A shame we don't have a "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" rating. I'll settle for an "Insightful"
Something Completely Different (Worm Tinker SI, Original City)
- Thread starter Ganurath
- Start date
- Location
- Canada
Oooh, you never disapoint! Its like Last Week Tonight, but with story promises!
I am giggling here, so much
...Wait, ecolocation. With fine details. And he's in a warehouse district... so no crowds to hide in.
How likely is he to check whether there are civilians about? How often will he do it around the Siberian? How likely that, if he does it, he notices that there's always the same van with the same man in it?
I am giggling here, so much
...Wait, ecolocation. With fine details. And he's in a warehouse district... so no crowds to hide in.
How likely is he to check whether there are civilians about? How often will he do it around the Siberian? How likely that, if he does it, he notices that there's always the same van with the same man in it?
Hakazin
Serpent Admirer
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oooh, you never disapoint! Its like Last Week Tonight, but with story promises!
I am giggling here, so much
...Wait, ecolocation. With fine details. And he's in a warehouse district... so no crowds to hide in.
How likely is he to check whether there are civilians about? How often will he do it around the Siberian? How likely that, if he does it, he notices that there's always the same van with the same man in it?
Depends on the range. Manton can control the Siberian from at least a few blocks away.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Plus, vans vary in designs in the US from the traditionally creepy white windowless van to all sorts of variants.
Mithrandir
Endurance and victory!
- Location
- Lighting the Blue Beacons.
Typos:
Not a typo, really, but you use two similar phrases in quick succession.
"extending"
- Location
- Unknown
- Location
- USA
That's a good question. Fuck physics, I guess.
Why can't she have had the muscle definition pre-trigger, and merely retained it?
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Typos fixed. And yes, I meant shadow barriers. While Grue... might not have triggered yet, the shields emitted by the barrier drones are rather similar to his power, but with more emphasis on kinetic energy and such and less on light. Also:
Learning is the bonus. The primary goal is to stall for time, which means not going out of one's way to figure out an answer to one's own questions.
Tumach
Majestic hat wearer
- Location
- a valid location
Well, this looks familiar... again...I think I'll take it as flattery.
Of course she is. This is going to get interesting.
- Location
- Canada
True true, distance + S9 induced panic/fear/combat wouldn't create many opportunities. Still, an interesting thought (or at least I had trouble not giggling while doing a report).:lol
This is one golden opportunity to set up such situation for Fossil though. I wonder if the secret will ever be revealed in this story.
All I got from this was a thought that Manton is passionate with his vehicle choices. Has a list of favourite vans, companies, designs, nostalgia about certain vans/cars he had that he liked using, likes to fantasize about the perfect van...
Though, how would he keep more than one at a time? Don't only a few of the S9 know the truth about him? Oh, maybe he has a collection of bicycles too! Man, I could just go on with this...
Olivebirdy
mook.
I'm bothered that Fossil is talking more than Bonesaw. Having her be a quiet audience is... well, it's alarmingly reminescent of the self-indulgence that gifts SIs with the reality-warping powers of the Mary-Sue.
Hakazin
Serpent Admirer
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A lot of it's internal narration, and Bonesaw's more than polite enough to not interrupt a fellow Tinker while he's monologing. After all, everyone else does it to her with their constant screaming!
Side Note: Apparently there isn't an adverb form of monologue that SV's spellchecker recognizes! Who knew!
Salt Pile 6.5
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Salt Pile 6.5
"Sorry!" I winced, partly due to her shouting and partly due to the pain in my side. I held my free arm up defensively, then glanced toward the other hand. "Apologetic popcorn ball?"
Bonesaw narrowed her eyes at me. "Are they good?"
"Cooking oil from animal fat. Consider my specialty." As I unloaded a second popcorn ball into her bucket with a tendril, I watched her face. She initially watched the popcorn ball with a scrunched up expression of confusion, but as the ball fell in I saw the light of realization in her expression. Before she could say anything though, I cut in. "Now, what was that about my being nominated?"
"Oh, yeah! Between you killing Thunderstriker and Ravager and Mayhem killing Nice Guy, there are now two openings on the team. Well, sort of killed them." Bonesaw smiled and waggled her fingers at me. Fingers that, now that I was paying attention, had bloodstains on them. "I brought them back enough for Genoscythe to use his power on them. Thunderstriker's a new string for his bow, and Nice Guy's a knife!"
"Lovely." Genoscythe I recognized, a striker who could turn people into inanimate objects that, supposedly, retained awareness of their surroundings. The only real indicator one way or another was that capes kept their powers after transforming. Nice Guy... my mind was drawing a blank. I'd have to call the PRT and ask about him. "And you're nominating me to take one of the vacancies. I'm guessing the Mouse told you where my lab was?"
"She was surprisingly resistant, actually. We had an easier time getting Freakshow to talk; she'd been with Ravager and Mayhem when we killed the latter." I frowned a bit at that. There was a short list of people that didn't deserve better than the Nine, and Freakshow hadn't been bad enough to be on it. Interesting that Ravager wasn't killed though, and the same was implied for the Mouse. Promising. "Genoscythe turned her into a quiver. He'll have a much easier time getting ammo for his bow, now."
Of course, with this bunch, death is somewhat subjective.
"So... your nominating me means what, exactly?"
"It means you'll get tested by each member of the Nine, taking turns. All the other nominees get tested, too. Whichever nominee is left alive after all... seven tests gets to join the Nine!" Bonesaw looked toward the Siberian, who made some gesture I didn't catch. Bonesaw seemed to understand it, though, because she turned to look at me. "Your first test has already started, by the way."
And that's a signal to empty the teeth filled with healing serum if I ever heard one. Once I felt the pressure shift from each of them, I smiled nervously at the Siberian. "Not you, I hope?"
The Siberian shook her head, and I relaxed a fraction before I realized who that left. I looked toward Bonesaw, who... was also shaking her head, with a broad grin on her face. "Genoscythe."
Ah. No immediate threat... I crossed my arms over my chest, being careful not to disturb the handle of the knife in my side or the bowl of popcorn balls in one hand. "Mind sharing why me?"
"Because you're wasting your potential!" Bonesaw threw the hand that wasn't holding her pumpkin bucket into the air, before planting it on her hip. The pout on her face would be adorable if it did a better job of drawing the eye from the blood splatter on her apron. "Any time you kill someone, you could have a mess of tinker materials, but you limit yourself to donated animal parts. I'm bringing you on the road so that you can do something worthwhile with that power of yours. Make some real art. Sound good?"
Sounds like someone's been spending too much time gobbling rhetoric from a shameless sociopath. They really shouldn't let kids her age get exposed to Ayn Rand. "I don't see how joining the Nine is going to help me. You guys have more turnovers than an apple orchard on Thanksgiving, and aside from the two that quit when Jack killed King, all of those turnovers are dead."
"...Turnovers at Thanksgiving?"
I shrugged. "My dad makes everything for Thanksgiving, and I don't know when people eat turnovers otherwise."
Bonesaw and the Siberian looked at each other a moment. The latter made a gesture in what I guessed was sign language, but whatever she was suggesting got a negative from Bonesaw in the form of a head shake. She sighed, then glanced toward me.
"You are wasting your artistic potential, Fossil." After a moment's consideration, I decided not to argue the point. I personally felt that self-imposed limitations encouraged creativity, but I didn't want to encourage her to use browbeating to enforce her position while she had the Siberian on standby. "Manny will be coming by tomorrow morning to start your second test, assuming you survive the first. You think he'll make it?"
I looked toward the Siberian, who was looking at my side... I shifted my arms to see what it was. My attention initially fell on the knife handle sticking out of my side, but it quickly focused on the less obvious liquid coming out. A darker red than normal blood, yet just as slick, which indicated that my healing serum was at work at wherever the blood had come from. The Siberian seemed to have deduced as much, since she was giving me a thumbs up.
I returned the gesture with the same, wincing a bit at the pain in my side. There was no need to be rude, after all, especially when dealing with infamous murderers with a mind for manners.
"Yeah, you'll be fine, at least until morning." The Siberian lifted Bonesaw off the ground and on to one shoulder. The young tinker used her free hand to wave, then set it down to use the Siberian's head as an armrest. "Don't stay up to late!"
"Like-" I blinked as the Siberian crouched, and for the first time in the interaction I noticed that the naked woman I was looking at didn't look like anything to me other than a naked woman. That is to say, distracting. As she leaped on to my roof, I made a mental note to myself to do something nice for Gilder once all this blew over. "...wise."
Well... that happened.
As I headed back into my lab, I called Gilder. It took her until the third ring to pick up, and her tone of voice was... tired. "Fossil? Is everything alright?"
"The Siberian brought Bonesaw by my lab to trick or treat and nominated me to join the Nine." There was a sharp intake of breath on her end, and a clatter at my feet on mine. The latter... oh, hey, I had a stab wound. Where had that come from? "Apparently they have vacancies to fill thanks to what I did to Thunderstriker and what... I think it was Mayhem and Ravager that got Nice Guy? Genoscythe turned both his dead teammates into weapons, though. Thunderstriker's a bowstring now."
"...What about Nice Guy?"
"What about him?"
"What did Genoscythe turn Nice Guy into?"
That was what she was focusing on in all this? "I... hold on."
"Fossil, master stranger protocols are a go. Your perceptions are being altered." I stiffened at that. Bonesaw had said that Genoscythe's test had already started. Was that where the stab wound had come from? "Have your tendrils grab whatever objects are on or near your person that you didn't make."
Tendrils reached out, with three finding things to grab. One had the bowl that the popcorn balls were in, while the other had a dust bunny that really shouldn't have been in a tinker lab, now that I thought about it. "Got stuff."
"Put all that stuff in an isolation container, then review the contents remotely when you get the chance. I'll come by tomorrow-"
"No." Despite my word, I complied with her in regard to isolating the contents. Well... I took the popcorn balls out of the bowl as I loaded the rest into isolation. I made a point of carefully analyzing each one as I removed it, though. "Bonesaw said that Mannequin was going to come here in the morning for my second test."
"...Alright. Yeah, in that case I'll keep my distance. Do you have a plan?"
"First step:" I closed the isolation unit, then made my way over to the save point throne. By design, the touch screen wouldn't care about my wearing gloves, so it'd be easy for me to switch the active template back from the Mouse's save file. "I'm going to update the save on my throne. Then, I'm going to repair all my gear. Then, I'm going to get caffeine in my system, and spend an all-nighter turning this place into a deathtrap for the Ken doll."
"Are you sure you shouldn't sleep?"
I shook my head as I seated myself in the throne. "Not since I don't know how early he's arriving. Hanging up now, I called with my helmet. We'll talk more after I finish updating the save."
"I'm calling back in two minutes if you don't."
With that, she hung up. A bit abrupt, but given my plan of action every second counted. I took off my helmet, and brought the ring down around my head. Holding still was a bit of a struggle with the wound in my side still closing itself, but I managed. I figured I'd need to get used to pain, if I was going to go up against the Nine.
Still, I was a badass tinker in a city stocked full of badass capes.
We were going to kick their asses.
"Sorry!" I winced, partly due to her shouting and partly due to the pain in my side. I held my free arm up defensively, then glanced toward the other hand. "Apologetic popcorn ball?"
Bonesaw narrowed her eyes at me. "Are they good?"
"Cooking oil from animal fat. Consider my specialty." As I unloaded a second popcorn ball into her bucket with a tendril, I watched her face. She initially watched the popcorn ball with a scrunched up expression of confusion, but as the ball fell in I saw the light of realization in her expression. Before she could say anything though, I cut in. "Now, what was that about my being nominated?"
"Oh, yeah! Between you killing Thunderstriker and Ravager and Mayhem killing Nice Guy, there are now two openings on the team. Well, sort of killed them." Bonesaw smiled and waggled her fingers at me. Fingers that, now that I was paying attention, had bloodstains on them. "I brought them back enough for Genoscythe to use his power on them. Thunderstriker's a new string for his bow, and Nice Guy's a knife!"
"Lovely." Genoscythe I recognized, a striker who could turn people into inanimate objects that, supposedly, retained awareness of their surroundings. The only real indicator one way or another was that capes kept their powers after transforming. Nice Guy... my mind was drawing a blank. I'd have to call the PRT and ask about him. "And you're nominating me to take one of the vacancies. I'm guessing the Mouse told you where my lab was?"
"She was surprisingly resistant, actually. We had an easier time getting Freakshow to talk; she'd been with Ravager and Mayhem when we killed the latter." I frowned a bit at that. There was a short list of people that didn't deserve better than the Nine, and Freakshow hadn't been bad enough to be on it. Interesting that Ravager wasn't killed though, and the same was implied for the Mouse. Promising. "Genoscythe turned her into a quiver. He'll have a much easier time getting ammo for his bow, now."
Of course, with this bunch, death is somewhat subjective.
"So... your nominating me means what, exactly?"
"It means you'll get tested by each member of the Nine, taking turns. All the other nominees get tested, too. Whichever nominee is left alive after all... seven tests gets to join the Nine!" Bonesaw looked toward the Siberian, who made some gesture I didn't catch. Bonesaw seemed to understand it, though, because she turned to look at me. "Your first test has already started, by the way."
And that's a signal to empty the teeth filled with healing serum if I ever heard one. Once I felt the pressure shift from each of them, I smiled nervously at the Siberian. "Not you, I hope?"
The Siberian shook her head, and I relaxed a fraction before I realized who that left. I looked toward Bonesaw, who... was also shaking her head, with a broad grin on her face. "Genoscythe."
Ah. No immediate threat... I crossed my arms over my chest, being careful not to disturb the handle of the knife in my side or the bowl of popcorn balls in one hand. "Mind sharing why me?"
"Because you're wasting your potential!" Bonesaw threw the hand that wasn't holding her pumpkin bucket into the air, before planting it on her hip. The pout on her face would be adorable if it did a better job of drawing the eye from the blood splatter on her apron. "Any time you kill someone, you could have a mess of tinker materials, but you limit yourself to donated animal parts. I'm bringing you on the road so that you can do something worthwhile with that power of yours. Make some real art. Sound good?"
Sounds like someone's been spending too much time gobbling rhetoric from a shameless sociopath. They really shouldn't let kids her age get exposed to Ayn Rand. "I don't see how joining the Nine is going to help me. You guys have more turnovers than an apple orchard on Thanksgiving, and aside from the two that quit when Jack killed King, all of those turnovers are dead."
"...Turnovers at Thanksgiving?"
I shrugged. "My dad makes everything for Thanksgiving, and I don't know when people eat turnovers otherwise."
Bonesaw and the Siberian looked at each other a moment. The latter made a gesture in what I guessed was sign language, but whatever she was suggesting got a negative from Bonesaw in the form of a head shake. She sighed, then glanced toward me.
"You are wasting your artistic potential, Fossil." After a moment's consideration, I decided not to argue the point. I personally felt that self-imposed limitations encouraged creativity, but I didn't want to encourage her to use browbeating to enforce her position while she had the Siberian on standby. "Manny will be coming by tomorrow morning to start your second test, assuming you survive the first. You think he'll make it?"
I looked toward the Siberian, who was looking at my side... I shifted my arms to see what it was. My attention initially fell on the knife handle sticking out of my side, but it quickly focused on the less obvious liquid coming out. A darker red than normal blood, yet just as slick, which indicated that my healing serum was at work at wherever the blood had come from. The Siberian seemed to have deduced as much, since she was giving me a thumbs up.
I returned the gesture with the same, wincing a bit at the pain in my side. There was no need to be rude, after all, especially when dealing with infamous murderers with a mind for manners.
"Yeah, you'll be fine, at least until morning." The Siberian lifted Bonesaw off the ground and on to one shoulder. The young tinker used her free hand to wave, then set it down to use the Siberian's head as an armrest. "Don't stay up to late!"
"Like-" I blinked as the Siberian crouched, and for the first time in the interaction I noticed that the naked woman I was looking at didn't look like anything to me other than a naked woman. That is to say, distracting. As she leaped on to my roof, I made a mental note to myself to do something nice for Gilder once all this blew over. "...wise."
Well... that happened.
As I headed back into my lab, I called Gilder. It took her until the third ring to pick up, and her tone of voice was... tired. "Fossil? Is everything alright?"
"The Siberian brought Bonesaw by my lab to trick or treat and nominated me to join the Nine." There was a sharp intake of breath on her end, and a clatter at my feet on mine. The latter... oh, hey, I had a stab wound. Where had that come from? "Apparently they have vacancies to fill thanks to what I did to Thunderstriker and what... I think it was Mayhem and Ravager that got Nice Guy? Genoscythe turned both his dead teammates into weapons, though. Thunderstriker's a bowstring now."
"...What about Nice Guy?"
"What about him?"
"What did Genoscythe turn Nice Guy into?"
That was what she was focusing on in all this? "I... hold on."
"Fossil, master stranger protocols are a go. Your perceptions are being altered." I stiffened at that. Bonesaw had said that Genoscythe's test had already started. Was that where the stab wound had come from? "Have your tendrils grab whatever objects are on or near your person that you didn't make."
Tendrils reached out, with three finding things to grab. One had the bowl that the popcorn balls were in, while the other had a dust bunny that really shouldn't have been in a tinker lab, now that I thought about it. "Got stuff."
"Put all that stuff in an isolation container, then review the contents remotely when you get the chance. I'll come by tomorrow-"
"No." Despite my word, I complied with her in regard to isolating the contents. Well... I took the popcorn balls out of the bowl as I loaded the rest into isolation. I made a point of carefully analyzing each one as I removed it, though. "Bonesaw said that Mannequin was going to come here in the morning for my second test."
"...Alright. Yeah, in that case I'll keep my distance. Do you have a plan?"
"First step:" I closed the isolation unit, then made my way over to the save point throne. By design, the touch screen wouldn't care about my wearing gloves, so it'd be easy for me to switch the active template back from the Mouse's save file. "I'm going to update the save on my throne. Then, I'm going to repair all my gear. Then, I'm going to get caffeine in my system, and spend an all-nighter turning this place into a deathtrap for the Ken doll."
"Are you sure you shouldn't sleep?"
I shook my head as I seated myself in the throne. "Not since I don't know how early he's arriving. Hanging up now, I called with my helmet. We'll talk more after I finish updating the save."
"I'm calling back in two minutes if you don't."
With that, she hung up. A bit abrupt, but given my plan of action every second counted. I took off my helmet, and brought the ring down around my head. Holding still was a bit of a struggle with the wound in my side still closing itself, but I managed. I figured I'd need to get used to pain, if I was going to go up against the Nine.
Still, I was a badass tinker in a city stocked full of badass capes.
We were going to kick their asses.
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Lazurman
This is fine.
- Location
- Classified
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nice Guy is one of those scary powers.
Worse when it's a trump with a myriad of other powers
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I read Taylor's encounter with Nice Guy as a reference. They're remarkably similar powers, from the viewpoint of the victim. They're both essentially SEP Fields.
Nice Guys power was that No matter what he did the people watching him though that he was their best friend and what he was doing was helping them, i believe he normally just went around killing people while everyone thought that it was a great idea and that it was nice of him to do it, of course this power did have the limitation of only working while he was in the area, I believe it did wear off after he left.
One Question though is why did our favourite copse-cape not notice being stabed, I could understand him seeing himself being stabed and due to the abilities of Nice guys thinking that it was for the best but not noticing it at all was more of Imps power set of being completly unnoticable
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- Location
- USA
Sorry, which one's Mayhem? And where's Genosythe? Did he leave?
Endymion
An Operator will be with you shortly.
Such a Nice Young Man; he helped me serve my kids for breakfast!
Such a Nice Young Man, he helped my father and I through the wood chipper!
Such a Nice Young Man, he helped me into traffic!
Such a Nice Young Man, he ties a wonderful noose and then to have me stand here while he removes that stool.
Versus Imp....wait whose Imp?
Such a Nice Young Man, he helped my father and I through the wood chipper!
Such a Nice Young Man, he helped me into traffic!
Such a Nice Young Man, he ties a wonderful noose and then to have me stand here while he removes that stool.
Versus Imp....wait whose Imp?
- Location
- Dubai, UAE
You guys are ignoring the fact that Geno-scythe the eye raper turned Nice Guy into a weapon, and that can be used to explain any weird interactions.
Nice Guy's power wasn't that people thought he was acting in their interest, that was a result of how he played it off. His power was a more general "can not be considered a threat." Fossil did note the knife hilt with the red liquid dripping around it, remember. There was just no connection made between "knife in my side" and "OH GOD, STAB WOUND!". He even recognized that there was some injury that his healing serum should be working to fix.
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