result was spectacular, the six generators suddenly lighting up incredibly brightly and being pulled together. They did so around Chris and Missy, and exploded when they came together. Missy had expanded space to keep it away from her and Chris, but the unidentified parahuman wasn't as lucky.
Taylor dropping in behind him and pulling the hidden emergency release handle on his power armor didn't help his position, of course. He actually looked like he was going to cry, though some of that might've been because he'd foolishly included a self-destruct routine in the emergency release routine. Which meant that all of the armor pieces that fell off of him superheated until they melted, something that might've burned him had Taylor not grabbed him and pulled him into the air.
To add insult to injury, the no-longer-contained knockout gas then knocked him out. They ended up tying him up, bringing him to the PRT squad that had been sent off, and waiting half an hour for the knockout gas to disperse before the rest of the debris could be collected. With Missy grumbling about nobody worth a shit being involved in trying to grab her. Apparently Taylor had all the luck there, with actual threats going after her. Not that Taylor agreed in this case, but she didn't think that Missy was in the mood to discuss the benefits of stupid people going after her.
Taylor did note that the two other parahumans that had been keeping their distance from the intersection left just before the three of them got moving again, without coming any closer than they'd been from the start of things. They also left on a course perpendicular to the patrol route, likely meaning that they weren't planning on engaging the three, and the direction was also wrong for setting up an ambush further along. Though if they were with the apparent tinker or had just happened to be in the area and decided to watch the show was harder to tell.
"Okay," Irma said as they headed back to report in to Nana. "As far as we can tell, they basically no-sold Natalie and Michael. To a greater degree than expected."
Anne nodded. "I don't know how they no-sold Natalie, though perhaps they only used parahumans against her without even realizing they had to do that? If no non-parahumans interacted with the one she was in before Nana's anonymous tip then they could've kept her contained by pure luck."
"Or the rumors are correct and they've got secret methods that let them track parahumans and were able to follow her jumping from person to person."
"Right, right. Though I'm surprised at how easily they took down Michael."
Irma looked at Anne. "Really?"
"That knockout gas he uses is usually far more effective. I was hoping that we'd be able to rush in while he was gloating over the two unconscious bodies, only for them to ignore the gas entirely."
"He hasn't used it since that odd flu went around, as far as I know. I wouldn't be surprised if the changes it makes render it ineffective and he never noticed."
Anne shook her head. "No, it can't be that. We know he had to have gotten the flu as well, and it knocked him out pretty much right away. Maul didn't make skin contact that I could see, but he still fell unconscious once he was no longer protected by his face mask."
"Oh. That's...huh. Okay, I'll admit it, I'm curious as to how that worked. But if the PRT have both of our targets, are we sticking around or bailing?"
"You know as well as I do that Nana is going to make that call. Though not being able to bring Michael back to face family justice is probably going to be the larger factor there. Do you think Nana will want us to break him out just to get him back home?"
Irma shivered at that. "I hope the hell not. The Wards here are all impossible to deal with, I don't want to get first-hand knowledge of what the Protectorate is like."
Throughout the day it became obvious that none of the teachers were accepting 'freaking out over the Endbringers' as a valid excuse for not having completed the assignments due, not that Taylor had to worry about that. Except that two different teachers had singled Taylor out to point out that she had a potentially valid excuse for spending extra time focusing on the Endbringers, in case it turned into an attack that had to be dealt with. That she had her assignments completed and turned in meant that nobody else in those classes had an excuse.
Several students glared at her for that, but she ignored them.
After school Taylor headed to the PRT building to prepare for meetings. She was slightly surprised to find out that Takara was already there, but probably shouldn't have been. Or at least, she shouldn't expect the girl to be in school without knowing if she even attended school compared to being homeschooled. And dealing with things regarding her having powers could easily explain not being in school as well, for that matter.
Still, today was unlikely to end up having any need to be in-costume, so Taylor started by checking things around the Wards area. They'd actually locked what had been Sandy's room, a warning coming up if you tried to open it regarding the chances for getting sunburn from the lights in there, and what had been Rosa's workshop had been emptied out and labeled as a spare room for the time being. One with plenty of power and water hookup points, admittedly.
Though on her way back out of the personal areas she noticed that Takara's door had a password override unit installed. An optional feature that none of the other Wards had bothered with before now, though perhaps they already knew that she'd have issues with her phone? When approached the unit defaulted to a Japanese input method, which probably made it more secure than it might otherwise be. Assuming, of course, that the door had been locked in the first place, which it wasn't currently.
Missy and Chris arrived very close to one another, Chris showing that he'd gotten his upgrade kit installed by arriving via pocket dimension portal. Aisha took longer to arrive, apparently having taken the bus, and joined the other three by grabbing a snack and dropping onto one of the couches.
"Why are we all just sitting here?" Chris eventually asked.
"Because we all arrived here with plenty of time to spare," Taylor answered.
"I meant why aren't we showing that we're being good Wards and being early by waiting in the meeting room set aside for this, simultaneously showing that those making us wait are wasting our time by doing so?"
"We're supposed to be meeting here, so we are."
"Oh. So we just have to wait for the rest of the meeting to come to us?"
"Yep. Though now that I look, we might be able to speed that up by leaving and coming back in." The other three gave Taylor looks at that. "Well, not Aisha, but she's the only one who triggered her door alert. The rest of us arrived without passing through the door, so the alerts didn't fire."
There was a pause, before Missy shrugged. "If that's the only indication they're using then I think we wait them out. After all, there's no reason to expect you to check for that kind of thing."
"True."
The scheduled meeting start time came and went, with the four of them sitting there goofing off. Half an hour after the start time Taylor's phone finally rang, and she actually pulled out the phone and put it on speaker.
"Maul here," Taylor answered.
"Good afternoon," Hannah's voice came over the phone. "May I ask where you are?"
"I'm in the Wards common area with the other Wards, minus Giga Ryū who appears to be undergoing cold temperature testing."
"We're bored waiting for the meeting to start as well," Missy added. "Though if it doesn't start in fifteen minutes then regulations say we can go home."
There was a pause, and a sigh. "And I suppose that Kid Win is there with you?"
"Of course," Chris answered.
"Right. We'll be down shortly."
The call disconnected and Taylor put her phone away. The four of them then quickly cleaned up what little mess they'd made while waiting. They were waiting patiently when Director Piggot led Colin and Hannah into the room.
"Good afternoon," Director Piggot greeted. "Now, I'm positive that one of these two can tell me where we went wrong by now, but I'm also positive that at least one of you can point it out as well."
Taylor nodded as the other three Wards pointed at her. "Would you like the short answer or the complete overview?"
Director Piggot looked at Colin and Hannah, who both looked curious, before sighing. "The complete overview."
"You put door alerts on the main door to the Wards area. You ignored the back door, so anyone coming in through it wouldn't have been picked up. The alerts also only fire for the person who opened the door, based on access key, so if one of us opened the door for the others then you'd not get alerted for all of us. Your alert was also low enough by security level that we all could've overridden it at this point, which would've kept it from firing. That three out of the four of us didn't come in through the doors at all, and instead used pocket dimension portals directly into the room, means that the door alerts never had a chance to fire. And even if you had put alerts on the portal frame, which it supports and would automatically happen if you used the 'Wards common area' alert group, I at least have clearance to open a portal without using the frame. As far as I can tell, 'used the beacon to open a portal in the general area' doesn't appear to support alerts being attached to it, presumably because the beacon can't actually say that a portal was opened in that case and instead can only say that it was used as an initial target point for possibly opening a portal. All of the various entry methods would've been covered if you'd set 'entered the area' alerts for us on the entire Wards area."
Colin nodded at that. "And the latter will also cover any other methods for entering the area that come up in the future, such as other teleportation abilities."
Director Piggot turned to stare at Colin. "And you'd figured all of that out as well already?"
"I hadn't given it that much thought. I'd only picked up on you not using the appropriate alert group, but hadn't considered all of the other ways that could've been bypassed. Though I'll note that they could still likely override the 'entered the area' alerts, and any of them entering without their phone turned on wouldn't properly trigger those either. There is no perfect solution, and using multiple only gets you so far as well. I'd recommend attaching a request to things to have someone let you know when everyone has arrived to cover the other possibilities. As a side bonus, that would give you someone else to blame if you're not informed."
"Right, that would be nice, wouldn't it." She shook her head. "Right. We're here for two different topics. The first is that Vista is a known target of a group looking to abduct her for unknown reasons, but ones that are likely to include attempts at brainwashing or the use of master abilities. At the same time, from what we know of their methods so far they shouldn't be a threat. Thus we're going with a very basic precaution set, that is that even if doing non-patrol activities that Vista is to be accompanied by another Ward, a Protectorate member, or a PRT squad. Any questions on that?"
Missy frowned. "Only in that I don't understand why that required bringing us together to have a meeting about it."
"We'll get to that in a minute. Anyone else?"
Taylor shrugged. "I'm finding myself pleasantly surprised that they don't have any interest in grabbing me or Amy."
"That is a good point, honestly. Is that all?" It was quickly obvious that no more comments or questions were coming, so Director Piggot nodded. "Very well. The reason that I decided to make this a meeting instead of a memo is that I want all of us to see how Miss Hebert did with her bus painting before she has a chance to convince someone else to redo it for her. Specifically, I want her available to see the initial reactions, instead of getting a more filtered opinion later. She didn't disappoint and appears to have filed the paperwork last night to indicate that she was done with the bus, so I'd like to do that now."
Taylor's eye twitched at that, but she didn't complain outright. Admittedly, she had considered not telling the other Wards that she'd finished the paint job and instead just having the PRT paint department redo it. Even if the entire thing was no longer eye-searingly bad, she wasn't exactly happy with her complete failure to do a proper fade effect along the sides of the bus. It shouldn't have been that hard to get somewhat decent. Or at least more decent than she'd managed.
The seven of them made their way to the secure garage, after Aisha and Chris both opted not to bother with masks given that everyone that should be down there was cleared for identities anyway. Taylor wasn't sure if she should be surprised that their arrival prompted a collection of others to gather to see the final result of things, since she'd basically escaped notice by finishing the bus up on what was for most of them a day off. That this included Sherrel was the least surprising aspect of that. Grumbling to herself, she went to where the bus was parked and pulled it out into the larger section of the garage where everyone would be able to see it.
She delayed getting out of the bus for a minute, but figured that she had to hear them mock her for the horrible fade eventually. Upon getting out of the bus and coming around to where everyone was standing she found that most of them were just staring at the bus.
"Well?" she finally said.
Sherrel pointed at the bus. "That is your first attempt at painting a vehicle?"
"Yes, and I'd appreciate it if you took my lack of experience into account before telling me how horrible the paint job is."
"I painted that thing four times before giving up and going for the intentionally horrible neon stripes out of frustration over being unable to get a flat color to come out right. And I'm the bullshit vehicle tinker! Then you come along and make it look like it's fucking traveling through the clouds on your first try?"
That had Taylor blinking, and she turned to look at the bus. And, ignoring her cringing over the 'fade' being nowhere near consistent, she could now see what Sherrel was talking about. The 'horrible fade' was perfectly horrible to accomplish a consistent effect of wisps of cloud along the side of the bus. It was, in fact, too good to be an accident.
Taylor: Okay, there's no way that I did that on my own.
Amy: Did what?
Taylor: Screw up my fade attempt on the bus just right to make it something entirely different.
<UMR: Data>
That was almost, but not quite, worthy of a facepalm. Of course her tinker snark would decide that the bus's purpose included 'look cool' and would ensure that the paint job was suitably cool as a result. Why wouldn't it, beyond having had to be convinced that the previous paint job was a safety hazard?
On the other hand, it did explain why she hadn't 'given up' on the fade idea after the initial pass had gone horribly. Not noticing that she was in 'tinkering' mode was annoying, but it made a lot more sense than her just being stubborn and seeing something that obviously wasn't working through to its completion. And apparently she didn't have to worry about being mocked for the paint job being absolutely horrible, but at the same time couldn't take proper credit for it either. After all, if she'd tinker-painted it then it wasn't her skill on display anymore.
She idly wondered just how many other things were going to end up with that kind of annoying distinction in the future, but was distracted by being dragged around the bus so that the maintenance department could gush over the details that she'd gotten into the paint job.
That evening Taylor ended up showing her father pictures of the bus. Amy had actually traveled to the PRT building to see it in person, and Director Piggot had insisted on scheduling a PR event for Saturday in order to show the bus off. She'd even mumbled something about 'bragging rights', and Taylor hadn't asked for details, but part of that was holding off on posting official pictures of the bus until then. Or unofficial pictures, for that matter.
They'd taken a couple dozen pictures, of course, and then abused the sensor drone systems to get a full three-dimensional rendering of the entire bus for promotional purposes. There were even plans to have a bunch of t-shirts made up for use with the t-shirt cannon, though hopefully those would be more along the lines of 'pictures of the Wards' instead of 'pictures of the bus'. Because who would want pictures of the bus on their shirt?
And for added protection, the bus was now parked in the 'visitor' lot of the Broadcast Administrator pocket dimension, ensuring that no curious PRT staff could get pictures ahead of time. That this would allow for other tricks on Saturday was a side bonus, not that they couldn't have made things work without doing that. Though she didn't like the comment that'd been made about it preventing 'possible sabotage'. Shouldn't the garage be a little more secure than that if they trusted it enough for it to have a normal parking spot there?
Either way, they had a few days of 'normal' before then. Missy had opted to ignore the non-patrol request for her time for now and wanted to go out on patrol, so they'd be doing that tomorrow. Whether they'd be doing 'two groups of two' or 'one group of three on a more dangerous route with the fourth on console' was undecided right now.
At least it looked like they hadn't screwed up Takara's costume, since she was cleared for patrolling in Brockton Bay. Not to the same degree as any of the older Wards, temperature-range wise, but she should be good for anything they normally got.
Tuesday morning Taylor woke to a couple of alerts on her phone. Apparently someone had decided to test Kenta, found where he was currently staying, and fired a rocket propelled grenade at the house in the middle of the night. Only to hit the condemned house next door instead, but that was enough to wake everyone up. That led to Kenta and Lee chasing the idiot that had made the attempt, only to not actually get him.
No, the pleasure of getting the man apparently went to Takara, who had gone full-dragon in dragon-print pajamas and somehow gotten ahead of the teleporting duo. She'd been caught on security cameras tormenting the man, up until he tried to stab her with a knife. Which she took from him and started attacking him with from random points. Kenta and Lee had arrived to see this happening and apparently opted to not interfere, instead Lee was seen leaving and returning with pants and a cell phone for Kenta.
From that, Taylor gathered that if Takara had a clear enough 'target' that they didn't even need to be near her for her powers to properly lock on to them. Which probably meant that once she'd decided on a target that it was quite possibly going to be literally impossible to escape her. The problem there was going to be keeping track of her if she ever locked onto a long-range teleporter.
Waking her up in the middle of the night also didn't alleviate her need to sleep, given that she obviously fell asleep in Kenta's arms shortly after the man she'd been attacking was arrested by the police. That he'd run to the police cruiser to get away from Takara had been amusing, and she was intelligent enough to let him do so.
Taylor did dig up phone numbers and sent a message informing the four adults that none of the available footage showed Takara giving up the knife, so unless that happened outside of the posted footage then they should check to see if she still had it.
Unsurprisingly, gossip when they finally got to school was entirely focused on Takara. Split between several different conversational lines, one of which Missy ended up admitting that she didn't know how to feel about. No longer being the ENE Wards 'Little Miss Badass' annoyed her, because she'd only somewhat recently gotten that label. But graduating to being an older badass meant that she wasn't being seen as a kid anymore.
Of course, among those talking about that was a general thought that the entire ENE Wards counted as a team of badasses right now. Except that they excluded Aisha, as super-hiding-skills weren't right for a badass and she hadn't been reported as participating in larger battles. Which meant that Taylor was probably going to have to deal with the girl trying to find a way to prove that she was a badass, so as to not be outdone by Takara.
That was likely going to be annoying.
Hopefully it wouldn't be something that was going to start today, compared to Aisha taking time to come up with a way to prove that she was a badass at some point in the future.
Kenta had snorted when he got the message from Miss Hebert. Of course they'd gotten the knife away from Takara, the police had needed it as evidence. Though he'd easily admit that he was impressed that the detail had been noticed in the first place, since he'd only realized it when the police had asked about the knife. Then again, he'd had the distraction of needing to take care of her as she fell asleep, so it wasn't entirely his fault for not thinking about the knife at that point.
Of course, even if the police hadn't needed the knife then he'd eventually have taken it from Takara anyway. It was the wrong size for her hands, was low quality construction, and hadn't been well maintained. No, that was the entirely wrong knife for her in a number of ways, especially given some of the limits of her powers. Instead, since she seemed to take to the knife so well, Lee was going to ensure that she had proper training and then a special order of six identical knives would be given to her instead. Ones that were in the proper style for her, sized properly, and were of decent construction. Complete with a special harness to hold all of them at once.
Granted, the PRT would probably want Takara to go through their own knife lessons before allowing her to take the knives on patrol with her, but that was okay with him. It was entirely possible that they'd teach her things that Lee didn't, if only due to coming at things from a different cultural background, and that could give her tricks that Lee hadn't thought of. Convincing Miku, on the other hand, was probably going to take a little more effort.
Taylor sighed as she got into costume, thinking about Aisha. Who had just volunteered to run the console to get extra time to study, as Brian had apparently told her that if she wanted to get more dangerous equipment then she had to get her grades up before he'd sign any of the paperwork for it. Which was probably a masterstroke on Brian's part, because it was likely that the girl would lose interest before she got her grades up to whatever level he'd insisted on, and if she didn't then she'd proven that she was more responsible by getting them there.
There was no way in hell that the other three were going to point out that 'has more dangerous weapons' didn't automatically lead to 'is more badass'. Especially given that her entire power set involved people forgetting about her and thus drastically reducing her chances of being remembered for being a badass. Instead, she was probably going to be remembered more as some form of 'sneaky' and/or 'cheating', which wasn't bad in and of itself but didn't easily lead to 'badass'.
Oh well. It easily solved the 'who runs the console today' issue while they ran a more dangerous, at least on paper, route. Though today would be a mixed route, with Taylor being in the air and both Chris and Missy on the ground. Partially because Chris had been cleared to run a new weapon configuration that wasn't entirely compatible with his hoverboard yet, and partially because it was a lot easier for idiots to attack them if they were on the ground. Taylor was actually the 'emergency backup' today, as Missy wanted to see how many people were willing to go after her on patrol.
Still, this was likely to be one of the few three-person patrols they'd get for the next few months without having Takara along in some capacity, so they should make the best of it. To that end, having the Snitch and scout drone out was going to be a must. Or perhaps having Missy carrying the Snitch would be the better course of action, since her visor didn't have the integrated sensor system and she was hoping to be the center of attention?
It wasn't long before the three of them were off. Chris and Missy left together through the front door, while Taylor took off from the roof to shadow them on her platform.
They hadn't gotten permission to 'bait the idiots' by posting their intended route before going out, which meant that the start of their patrol was fairly boring. But eventually people picked up on the route that Chris and Missy were following, though they obviously couldn't know which of the variants they were using. They also hadn't used routes from this set much since the routes were all changed, but they'd intentionally picked one that they had used before. At Missy's insistence.
Thus it was that as they approached a specific intersection, one of the few places that the route compressed down by force to a single street due to the neighboring buildings, that they found a trap had been laid out. As soon as Chris and Missy were crossing the intersection the trap was sprung, a cage of force appearing to contain them even as gas started to be released into the cage.
The two looked around, and a very careful check of the cage was done, before they opted to go non-verbal on the console text channel.
V: I think that's knockout gas.
K: And whatever this field is, it's holding the gas in with us.
M: It's a magnetic containment force field that relies on the six generator points being very precisely positioned to function. Exact distances, perfectly spaced from each other, that kind of thing.
There was a pause as they processed that, and Aisha was the first to pipe up about it.
C: They're trying to trap Vista with a trap that depends on things being the correct distance from one another?
C: What kind of moron are we dealing with here?
M: The kind that's looking impatient around the corner, assuming that the parahuman around the corner is responsible. I think they're expecting the knockout gas to be knocking those two out.
K: Yeah, that isn't happening right now.
V: Can I break the stupid trap, or do we want to wait for them to come and whine at us about the gas not working?
K: I vote for the latter unless there's some sign that the gas is actually working on us.
M: Works for me, though only if it takes less than, say, ten minutes.
P: We concur, but I'm dispatching a squad to your approximate location now as well. Hopefully this one we can hold onto, but if it takes longer than ten minutes for them to arrive then please hold off on doing anything.
Well, that settled some of that, though it only took eight minutes for the parahuman to come around the corner, stopping at the edge of the force field. He was wearing a blue and red set of power armor that had plus and minus signs around it and that covered the lower half of his face. Some of that seemed to be because he had a rebreather and oxygen tank integrated into the armor. "Why the hell aren't you two knocked out yet?"
Missy snorted. "You expect air freshener to knock us out?"
He blinked at that. "Air freshener? I know I didn't put air freshener into the knockout gas canisters." He then shook his head. "I suppose it doesn't matter much. The field should easily stop you from calling for help, and eventually the oxygen levels will drop to the point where you collapse anyway."
Chris chuckled at that. "You know, you've made several mistakes."
"Oh? And what would a brat like you know?"
"You used knockout gas that doesn't work on us for starters. We've already got help on the way, because apparently you don't know how our phones work. You've failed to ensure that we don't have backup available outside of the force field. Oh, and the biggest mistake is using a force field that relies on precise distances to trap Vista."
Missy took that as her cue to expand space between two of the generator units behind them and crunch space between the two between them and the man. The result was spectacular, the six generators suddenly lighting up incredibly brightly and being pulled together. They did so around Chris and Missy, and exploded when they came together. Missy had expanded space to keep it away from her and Chris, but the unidentified parahuman wasn't as lucky.
Taylor dropping in behind him and pulling the hidden emergency release handle on his power armor didn't help his position, of course. He actually looked like he was going to cry, though some of that might've been because he'd foolishly included a self-destruct routine in the emergency release routine. Which meant that all of the armor pieces that fell off of him superheated until they melted, something that might've burned him had Taylor not grabbed him and pulled him into the air.
To add insult to injury, the no-longer-contained knockout gas then knocked him out. They ended up tying him up, bringing him to the PRT squad that had been sent off, and waiting half an hour for the knockout gas to disperse before the rest of the debris could be collected. With Missy grumbling about nobody worth a shit being involved in trying to grab her. Apparently Taylor had all the luck there, with actual threats going after her. Not that Taylor agreed in this case, but she didn't think that Missy was in the mood to discuss the benefits of stupid people going after her.
Taylor did note that the two other parahumans that had been keeping their distance from the intersection left just before the three of them got moving again, without coming any closer than they'd been from the start of things. They also left on a course perpendicular to the patrol route, likely meaning that they weren't planning on engaging the three, and the direction was also wrong for setting up an ambush further along. Though if they were with the apparent tinker or had just happened to be in the area and decided to watch the show was harder to tell.
"Okay," Irma said as they headed back to report in to Nana. "As far as we can tell, they basically no-sold Natalie and Michael. To a greater degree than expected."
Anne nodded. "I don't know how they no-sold Natalie, though perhaps they only used parahumans against her without even realizing they had to do that? If no non-parahumans interacted with the one she was in before Nana's anonymous tip then they could've kept her contained by pure luck."
"Or the rumors are correct and they've got secret methods that let them track parahumans and were able to follow her jumping from person to person."
"Right, right. Though I'm surprised at how easily they took down Michael."
Irma looked at Anne. "Really?"
"That knockout gas he uses is usually far more effective. I was hoping that we'd be able to rush in while he was gloating over the two unconscious bodies, only for them to ignore the gas entirely."
"He hasn't used it since that odd flu went around, as far as I know. I wouldn't be surprised if the changes it makes render it ineffective and he never noticed."
Anne shook her head. "No, it can't be that. We know he had to have gotten the flu as well, and it knocked him out pretty much right away. Maul didn't make skin contact that I could see, but he still fell unconscious once he was no longer protected by his face mask."
"Oh. That's...huh. Okay, I'll admit it, I'm curious as to how that worked. But if the PRT have both of our targets, are we sticking around or bailing?"
"You know as well as I do that Nana is going to make that call. Though not being able to bring Michael back to face family justice is probably going to be the larger factor there. Do you think Nana will want us to break him out just to get him back home?"
Irma shivered at that. "I hope the hell not. The Wards here are all impossible to deal with, I don't want to get first-hand knowledge of what the Protectorate is like."
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
To whom should I send the bill for my replacement pancreas?
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
That made me laugh so damn hard.
- Location
- Jackson, Alabama
Okay, I am making a guess here: Most of Missy's extended family members are villains, and the leader is Missy's overbearing Nazi killing grandmother. She's tired of waiting for Missy to turn eighteen, so she is trying to kidnap her to bring her into the gang.
Does it hang together, or am I just crazy?
Does it hang together, or am I just crazy?
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Oh my, the Toon dragon can go global if she decides you need punishment. Bugs would be so pleased.
The hilarious thing is that the Brockton Bay Protectorate are actually easier to defeat then the Wards. (granted, not exactly by much)
Jordisk
<Unverified N00B>
- Location
- Blind Eternities
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Maul. She has the money.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
But of course. The Protectorate is predictable. You have Miss "All the Guns", Mr "Fast but can barely interact with the world", Mr "Tinkers all day long" (he's the 2nd hardest to deal with), and the Criminal Charges duo of Assault & Battery.
- Location
- NY, NY
I LOL'd so hard... Very entertaining, thanks!
Arthur Hansen
Author of no Authority.
- Location
- Utah, behind the Zion Curtain.
So Piggot just told them of a potential kidnapping and master situation to Vista... and no one told her that Vista shouldn't go on patrols or for specific requests?
Can I dub this Earth-Incompetent yet? Because it's not just the villains that are total morons.
AnubisUzumaki
(Not a God)(Not an Uzumaki)
- Location
- Kentucky
@CmptrWz, Here's an idea for having the Wards Bus as a T-shirt picture:
How about in a later arc you could have it be worn at a cross regional summer camp and cross regional exchange program.
You could set it up by having a certain number of Wards going to the camp and the others going to an other region for a certain amount of time and then switch, it would be a good way to get Taylor to Chicago if you want.
How about in a later arc you could have it be worn at a cross regional summer camp and cross regional exchange program.
You could set it up by having a certain number of Wards going to the camp and the others going to an other region for a certain amount of time and then switch, it would be a good way to get Taylor to Chicago if you want.
- Location
- Here
..... I thought Velocity transferred out, and they were up to THREE Tinkers on the local Protectorate Team, plus Grue.....
A team with Three Tinkers; one efficiency, one vehicle, and one that can make one of Anything. This team should (on paper) be a total nightmare to deal with. Pity the Wards have been getting all the practical experience for close to a year now.....
EDIT: FOUR Tinkers. I forgot the damn Bomb Tinker.....
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- Location
- Canada
They've considered that the threat is sufficiently low that they can ignore it as long as she's not entirely alone. If the PRT found out a 6 year old with a BB gun was targeting Alexandria do you think they'd restrict her? Vista should be able to handle the threat no problem, and just in case she's to have backup in any on duty activity.
I'd argue that the bigger issue is more that she has no added protection for when off duty but it's possible that with no hint that the threat will disregard the 'Unwritten Rules', and the chance that Vista should be able to handle things alone anyways, they're not worried.
Mirriam Grave
The Bemused. The Amused. The Unstable.
- Location
- The edge of a point.
Honestly speaking?
Armsmaster has proven in Canon repeatedly to have EARNED his fame the hard way.
Yeah, it ended up biting him due to his wish for more, but it did not in anyway detract from the fact that he repeatedly took on multiple parahumans on at once, and if not win, draw with him coming out just a bit ahead. Then went and fought Leviathan one on one. Sandbagging or not, he survived the encounter, AFTER holding him off ALONE for a few minutes. Until that moment, only Lung held that distinction, even if a few others MIGHT have been able to do so as well.
MS Armsmaster? We haven't seen him in action, but I refuse to believe he is anything less than a complete and total Badass. One even MORE prepared and well-equipped than Canon's by simple knock-on effect of his Snark no longer forcing him to waste copious amounts of time eking out a few tenths of a percentage more from his gear, instead of making other things to help shore up his abilities and the amount of scenarios he might find himself in.
Especially with Maul constantly dragging new Tinkers for him to work with and learn from. Especially since he is the Prime Overseer for both a Bomb and Vehicle Tinker, and more than likely has also gotten some nice inputs from Amy's Implants as well. The new materials he has access to thanks to Amy and Taylor.
Oh, and of course, the damn Body Upgrades from Bonesaw and Panacea.
Yeah. I fully expect Armsmaster to be capable of single-handedly defending the Protectorate ENE's reputation.
Him aside, despite nothing new being added, Miss 'I am an FPS player with Cheat Codes' Militia is in no way an easy target if you don't catch her by surprise. Or if you FAIL when you DO catch her by surprise, and she decides that the kid gloves should be left in her pockets for this occasion.
...I really have nothing to say about Grue, or Clock. Both are good solid members... but nothing truly special. Despite that, I fully expect Grue to come out the victor in a fight against a third of the Ward team, and at least Clock, simply due to what one could call 'Type Advantage'. It is an incredibly useful ability against a wide array of enemies, which could also earn him the Badass Title.
Gallant... yeah, no. Sorry buddy.
Dauntless is definitely up there in the Badass list after getting that neat Tinkertech Legs of his Upgrades with his Power. Not as high as it could be, but give it time. XD
Velocity... I can't recall if Triumph and Velocity survived Leviathan...
Countdown... do I REALLY in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM HAVE TO EXPLAIN HOW THE BOMB TINKER IS CLASSIFIED AS A VERY VERY DANGEROUS BADASS?
Wrench Wraith... although not as extreme as Countdown, the above argument still works. This is the woman who made the Merchants a Significant Threat while drugged to near death and with shit materials. Now she works alongside Armsmaster, Countdown, and Kid WIn. With a VERY nice budget. Once they let the leash loose enough for her to play with something with a bit more OOMPH... well, as I said, no need to explain.
Finally Assault and Battery. Admittedly, Battery is actually kinda on the weak side of the middle of the list, but she does REALLY well with what she has as is it. Assault though? It took Legend to capture him as a Villain. Now, in MS, he also has Firearms at his disposal to help with gaining Kinetic Energy. Plus HEAT drawn from the air itself. The man is now capable of freezing the areas he is in, and possibly the people he contacts. He is a LOT more dangerous than Canon, and Canon Assault was no slouch when the chips were down.
So in final tally.
We have Four Certified Badasses in Armsmaster, Assault, Dauntless, and Miss Militia. Two of which dwarf the others, but still.
With Two Badasses in all but Experience and Name with Countdown and Wrench Wraith. The latter due entirely to having a rather tight leash at the moment, rather than her not actually having Experience and a Name for herself.
With a Possible in Grue... or Blackout I think it is in MS? I can't recall. T^T
And some decent tag ins with Battery, Clock, and Triumph. If alive.
...I am sure Velocity and Gallant can get something done. >_> Maybe Gallant can call his Girlfriend to be his Knight. And Velocity is fast enough to text everyone else in the time it takes most people to get their phones out of their pockets.
EDIT:
Oh good, I forgot Reknit, the REFRESHED LEET!
And can remove Velocity from the list. XD
- Location
- Here
Considering Vista is the most experienced, best trained, and second biggest badass in the Wards, combined with just how stupid the kidnapper was, they probably think sending her out with backup will be enough to catch any other idiots after her.
Besides, she has Maul as backup. Only Kenny from In The Honor Of The Regiment would be better backup for her.....
Irma's name seems familiar. Ring bells for anyone?
Secret methods to track parahumans.🤣
It's not the "flu".....
It seems to be a family gang. Wonder who Nana is.
- Location
- Wherever I feel like being
- Pronouns
- He/Him
God damn Endbringer-worshipping fuckwits.
- Location
- Burlington, KY, USA
Keeping her from patrols and/or power tasks is a no go as that keeps her from fulfilling her power use compulsions. Giving her escorts and added protection is really the only choice since she has a history of being willing to go out alone if she thinks she is being held back.
In other news, I really hope that Takara has blue eyes in her toon dragon form so we can all call her Blue Eyes Toon Dragon.
@TempestK The Fallen are gone. Contessa and Glaistig Uaine took them out after Maya was caught and they did their televised "reading" of Taylor and Amy.
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FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Speaking of the Fallen... I wonder what the remaining members think of the fact their Doomsday Cult's "gods" just went around fixing the damage they caused, then left?
- Location
- Bosnia
In
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Sort of makes you wonder what the directors are already thinking about for potential team reshuffles when the current crop of Wards all hit "Graduation" and join the Protectorate.