Worm 18
How to Beat Fried Worms
Disclaimer: Worm is owned by Wildbow, and he can keep it.
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Chapter 18: Dance!
-----
Saturday rolling around left Alec feeling restless and directionless. He knew he needed to keep moving forward but he didn't have a strong idea on what he needed to do in order to accomplish that.
Working on the powers he already had was great, yeah, but he could do that almost anywhere. He could drop a charge into his van so long as it was nearby, or he could keep on empowering his guns or his Omnitool.
Gift and Decimation were a little more... difficult to work with, though.
After a good bit of hemming and hawing, Alec finally managed to work up the motivation to go around and check on his rat traps.
They were, in one word, disgusting. Filled with dead rats, many of which were partially eaten, and rats that were in the middle of dying. The only positive note was the fact that he'd set them up in back alleys and corners near dumpsters, behind a few restaurants. Emptying them was a bit awkward but, between blocking the view of what he was doing with his van and using Phantom Force while dressed in green khakis with a matching button down shirt to look like he was employed to be doing so, he and a phantom were able to lift the whole traps over the dumpsters and just undo the bottom latch.
Alec didn't know how many dead plague-rats he threw away and he didn't care to try and count. Too many for his liking and too few to change the local ecology, he was sure.
Emptying and rebaiting the traps took time, to be sure, but only a few hours. After that?
Alec was left with a lot of time and no real idea on what to do with it all. His core power, here, required that he target the Capes of Earth Bet in order to grow stronger, provided he wanted to do so at a reasonable pace. So far, he'd only taken advantage of opportunities as they'd presented themselves to him.
What else could he do, then? How could he be proactive, then, without running into the risk of biting off more than he was ready to chew?
While hunting Nazis was a productive way to pass the time, doing so effectively would rely on Alec having more information than he currently had access to. He had the means of baiting a trap, true, but that would only work once. And Alec had, maybe, one more week to make use of it before -that- window of opportunity closed.
Tattletale's power, Authorial Exposition, let the girl just pull random facts and assumptions out of her ass as the story needed them. She'd likely be able to help Alec figure out when and where a target was...
Provided he could put up with her.
He remembered seeing what he thought he'd get if he beat her, in the Free Ability menu back when he'd used his first point for Empowered Investment. Beating her would give him Observe, something Alec just... wasn't really that interested in getting.
Alec drove out towards the docks and parked his van in an unused alley. Getting out of his seat, he grabbed a small cooler off the floor, opened the back door of the van and sat down to look out over the ruined ships, blocking off the bay, and the oil rig in the distance surrounded by a shimmering field of energy.
There were dead spots, places he'd found throughout various parts of Brockton Bay. Places with no cell signal, no WiFi. He wasn't sure about the overall sizes of them but he'd marked some of their general locations on a physical map in the glove box of his van.
Leftovers from Tinkers, he figured. Interference from Squealer's attempts at building her invisible shit-mobile or maybe as a side effect to L33t's tinkertech. Alec really didn't know and he doubted he'd get a good answer.
He took a bagged sandwich out of the cooler and opened it, eating a ham and cheddar sandwich as he tried to think on things.
He didn't need to kill a cape to get a reward, including a new power. Some were a blight on the world, their absence an improvement for society at large. Countless others, however, were typically content to run around in a silly costume and punch other people in silly costumes.
Bitch was a good example, actually. Rachel Lindt didn't want much to do with people. Outside of the necessities, she'd likely be happy to live out in the wilds with a pack of wolves. She was a criminal because her case had been handled by the most incompetent brain-trusts the government could find and she didn't have any skills that could be leveraged to change her situation. Coil was using her, in part because she didn't have many other options and, in part, because she wasn't intellectually capable of recognizing an exploitive or abusive situation.
Coil? Well... Coil fell into the category of 'Better off dead'. Alec didn't give two shits about whatever power might come from dealing with Coil. He also didn't care about being the one to put a bullet into Coil's skull. So long as somebody did it? The world would be a better place.
The man shivered as a cold breeze passed over him, funneled by the alley walls.
If he wanted to be ready for what was coming, he needed more power. More skills. Higher attributes. He needed armor and weapons, strong enough to shrug off forces esoteric and unimaginable.
But... he already had those things. Tools that could survive the destruction of a multiverse, weapons and powers that could shatter worlds. Using them would be the equivalent of spitting in Terra's face, the entity that had sent him here. And, while she couldn't actually take those away from him, there was no shortage of other things she could do instead.
So if, when he did that? It was going to have to be in a way that didn't incite hostile retribution. Something funny, maybe. Or probably cheeky, really.
It's not like Alec could do 'cute'.
Alec sighed and pulled a bottle of water out of the cooler, his eyes distant as he thought.
Powers, Alec thought. What kind of powers could he get his hands on without making any more significant enemies? What could he barter or trade to get what he wanted? Should he even bother at this point? Earth Bet, despite everything else, had slid back sociologically with the introduction of Parahumans. Honor, responsibility and trust all took a back seat to the origin of authority: Force.
...If Alec wanted to properly 'interact' with parahumans in any other way than behind the scope of a rifle, he was going to have to do so on their playing field. Present a 'front' for them to see, to expect, to plan against.
Alec sighed and finished his water, putting the empty bottle back in the cooler.
He... was going to have to get a costume.
-----
Sabbah Amin did not like working on Saturdays. She especially did not like working Sundays, either, but that would be a problem for tomorrow.
Running her own business in downtown Brockton Bay did not afford her such luxuries as free time, however. Not if she wished to pay her bills and keep her store.
The short, costumed girl was in the process of drawing out the design for a new puppet when the front door beeped and a man stepped through. He was young, perhaps about her age or so, with wavy brown hair that stuck out under his hat and he wore an outfit of green. Green pants, green shirt, green... domino mask. Poorly placed overtop a mass of bandages so that it likely obscured his vision.
A cape? Or a pretender?
"Parian?" the man asked once the door closed by itself behind him.
"I am," Sabbah agreed. "Welcome to 'The Dollhouse'. Can I help you with something?"
"Yes, actually," the man admitted as he approached the counter separating her from the front of the store. "I was looking to pick up an outfit, possibly with a few modifications?"
"...I can certainly assist you with this, sir." It was literally what Parian did for a living, after all. "What were you looking to get?"
"A suit. Something semi-professional. Shirt, jacket, pants, gloves and tie. Shoes? Do you do shoes?"
"No," Sabbah immediately told him. "I am not a cobbler."
"Shame, that. Your power likes working with leather. The fresher the better." It... what?! She didn't know that! How did he know that?! "I was hoping to get pockets sewn into the inside of the jacket and pants? On my breasts, thighs and calves if possible."
"That shouldn't be terribly difficult," Sabbah admitted as she pulled a clean sheet of paper to her. The pockets were interesting, she supposed, but he hadn't asked for anything groundbreaking or tricky. "What would you be putting in these pockets, if I may ask?"
"Armor inserts. Likely aluminum if I can't get my hands on titanium. Perhaps about 1 centimeter thick?"
Hmm... along areas that don't flex or bend very much and limited to the outermost layer of the costume. She would have to use heavier stitching to support the added weight. If he'd been asking her to make the suit out of kevlar or something similar it would actually be far more difficult.
She'd done that in the past, however. More than one CEO or other high-powered businessman in the Bay had a thick, kevlar suit jacket that she'd made for them.
That commission alone was often enough to pay for her storefront for an entire month.
"Before we go any further, I have to ask: How will you be paying for your order?"
It wasn't going to be an expensive order, not really. If the man, who hadn't given his name and she certainly wasn't going to ask, had been asking for some kind of skin-tight costume made of exotic or difficult materials, it'd be a different story.
"Cash," the man told her. Under her mask, Sabbah allowed herself a small smile. That was her preferred form of payment. "I'd prefer the suit made of cotton, if possible."
"That's very possible," Sabbah told him. "May I ask why?"
"We're in Brockton Bay. The winters are cold and the summers are humid. I'd like to wear something I won't die in because of the weather."
"Ah, yes... that would be a problem, wouldn't it?" Sabbah didn't want to think of the number of times she'd read of capes, wearing full suits of metal armor, dying of heat exhaustion in the middle of summer. Or of girls in skin-tight catsuits being admitted to the hospital for frostbite. "And what of the color scheme?"
"Dark gray for the jacket and pants. A red tie would be striking but black would also work. Or both, I suppose... provided they're clip-ons. A good, clean, professional look shouldn't come with an increased risk of bodily harm."
That was a bit disappointing but Parian really couldn't fault the man for his refusal to wear a full neck tie. Not in this day and age.
"Al...right," Parian muttered as she finished her rough sketch. The man wasn't asking her for anything unique or especially fashionable but, the engineer that Sabbah almost became could certainly appreciate the simple purpose in the design.
The fact that he hadn't been hitting on her was also appreciated. Greatly, in fact.
"Follow me to the back," she said as she got off of her stool and stood to her full height of just over five feet (152 CM). "And we'll get your measurements figured out."
-----
Alec walked out of Parian's shop with a large package under one arm. Pants, jacket, shirt and ties all folded and put away with a pair of thin leather driving gloves, accessories that Parian sold but didn't make, stuffed into his pocket.
That had cost him nearly 1200 dollars. More expensive than getting a similar suit off the rack, and more expensive that getting said suit tailored to fit him. But part of the price had been from watching Parian work, watching as the woman willed the threads to move at her command, to unravel at just the right point, to join exactly where she intended.
It was artistry in application. Poetry in motion. That it resulted in what was possibly the most comfortable suit Alec had ever worn was almost secondary.
And, Alec felt, it was a perfect way to spend a Nazi's money.
Disclaimer: Worm is owned by Wildbow, and he can keep it.
-----
Chapter 18: Dance!
-----
Saturday rolling around left Alec feeling restless and directionless. He knew he needed to keep moving forward but he didn't have a strong idea on what he needed to do in order to accomplish that.
Working on the powers he already had was great, yeah, but he could do that almost anywhere. He could drop a charge into his van so long as it was nearby, or he could keep on empowering his guns or his Omnitool.
Gift and Decimation were a little more... difficult to work with, though.
After a good bit of hemming and hawing, Alec finally managed to work up the motivation to go around and check on his rat traps.
They were, in one word, disgusting. Filled with dead rats, many of which were partially eaten, and rats that were in the middle of dying. The only positive note was the fact that he'd set them up in back alleys and corners near dumpsters, behind a few restaurants. Emptying them was a bit awkward but, between blocking the view of what he was doing with his van and using Phantom Force while dressed in green khakis with a matching button down shirt to look like he was employed to be doing so, he and a phantom were able to lift the whole traps over the dumpsters and just undo the bottom latch.
Alec didn't know how many dead plague-rats he threw away and he didn't care to try and count. Too many for his liking and too few to change the local ecology, he was sure.
Emptying and rebaiting the traps took time, to be sure, but only a few hours. After that?
Alec was left with a lot of time and no real idea on what to do with it all. His core power, here, required that he target the Capes of Earth Bet in order to grow stronger, provided he wanted to do so at a reasonable pace. So far, he'd only taken advantage of opportunities as they'd presented themselves to him.
What else could he do, then? How could he be proactive, then, without running into the risk of biting off more than he was ready to chew?
While hunting Nazis was a productive way to pass the time, doing so effectively would rely on Alec having more information than he currently had access to. He had the means of baiting a trap, true, but that would only work once. And Alec had, maybe, one more week to make use of it before -that- window of opportunity closed.
Tattletale's power, Authorial Exposition, let the girl just pull random facts and assumptions out of her ass as the story needed them. She'd likely be able to help Alec figure out when and where a target was...
Provided he could put up with her.
He remembered seeing what he thought he'd get if he beat her, in the Free Ability menu back when he'd used his first point for Empowered Investment. Beating her would give him Observe, something Alec just... wasn't really that interested in getting.
Alec drove out towards the docks and parked his van in an unused alley. Getting out of his seat, he grabbed a small cooler off the floor, opened the back door of the van and sat down to look out over the ruined ships, blocking off the bay, and the oil rig in the distance surrounded by a shimmering field of energy.
There were dead spots, places he'd found throughout various parts of Brockton Bay. Places with no cell signal, no WiFi. He wasn't sure about the overall sizes of them but he'd marked some of their general locations on a physical map in the glove box of his van.
Leftovers from Tinkers, he figured. Interference from Squealer's attempts at building her invisible shit-mobile or maybe as a side effect to L33t's tinkertech. Alec really didn't know and he doubted he'd get a good answer.
He took a bagged sandwich out of the cooler and opened it, eating a ham and cheddar sandwich as he tried to think on things.
He didn't need to kill a cape to get a reward, including a new power. Some were a blight on the world, their absence an improvement for society at large. Countless others, however, were typically content to run around in a silly costume and punch other people in silly costumes.
Bitch was a good example, actually. Rachel Lindt didn't want much to do with people. Outside of the necessities, she'd likely be happy to live out in the wilds with a pack of wolves. She was a criminal because her case had been handled by the most incompetent brain-trusts the government could find and she didn't have any skills that could be leveraged to change her situation. Coil was using her, in part because she didn't have many other options and, in part, because she wasn't intellectually capable of recognizing an exploitive or abusive situation.
Coil? Well... Coil fell into the category of 'Better off dead'. Alec didn't give two shits about whatever power might come from dealing with Coil. He also didn't care about being the one to put a bullet into Coil's skull. So long as somebody did it? The world would be a better place.
The man shivered as a cold breeze passed over him, funneled by the alley walls.
If he wanted to be ready for what was coming, he needed more power. More skills. Higher attributes. He needed armor and weapons, strong enough to shrug off forces esoteric and unimaginable.
But... he already had those things. Tools that could survive the destruction of a multiverse, weapons and powers that could shatter worlds. Using them would be the equivalent of spitting in Terra's face, the entity that had sent him here. And, while she couldn't actually take those away from him, there was no shortage of other things she could do instead.
So if, when he did that? It was going to have to be in a way that didn't incite hostile retribution. Something funny, maybe. Or probably cheeky, really.
It's not like Alec could do 'cute'.
Alec sighed and pulled a bottle of water out of the cooler, his eyes distant as he thought.
Powers, Alec thought. What kind of powers could he get his hands on without making any more significant enemies? What could he barter or trade to get what he wanted? Should he even bother at this point? Earth Bet, despite everything else, had slid back sociologically with the introduction of Parahumans. Honor, responsibility and trust all took a back seat to the origin of authority: Force.
...If Alec wanted to properly 'interact' with parahumans in any other way than behind the scope of a rifle, he was going to have to do so on their playing field. Present a 'front' for them to see, to expect, to plan against.
Alec sighed and finished his water, putting the empty bottle back in the cooler.
He... was going to have to get a costume.
-----
Sabbah Amin did not like working on Saturdays. She especially did not like working Sundays, either, but that would be a problem for tomorrow.
Running her own business in downtown Brockton Bay did not afford her such luxuries as free time, however. Not if she wished to pay her bills and keep her store.
The short, costumed girl was in the process of drawing out the design for a new puppet when the front door beeped and a man stepped through. He was young, perhaps about her age or so, with wavy brown hair that stuck out under his hat and he wore an outfit of green. Green pants, green shirt, green... domino mask. Poorly placed overtop a mass of bandages so that it likely obscured his vision.
A cape? Or a pretender?
"Parian?" the man asked once the door closed by itself behind him.
"I am," Sabbah agreed. "Welcome to 'The Dollhouse'. Can I help you with something?"
"Yes, actually," the man admitted as he approached the counter separating her from the front of the store. "I was looking to pick up an outfit, possibly with a few modifications?"
"...I can certainly assist you with this, sir." It was literally what Parian did for a living, after all. "What were you looking to get?"
"A suit. Something semi-professional. Shirt, jacket, pants, gloves and tie. Shoes? Do you do shoes?"
"No," Sabbah immediately told him. "I am not a cobbler."
"Shame, that. Your power likes working with leather. The fresher the better." It... what?! She didn't know that! How did he know that?! "I was hoping to get pockets sewn into the inside of the jacket and pants? On my breasts, thighs and calves if possible."
"That shouldn't be terribly difficult," Sabbah admitted as she pulled a clean sheet of paper to her. The pockets were interesting, she supposed, but he hadn't asked for anything groundbreaking or tricky. "What would you be putting in these pockets, if I may ask?"
"Armor inserts. Likely aluminum if I can't get my hands on titanium. Perhaps about 1 centimeter thick?"
Hmm... along areas that don't flex or bend very much and limited to the outermost layer of the costume. She would have to use heavier stitching to support the added weight. If he'd been asking her to make the suit out of kevlar or something similar it would actually be far more difficult.
She'd done that in the past, however. More than one CEO or other high-powered businessman in the Bay had a thick, kevlar suit jacket that she'd made for them.
That commission alone was often enough to pay for her storefront for an entire month.
"Before we go any further, I have to ask: How will you be paying for your order?"
It wasn't going to be an expensive order, not really. If the man, who hadn't given his name and she certainly wasn't going to ask, had been asking for some kind of skin-tight costume made of exotic or difficult materials, it'd be a different story.
"Cash," the man told her. Under her mask, Sabbah allowed herself a small smile. That was her preferred form of payment. "I'd prefer the suit made of cotton, if possible."
"That's very possible," Sabbah told him. "May I ask why?"
"We're in Brockton Bay. The winters are cold and the summers are humid. I'd like to wear something I won't die in because of the weather."
"Ah, yes... that would be a problem, wouldn't it?" Sabbah didn't want to think of the number of times she'd read of capes, wearing full suits of metal armor, dying of heat exhaustion in the middle of summer. Or of girls in skin-tight catsuits being admitted to the hospital for frostbite. "And what of the color scheme?"
"Dark gray for the jacket and pants. A red tie would be striking but black would also work. Or both, I suppose... provided they're clip-ons. A good, clean, professional look shouldn't come with an increased risk of bodily harm."
That was a bit disappointing but Parian really couldn't fault the man for his refusal to wear a full neck tie. Not in this day and age.
"Al...right," Parian muttered as she finished her rough sketch. The man wasn't asking her for anything unique or especially fashionable but, the engineer that Sabbah almost became could certainly appreciate the simple purpose in the design.
The fact that he hadn't been hitting on her was also appreciated. Greatly, in fact.
"Follow me to the back," she said as she got off of her stool and stood to her full height of just over five feet (152 CM). "And we'll get your measurements figured out."
-----
Alec walked out of Parian's shop with a large package under one arm. Pants, jacket, shirt and ties all folded and put away with a pair of thin leather driving gloves, accessories that Parian sold but didn't make, stuffed into his pocket.
That had cost him nearly 1200 dollars. More expensive than getting a similar suit off the rack, and more expensive that getting said suit tailored to fit him. But part of the price had been from watching Parian work, watching as the woman willed the threads to move at her command, to unravel at just the right point, to join exactly where she intended.
It was artistry in application. Poetry in motion. That it resulted in what was possibly the most comfortable suit Alec had ever worn was almost secondary.
And, Alec felt, it was a perfect way to spend a Nazi's money.
- Worm Version 0.1.8: Character Sheet
Last edited:
