- Location
- Mists of Albion
A good half of that list are Nazi's, Illuminati or serial killers dude.
Starfinder (Worm/Starfinder RPG)
- Thread starter Bowlerhat Guy
- Start date
Friend, I think this tells us more about your tastes than John's. I'm not judging you, but I am judging you just a little bit.
- Location
- Usa
A few weeks later......
John wakes in a bed he does not know and remembers what happened inn the past few weeks after flipping out over how hot vickiyes mom was......
Damn it, things really went weird for some reason.
Vicky got into a huge fight with Dean and they can not stand to even be in the same room with out wanting to kill each other.
Vicky somehow started dating his Sofia of all things and that was something he could not even see coming.
The weird one was he knew AMI was gay......somehow they ended up dating and not even sure how that happened or why.....he keeps blaming Vicky for all this mess for some reason and somehow in all this mess they caused Taylor to trigger into something....still trying to figure out after dealing with the hangover right now first.
Sorry, had to leave a very silly omake here with some very silly actions.
John wakes in a bed he does not know and remembers what happened inn the past few weeks after flipping out over how hot vickiyes mom was......
Damn it, things really went weird for some reason.
Vicky got into a huge fight with Dean and they can not stand to even be in the same room with out wanting to kill each other.
Vicky somehow started dating his Sofia of all things and that was something he could not even see coming.
The weird one was he knew AMI was gay......somehow they ended up dating and not even sure how that happened or why.....he keeps blaming Vicky for all this mess for some reason and somehow in all this mess they caused Taylor to trigger into something....still trying to figure out after dealing with the hangover right now first.
Sorry, had to leave a very silly omake here with some very silly actions.
- Location
- New Zealand
Glaistig Uaine still has the body of a 12 year old, IIRC.
Why not both? Anyhow I got caught up on this one and its been funny so far. Looking forward to how his stuff plays with other Tinkers in more detail. The bit about his Make Whole ability on Leet's gear has Consequences.
Sequence Break
- Pronouns
- He
"Look, I know you don't like me-" I hastily whispered to Amy, having used the excuse of not knowing where the bathroom was to drag her away from the - for several reasons - awkward meeting in the backyard.
"You're alright," Amy interjected with a shrug and a suspicious look in my direction.
"-and you're more Soph's friend than mine-" I pressed on, darting a glance up the hallway to see how things were going outside. Vicky was looking contrite in that way she tended to when she wasn't actually contrite at all, which annoyed me to even recognize, but I had bigger fish to fry.
"Only because you never hang out with us," Amy continued to point out to me in an unimpressed tone of voice.
"But I need you to get your power in here so it can poison me just enough to have an excuse to leave," I finished.
I stared at Amy, who stared back at me.
There was a pregnant moment where I thought I might be able to see the barest glimmer of sympathy in her eyes, which is probably the only reason she didn't just laugh in my face.
"Why?" She eventually asked with a sigh.
"I-" I paused. How does one explain to someone that their mother activated the one neuron in your body that kickstarted all your teenage hormones without saying 'your mom is hot and it makes me uncomfortable'.
"I don't… really think Dean wants me here," I finished lamely.
Amy snorted.
"I noticed. What'd you do to make him hate you anyway?" She asked, though there was a knowing, vaguely malicious glee dancing behind her eyes as she said it that I found mildly off putting.
"He thinks I'm an evil mastermind," I brushed off, not really caring about Dean's opinion of me at this exact moment in time. I mean, I did, actually, but only because him not liking me was probably the sole contributing factor to me even being here.
Amy snorted at me like I'd just said something extremely stupid, which was… actually it was kind of offensive, just a little bit.
"I can be clever!" I defended instantly, which just earned me an amused snicker from the brunette.
"You're the most socially inept person I know. The closest to mastermind I've ever seen you get is when you say something you shouldn't and then refuse to explain yourself," Amy snarked at me while visibly restraining a giggle.
"That-" I started to continue to defend myself, before realizing that if I went down that path, Amy would keep me here arguing about my own intelligence long enough that my absence would become noticeably too long. "-whatever. Poison. Please." I begged, returning to my original request with another desperate glance over my shoulder.
Carol was looking right back at me with a displeased frown on her face.
Amy examined me for another second at that, before posing a question.
"…do you not like us or something?" She asked eventually. I'd have taken the statement for a joke if there wasn't an audible tinge of discomfort to her tone of voice as she asked it.
I felt my head jerk towards her at that, shocked.
"What? No, I like you guys fine! Aaaalso, can we at least look like you're showing me where the bathroom is?" I literally begged her, trying not to act any more suspicious than I already was.
Amy wrinkled her nose at me, displeased, but then shrugged and turned to walk further into the house and out of sight of the backyard.
I breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly followed after her, doing my best not to look back over my shoulder again.
God knows Carol Dallon was the kind of overly suspicious person who would read way too much into it.
Now, I, being myself, had sort of a hard time with the awkward silence that followed as Amy led me up the stairs. She hadn't actually responded to my statement, and I was just anxious enough that my will broke well before we finished that climb.
"Why don't you think I like you guys? You're like the only people I hang out with! I don't have any other friends!" I pressed - definitely not 'whined' - as we made it to the second floor landing and Amy eventually paused to turn and lean against the hallway wall, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at one of the rooms.
"Do you like being around us?" She asked pointedly.
"I mean-" I rushed to defend myself, feeling a profound sense of discomfort begin to fill me up.
I hate complications. I hate when stuff happens. I prefer a stable, dramaless environment. I didn't, and still don't, like having serious conversations with people that have the possibility of changing my current dynamic with other people. I could handle Vicky's nonsense because it rarely directly involved me, and I could see the value in explaining some simple adult problem solving methods to an otherwise distraught teen. Those conversations held zero risk of making her or anyone else treat me differently. I wasn't the subject of the conversation in the first place.
This did not feel like one of those 'not my circus, not my monkeys' conversations.
"Because you kind of act like it's a chore," Amy cut me off, and I clamped my mouth shut, suddenly not sure what to say to that.
This wasn't exactly the conversation I thought I would be having when I begged Amy to help me bail on her super hot mom, and I tried to make that known.
Definitely not deflecting. Truly.
"I don't hate you guys. I don't see what that has to do with not wanting to get in trouble cus your sister didn't tell your mom I was supposed to be here," I pointed out as reasonably as I could.
This… did not appear to be the correct answer, because while Amy's expression remained neutral, if slightly annoyed, her minion, which was still shaped like a cat, hissed at me from where it had - without my notice - slipped past me to sit next to her feet.
My eyes snapped down to the bio-terror, then back up to Amy in confusion, not entirely sure what was going on anymore.
"You… don't 'hate' us? Seriously?" She snorted at me in disgust. "You get that I asked if you like us, and you said you don't hate us right?" She pointed out, her tone now somewhat patronizing and combative.
"I still don't get what that has to do with-" I tried again only for Amy to cut me off.
"Carol's not going to yell at you for something Vicky did. You couldn't have known. She's not stupid. You don't want to be here and you've been looking for an excuse to leave since you realized we weren't going to be doing cape stuff," She accused, eyebrows finally drawing down into an angry v shape. I glanced down at her cat thing again, and realized I was an unarmored tinker with my back to a set of stairs, facing down a very powerful cape who could quite easily shove me down those stairs.
Did I think Amy would do that? No. But even still… it wasn't exactly subtracting from my discomfort with the situation.
"…okay fine, so I'm not comfortable in a lot of social situations, you guys know I'm not the most social person in the world!" I continued to try to defend myself.
"So you don't like hanging out with us? I'm just trying to understand your angle here. I get that you care about us, but it's like we're those stupid pixel egg pet things to you. You pop in now and then to see if we're fed and watered, then piss off to do whatever it is you're fixated on that week," She explained, crossing her arms and tapping one finger on her bicep like a mother waiting for her kid to explain himself.
Some dim, amused, part of myself registered that Amy was probably way more similar to Carol than Vicky ever could be, but I shoved that into the background of my otherwise much more pressing concerns as I stared blankly at Amy for several seconds before answering.
I also… actually had to think about what shed said for a second. It was… nice… having people to talk to now and then, who I could get a laugh out of here or there, but she wasn't exactly wrong about her interpretation of my interest.
"Okay I-" I stopped, closing my eyes and trying to calm my beating heart. I swear my fight or flight reflex is the worst. I'd be more comfortable if someone was trying to shoot me in the face right now.
"I- so you know I'm a thinker, kind of, right?" I tried. Amy slowly looked from me, then down to her minion, then back up to me again, lifting an eyebrow in question as though to say 'go on'.
Right. I did accidentally predict her trigger didn't I? Ugh.
"Okay so… imagine, I dunno, imagine trying to watch television while your house burns down," I expanded, flailing my hands in a vaguely rectangular pattern to represent said television.
"Why-"
"Just try to imagine it."
Amy rolled her eyes at me, then gestured for me to continue.
"For me, the fire never goes away. I'm always aware of at least one fire. Always. Something is always wrong somewhere, the world could always end, the city could always explode, the gangs could always decide to ruin my day. All the time. Forever. For me? You guys are the television," I finished, doing my best to get across the sheer anxiety that knowing the world is going to end caused me on a day to day basis.
Because that was the thing honestly. I didn't really like myself all that much. If I had to choose one guy to save the world, it definitely wouldn't be me. So, under normal circumstances, given a chance at a whole new life, a whole new childhood, and a whole new chance to live better, be better, and craft a more proud future for myself? That's what I would do. I wouldn't engage in protagonist like cape shenanigans. I wouldn't pick fights. I wouldn't care about acquiring more power for some nebulous future final battle against what might aswell be a god.
I'd just try to live better than I had.
Instead, I was here, in a situation where I knew everything that could go wrong, because in some reality, it had, and it fucking sucked, and I flatly could not do anything about most of it. I tried to affect what was in my power to affect. I really did. But barring just completely giving up on my life and freedom in an effort to infodump Cauldron - something I was positive would not end well for me - I just couldn't do that much. I wasn't strong enough, didn't have enough influence, and didn't think so much of myself that I was positive I would ever have those things.
But I had to try. And that was my problem.
Amy stared at me, and I stared back.
"What are you going to do if you leave?" She asked eventually.
"Tinker," I said immediately, my mind automatically going towards my CHERAV and the handful of accompanying pieces of tech I was rigging up to work with it.
"What do you do for fun?" She asked me again.
"I-" I paused, realizing I was about to say 'Tinker' again, then changed over to say "Exercise," instead.
Amy's expression went from dubious to sort of worried to neutral again.
"Staaaaarting to see why Dean thinks you're crazy," She mumbled, loud enough that I could hear it, but not loud enough that I assumed I was intended to answer her.
So I just shrugged.
"He just dislikes that I'm like, Vicky's fag hag or whatever. He'll get over it eventually," I offered weakly.
Amy's eyebrows shot up into her hairline at that.
"…What?" She asked incredulously.
"Uh… colloquial term for a straight woman's gay friend who she goes to for advice on relationships because he's 'safe' and she knows he has no designs on her," I expanded.
"You mean a friend, John. You're describing a friend. Using, might I add, super offensive terminology," She pointed out.
I shrugged again. "Sorry, it's just what that's called in like… movies and stuff. It's a trope."
There was another long silence, and I realized, somewhat forlornly, that there was no way this wasn't going to look suspicious when we came back down, because I definitely don't think my absence could be construed as a 'quick trip to the bathroom' anymore.
"Soooo…. we good?" I tried awkwardly.
"Nope. I kind of get why Vicky doesn't think giving you an option not to hang out is the go to move now though," Amy offered dryly.
"The hell does that mean?" I sighed out, more tired than mad.
"You know we trust you right? Like, I'm not stupid, I get that you go out of your way to help us, and so does Vicky. I mean, is whatever you're tinkering on right now so important that you can't sit down for an hour or whatever?" Amy asked me, clearly exasperated by my continued attempts to quickly finish this conversation up.
"I mean yeah, I'd hope- I mean I try to be trustworthy, I generally think loyalty is like, my one redeeming feature. And it's not the tinkering that's important," I countered.
"Okay, fine, what fire do you so desperately need to put out that it can't wait?" She pressed.
"Why do you care?" I asked with some annoyance before my brain to mouth filter could fully engage and prevent that intrusive thought from exiting my body.
Amy jerked back like I'd gut punched her, then leaned forward and growled - I mean literally growled at me. LIke an animal. It wasn't a behaviour I'd expect from the otherwise dour healer, though, I guess thinking about it, she wasn't nearly as dour as my memories would peg her as, and she definitely wasn't a healer anymore.
Courtesy of yours truly. Because even when I win, I lose, I guess.
Not like another healer would have been useful or anything!
"Fuck you John. I care because you're like one of three people who gives a shit about me," She hissed angrily, and her cat thing rippled and pulsed, growing noticeably next to her.
"Fuck. Sorry. I just- there's just a lot to deal with and I don't have a lot of time to deal with it, and honestly I don't even know what to do with half the information I have-" I started to overexplain - my go to solution to anytime I buried my foot in my mouth like this. Nervously, I took a step back, remembering slightly too late that I was at the top of the stairs, and yelped in surprise as I abruptly found myself tumbling backwards.
Not that I actually fell down the stairs though. Instead, what I could only describe as a cross between a snake, a ferret, and a bengal tiger zipped past me, bracing itself on the stairs and allowing me to fall gently onto its back.
Amy was still giving me the stink eye, but stepped forward to stretch a hand out to help pull me back to my feet, then continued to glare at me when I didn't immediately say anything about… any of that.
"Well?" She pressed.
"Well what? I just told you, I'm stressed okay? I'm stressed, anxious, and doing my best not to make that anyone else's problem. You wanna know why I don't hang out with you guys? Cus Dean makes it too much work. But you know what else? I actually like Dean. I don't really get why he hates me, but I also know that if I told Vicky I don't wanna hang out with you anymore because it makes Dean mad, she'd get pissy with him, and then he'd get more pissy with me. It's way easier for me to just focus on my shit, and let him have what he wants, okay?"
"That wasn't what I was asking, and I already knew that." Amy said bluntly.
"You- then why the fuck did you corner me about it!" I complained, throwing my arms into the air. Why the fuck did everything have to be so god damn dramatic with teenagers? This could have been a text conversation!
…a text conversation I would have ignored and not answered to at all, but still.
"Dude," Amy tried again, giving me a look like she couldn't fathom why I was being so difficult right now, even though I felt like I was being entirely reasonable about all of this.
"Please… please don't ever 'dude' me again. That's such a weird piece of vocabulary to hear coming from you," I said quickly.
Amy shot me another flat look.
"John Harnett," She said, and she said it like a curse. I flinched, despite myself.
No good ever came from a woman calling you with the government name in that particular tone.
"Normal, well adjusted people, tell their friends what's stressing them out so they can help with it," She intoned.
"…Amy you know I that I know how insanely hypocritical it is for you, specifically, to be saying that to me right?" I pointed out to her.
"Oh yeah? You're the Thinker right, so you tell me, how do I solve my problems?" She asked me smugly.
Oh, this sweet summer child. Literally the only joy I have in this world is messing with people. If she thought she was safe just because her insecurities over being the only unpowered member of a cape family were resolved, she had another thing coming.
"You need to get laid." I said bluntly.
Amy's smile faltered, and she spluttered, once more glaring at me.
"What?" She said dangerously.
"Yeah, your ability to get over yourself and get a girlfriend is basically the dividing line between whether the world ends or not," I snarked at her.
"I- you- girlfriend?" She growled at me again. We stared at each other for several seconds. Then she lunged at me, and, because her fucking tiger snake ferret thing was still behind me, managed to catch me in a headlock, where she proceeded to furiously noogie the shit out of me.
"Gah! Hey! No! Bad!" I shrieked, hastily triggering my spell core with a thought and rapidly shrinking to about half my normal size, before following that up by triggering a low gravity spell and vaulting the top of the stairs.
When I landed at the bottom of them, I turned to flip her off, only to find her stupid minion had already somehow caught up with me, and went down in a tangle of limbs as it… I mean it sat on me.
"This is bullshit!" I complained, only my head sticking out from beneath the every growing bulk of the creature, which turned its head towards me and snapped at the air above my head threateningly.
Amy calmly walked down the stairs after it, and paused with her hands on her hips, glaring down at me.
"…So?" She asked pointedly.
I tilted my head back to see that the rest of the Dallons - and Dean - were watching the interaction with varying degrees of amusement - although Carol looked less amused and more pissed off by our antics.
Ugh. She was hot even when she was mad. That's so unfair!
"…Fine. If I have something you can help with I'll… I'll maybe mention it. Later though." I conceded eventually, admitting to myself that being able to ask other people for advice about how to deal with some of my future knowledge without being concerned the PRT was going to jump up my ass about it might be kind of nice.
"Why later?" Amy asked pointedly.
"Cus I'm pretty sure you're about to be grounded," I replied with a fake, malicious, smile on my face as Carol Dallon finished her angry march into the house and cleared her throat next to both of us.
"Amy. What are my rules about powers in the house?" She asked pointedly, glaring at her daughter reproachfully.
"…don't?" Amy said carefully, expression carefully turning neutral.
"Are you asking me, or telling me?" Carol pressed.
"…telling." Amy said slowly.
It took me a couple of seconds to register that this… was not a normal familial interaction. It kind of looked like one, and if you just listened to the words, they all made sense and seemed reasonable.
But the blank, emotionless expression on Amy's face as her mother laid into her reminded me that Amy was more tolerated than loved by the woman, and it showed.
Suddenly the older blond woman was a lot less attractive to me.
'Guess it's a good thing this is just the backup core, I don't have to feel guilty about wasting spells on this bullshit,' I half grumbled to myself.
'And don't think I haven't noticed your conspicuous fucking absence Merlin!' I sent to the AI who lived in my brain.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you are referring to sir," He responded cheekily to me, even as I grouchily disabled the spells making me small and light enough not to break my legs jumping down the stairs, then, when my sudden change in size and mass gave me some wiggle room, popped up from the floor with a wide, fake as fuck, smile on my face with my hand extended towards Carol.
"Hi! Sorry, I'm uh, I'm John! Please don't be too mad at Vicky, I was really pestering her to let me meet you!" I cheered, with all the blithe, dumb, himbo energy I could muster.
Vicky - who was watching the entire exchange from the doorway leading into the backyard, shot me a surprised grin and a thumbs up that she hurriedly hid when her Mom turned to glare at her, before said Mom finally turned and tentatively shook my hand up and down.
Once.
"You're a bad liar and she's still grounded," Carol said flatly.
The idiot smile fell off my face, and the woman seemed almost pleased at having done it. More annoying, Dean seemed almost smug about it too, despite what I noticed was a significant increase in the distance Vicky was standing from him.
I say almost, because in order to look genuinely pleased with herself, she'd have to smile, which I'm not sure the perpetually grouchy looking blonde could even do.
"…Sorry Vicky, I tried," I offered weakly, letting my hand drop to my side. I shared a look with Amy who dropped her blank expression just long enough to offer me a slight smirk, before Carol continued.
"You're already here, so I won't kick you out. Have you eaten yet?" She asked swiftly, like she was just going down a checklist and not actually interested in basic hospitality.
"No… ma'am?" I tried. Carol nodded at me, then gestured to the backyard.
"Go on then. If you actually had something to say you can do it after I finish getting home," She said with an only mildly annoyed sigh, sidestepping around myself and Amy's rapidly shrinking minion, before heading past us and up the stairs.
"Well that was… okay, I think?" I muttered, taking a single step towards the backyard before a realization hit me.
I hadn't managed to fucking escape!
—
"Welp, this is awkward," I grunted, defaulting to comedy in the absence of anything I could really do or say about the situation to change it. I mean. I could just leave, I guess, but I had come hoping to sell New Wave on my skills, and if I had to choose between bailing now and coming back later to do it all over again, or just dealing with it now, I knew which choice would cause the least pain for future me.
Which sucks because future me is a cunt. Always take take take with that guy.
"I dunno, everything seems fine to me," Dean said in a tone of voice and with an expression that were both polite and friendly, but that clearly were not either of those things.
I paused, sitting on the deck with the other young people present, and put down the burger I was about to take my first bite of.
"Alright. Be serious with me dude. What's the deal? Like, what specifically do you want from me? Please, literally just tell me and I will do it. Please." I broke down and begged, albeit in a flat, tired tone of voice.
I've asked the guy this before, because frankly I find being straight up with people is usually the easiest way to deal with their bullshit, but Dean was frustratingly resistant to just explaining himself to me.
I knew he didn't like that I hung around with Vicky but I would have though seeing the distinct lack of love or lust or whatever in my aura would have let him sleep easy at night, so clearly there had to be something going on besides that.
…unless he was seeing love or whatever but…
I mean, I love all the characters in Worm, even fucking Dean. I can't really help that. But there was no way that would read in my aura right? Right?
…did Dean think I was some kind of omnisexual creeper?
"I don't want anything from you John," Dean replied instantly.
I squinted at him, turning to glance past where Vicky was clearly having a panic attack about the renewed hostilities at Mark, who was watching the proceedings from a safe distance away with a glazed look in his eyes. Then I turned my head to Amy who just shrugged at me with a nonplussed look on her face.
Shrugging a turned back to Vicky, and gestured helplessly at the guy.
Did I want to fuck up his relationship? No. But the woman was right there. I wasn't exactly hiding this conversation from her.
"D- Dean come on, we talked about this," she tried bumping him lightly with her shoulder and turning a wounded puppy dog look on her boyfriend.
"It's- I just don't- I mean it's like he's trying to bribe everyone with cool toys! You know he told Missy he'd make her a unicorn?!" The guy tried to defend himself.
"And a sniper rifle. The big boss vetoed both though, so, moot point," I pointed out, trying to weigh if my stomach hurt because I needed to eat, or if it hurt because I was having an anxiety attack.
You know. A low level one. The kind that are easy to hide.
"Okay, he doesn't have to give you anything! Can't you just… try to like my friends?" Vicky pushed on, looking between us worriedly. Her hand was on Dean's knee and I could see her consciously lift it so she could knead her own palm and fidget without putting any of the guy's bones at risk.
Vicky was, counter to her collateral damage barbie nickname - one that didn't actually exist yet - actually surprisingly well in control of her strength. She never really broke mundane objects or hurt people in her day to day life.
…she just didn't bother to hold back when she thought she didn't have to. So she was kind of always at either zero, or one hundred when it came to her strength. With no in between.
Dean opened his mouth, looking kind of like he was trying to find the exact correct way to say 'no' without pissing her off, when Amy chose to finally cut in.
On some level, I knew that she was probably only 'on my side' here because she happened to be jealous of Dean and Vickys relationship. I also knew that was only the case because I had proven completely disinterested in the same, ironically, making me as 'safe' to be around for Amy as I was for Vicky.
At the same time, I did appreciate the support, even if I didn't think this problem should exist in the first place.
"You know, you're probably lucky Soph barely knows about any of this," she pointed out dryly - once more reminding me that I had somehow made Panacea and Shadow Stalker friends in this world.
Dean frowned at that and turned his most unimpressed look on me.
"So you're going to have your cousin threaten me now?" He asked icily.
"I literally didn't even say that!" I complained, pinching the bridge of my nose and closing my eyes so I could focus.
I was tired of this. I was so, overwhelmingly, tired of this. I was doing my best to make everyone happy - yes, even fucking Dean - and the shocking lack of fairness being afforded me was starting to breach my limits on tolerance.
So, while Vicky became increasingly more unhappy with Dean, edging slightly away from him in her chair, while Amy started acerbically laying into him in a way I'm sure she'd secretly wanted to for years, while Marc Dallon dazedly failed to notice any of that happening directly infront of him…
I chose to consider my priorities.
What did I absolutely need to deal with, and was my current situation a required step along that path.
Well, priority numero uno, the fucking world was ending. I couldn't do much about that, and as I had told Amy, it was kind of omnipresently just sort of there, a shadow cast over all my waking hours that I tried not to think about… so that could get gently set to the side for now.
What else?
I needed to get more gear together. More spells, more tech, more options. I wanted, no, genuinely needed to be able to deal with everything. The entire moral of the story of Worm, in the end, was that people won't help themselves, even when they really should. If I was learning anything at this exact moment, it was that I couldn't really rely on other people to solve anything for me. It had to be me.
I felt a pang of dread well up inside me, juxtaposed against the mental image of a man being crushed by my hammer, then brushed under the rug like he never existed.
I wish it didn't have to be me.
Of course, to build more, I needed more resources, mostly in the form of money. Truthfully if I had an unlimited amount of cash, I could just bring a dozen starships to the next Endbringer fight and call it good. That was half the reason I was here, trying to engage with New Wave. I was kind of hoping they'd pay me to make stuff for them.
The other half, really, was that I just wanted to help Amy, because in my estimation, she was a world ending threat that contributed alot to the events of the future I'd prefer not to live through.
Alright so, what else.
The Nine had to die, if only because Jack dying would extend my countdown clock out from four or five years till doomsday, to anywhere between ten to thirty.
All of that was long term though. Short term I had… the gangs, although I held little hope of truly dislodging them. In truth, I liked the gangs. I liked them alot. They gave me something to hate that I was both legally allowed to attack, and morally justified in doing so. I got more out of having a valid target in them than I did in actually dealing with them, even if I was honestly perfectly willing to deal with them permanently if given the opportunity.
That was… kind of shameful to admit, but god damn it, they fucking started it, and it'd be a lot easier to save the fucking world if it had no fucking nazis in it.
What else? Taylor was handled, I think - if she never triggered I'd never have to worried about getting mind fucked into a suicidal last stand against god, which was always nice. I was going to be spending a fair portion of the rest of the summer in Boston filming for some shitty television show, which, while unpleasant, was in support of the whole 'I really need money' thing…
Was I missing something? Bakuda maybe? But no she didn't even exist yet.
Yeah I… think that was my list of problems at the moment.
So… again, I had to ask myself - was my current situation absolutely necessary to any of that?
And the answer to that, was, unsurprisingly, 'no'.
I'd be sad if my handful of friends never spoke to me again after this, because I was undoubtedly about to make an asshole of myself, but I'd be fine in the end. I was always fine in the end. It was just another shitty thing to let roll off my back so I could get on with the business of struggling to be alive I guess.
My power offered me the equivalent of a shock collar that would electrocute me mildly whenever I had an incorrect thought, and I briefly toyed with the idea of brainwashing the depression out of myself, before shelving the thought for later.
Instead of chasing that train of thought back to its concerning origin, I abruptly stood from my seat on the deck, causing everyone present to stop arguing with each other so they could look at me. Amy looked somewhere between unimpressed and silently quite mad, Dean looked like a combination of smug at me finally 'acting out' and proving him right, and concerned that said acting out might include punching him in the face, and Vicky…
Well Vicky looked like she was about to start ugly crying, very loudly.
I felt bad for that, I really did.
But I was way overloaded by the current situation, and if I stayed, I was going to say or do something very stupid, and I knew it.
They yelled… I dunno, something at me as I marched to the center of the backyard where I had already set my power armor to appear, but I didn't bother listening to it as the familiar, calming, motions required don the suit passed through me without thought. I'd long since built two footrests and two handles on the back of the suit to make jumping up into it easier, and I felt a sense of peace pass over me as I dropped down into its bowels, allowing the bowl helmet to seal over head, blocking out the sound of other human beings coming from nearby.
Or maybe I was just dissociating. That was a thing that happened to people sometimes right?
Eh. I was already set to see a therapist anyway. I'd ask about it later.
Without a second thought, I triggered my gravity manipulation spell using the much more powerful spellcore located in my armor, then triggered my jump jets, the combination of which flung me out over the neighbourhood almost like I was flying.
"Sir, you are receiving a phone call from Victoria," Merlin offered me dutifully.
"Don't care," I said instantly, bouncing across rooftops with my reduced mass saving me from cratering anyones house.
"...do you wish to talk about it?" The AI asked me tentatively.
"No." I said bluntly, before sighing and rethinking the statement.
I fucking hate when characters in media do this, but I guess much like watching a sport makes it easier to spot mistakes than playing a sport, I'd fallen into the trap of assuming I was more competent than I actually was.
"...Okay maybe a little," I grunted out, angrily making my way towards the Rig so I could get back to work on my projects.
"I feel compelled to point out that you could have avoided much of that by simply informing Victoria of why you were avoiding her," Merlin said.
"Why would I? It's not like I want to screw with Dean you know? I wish he'd lay off me is all," I replied, containing my burgeoning irritation at what, to me, felt like a stupid question.
"And, do you imagine that she will be very happy with him after today then?" Merlin pointed out.
I blinked at that, trying to reason through it in my head, before shrugging.
"Probably. They're dating so she has a bias. She probably won't like it, and they'll be cranky with eachother for a while, but I mean, come on, she's known him way longer than me. He's probably got her convinced I'm evil too by now - that's just how 'in groups' work," I dismissed eventually.
It was true, too. I'd seen this exact situation play out, multiple times, across multiple groups of people, for a variety of reasons. The truth was, when it came to groups of people, the person who couldn't defend themself socially because they'd extricated themself from the situation almost always ended up coming across as the 'bad guy'. It was easy to see why, at least, to me. If you had one person whispering poison in your ear, and the subject of those whispers wasn't able or willing to dispute them, then eventually it would all become established fact.
Heck, isn't that exactly what happened to Taylor in canon?
Except, the difference between me and Taylor, is that I was more than capable of getting on with my life without stewing in it.
At least, that's what I told myself.
"Amy Dallon is calling-"
"Ignore that too," I replied with a sigh, knowing instantly that Merlin must actually want me to answer my phone if he was being petty enough not to intuit that from how I'd responded to Vicky calling.
I came to a soft landing at the edge of the Boardwalk, and started walking towards the ferry station the PRT used as their egress point to and from the rig, only for Merlin to speak up again.
"Sir, you've already completed your shift for the day. The Protectorate has strict orders to prevent you from exceeding your standard working hours," Merlin noted before I could take more than a few steps in that direction. The handful of guards who manned the station were peering at me curiously as I approached, and I ended up stopping dead where I was as he pointed it out to me.
God damn it.
"Fucking… fine! Find me some crime or something, I don't wanna go home. No, wait, nevermind. Better idea." I growled out, before rethinking that thought for the unproductive waste of time it was, and instead orienting myself towards my Gym.
Of course, then I realized that I was still in my power armor, and had no way to teleport it back to the HQ, which meant that no matter what, I was going to have to go get yelled at for 'stealing' it in my off hours again.
I'm sure Dean would love that.
Resisting the urge to scream at my own stupidity.
Merlin weathered my silent seething for about thirty seconds before throwing up a directional indicator on my heads-up display that I followed pretty much without question.
"What am I moving towards?" I asked with a sigh, knowing the wily AI probably wasn't going to put me in close proximity to people I considered acceptable targets while I was this cranky.
"Your cousin, sir," He informed me, causing me to screw up the landing from the first jump I'd made in said direction, and forcing me to hop forward three steps with my arms out like a bloody child about to trip to prevent myself from falling over.
"...isn't she on a date or something?" I asked, eyeing the directional indicator that remained in the corner of my vision despite my objections.
"I can also direct you to your Aunt, if you like?" He offered placidly.
"I don't need to talk to someone Merlin. I'll get over it by the time I wake up tommorow," I argued, not bothering to continue moving from where I stood, several blocks from the ferry station, in the middle of an abandoned but fairly 'safe' downtown area, mostly filled with brownstones and a few conveniences to cater to the people who lived in them.
"That isn't 'getting over' anything, sir, that is, in fact, 'ignoring'," My AI countered.
I took a long, deep, breath.
I loved Merlin. I would never deliberately neuter or limit his burgeoning self identity or free will.
But, again, I needed a parent that lived in my head as much as I needed fire ants in my underwear.
I didn't want to tell him to just fuck off, because he was the closest thing I had to a confidant in my ongoing efforts to save the damn world, but at the same time, I really didn't want to make him… I dunno… unhappy with me?
God, I'm such a pathetic people pleaser sometimes.
Then, like a message from god, like reality itself throwing my a fucking bone for once, I heard the shrill screech of a woman not to far in the distance.
Well. I didn't. But my suits audio receptors did, and they were programmed to forward that kind of information to me above the typical background noise of say, an active cape fight.
"Wow look a distraction!" I literally cheered at my AI, who had the grace to just send the sensation of his immense disappointment to me directly instead of audibly sighing.
Turning on my heel, I triggered another jump.
Now, the amount of air I could catch like this was not small. I could clear a couple of blocks like this easily, at least, with my personal gravity toned down enough that I was essentially acting as though I was on the Moon. If I was willing to burn through my jump jet fuel fast enough, I could even fake flying by just firing them repeatedly to keep myself in the air.
In this case, I had no need to do that. I spotted the problem after only a few blocks of airborne travel and actually had to raise my gravity and fire my jets in the opposite direction in order to prevent myself from massively overshooting the altercation.
And… wow… what a goddamn altercation.
There were like two dozen guys, all of them in black tacticool bullshit, standing around idly while two of them dragged what I could only describe as a homeless girl out of an alleyway and towards one of a handful of nondescript vans parked nearby.
The vans were a nice touch honestly. You'd expect the semi military looking gangoons to drive military looking jeeps and such, but the reality was, they were smart enough to understand that themselves, and had apparently compensated by driving three or four completely nondescript soccer mom-esque vehicles that, while no particularly armoured, would disappear into the evening traffic the second they rejoined it.
I briefly - oh so briefly - considered raising my gravity and boosting straight down on top of one of the cars.
It'd be super cool. Very cinematic. Definitely total the vehicle, and if I was lucky I wouldn't even be that hurt by it.
But the image of a man being crushed by a hammer flickered to mind again, and I instead chose to come to a less bonecrushing landing on the ground between the men dragging the girl and their vehicles.
"Look my banter game is usually better than this but I've had a bad day so-" I started to inform them firmly, kind of figuring they'd just fuck off. I mean, most of the known gangs tended to just… avoid Wards. It wasn't like they wouldn't fight us, but the Empire and Coils guys tended not to unless forced.
I was assuming, just based on the military aesthetic, that these were Coils guys, and something about that twigged several warnings in the back of my head, but none of them was so pertinent that the hail of laser fire I got in response to my interruption of their activities was able to surface past my more pertinent concerns.
Now, before anyone gives me shit for not just ambushing them. There's a camera in my suit, and the PRT very much wants to make sure any Ward whos casual carry includes 'literally just a gun' is doing things like 'giving warnings' before engaging in combat.
It was annoying, but I understood it. It wasn't that restrictive - obviously if someones life was in IMMEDIATE danger I could engage more freely - but in the absence of my usual Empire hunting habits, which I hadn't been allowed to engage in for a while now, I had, for lack of a better word, gotten kind of rusty.
But Merlin, hadn't.
My canons came around without my conscious input, and started plugging goons with sonic rounds, and I was forced to move forward several steps through the initial burst of laser fire - none of which had breached my suit thankfully - so that I was standing between several of the groups of men - effectively putting them in each others crossfire.
It probably wouldn't have worked if these were normal goons. It definitely wouldn't have worked if they were fucking merchants.
But these guys? These guys had some training under their belts. They knew better than to shoot at something with something you cared about behind it.
The brief pause in the laser fire - seriously, I thought tinkertech degraded or something? How the hell did Coil afford lasers for this man guys? - allowed me to get my bearings, and I abruptly found myself once more in control of my body.
I used that control to cast a quick Daze spell on one of the two guys holding the girl, and then triggered my jump jets to shoulder tackle the other, taking another laser blast in the chest for my trouble but sending him sprawling backwards with a loud crack that made me wince and stop in place.
The sound of sheering metal and a crushed human body filled my sensorium, and I weathered a few more targeted blasts of weapons fire from the more, or perhaps less, disciplined goons in the group as my gaze focused on the guy I'd just slammed into.
I only tuned back in to anything else about my situation when I saw him shakily push himself to his knees and roll onto his side to vomit up his lunch.
Oh good. I hadn't killed him. That was… good. I think.
"Hey! Have PTSD or whatever later!" The girl - who I'd almost forgotten about to be honest - yelled at me, huddled beneath my bulk, having clearly taken the opportunity I'd created to steal the Dazed guys gun and shot him with it.
I tried not to think too hard about that. She had a right to defend herself, but more importantly, I didn't do it. It wasn't my fault. I wouldn't see that guy in my dreams.
I hoped.
I tried not to turn my head enough to see him on the ground anyway.
Anyway. Right. Kidnapping. Laser weapons. Focus.
What was I supposed to do here? What was my goal? In the end, that was sort of self-evident. Save the girl. That should be simple enough. I could stay. I could fight. I could probably even win. But as long as the kidnapping victim - again there were those warning bells - was still here, then fighting wasn't just stupid, it was irresponsible.
No matter how much my anger at how the day had been going made me really want to stay.
I loosed an annoyed growl, and, using the enhanced strength from my armor, scooped the girl up in my arms, doing my best to encapsulate her in my arms to provide cover against the rapidly renewing laser fire.
Then I triggered my jets and bounced to the nearest roof top.
The weapons fire kept slamming into me as I went - enough so that even with the kind of energy armor that Starfinder equipment came with by default, I was starting to really feel as they landed, causing me several burns I was sure I was going to have to either heal or explain to Armsmaster later.
The laser fire, ofcourse, stopped the second I'd managed to move far enough onto the rooftop that noone had an angle on me anymore, and I carefully readjusted my gravity to make long jumps again, before burning as much of my jet fuel as I dared on a quick, blisteringly fast, 'flight' away from the downtown core, and into the more abandoned parts of the city along the docks.
When I was sure I'd made enough distance that no one was going to be following us, I landed in an alleyway and put the girl down, watching her with my brows furrowed as she shakily stepped away from me, her eyes turning my way with the kind of wary mistrust that I felt wasn't really fair given I'd just saved her from…
Honestly I had no idea what I'd just saved her from, but knowing Coil, probably being a slave or something.
He had a thing for Thinkers, so if one was… passing through…
I looked at the girl again. She was dressed like a fresh hobo.
I say 'fresh' because her clothes, while not dirty, weren't clean either. She had loose, baggy jeans, ratty brown running shoes, a baggy - probably sweltering - pink hoodie, and a beanie hat on that, on further inspection, was clearly there just to make seeing her face from above harder.
You know. Like on a security camera in a corner store.
I watched Lisa Wilbourne recognize that I recognized her, then recognize that I recognized that she recognized me, then recognize that I recognized that she recognized that I recognized her…
And we both spoke at the exact same time.
"Fuck."
"You're alright," Amy interjected with a shrug and a suspicious look in my direction.
"-and you're more Soph's friend than mine-" I pressed on, darting a glance up the hallway to see how things were going outside. Vicky was looking contrite in that way she tended to when she wasn't actually contrite at all, which annoyed me to even recognize, but I had bigger fish to fry.
"Only because you never hang out with us," Amy continued to point out to me in an unimpressed tone of voice.
"But I need you to get your power in here so it can poison me just enough to have an excuse to leave," I finished.
I stared at Amy, who stared back at me.
There was a pregnant moment where I thought I might be able to see the barest glimmer of sympathy in her eyes, which is probably the only reason she didn't just laugh in my face.
"Why?" She eventually asked with a sigh.
"I-" I paused. How does one explain to someone that their mother activated the one neuron in your body that kickstarted all your teenage hormones without saying 'your mom is hot and it makes me uncomfortable'.
"I don't… really think Dean wants me here," I finished lamely.
Amy snorted.
"I noticed. What'd you do to make him hate you anyway?" She asked, though there was a knowing, vaguely malicious glee dancing behind her eyes as she said it that I found mildly off putting.
"He thinks I'm an evil mastermind," I brushed off, not really caring about Dean's opinion of me at this exact moment in time. I mean, I did, actually, but only because him not liking me was probably the sole contributing factor to me even being here.
Amy snorted at me like I'd just said something extremely stupid, which was… actually it was kind of offensive, just a little bit.
"I can be clever!" I defended instantly, which just earned me an amused snicker from the brunette.
"You're the most socially inept person I know. The closest to mastermind I've ever seen you get is when you say something you shouldn't and then refuse to explain yourself," Amy snarked at me while visibly restraining a giggle.
"That-" I started to continue to defend myself, before realizing that if I went down that path, Amy would keep me here arguing about my own intelligence long enough that my absence would become noticeably too long. "-whatever. Poison. Please." I begged, returning to my original request with another desperate glance over my shoulder.
Carol was looking right back at me with a displeased frown on her face.
Amy examined me for another second at that, before posing a question.
"…do you not like us or something?" She asked eventually. I'd have taken the statement for a joke if there wasn't an audible tinge of discomfort to her tone of voice as she asked it.
I felt my head jerk towards her at that, shocked.
"What? No, I like you guys fine! Aaaalso, can we at least look like you're showing me where the bathroom is?" I literally begged her, trying not to act any more suspicious than I already was.
Amy wrinkled her nose at me, displeased, but then shrugged and turned to walk further into the house and out of sight of the backyard.
I breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly followed after her, doing my best not to look back over my shoulder again.
God knows Carol Dallon was the kind of overly suspicious person who would read way too much into it.
Now, I, being myself, had sort of a hard time with the awkward silence that followed as Amy led me up the stairs. She hadn't actually responded to my statement, and I was just anxious enough that my will broke well before we finished that climb.
"Why don't you think I like you guys? You're like the only people I hang out with! I don't have any other friends!" I pressed - definitely not 'whined' - as we made it to the second floor landing and Amy eventually paused to turn and lean against the hallway wall, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at one of the rooms.
"Do you like being around us?" She asked pointedly.
"I mean-" I rushed to defend myself, feeling a profound sense of discomfort begin to fill me up.
I hate complications. I hate when stuff happens. I prefer a stable, dramaless environment. I didn't, and still don't, like having serious conversations with people that have the possibility of changing my current dynamic with other people. I could handle Vicky's nonsense because it rarely directly involved me, and I could see the value in explaining some simple adult problem solving methods to an otherwise distraught teen. Those conversations held zero risk of making her or anyone else treat me differently. I wasn't the subject of the conversation in the first place.
This did not feel like one of those 'not my circus, not my monkeys' conversations.
"Because you kind of act like it's a chore," Amy cut me off, and I clamped my mouth shut, suddenly not sure what to say to that.
This wasn't exactly the conversation I thought I would be having when I begged Amy to help me bail on her super hot mom, and I tried to make that known.
Definitely not deflecting. Truly.
"I don't hate you guys. I don't see what that has to do with not wanting to get in trouble cus your sister didn't tell your mom I was supposed to be here," I pointed out as reasonably as I could.
This… did not appear to be the correct answer, because while Amy's expression remained neutral, if slightly annoyed, her minion, which was still shaped like a cat, hissed at me from where it had - without my notice - slipped past me to sit next to her feet.
My eyes snapped down to the bio-terror, then back up to Amy in confusion, not entirely sure what was going on anymore.
"You… don't 'hate' us? Seriously?" She snorted at me in disgust. "You get that I asked if you like us, and you said you don't hate us right?" She pointed out, her tone now somewhat patronizing and combative.
"I still don't get what that has to do with-" I tried again only for Amy to cut me off.
"Carol's not going to yell at you for something Vicky did. You couldn't have known. She's not stupid. You don't want to be here and you've been looking for an excuse to leave since you realized we weren't going to be doing cape stuff," She accused, eyebrows finally drawing down into an angry v shape. I glanced down at her cat thing again, and realized I was an unarmored tinker with my back to a set of stairs, facing down a very powerful cape who could quite easily shove me down those stairs.
Did I think Amy would do that? No. But even still… it wasn't exactly subtracting from my discomfort with the situation.
"…okay fine, so I'm not comfortable in a lot of social situations, you guys know I'm not the most social person in the world!" I continued to try to defend myself.
"So you don't like hanging out with us? I'm just trying to understand your angle here. I get that you care about us, but it's like we're those stupid pixel egg pet things to you. You pop in now and then to see if we're fed and watered, then piss off to do whatever it is you're fixated on that week," She explained, crossing her arms and tapping one finger on her bicep like a mother waiting for her kid to explain himself.
Some dim, amused, part of myself registered that Amy was probably way more similar to Carol than Vicky ever could be, but I shoved that into the background of my otherwise much more pressing concerns as I stared blankly at Amy for several seconds before answering.
I also… actually had to think about what shed said for a second. It was… nice… having people to talk to now and then, who I could get a laugh out of here or there, but she wasn't exactly wrong about her interpretation of my interest.
"Okay I-" I stopped, closing my eyes and trying to calm my beating heart. I swear my fight or flight reflex is the worst. I'd be more comfortable if someone was trying to shoot me in the face right now.
"I- so you know I'm a thinker, kind of, right?" I tried. Amy slowly looked from me, then down to her minion, then back up to me again, lifting an eyebrow in question as though to say 'go on'.
Right. I did accidentally predict her trigger didn't I? Ugh.
"Okay so… imagine, I dunno, imagine trying to watch television while your house burns down," I expanded, flailing my hands in a vaguely rectangular pattern to represent said television.
"Why-"
"Just try to imagine it."
Amy rolled her eyes at me, then gestured for me to continue.
"For me, the fire never goes away. I'm always aware of at least one fire. Always. Something is always wrong somewhere, the world could always end, the city could always explode, the gangs could always decide to ruin my day. All the time. Forever. For me? You guys are the television," I finished, doing my best to get across the sheer anxiety that knowing the world is going to end caused me on a day to day basis.
Because that was the thing honestly. I didn't really like myself all that much. If I had to choose one guy to save the world, it definitely wouldn't be me. So, under normal circumstances, given a chance at a whole new life, a whole new childhood, and a whole new chance to live better, be better, and craft a more proud future for myself? That's what I would do. I wouldn't engage in protagonist like cape shenanigans. I wouldn't pick fights. I wouldn't care about acquiring more power for some nebulous future final battle against what might aswell be a god.
I'd just try to live better than I had.
Instead, I was here, in a situation where I knew everything that could go wrong, because in some reality, it had, and it fucking sucked, and I flatly could not do anything about most of it. I tried to affect what was in my power to affect. I really did. But barring just completely giving up on my life and freedom in an effort to infodump Cauldron - something I was positive would not end well for me - I just couldn't do that much. I wasn't strong enough, didn't have enough influence, and didn't think so much of myself that I was positive I would ever have those things.
But I had to try. And that was my problem.
Amy stared at me, and I stared back.
"What are you going to do if you leave?" She asked eventually.
"Tinker," I said immediately, my mind automatically going towards my CHERAV and the handful of accompanying pieces of tech I was rigging up to work with it.
"What do you do for fun?" She asked me again.
"I-" I paused, realizing I was about to say 'Tinker' again, then changed over to say "Exercise," instead.
Amy's expression went from dubious to sort of worried to neutral again.
"Staaaaarting to see why Dean thinks you're crazy," She mumbled, loud enough that I could hear it, but not loud enough that I assumed I was intended to answer her.
So I just shrugged.
"He just dislikes that I'm like, Vicky's fag hag or whatever. He'll get over it eventually," I offered weakly.
Amy's eyebrows shot up into her hairline at that.
"…What?" She asked incredulously.
"Uh… colloquial term for a straight woman's gay friend who she goes to for advice on relationships because he's 'safe' and she knows he has no designs on her," I expanded.
"You mean a friend, John. You're describing a friend. Using, might I add, super offensive terminology," She pointed out.
I shrugged again. "Sorry, it's just what that's called in like… movies and stuff. It's a trope."
There was another long silence, and I realized, somewhat forlornly, that there was no way this wasn't going to look suspicious when we came back down, because I definitely don't think my absence could be construed as a 'quick trip to the bathroom' anymore.
"Soooo…. we good?" I tried awkwardly.
"Nope. I kind of get why Vicky doesn't think giving you an option not to hang out is the go to move now though," Amy offered dryly.
"The hell does that mean?" I sighed out, more tired than mad.
"You know we trust you right? Like, I'm not stupid, I get that you go out of your way to help us, and so does Vicky. I mean, is whatever you're tinkering on right now so important that you can't sit down for an hour or whatever?" Amy asked me, clearly exasperated by my continued attempts to quickly finish this conversation up.
"I mean yeah, I'd hope- I mean I try to be trustworthy, I generally think loyalty is like, my one redeeming feature. And it's not the tinkering that's important," I countered.
"Okay, fine, what fire do you so desperately need to put out that it can't wait?" She pressed.
"Why do you care?" I asked with some annoyance before my brain to mouth filter could fully engage and prevent that intrusive thought from exiting my body.
Amy jerked back like I'd gut punched her, then leaned forward and growled - I mean literally growled at me. LIke an animal. It wasn't a behaviour I'd expect from the otherwise dour healer, though, I guess thinking about it, she wasn't nearly as dour as my memories would peg her as, and she definitely wasn't a healer anymore.
Courtesy of yours truly. Because even when I win, I lose, I guess.
Not like another healer would have been useful or anything!
"Fuck you John. I care because you're like one of three people who gives a shit about me," She hissed angrily, and her cat thing rippled and pulsed, growing noticeably next to her.
"Fuck. Sorry. I just- there's just a lot to deal with and I don't have a lot of time to deal with it, and honestly I don't even know what to do with half the information I have-" I started to overexplain - my go to solution to anytime I buried my foot in my mouth like this. Nervously, I took a step back, remembering slightly too late that I was at the top of the stairs, and yelped in surprise as I abruptly found myself tumbling backwards.
Not that I actually fell down the stairs though. Instead, what I could only describe as a cross between a snake, a ferret, and a bengal tiger zipped past me, bracing itself on the stairs and allowing me to fall gently onto its back.
Amy was still giving me the stink eye, but stepped forward to stretch a hand out to help pull me back to my feet, then continued to glare at me when I didn't immediately say anything about… any of that.
"Well?" She pressed.
"Well what? I just told you, I'm stressed okay? I'm stressed, anxious, and doing my best not to make that anyone else's problem. You wanna know why I don't hang out with you guys? Cus Dean makes it too much work. But you know what else? I actually like Dean. I don't really get why he hates me, but I also know that if I told Vicky I don't wanna hang out with you anymore because it makes Dean mad, she'd get pissy with him, and then he'd get more pissy with me. It's way easier for me to just focus on my shit, and let him have what he wants, okay?"
"That wasn't what I was asking, and I already knew that." Amy said bluntly.
"You- then why the fuck did you corner me about it!" I complained, throwing my arms into the air. Why the fuck did everything have to be so god damn dramatic with teenagers? This could have been a text conversation!
…a text conversation I would have ignored and not answered to at all, but still.
"Dude," Amy tried again, giving me a look like she couldn't fathom why I was being so difficult right now, even though I felt like I was being entirely reasonable about all of this.
"Please… please don't ever 'dude' me again. That's such a weird piece of vocabulary to hear coming from you," I said quickly.
Amy shot me another flat look.
"John Harnett," She said, and she said it like a curse. I flinched, despite myself.
No good ever came from a woman calling you with the government name in that particular tone.
"Normal, well adjusted people, tell their friends what's stressing them out so they can help with it," She intoned.
"…Amy you know I that I know how insanely hypocritical it is for you, specifically, to be saying that to me right?" I pointed out to her.
"Oh yeah? You're the Thinker right, so you tell me, how do I solve my problems?" She asked me smugly.
Oh, this sweet summer child. Literally the only joy I have in this world is messing with people. If she thought she was safe just because her insecurities over being the only unpowered member of a cape family were resolved, she had another thing coming.
"You need to get laid." I said bluntly.
Amy's smile faltered, and she spluttered, once more glaring at me.
"What?" She said dangerously.
"Yeah, your ability to get over yourself and get a girlfriend is basically the dividing line between whether the world ends or not," I snarked at her.
"I- you- girlfriend?" She growled at me again. We stared at each other for several seconds. Then she lunged at me, and, because her fucking tiger snake ferret thing was still behind me, managed to catch me in a headlock, where she proceeded to furiously noogie the shit out of me.
"Gah! Hey! No! Bad!" I shrieked, hastily triggering my spell core with a thought and rapidly shrinking to about half my normal size, before following that up by triggering a low gravity spell and vaulting the top of the stairs.
When I landed at the bottom of them, I turned to flip her off, only to find her stupid minion had already somehow caught up with me, and went down in a tangle of limbs as it… I mean it sat on me.
"This is bullshit!" I complained, only my head sticking out from beneath the every growing bulk of the creature, which turned its head towards me and snapped at the air above my head threateningly.
Amy calmly walked down the stairs after it, and paused with her hands on her hips, glaring down at me.
"…So?" She asked pointedly.
I tilted my head back to see that the rest of the Dallons - and Dean - were watching the interaction with varying degrees of amusement - although Carol looked less amused and more pissed off by our antics.
Ugh. She was hot even when she was mad. That's so unfair!
"…Fine. If I have something you can help with I'll… I'll maybe mention it. Later though." I conceded eventually, admitting to myself that being able to ask other people for advice about how to deal with some of my future knowledge without being concerned the PRT was going to jump up my ass about it might be kind of nice.
"Why later?" Amy asked pointedly.
"Cus I'm pretty sure you're about to be grounded," I replied with a fake, malicious, smile on my face as Carol Dallon finished her angry march into the house and cleared her throat next to both of us.
"Amy. What are my rules about powers in the house?" She asked pointedly, glaring at her daughter reproachfully.
"…don't?" Amy said carefully, expression carefully turning neutral.
"Are you asking me, or telling me?" Carol pressed.
"…telling." Amy said slowly.
It took me a couple of seconds to register that this… was not a normal familial interaction. It kind of looked like one, and if you just listened to the words, they all made sense and seemed reasonable.
But the blank, emotionless expression on Amy's face as her mother laid into her reminded me that Amy was more tolerated than loved by the woman, and it showed.
Suddenly the older blond woman was a lot less attractive to me.
'Guess it's a good thing this is just the backup core, I don't have to feel guilty about wasting spells on this bullshit,' I half grumbled to myself.
'And don't think I haven't noticed your conspicuous fucking absence Merlin!' I sent to the AI who lived in my brain.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you are referring to sir," He responded cheekily to me, even as I grouchily disabled the spells making me small and light enough not to break my legs jumping down the stairs, then, when my sudden change in size and mass gave me some wiggle room, popped up from the floor with a wide, fake as fuck, smile on my face with my hand extended towards Carol.
"Hi! Sorry, I'm uh, I'm John! Please don't be too mad at Vicky, I was really pestering her to let me meet you!" I cheered, with all the blithe, dumb, himbo energy I could muster.
Vicky - who was watching the entire exchange from the doorway leading into the backyard, shot me a surprised grin and a thumbs up that she hurriedly hid when her Mom turned to glare at her, before said Mom finally turned and tentatively shook my hand up and down.
Once.
"You're a bad liar and she's still grounded," Carol said flatly.
The idiot smile fell off my face, and the woman seemed almost pleased at having done it. More annoying, Dean seemed almost smug about it too, despite what I noticed was a significant increase in the distance Vicky was standing from him.
I say almost, because in order to look genuinely pleased with herself, she'd have to smile, which I'm not sure the perpetually grouchy looking blonde could even do.
"…Sorry Vicky, I tried," I offered weakly, letting my hand drop to my side. I shared a look with Amy who dropped her blank expression just long enough to offer me a slight smirk, before Carol continued.
"You're already here, so I won't kick you out. Have you eaten yet?" She asked swiftly, like she was just going down a checklist and not actually interested in basic hospitality.
"No… ma'am?" I tried. Carol nodded at me, then gestured to the backyard.
"Go on then. If you actually had something to say you can do it after I finish getting home," She said with an only mildly annoyed sigh, sidestepping around myself and Amy's rapidly shrinking minion, before heading past us and up the stairs.
"Well that was… okay, I think?" I muttered, taking a single step towards the backyard before a realization hit me.
I hadn't managed to fucking escape!
—
"Welp, this is awkward," I grunted, defaulting to comedy in the absence of anything I could really do or say about the situation to change it. I mean. I could just leave, I guess, but I had come hoping to sell New Wave on my skills, and if I had to choose between bailing now and coming back later to do it all over again, or just dealing with it now, I knew which choice would cause the least pain for future me.
Which sucks because future me is a cunt. Always take take take with that guy.
"I dunno, everything seems fine to me," Dean said in a tone of voice and with an expression that were both polite and friendly, but that clearly were not either of those things.
I paused, sitting on the deck with the other young people present, and put down the burger I was about to take my first bite of.
"Alright. Be serious with me dude. What's the deal? Like, what specifically do you want from me? Please, literally just tell me and I will do it. Please." I broke down and begged, albeit in a flat, tired tone of voice.
I've asked the guy this before, because frankly I find being straight up with people is usually the easiest way to deal with their bullshit, but Dean was frustratingly resistant to just explaining himself to me.
I knew he didn't like that I hung around with Vicky but I would have though seeing the distinct lack of love or lust or whatever in my aura would have let him sleep easy at night, so clearly there had to be something going on besides that.
…unless he was seeing love or whatever but…
I mean, I love all the characters in Worm, even fucking Dean. I can't really help that. But there was no way that would read in my aura right? Right?
…did Dean think I was some kind of omnisexual creeper?
"I don't want anything from you John," Dean replied instantly.
I squinted at him, turning to glance past where Vicky was clearly having a panic attack about the renewed hostilities at Mark, who was watching the proceedings from a safe distance away with a glazed look in his eyes. Then I turned my head to Amy who just shrugged at me with a nonplussed look on her face.
Shrugging a turned back to Vicky, and gestured helplessly at the guy.
Did I want to fuck up his relationship? No. But the woman was right there. I wasn't exactly hiding this conversation from her.
"D- Dean come on, we talked about this," she tried bumping him lightly with her shoulder and turning a wounded puppy dog look on her boyfriend.
"It's- I just don't- I mean it's like he's trying to bribe everyone with cool toys! You know he told Missy he'd make her a unicorn?!" The guy tried to defend himself.
"And a sniper rifle. The big boss vetoed both though, so, moot point," I pointed out, trying to weigh if my stomach hurt because I needed to eat, or if it hurt because I was having an anxiety attack.
You know. A low level one. The kind that are easy to hide.
"Okay, he doesn't have to give you anything! Can't you just… try to like my friends?" Vicky pushed on, looking between us worriedly. Her hand was on Dean's knee and I could see her consciously lift it so she could knead her own palm and fidget without putting any of the guy's bones at risk.
Vicky was, counter to her collateral damage barbie nickname - one that didn't actually exist yet - actually surprisingly well in control of her strength. She never really broke mundane objects or hurt people in her day to day life.
…she just didn't bother to hold back when she thought she didn't have to. So she was kind of always at either zero, or one hundred when it came to her strength. With no in between.
Dean opened his mouth, looking kind of like he was trying to find the exact correct way to say 'no' without pissing her off, when Amy chose to finally cut in.
On some level, I knew that she was probably only 'on my side' here because she happened to be jealous of Dean and Vickys relationship. I also knew that was only the case because I had proven completely disinterested in the same, ironically, making me as 'safe' to be around for Amy as I was for Vicky.
At the same time, I did appreciate the support, even if I didn't think this problem should exist in the first place.
"You know, you're probably lucky Soph barely knows about any of this," she pointed out dryly - once more reminding me that I had somehow made Panacea and Shadow Stalker friends in this world.
Dean frowned at that and turned his most unimpressed look on me.
"So you're going to have your cousin threaten me now?" He asked icily.
"I literally didn't even say that!" I complained, pinching the bridge of my nose and closing my eyes so I could focus.
I was tired of this. I was so, overwhelmingly, tired of this. I was doing my best to make everyone happy - yes, even fucking Dean - and the shocking lack of fairness being afforded me was starting to breach my limits on tolerance.
So, while Vicky became increasingly more unhappy with Dean, edging slightly away from him in her chair, while Amy started acerbically laying into him in a way I'm sure she'd secretly wanted to for years, while Marc Dallon dazedly failed to notice any of that happening directly infront of him…
I chose to consider my priorities.
What did I absolutely need to deal with, and was my current situation a required step along that path.
Well, priority numero uno, the fucking world was ending. I couldn't do much about that, and as I had told Amy, it was kind of omnipresently just sort of there, a shadow cast over all my waking hours that I tried not to think about… so that could get gently set to the side for now.
What else?
I needed to get more gear together. More spells, more tech, more options. I wanted, no, genuinely needed to be able to deal with everything. The entire moral of the story of Worm, in the end, was that people won't help themselves, even when they really should. If I was learning anything at this exact moment, it was that I couldn't really rely on other people to solve anything for me. It had to be me.
I felt a pang of dread well up inside me, juxtaposed against the mental image of a man being crushed by my hammer, then brushed under the rug like he never existed.
I wish it didn't have to be me.
Of course, to build more, I needed more resources, mostly in the form of money. Truthfully if I had an unlimited amount of cash, I could just bring a dozen starships to the next Endbringer fight and call it good. That was half the reason I was here, trying to engage with New Wave. I was kind of hoping they'd pay me to make stuff for them.
The other half, really, was that I just wanted to help Amy, because in my estimation, she was a world ending threat that contributed alot to the events of the future I'd prefer not to live through.
Alright so, what else.
The Nine had to die, if only because Jack dying would extend my countdown clock out from four or five years till doomsday, to anywhere between ten to thirty.
All of that was long term though. Short term I had… the gangs, although I held little hope of truly dislodging them. In truth, I liked the gangs. I liked them alot. They gave me something to hate that I was both legally allowed to attack, and morally justified in doing so. I got more out of having a valid target in them than I did in actually dealing with them, even if I was honestly perfectly willing to deal with them permanently if given the opportunity.
That was… kind of shameful to admit, but god damn it, they fucking started it, and it'd be a lot easier to save the fucking world if it had no fucking nazis in it.
What else? Taylor was handled, I think - if she never triggered I'd never have to worried about getting mind fucked into a suicidal last stand against god, which was always nice. I was going to be spending a fair portion of the rest of the summer in Boston filming for some shitty television show, which, while unpleasant, was in support of the whole 'I really need money' thing…
Was I missing something? Bakuda maybe? But no she didn't even exist yet.
Yeah I… think that was my list of problems at the moment.
So… again, I had to ask myself - was my current situation absolutely necessary to any of that?
And the answer to that, was, unsurprisingly, 'no'.
I'd be sad if my handful of friends never spoke to me again after this, because I was undoubtedly about to make an asshole of myself, but I'd be fine in the end. I was always fine in the end. It was just another shitty thing to let roll off my back so I could get on with the business of struggling to be alive I guess.
My power offered me the equivalent of a shock collar that would electrocute me mildly whenever I had an incorrect thought, and I briefly toyed with the idea of brainwashing the depression out of myself, before shelving the thought for later.
Instead of chasing that train of thought back to its concerning origin, I abruptly stood from my seat on the deck, causing everyone present to stop arguing with each other so they could look at me. Amy looked somewhere between unimpressed and silently quite mad, Dean looked like a combination of smug at me finally 'acting out' and proving him right, and concerned that said acting out might include punching him in the face, and Vicky…
Well Vicky looked like she was about to start ugly crying, very loudly.
I felt bad for that, I really did.
But I was way overloaded by the current situation, and if I stayed, I was going to say or do something very stupid, and I knew it.
They yelled… I dunno, something at me as I marched to the center of the backyard where I had already set my power armor to appear, but I didn't bother listening to it as the familiar, calming, motions required don the suit passed through me without thought. I'd long since built two footrests and two handles on the back of the suit to make jumping up into it easier, and I felt a sense of peace pass over me as I dropped down into its bowels, allowing the bowl helmet to seal over head, blocking out the sound of other human beings coming from nearby.
Or maybe I was just dissociating. That was a thing that happened to people sometimes right?
Eh. I was already set to see a therapist anyway. I'd ask about it later.
Without a second thought, I triggered my gravity manipulation spell using the much more powerful spellcore located in my armor, then triggered my jump jets, the combination of which flung me out over the neighbourhood almost like I was flying.
"Sir, you are receiving a phone call from Victoria," Merlin offered me dutifully.
"Don't care," I said instantly, bouncing across rooftops with my reduced mass saving me from cratering anyones house.
"...do you wish to talk about it?" The AI asked me tentatively.
"No." I said bluntly, before sighing and rethinking the statement.
I fucking hate when characters in media do this, but I guess much like watching a sport makes it easier to spot mistakes than playing a sport, I'd fallen into the trap of assuming I was more competent than I actually was.
"...Okay maybe a little," I grunted out, angrily making my way towards the Rig so I could get back to work on my projects.
"I feel compelled to point out that you could have avoided much of that by simply informing Victoria of why you were avoiding her," Merlin said.
"Why would I? It's not like I want to screw with Dean you know? I wish he'd lay off me is all," I replied, containing my burgeoning irritation at what, to me, felt like a stupid question.
"And, do you imagine that she will be very happy with him after today then?" Merlin pointed out.
I blinked at that, trying to reason through it in my head, before shrugging.
"Probably. They're dating so she has a bias. She probably won't like it, and they'll be cranky with eachother for a while, but I mean, come on, she's known him way longer than me. He's probably got her convinced I'm evil too by now - that's just how 'in groups' work," I dismissed eventually.
It was true, too. I'd seen this exact situation play out, multiple times, across multiple groups of people, for a variety of reasons. The truth was, when it came to groups of people, the person who couldn't defend themself socially because they'd extricated themself from the situation almost always ended up coming across as the 'bad guy'. It was easy to see why, at least, to me. If you had one person whispering poison in your ear, and the subject of those whispers wasn't able or willing to dispute them, then eventually it would all become established fact.
Heck, isn't that exactly what happened to Taylor in canon?
Except, the difference between me and Taylor, is that I was more than capable of getting on with my life without stewing in it.
At least, that's what I told myself.
"Amy Dallon is calling-"
"Ignore that too," I replied with a sigh, knowing instantly that Merlin must actually want me to answer my phone if he was being petty enough not to intuit that from how I'd responded to Vicky calling.
I came to a soft landing at the edge of the Boardwalk, and started walking towards the ferry station the PRT used as their egress point to and from the rig, only for Merlin to speak up again.
"Sir, you've already completed your shift for the day. The Protectorate has strict orders to prevent you from exceeding your standard working hours," Merlin noted before I could take more than a few steps in that direction. The handful of guards who manned the station were peering at me curiously as I approached, and I ended up stopping dead where I was as he pointed it out to me.
God damn it.
"Fucking… fine! Find me some crime or something, I don't wanna go home. No, wait, nevermind. Better idea." I growled out, before rethinking that thought for the unproductive waste of time it was, and instead orienting myself towards my Gym.
Of course, then I realized that I was still in my power armor, and had no way to teleport it back to the HQ, which meant that no matter what, I was going to have to go get yelled at for 'stealing' it in my off hours again.
I'm sure Dean would love that.
Resisting the urge to scream at my own stupidity.
Merlin weathered my silent seething for about thirty seconds before throwing up a directional indicator on my heads-up display that I followed pretty much without question.
"What am I moving towards?" I asked with a sigh, knowing the wily AI probably wasn't going to put me in close proximity to people I considered acceptable targets while I was this cranky.
"Your cousin, sir," He informed me, causing me to screw up the landing from the first jump I'd made in said direction, and forcing me to hop forward three steps with my arms out like a bloody child about to trip to prevent myself from falling over.
"...isn't she on a date or something?" I asked, eyeing the directional indicator that remained in the corner of my vision despite my objections.
"I can also direct you to your Aunt, if you like?" He offered placidly.
"I don't need to talk to someone Merlin. I'll get over it by the time I wake up tommorow," I argued, not bothering to continue moving from where I stood, several blocks from the ferry station, in the middle of an abandoned but fairly 'safe' downtown area, mostly filled with brownstones and a few conveniences to cater to the people who lived in them.
"That isn't 'getting over' anything, sir, that is, in fact, 'ignoring'," My AI countered.
I took a long, deep, breath.
I loved Merlin. I would never deliberately neuter or limit his burgeoning self identity or free will.
But, again, I needed a parent that lived in my head as much as I needed fire ants in my underwear.
I didn't want to tell him to just fuck off, because he was the closest thing I had to a confidant in my ongoing efforts to save the damn world, but at the same time, I really didn't want to make him… I dunno… unhappy with me?
God, I'm such a pathetic people pleaser sometimes.
Then, like a message from god, like reality itself throwing my a fucking bone for once, I heard the shrill screech of a woman not to far in the distance.
Well. I didn't. But my suits audio receptors did, and they were programmed to forward that kind of information to me above the typical background noise of say, an active cape fight.
"Wow look a distraction!" I literally cheered at my AI, who had the grace to just send the sensation of his immense disappointment to me directly instead of audibly sighing.
Turning on my heel, I triggered another jump.
Now, the amount of air I could catch like this was not small. I could clear a couple of blocks like this easily, at least, with my personal gravity toned down enough that I was essentially acting as though I was on the Moon. If I was willing to burn through my jump jet fuel fast enough, I could even fake flying by just firing them repeatedly to keep myself in the air.
In this case, I had no need to do that. I spotted the problem after only a few blocks of airborne travel and actually had to raise my gravity and fire my jets in the opposite direction in order to prevent myself from massively overshooting the altercation.
And… wow… what a goddamn altercation.
There were like two dozen guys, all of them in black tacticool bullshit, standing around idly while two of them dragged what I could only describe as a homeless girl out of an alleyway and towards one of a handful of nondescript vans parked nearby.
The vans were a nice touch honestly. You'd expect the semi military looking gangoons to drive military looking jeeps and such, but the reality was, they were smart enough to understand that themselves, and had apparently compensated by driving three or four completely nondescript soccer mom-esque vehicles that, while no particularly armoured, would disappear into the evening traffic the second they rejoined it.
I briefly - oh so briefly - considered raising my gravity and boosting straight down on top of one of the cars.
It'd be super cool. Very cinematic. Definitely total the vehicle, and if I was lucky I wouldn't even be that hurt by it.
But the image of a man being crushed by a hammer flickered to mind again, and I instead chose to come to a less bonecrushing landing on the ground between the men dragging the girl and their vehicles.
"Look my banter game is usually better than this but I've had a bad day so-" I started to inform them firmly, kind of figuring they'd just fuck off. I mean, most of the known gangs tended to just… avoid Wards. It wasn't like they wouldn't fight us, but the Empire and Coils guys tended not to unless forced.
I was assuming, just based on the military aesthetic, that these were Coils guys, and something about that twigged several warnings in the back of my head, but none of them was so pertinent that the hail of laser fire I got in response to my interruption of their activities was able to surface past my more pertinent concerns.
Now, before anyone gives me shit for not just ambushing them. There's a camera in my suit, and the PRT very much wants to make sure any Ward whos casual carry includes 'literally just a gun' is doing things like 'giving warnings' before engaging in combat.
It was annoying, but I understood it. It wasn't that restrictive - obviously if someones life was in IMMEDIATE danger I could engage more freely - but in the absence of my usual Empire hunting habits, which I hadn't been allowed to engage in for a while now, I had, for lack of a better word, gotten kind of rusty.
But Merlin, hadn't.
My canons came around without my conscious input, and started plugging goons with sonic rounds, and I was forced to move forward several steps through the initial burst of laser fire - none of which had breached my suit thankfully - so that I was standing between several of the groups of men - effectively putting them in each others crossfire.
It probably wouldn't have worked if these were normal goons. It definitely wouldn't have worked if they were fucking merchants.
But these guys? These guys had some training under their belts. They knew better than to shoot at something with something you cared about behind it.
The brief pause in the laser fire - seriously, I thought tinkertech degraded or something? How the hell did Coil afford lasers for this man guys? - allowed me to get my bearings, and I abruptly found myself once more in control of my body.
I used that control to cast a quick Daze spell on one of the two guys holding the girl, and then triggered my jump jets to shoulder tackle the other, taking another laser blast in the chest for my trouble but sending him sprawling backwards with a loud crack that made me wince and stop in place.
The sound of sheering metal and a crushed human body filled my sensorium, and I weathered a few more targeted blasts of weapons fire from the more, or perhaps less, disciplined goons in the group as my gaze focused on the guy I'd just slammed into.
I only tuned back in to anything else about my situation when I saw him shakily push himself to his knees and roll onto his side to vomit up his lunch.
Oh good. I hadn't killed him. That was… good. I think.
"Hey! Have PTSD or whatever later!" The girl - who I'd almost forgotten about to be honest - yelled at me, huddled beneath my bulk, having clearly taken the opportunity I'd created to steal the Dazed guys gun and shot him with it.
I tried not to think too hard about that. She had a right to defend herself, but more importantly, I didn't do it. It wasn't my fault. I wouldn't see that guy in my dreams.
I hoped.
I tried not to turn my head enough to see him on the ground anyway.
Anyway. Right. Kidnapping. Laser weapons. Focus.
What was I supposed to do here? What was my goal? In the end, that was sort of self-evident. Save the girl. That should be simple enough. I could stay. I could fight. I could probably even win. But as long as the kidnapping victim - again there were those warning bells - was still here, then fighting wasn't just stupid, it was irresponsible.
No matter how much my anger at how the day had been going made me really want to stay.
I loosed an annoyed growl, and, using the enhanced strength from my armor, scooped the girl up in my arms, doing my best to encapsulate her in my arms to provide cover against the rapidly renewing laser fire.
Then I triggered my jets and bounced to the nearest roof top.
The weapons fire kept slamming into me as I went - enough so that even with the kind of energy armor that Starfinder equipment came with by default, I was starting to really feel as they landed, causing me several burns I was sure I was going to have to either heal or explain to Armsmaster later.
The laser fire, ofcourse, stopped the second I'd managed to move far enough onto the rooftop that noone had an angle on me anymore, and I carefully readjusted my gravity to make long jumps again, before burning as much of my jet fuel as I dared on a quick, blisteringly fast, 'flight' away from the downtown core, and into the more abandoned parts of the city along the docks.
When I was sure I'd made enough distance that no one was going to be following us, I landed in an alleyway and put the girl down, watching her with my brows furrowed as she shakily stepped away from me, her eyes turning my way with the kind of wary mistrust that I felt wasn't really fair given I'd just saved her from…
Honestly I had no idea what I'd just saved her from, but knowing Coil, probably being a slave or something.
He had a thing for Thinkers, so if one was… passing through…
I looked at the girl again. She was dressed like a fresh hobo.
I say 'fresh' because her clothes, while not dirty, weren't clean either. She had loose, baggy jeans, ratty brown running shoes, a baggy - probably sweltering - pink hoodie, and a beanie hat on that, on further inspection, was clearly there just to make seeing her face from above harder.
You know. Like on a security camera in a corner store.
I watched Lisa Wilbourne recognize that I recognized her, then recognize that I recognized that she recognized me, then recognize that I recognized that she recognized that I recognized her…
And we both spoke at the exact same time.
"Fuck."
Massgamer
Advance toward the Future
- Location
- The Future
Sounds like a totally healthy means to deal with your mental problems.
Forcibly beat it down with electrical shock conditioning!
Wow, walked away from one majorly awkward and emotional interaction with people and walked right into arguably another worse one.
On bright side, was somehow able to save Lisa from being forcibly recruited by Coil, so go hero!
Architect Iront.
Verified Cosplayer, Verified Living Doll
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And provide a perfect example of what he was talking about. Imagine taking Lisa back to New Wave and saying, "Here, here is this person I rescued from becoming a supervillain at gunpoint. If I wasn't around, they'd be fucked. You see why I can't waste time on socializing?"
Did he? I don't exactly remember much of what happened in this except for the past couple of chapters. I might need to reread everything if this is coming back.
Oh. It's great to see this updated again bowlerhat! Just after I found your Menagerie fic too.
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No, unless I am remembering this story incorrectly the MC used a spell to locate him everyday for like a month or 2. He then posted Jack's location publicly to the internet and it didn't end up causing his capture or death so he stopped due to external pressure when he joined the wards
- Location
- Mists of Albion
To be completely honest, Vicky and Amy are right, his attitudes and actions are distinctly unhealthy to the point Merlin, the AI he created to shut down his emotions for him, is starting to try and actively and openly push him to talk to people.
- Location
- New Zealand
And to think that I just checked this fic this morning in the vain hope of an update. Glad to see you back.
And John continues his totally normal and healthy coping mechanism of ignoring all of his problems and mental health issues in the hope that they will simply disappear.
And John continues his totally normal and healthy coping mechanism of ignoring all of his problems and mental health issues in the hope that they will simply disappear.
No, he just had artillery called in on his position. Shatterbird and Hatchetface were killed.
Architect Iront.
Verified Cosplayer, Verified Living Doll
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And yet at the same time, by following those attitudes he saved someone else. That's what makes this character conflict work, because they're both right. Vicky and Amy are correct that he needs to socialize more, and he's correct that taking time off from socializing means that disasters he could have prevented don't get stopped. If there was an objectively right choice this whole plot thread would be a lot less engaging.
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
It's the Peter Parker/Spider-Man conundrum.
- Location
- Philippines
Did he? All I remember is he makes sure to keep Jack Watch active every day.
Man, no wonder the world is always going down the drain to shit. Utter messes like him are who trigger after all.
So, Lisa hasn't been kidnapped yet. But I can't recall if he'd done anything about Calvert infiltrating the local PRT. Knowing him, likely not.
Snazzy Snake
Devouring Swarm
Damn I'm getting tired of Dean's attitude so quickly. Really hope Vicky or someone sets him straight.
FruitSyrup
Sweeter than honey~
- Location
- United Kingom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
STRFNDR RETVRNS, PRAISE BE
- Location
- ?????????
*points violently to Peter Parker's life*
Yeah it doesn't work out. The sad reality is that you can't save everyone and no amount of honest effort and sacrifice changes that.
The best you can do is save the people you can and hope it's enough
