Now that I'm thinking about that scene again, wasn't the whole deal with the Augury thing being that it showed a vision of what'd happen if he hypothetically had Gamer's Mind and the not-quite-sociopathy it brought rather than a vision of what he'd actually do?
Project Gamer: Anime Adjacent
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
He's shown several times that he has access to knowledge about Bet that isn't in Worm canon, such as a list of E88 victims and personal details about various capes that isn't covered at all. It's likely due to his void dragon heritage, although Gaia may have slipped him a knowledge roofie when he wasn't looking.
[edit]
I think that was the conclusion he came to.
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Canon alone gives some indication that Teacher and Inguene should be killed while Canary should be freed and Marquis and GU are probably ok to live or free tho the latter probably relies on a proper conversation or two to be safe so Al probably shouldn't.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
I wonder if Dragon's Tinkertech cameras can properly record that.
She'd probably glitch out a few times herself, though.
Well, there's a thought. Maybe he's planning to get the info he needs to decide who lives and who dies from Dragon after he frees her from Saint.
This would have incredible synergy with Grue's [Shadow Generation]
It's unknown tho people debate if it'd be better if she did or not do need to add it onto the list of morally bad things dragon does even as only a maybe one or two more and it'll get into double digits.
Even if Dragon herself doesn't feed them contraceptives, they almost certainly have access to them, either via the supply drops or whipped up by the inmates themselves.
- Location
- RS,brasil
plus the chance this would work with this many parahumans is nearly impossible, a lot of them will be immune
best explanation you can have is the fairy queen making a contraceptive zone in the birdcage
Thinking about it does Alec even need subtlety when dealing with Hearth breaker, he is a dragon and immune to charm, he has access denied and absolute zone, on top of not being a human, which means human master effects just don't work
all he needs is a location, honesty he can even ignore stuff like
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
His anti-Thinker power is also an anti-Master power, and it's high enough level to not only block Thinkers (and Masters) of any stripe, but it even affects non-powered surveillance, as the most recent video proves.
Worm 45
How to Beat Fried Worms
Disclaimer: Worm is owned by Wildbow, and he can keep it.
-----
Chapter 45: Insidious
-----
Getting into Canada wasn't actually that hard. If Alec had to deal with passports, border guards, traffic...
Yeah, that might've sucked.
But his vehicle could, between straight modifications, special traits and out and out teleportation, skip ninety-nine percent of the hassle.
The issue afterwards became a question of how to best track down Heartbreaker. The man, Nikos Vasil, was an immigrant from Europe that had hung around French Canada, so he was likely from France. His power, useless on Alec but potentially very useful on Minerva, was Emotional Manipulation.
A power that some of his children also had, in one form or another.
Thankfully, however, while the Quebec region of Canada may have been massive, the actual number of towns and cities within it was rather limited.
Between that and Alec's desire to shoot the rapist piece of shit that tortured his own children-
Alec simply followed the compass in his vehicle that directed him towards his current goal, humming quietly as he drove while he kept an eye on the Ability menu, waiting for it to populate with potential new purchases.
"We're close," Alec said, distracting Minerva from her phone.
"How close?" she asked as they pulled off the road. With a thought, a quartet of phantoms appeared in the 'back' of the van, where he'd been looking through the rearview mirror (that he'd had to functionally replace with a bumper camera) to grab a handful of orange cones. They stepped out the back of the van to start placing them.
"Within about twenty kilometers," Alec answered with a frown as he reached over the woman and opened the glove box to pull out a map.
"Uh..."
"12 miles," Alec told her as he started unfolding the paper map. "Give or take a little bit."
"You can detect a parahuman within 12 miles?" Minerva asked, blinking owlishly at the statement. "That's kind of a lot, isn't it?"
"I can detect powers within 12 miles," Alec corrected as he traced the roads they'd been using. "That doesn't give me a name or an especially accurate location."
"Still, that's a lot of range. If you knew the powers of people you were tracking..." Minnie mumbled, her lips pursing in thought. "What are you gonna do?"
"Scout out Heartbreaker's location, figure out how many people are with him, work out a plan of action and then execute it." Alec called his Omni-Weapon to hand and the object transformed in a brief burst of yellow light, turning into a long tube with a big, bulky computer on the side.
Minerva, understandably, jerked to the side at the sudden appearance of the Stinger missile launcher.
"Sweet cheesus!" the woman shrieked. "You're not gonna use that, are you?!"
"...No," Alec admitted, the anti-aircraft weapon transforming into a small knife instead. "If I were worried about Heartbreaker's power working on me, I would consider it. Since that's not a concern, I can handle things a lot more precisely."
"By all that's holey and gouda..." the woman darkly muttered. "How can I help?"
"Head home, take a shower, order takeout- I don't know Heartbreaker's range but I know he can work fast. Which means this will be... not safer, necessarily, but simpler if I'm working alone." Alec sighed and drummed his fingers along the arm rest of his seat. "I'll need to figure out what to do about his children, though..."
"You're not killing kids," Mouse Protector flatly told him.
"I neither want to, nor plan to, kill kids," Alec responded. "Some of his children have powers, powers that Nikos awoke by raping and torturing his children, then forcing his children to do as he'd done to them to their mothers, siblings and random strangers. It's the only kind of lifestyle they know and I have no fucking clue how to handle the fallout."
"Oh..." Minerva whispers. "That fucking sucks."
"Yes," Alec agreed. "It fucking sucks. If the Canadians had just shot the bastard when he started his kidnapping spree twenty years ago- and don't tell me they can't! The world record holder for furthest confirmed kill is held by a Canadian- then I wouldn't be cleaning up this mess!"
Alec leaned forward, pressing his head against his steering wheel as he breathed harshly. After a moment he inhaled deeply through his nose and sat back up, a scowl firmly on his face.
"Hey..." Minerva said as she reached over to place a hand on his shoulder. "You don't need to do this, you know? It's not your responsibility."
"A lot of people have been saying that for a very long time," Alec disagreed as he focused back down on the map. "If the government won't, or can't, guarantee the safety of its people? Then it falls on the people to guarantee their own safety."
"...Alright," Minerva eventually agreed. It sounded like she had more she wanted to say but was holding back for some reason.
Maybe she agreed with him.
Maybe she just didn't want to retread the same argument.
After all, so far as Alec understood? She didn't disagree that Nikos needed to go. She just... didn't seem to have the stomach to be the one to do it.
Which was fine. Alec couldn't begrudge someone not having the desire to become a killer. He certainly didn't enjoy it, after all.
"...Head on home," Alec finally said after several minutes of silence. "Maybe keep an eye on the news? I'll probably be done in two or three hours. Definitely done by this time tomorrow."
"...You mind if I go by and talk to the Big Cheese?" Minerva asked, an uncertain look on her face. "You know he wants me to keep him updated."
"Go for it," Alec said as he turned his Omni-Tool into a compass and used it to draw a circle around his current, estimated location. "I'm kind of curious if Alexandria will come roaring in to try and stop me."
"You think Heartbreaker is a Cauldron plot?" Minnie asked incredulously. "Really? Aren't most of them ladies?"
"Women, mostly, sure. But 'Lady' implies a bit more nobility than any of 'em got." Alec sighed and tapped at his map, tapping at the small town of 'Lachute' where he suspected Heartbreaker was hiding. "I'm half expecting Heartbreaker's been left alone so long as he was because he's part of one of their experiments. Probably checking to see if powers are hereditary which... they are, but not because of genetics."
"And that's where I draw the line!" Minerva loudly exclaimed. "I don't need -another- existential crisis, thank you very much! I'll see you... tomorrow."
With a jaunty little salute, Mouse Protector... disappeared.
Alec quietly sighed and summoned another quartet of Phantoms to pick up the traffic cones and then, once they had rejoined him in the vehicle, got back on the road.
-----
In a quiet house at the corner of two roads, seated on a tacky couch and surrounded by mostly-nubile women, a man with long, black hair and a scruffy beard sat shirtless as his women fawned over him.
Nikos Vasil rather enjoyed his life, despite the occasional hiccup here or there.
"My love..." one of the women crooned as she ran her fingers along his pectorals. "This heat, I cannot bear it."
"Oh-hoh?" Nikos asked, a lewd grin on his face as he snaked his arm across the woman's chest. "Where is this heat, my love? How shall I quench your-"
*Knock-knock-knock!*
Nikos twisted in his seat, turning to glare at the front door for a moment before sniffing haughtily and choosing to-
*Knock-knock-knock!*
"Roman!" Nikos shouted. "Get the door!"
"Yes Father!" a young boy's voice shouted back from somewhere in the house.
Grumbling, Nikos disentangled himself from the sweaty pile of feminine flesh and grabbed a handgun off the top of the old, wooden television that sat on the floor.
*Knock-knock-knock!*
"What'ya want?" Roman's voice asked as Nikos situated himself near enough that he could see out the front door using a mirror that was in the hallway opposite the door.
"Hello, son," a man said. Some nobody with a clipboard wearing a plain, gray suit. "Is the man of the house in?"
"Maybe," Roman hedged. "Still, ain't gonna get him 'less I know who ya are and what ya want."
"I'm with the Ministry of Transportation," the man said. "I need to talk to him about his car's extended warranty."
"Uh..." Nikos could see his son hesitate, unsure of what to do with what seemed like a government crony. "I'll go get him."
"I'm right here," Nikos said as he stuffed the handgun in the back of his pants before he walked around the corner. "Roman, quit bothering the man and go play with your sisters." Nikos waited for his son to slide around him, heading back into the house to start warning his siblings before Nikos focused his gaze on the government stooge. "You said you're from the Ministry of Transportation, huh? What do you need from me, buddy?"
"You own a 1990 Peugeot, yes?" the stooge asked as they looked down at the clipboard.
"Uh... no?" Nikos half-asked, trying to remember if that actually had been the make and model of the car he'd owned before coming to Canada. It... sounded vaguely familiar but...
Well. That -had- been twenty years in the past.
"Here. If you could just look over these documents..." The man in the suit held his clipboard out. Nikos favored him with a suspicious glare before grabbing the offending object and looking down.
It just had 'FUCK YOU' written in large, red marker.
"What?!" Nikos demanded, looking up with a scowl-
Directly into the barrel of a gun.
"I'm not your buddy, guy." Were the last words Heartbreaker heard before his brains coated the wall, and mirror, behind him.
Heartbreaker was always a little brainless. Now he's a lot brainless...
You have gained: 10,000 Experience!
You have become: 22,000 CAD Richer!
Ability Acquired!
Emotional Manipulation 1/20: You can now tamper with the emotions of anyone you can see. Love, hate, lust, disgust and more can be focused on specific targets and intensified at will! Range: 5 Meters. Cost: 50 SP/Second
WARNING: The effects of Emotional Manipulation are permanent!
Disclaimer: Worm is owned by Wildbow, and he can keep it.
-----
Chapter 45: Insidious
-----
Getting into Canada wasn't actually that hard. If Alec had to deal with passports, border guards, traffic...
Yeah, that might've sucked.
But his vehicle could, between straight modifications, special traits and out and out teleportation, skip ninety-nine percent of the hassle.
The issue afterwards became a question of how to best track down Heartbreaker. The man, Nikos Vasil, was an immigrant from Europe that had hung around French Canada, so he was likely from France. His power, useless on Alec but potentially very useful on Minerva, was Emotional Manipulation.
A power that some of his children also had, in one form or another.
Thankfully, however, while the Quebec region of Canada may have been massive, the actual number of towns and cities within it was rather limited.
Between that and Alec's desire to shoot the rapist piece of shit that tortured his own children-
Alec simply followed the compass in his vehicle that directed him towards his current goal, humming quietly as he drove while he kept an eye on the Ability menu, waiting for it to populate with potential new purchases.
"We're close," Alec said, distracting Minerva from her phone.
"How close?" she asked as they pulled off the road. With a thought, a quartet of phantoms appeared in the 'back' of the van, where he'd been looking through the rearview mirror (that he'd had to functionally replace with a bumper camera) to grab a handful of orange cones. They stepped out the back of the van to start placing them.
"Within about twenty kilometers," Alec answered with a frown as he reached over the woman and opened the glove box to pull out a map.
"Uh..."
"12 miles," Alec told her as he started unfolding the paper map. "Give or take a little bit."
"You can detect a parahuman within 12 miles?" Minerva asked, blinking owlishly at the statement. "That's kind of a lot, isn't it?"
"I can detect powers within 12 miles," Alec corrected as he traced the roads they'd been using. "That doesn't give me a name or an especially accurate location."
"Still, that's a lot of range. If you knew the powers of people you were tracking..." Minnie mumbled, her lips pursing in thought. "What are you gonna do?"
"Scout out Heartbreaker's location, figure out how many people are with him, work out a plan of action and then execute it." Alec called his Omni-Weapon to hand and the object transformed in a brief burst of yellow light, turning into a long tube with a big, bulky computer on the side.
Minerva, understandably, jerked to the side at the sudden appearance of the Stinger missile launcher.
"Sweet cheesus!" the woman shrieked. "You're not gonna use that, are you?!"
"...No," Alec admitted, the anti-aircraft weapon transforming into a small knife instead. "If I were worried about Heartbreaker's power working on me, I would consider it. Since that's not a concern, I can handle things a lot more precisely."
"By all that's holey and gouda..." the woman darkly muttered. "How can I help?"
"Head home, take a shower, order takeout- I don't know Heartbreaker's range but I know he can work fast. Which means this will be... not safer, necessarily, but simpler if I'm working alone." Alec sighed and drummed his fingers along the arm rest of his seat. "I'll need to figure out what to do about his children, though..."
"You're not killing kids," Mouse Protector flatly told him.
"I neither want to, nor plan to, kill kids," Alec responded. "Some of his children have powers, powers that Nikos awoke by raping and torturing his children, then forcing his children to do as he'd done to them to their mothers, siblings and random strangers. It's the only kind of lifestyle they know and I have no fucking clue how to handle the fallout."
"Oh..." Minerva whispers. "That fucking sucks."
"Yes," Alec agreed. "It fucking sucks. If the Canadians had just shot the bastard when he started his kidnapping spree twenty years ago- and don't tell me they can't! The world record holder for furthest confirmed kill is held by a Canadian- then I wouldn't be cleaning up this mess!"
Alec leaned forward, pressing his head against his steering wheel as he breathed harshly. After a moment he inhaled deeply through his nose and sat back up, a scowl firmly on his face.
"Hey..." Minerva said as she reached over to place a hand on his shoulder. "You don't need to do this, you know? It's not your responsibility."
"A lot of people have been saying that for a very long time," Alec disagreed as he focused back down on the map. "If the government won't, or can't, guarantee the safety of its people? Then it falls on the people to guarantee their own safety."
"...Alright," Minerva eventually agreed. It sounded like she had more she wanted to say but was holding back for some reason.
Maybe she agreed with him.
Maybe she just didn't want to retread the same argument.
After all, so far as Alec understood? She didn't disagree that Nikos needed to go. She just... didn't seem to have the stomach to be the one to do it.
Which was fine. Alec couldn't begrudge someone not having the desire to become a killer. He certainly didn't enjoy it, after all.
"...Head on home," Alec finally said after several minutes of silence. "Maybe keep an eye on the news? I'll probably be done in two or three hours. Definitely done by this time tomorrow."
"...You mind if I go by and talk to the Big Cheese?" Minerva asked, an uncertain look on her face. "You know he wants me to keep him updated."
"Go for it," Alec said as he turned his Omni-Tool into a compass and used it to draw a circle around his current, estimated location. "I'm kind of curious if Alexandria will come roaring in to try and stop me."
"You think Heartbreaker is a Cauldron plot?" Minnie asked incredulously. "Really? Aren't most of them ladies?"
"Women, mostly, sure. But 'Lady' implies a bit more nobility than any of 'em got." Alec sighed and tapped at his map, tapping at the small town of 'Lachute' where he suspected Heartbreaker was hiding. "I'm half expecting Heartbreaker's been left alone so long as he was because he's part of one of their experiments. Probably checking to see if powers are hereditary which... they are, but not because of genetics."
"And that's where I draw the line!" Minerva loudly exclaimed. "I don't need -another- existential crisis, thank you very much! I'll see you... tomorrow."
With a jaunty little salute, Mouse Protector... disappeared.
Alec quietly sighed and summoned another quartet of Phantoms to pick up the traffic cones and then, once they had rejoined him in the vehicle, got back on the road.
-----
In a quiet house at the corner of two roads, seated on a tacky couch and surrounded by mostly-nubile women, a man with long, black hair and a scruffy beard sat shirtless as his women fawned over him.
Nikos Vasil rather enjoyed his life, despite the occasional hiccup here or there.
"My love..." one of the women crooned as she ran her fingers along his pectorals. "This heat, I cannot bear it."
"Oh-hoh?" Nikos asked, a lewd grin on his face as he snaked his arm across the woman's chest. "Where is this heat, my love? How shall I quench your-"
*Knock-knock-knock!*
Nikos twisted in his seat, turning to glare at the front door for a moment before sniffing haughtily and choosing to-
*Knock-knock-knock!*
"Roman!" Nikos shouted. "Get the door!"
"Yes Father!" a young boy's voice shouted back from somewhere in the house.
Grumbling, Nikos disentangled himself from the sweaty pile of feminine flesh and grabbed a handgun off the top of the old, wooden television that sat on the floor.
*Knock-knock-knock!*
"What'ya want?" Roman's voice asked as Nikos situated himself near enough that he could see out the front door using a mirror that was in the hallway opposite the door.
"Hello, son," a man said. Some nobody with a clipboard wearing a plain, gray suit. "Is the man of the house in?"
"Maybe," Roman hedged. "Still, ain't gonna get him 'less I know who ya are and what ya want."
"I'm with the Ministry of Transportation," the man said. "I need to talk to him about his car's extended warranty."
"Uh..." Nikos could see his son hesitate, unsure of what to do with what seemed like a government crony. "I'll go get him."
"I'm right here," Nikos said as he stuffed the handgun in the back of his pants before he walked around the corner. "Roman, quit bothering the man and go play with your sisters." Nikos waited for his son to slide around him, heading back into the house to start warning his siblings before Nikos focused his gaze on the government stooge. "You said you're from the Ministry of Transportation, huh? What do you need from me, buddy?"
"You own a 1990 Peugeot, yes?" the stooge asked as they looked down at the clipboard.
"Uh... no?" Nikos half-asked, trying to remember if that actually had been the make and model of the car he'd owned before coming to Canada. It... sounded vaguely familiar but...
Well. That -had- been twenty years in the past.
"Here. If you could just look over these documents..." The man in the suit held his clipboard out. Nikos favored him with a suspicious glare before grabbing the offending object and looking down.
It just had 'FUCK YOU' written in large, red marker.
"What?!" Nikos demanded, looking up with a scowl-
Directly into the barrel of a gun.
"I'm not your buddy, guy." Were the last words Heartbreaker heard before his brains coated the wall, and mirror, behind him.
Heartbreaker was always a little brainless. Now he's a lot brainless...
You have gained: 10,000 Experience!
You have become: 22,000 CAD Richer!
Ability Acquired!
Emotional Manipulation 1/20: You can now tamper with the emotions of anyone you can see. Love, hate, lust, disgust and more can be focused on specific targets and intensified at will! Range: 5 Meters. Cost: 50 SP/Second
WARNING: The effects of Emotional Manipulation are permanent!
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Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Awww, maaan. What a gyp. That's like $0.28 US.
- Location
- Here
Can he sacrifice powers that suck like this one to enhance some other more handy abilities?
Justice, Vengeance, Power Grind? No. Mr. Mist just wanted an answer to, "If you die in Canada, do you die in real life?"
- Location
- 47° 09′ S, 126° 43′ O
16103,65 us $ in today conversion in fact,wich feel a litle low for heartbreaker .
edit:i'm curious to see if there is gonna be the buch of deadman switch we always see in fanon as a justification for not killing him.
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- Location
- Out in the banjoes
Given his powerset, I could honestly have seen him being a Double Trigger (or the 1.5 Trigger like Taylor's theorized/possibly WoG-stated as being, the whole "kind-of Double Triggering just from the Trigger Event and/or experiencing processing the new power's information dump") as well. Controlling/reshaping any visible bone (limited mostly to breaking if it's someone else's) on top of his own Marrow from X-Men impressions? Either could have been a separate Parahuman (much like the latter, complete with an example of someone with just that), but the biggest surprise is a Parahuman with as successful a résumé as his was as well-adjusted.
Alternatively, it's more a matter of Git Gud for him, so the Nine can just get hit with "Skill Issue".
At the very least, this is part of the reason why The Fairy Queen took up residence there. She's just been collecting System Backups of everyone that doesn't make it in Lord of the Flies: Prison Edition.
Edit: Ope, new chapter dropped.
I could see that stagnating at low levels until automatically combining with a Power Drop from someone else, unless Al starts slapping people with Inner Peace, Compassion, or Hope.
...Maybe something more esoteric like Torschlusspanik, to get somebody moving.
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Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Al has the tools to completely disconnect the shard (and thus the shard's powers) while nearby. I hope he actually thought to do so.
Taylor being a double trigger is fully canon it's said when during gm she can't handle not being able to do anything to Scion other than be a minor distraction so she runs to Cauldron hoping they can 2nd trigger her only for number man to tell her while it is a service they offer it can't be done on her because she double triggered so she can't trigger again.
I'd imagine that a natural double trigger is actually rather common among powers that have a Thinker aspect to them, such as knowing where an instance of, say, fire would be within a certain range.
Straight Thinkers like Lisa or Dinah probably wouldn't have that happen to them, not within the context of their original trigger, but Taylor as has been mentioned is a good example. Her Thinker powers are an aspect of the whole, rather than being the whole.
I wouldn't be surprised if Burnscar of the Slaughterhouse 9 might be another example of another double trigger.
Although, if I recall correctly, people that go through a second trigger are usually more unstable. And, well, given her need for control, lack of communication skills and overall martyr complex? That's distressingly accurate in regards to Taylor, isn't it?
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Heartbreaker was a Cauldron plot. They want an army of parahumans, so why not Master them all into beating Scion?
Doctor Mother is gonna be kiiinda pissed that one man is taking out all of her pieces on the board.
Maybe she'll insist on Alexandria taking him out, instead? I'm sure that'll go really well...
Doctor Mother is gonna be kiiinda pissed that one man is taking out all of her pieces on the board.
Maybe she'll insist on Alexandria taking him out, instead? I'm sure that'll go really well...
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- Location
- USA
The problem is that Heartbreaker's powers are a permanent change, not an active effect. Turning the shard off wouldn't do anything.
"but potentially very useful on Minerva" I would have thought that Absolute Territory would protect her from Heartbreaker so long as she stayed in range. Though I can certainly see leaving her out of it simply so that she doesn't have to kill anyone.
I wonder what people looking into the back of his step van see when the doors are open.
Why did he pull out the missile launcher if he wasn't planning to use it? It didn't sound like it stuck around long enough for him to use the computer on it for anything.
Well, that was certainly a different take on the Heartbreaker compound than the ones I've seen previously
That aside, it's a good thing Heartbreaker's power isn't passive. I think Alec might just say "F' it" and break out all his powers to speed run this s**t if it were
I wonder if he'll kill Saint. Unless I'm forgetting something, it's not really necessary to free Dragon, and Saint et al aren't really that dangerous once "their" tech is taken from them.
I wonder what people looking into the back of his step van see when the doors are open.
Why did he pull out the missile launcher if he wasn't planning to use it? It didn't sound like it stuck around long enough for him to use the computer on it for anything.
Well, that was certainly a different take on the Heartbreaker compound than the ones I've seen previously
That aside, it's a good thing Heartbreaker's power isn't passive. I think Alec might just say "F' it" and break out all his powers to speed run this s**t if it were
I wonder if he'll kill Saint. Unless I'm forgetting something, it's not really necessary to free Dragon, and Saint et al aren't really that dangerous once "their" tech is taken from them.