Hi! Find the SB thread HERE. I'm posting this late, so the first vote is done, but join in on...
Striking the Aleph (Worm Quest)
- Thread starter helpmeimscared
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Statistics (9 threadmarks, 15k words)
User Total helpmeimscared 9 Threadmarks Reader mode
Clay 1.1
- Location
- USA
Hi! Find the SB thread HERE. I'm posting this late, so the first vote is done, but join in on the second!
|<>_\<>|
Strike the Aleph
|<>_\<>|
The first thing I noticed was the clothes. The baggy clothes that were practically falling off me as I sat in a classroom I had never seen before.
The person behind me noticed too. Then the teacher turned around and got this shocked-looking expression on her face.
Someone tugged at my sleeve - the boy sitting next to me. "Dude, what the heck? Are you still you? You kinda... changed, just then." I moved to respond - not that it would have helped much in my confusion - but then I caught sight of the paper on the desk in front of me - the one written by the person formerly here - and froze.
Hello. My name is Josh Goldman, and I'm fucked.
|<>_\<>|
Maybe ten minutes later I was sitting on a very hard chair in one of Immaculata's unused conference rooms when, through the window to the front parking lot, an accident almost happened. A rather nice black car - couldn't place the make, but that's Earth Bet for you - barely squeezed by a SWAT-looking van as they both tried to turn into the lot at the same time.
Both made it, although the lady in the fancy car didn't look quite so happy about it. The PRT truck opened up the back and - wait, was that Armsmaster or Dauntless? I can't remember which had the spear and which had the axe. Or did one have both?
Well, horrible signs of my memory of Worm deteriorating aside, at least there was good news here. If the heroes had showed up I at least had a good chance of being kept away from good ol' Max Anders, who - as anyone reading my thoughts in what is presumably a shitty fanfic could tell you - was not a very nice person.
Oh, hold that thought. Crazy-car-lady - who might be a lawyer judging by the suit - pulled a sheaf of official-looking documents out of the car with her, and was waving them in DauntMaster's face. I prayed for a moment there, hoping he would be able to declare this Official Protectorate Business No Matter What, but it looked like today was even less of my lucky day. It makes sense, I suppose. Kaiser would figure that, with Theo as a third-generation cape, a public trigger was inevitable, and any power he developed would be similar enough to the Empire's ruling family's to cause some questions that he really didn't want the Protectorate to be wondering.
As soon as the government-issued van had left the school, Lawyer Lady turned and walked calmly over to the door, where she was greeted by what I assume was one of the school's secretaries. They chatted a bit as she was led over to my little prison - who was this, to already be friends with the school staff? - but it only took a minute or so before they were at my door.
She opened it and stepped in alone, her eyes taking in the body that was most definitely not Theo's, the clothes that most likely were. "Theo, you just had a traumatic event. I'm going to be taking you to your father now, is that all right with you?"
|<>_\<>|
How does Josh respond?
}-Go with the nice Nazi lady.
}—-Go with the nice Nazi lady, but claim that you are a shapeshifted Theo Anders with memory loss. Better get good at lying, fast.
}—-Go with the nice Nazi lady, and prepare to tell them that you are a random Jewish nerd from the wrong dimension.
}—-Go with the nice Nazi lady and claim you are Josh Adams, a non-Jew from an alternate dimension. It'll freak them out - dimensional stuff has bad implications in Worm - but it's better than a burning cross.
}-Scream for help. Maybe you can get the PRT involved anyways? (Write-in what Josh should scream about!)
{X}-Write in! [Try to get away from the lawyer, by whatever means necessary.]
|<>_\<>|
A short while later.
Y'know, my brain feels kinda funky, the weird new world aside. Almost like something latched on inside my head while I was being brought over to Bet, or maybe like when I arrived I simply displaced someone else and took their weirdness instead. I... it almost feels like a third arm, this thing I can push with. Do I have a power? A trigger-free power, in Wormverse of all places? Well, I gotta test this out!
}-Focus on myself. Don't want to accidentally hurt someone.
}-Focus on the driver. Better them than me, right?
}-Focus on the buckle of my seatbelt. If this is what I think it is, better to know now than later.
{X}-Hold it in. Whatever this is, it can't be a good idea to test it in public.
|<•>L<•>|
Security Officer Jamie Hernandez scrolled back the footage one more time. He was the only one on duty today - stupid Immaculata budget cuts - which meant he was the one in charge of deciding what to do about the random possible trigger happening in classroom 250B.
He got it to the right moment and pressed play, his other hand waiting over the pause button. For what must have been the fortieth time he watched the chubby teen doze off in the middle of a lecture on how Endbringers affected the economy, eyes drawing closed once, twice, PAUSE!
He let out a sigh of relief. He had managed it, finally. Curse these 'user-friendly' controls. False advertising, that. A grin still on his face, he leaned forward to stare at the wavering image.
Jamie cursed. He hit the button to eject the tape, then grabbed his phone out of the bag. Two passwords later and he was at the secret list of contacts.
"Boss, I got something you're gonna want to see."
|<•>L<•>|
|<>_\<>|
Strike the Aleph
|<>_\<>|
The first thing I noticed was the clothes. The baggy clothes that were practically falling off me as I sat in a classroom I had never seen before.
The person behind me noticed too. Then the teacher turned around and got this shocked-looking expression on her face.
Someone tugged at my sleeve - the boy sitting next to me. "Dude, what the heck? Are you still you? You kinda... changed, just then." I moved to respond - not that it would have helped much in my confusion - but then I caught sight of the paper on the desk in front of me - the one written by the person formerly here - and froze.
How Alexandria Acts as an Emblem of American Superiority
Theo Anders, 5th Period English, April 5 2011
Theo Anders, 5th Period English, April 5 2011
Hello. My name is Josh Goldman, and I'm fucked.
|<>_\<>|
Maybe ten minutes later I was sitting on a very hard chair in one of Immaculata's unused conference rooms when, through the window to the front parking lot, an accident almost happened. A rather nice black car - couldn't place the make, but that's Earth Bet for you - barely squeezed by a SWAT-looking van as they both tried to turn into the lot at the same time.
Both made it, although the lady in the fancy car didn't look quite so happy about it. The PRT truck opened up the back and - wait, was that Armsmaster or Dauntless? I can't remember which had the spear and which had the axe. Or did one have both?
Well, horrible signs of my memory of Worm deteriorating aside, at least there was good news here. If the heroes had showed up I at least had a good chance of being kept away from good ol' Max Anders, who - as anyone reading my thoughts in what is presumably a shitty fanfic could tell you - was not a very nice person.
Oh, hold that thought. Crazy-car-lady - who might be a lawyer judging by the suit - pulled a sheaf of official-looking documents out of the car with her, and was waving them in DauntMaster's face. I prayed for a moment there, hoping he would be able to declare this Official Protectorate Business No Matter What, but it looked like today was even less of my lucky day. It makes sense, I suppose. Kaiser would figure that, with Theo as a third-generation cape, a public trigger was inevitable, and any power he developed would be similar enough to the Empire's ruling family's to cause some questions that he really didn't want the Protectorate to be wondering.
As soon as the government-issued van had left the school, Lawyer Lady turned and walked calmly over to the door, where she was greeted by what I assume was one of the school's secretaries. They chatted a bit as she was led over to my little prison - who was this, to already be friends with the school staff? - but it only took a minute or so before they were at my door.
She opened it and stepped in alone, her eyes taking in the body that was most definitely not Theo's, the clothes that most likely were. "Theo, you just had a traumatic event. I'm going to be taking you to your father now, is that all right with you?"
|<>_\<>|
How does Josh respond?
}-Go with the nice Nazi lady.
}—-Go with the nice Nazi lady, but claim that you are a shapeshifted Theo Anders with memory loss. Better get good at lying, fast.
}—-Go with the nice Nazi lady, and prepare to tell them that you are a random Jewish nerd from the wrong dimension.
}—-Go with the nice Nazi lady and claim you are Josh Adams, a non-Jew from an alternate dimension. It'll freak them out - dimensional stuff has bad implications in Worm - but it's better than a burning cross.
}-Scream for help. Maybe you can get the PRT involved anyways? (Write-in what Josh should scream about!)
{X}-Write in! [Try to get away from the lawyer, by whatever means necessary.]
|<>_\<>|
A short while later.
Y'know, my brain feels kinda funky, the weird new world aside. Almost like something latched on inside my head while I was being brought over to Bet, or maybe like when I arrived I simply displaced someone else and took their weirdness instead. I... it almost feels like a third arm, this thing I can push with. Do I have a power? A trigger-free power, in Wormverse of all places? Well, I gotta test this out!
}-Focus on myself. Don't want to accidentally hurt someone.
}-Focus on the driver. Better them than me, right?
}-Focus on the buckle of my seatbelt. If this is what I think it is, better to know now than later.
{X}-Hold it in. Whatever this is, it can't be a good idea to test it in public.
|<•>L<•>|
Security Officer Jamie Hernandez scrolled back the footage one more time. He was the only one on duty today - stupid Immaculata budget cuts - which meant he was the one in charge of deciding what to do about the random possible trigger happening in classroom 250B.
He got it to the right moment and pressed play, his other hand waiting over the pause button. For what must have been the fortieth time he watched the chubby teen doze off in the middle of a lecture on how Endbringers affected the economy, eyes drawing closed once, twice, PAUSE!
He let out a sigh of relief. He had managed it, finally. Curse these 'user-friendly' controls. False advertising, that. A grin still on his face, he leaned forward to stare at the wavering image.
Jamie cursed. He hit the button to eject the tape, then grabbed his phone out of the bag. Two passwords later and he was at the secret list of contacts.
"Boss, I got something you're gonna want to see."
|<•>L<•>|
Last edited:
Clay 1.2
- Location
- USA
Strike the Aleph 2
|<>_\<>|
"Theo, you've just had a traumatic event. I'm going to be taking you to your father now, is that all right with you? And, before we go, how is your new body feeling? Do you need anything?"
She looked expectantly at me. She actually didn't look that mean now that she wasn't scaring off people who fight Endbringers for a living (oh good, I still remember those, that could have been embarrassing). Nice suit (with a red shirt, ominously), tall, blonde, not as old as half the lawyers you see on TV. I could see myself trusting her, if it weren't for the fact that she was trying to take me over to the local Übermensch. Yeah, no way in nonexistent Jewish hell, lady.
"Don't worry, I feel fine. Nothing hurts. But about my father," and boy that was not fun to say, "there any way we can... not do that?" I was hoping she would be more on my side than his, in this. Theo's side.
Raised eyebrow. "Well, I do have explicit orders to bring you back safely, but I suppose nothing would be hurt if we were to delay for a bit. Why? Is there something else you wanted to do first, or maybe," and here she leaned in and spoke quieter, "maybe your trigger had something to do with your home life? I know how bad it is after, we can find another option if you're concerned."
Well, that was unexpected. Not that she was willing to work with me - although that was also surprising - but that she apparently had experience regarding triggers. Which was bad news, because it meant she was probably a cape in Kaiser's employ, probably someone old Theo had already known was one. Let's see, Kaiser's loyal follower, blonde, confident getting face to face with Dauntmaster earlier... sounds like one of the twins, the giantesses. Whom I can remember for some reason. Bad sign. Bad, bad sign, considering it meant she was not only a legitimate Nazi instead of just an ally of theirs, but also that she could probably catch me if I tried to run. Not that I had many other options, considering I'm a really bad liar and barely remember anything about Theo's personal life.
"Yeah, it has to do with that. Stuff at home. But, uh, can I have some more time to think on it before we go anywhere? Maybe outside?" Time to see if she buys it.
Aha, she raised an eyebrow. A hole in my story already? "It's been sort of chilly lately. Any particular reason for wanting to spend some time out there?"
Okay, okay. Lying? Never been my strong suit. I grimace - hopefully it looks in-character, embarrassed rather than guilty. "I've become a little... claustrophobic. I think it might have been the trigger, and being stuck in this room isn't helping."
What? No, I'm not actually claustrophobic. Assuming the me that is writing this is the me I think it is (because being a fanfic character is the only logical explanation), that would have been much, much worse. I might have woken up terrified in the locker instead of merely a POI for the local hate group. I don't have a history of being nice to my characters, and little weaknesses like that... ooph.
Anyway, I've never seen someone do a 180 that fast. She must really be hung up on how bad triggers are. I feel bad for using it to manipulate her, but honestly a supervillain lawyer should be better at this kinda thing. The eyebrow went back down and she leaned over in her seat, putting the few papers she had had back in her briefcase before locking the shiny clasps again. "I think we can manage that. Come on, I saw some benches out front. Let's get you settled."
|<>_\<>|
Two minutes later, I was standing, alone, by a decorative bench in front of the school. Fenja (or Menja, or actually maybe just a really confident blonde lawyer, but I'm just going to call her Fenja for now) had gone back to "get my phone back" after I had "set it down" in the room. I hadn't, of course, lost my phone - although now that I mention it I had no idea whether Theo had one to begin with. It certainly wasn't in any of the pockets in the backpack or on my baggy clothes.
Anyways. She probably had seen through the lie, but let me have my moment of privacy anyways. Her mistake, I suppose. It wasn't exactly a complicated escape - I just had to walk across to the parking lot and cross the street. I was going to walk another two blocks to find a new bus stop instead of waiting at the one in front of the school, since Fenja was due to come out any minute, but as it happened I didn't need to - right as I passed the first one, a city bus pulled up.
It turns out Theo carried a surprising amount of small bills with him, even at school. Maybe he was used to buying a lunch, with cash, in the cafeteria. Maybe it was some sort of Catholic Schoolboy drug that had somehow gotten popular. Or maybe having a rich dad with issues connecting has its advantages. Whatever the reason, it made it very easy to get on the first bus that came by without doing anything suspicious like trying to figure out if I had a metro card, or begging for a free ride.
|<>_\<>|
What do you do on the bus?
[]Sit in the back and don't bother anyone.
[]Sit in the back, pull your hood up, and see if you can covertly manage to use your powers.
[]Hey, look, some skinheads! Sit by them.
[]Sit by the nice-looking old Asian lady.
[]Write-in.
|<>_\<>|
Where do you get off the bus? If you wait til the central station, you can catch one more bus to somewhere else in town. For reference, it's about 12:30pm, and the date (according to Theo's essay) is April 5th, 3 days before story start.
Near:
[]Get off at Central Station and loiter. You're sure something plot-relevant will happen eventually.
[]Head to Arcadia. Time to have some fun accosting the Wards!
[]Head to the public library. Time to study!
[]Head to the PRT building. You need help, fast.
Far:
[]Head to the Undersider base. If there's anyone here who you can trust it's them. Besides, surprising Tats is always fun.
[]Why not fight Lung? It worked out well for Taylor.
[]Quick! Head to Winslow! Taylor needs a friend!
[]Head to the Boat Graveyard. You want to test your powers in relative privacy, and that many fanfic writers can't be wrong, can they?
[]Write-in.
|<>_\<>|
Reference Map
|<O>L<O>|
"What do you mean, you lost him?" Even outside of his villain persona, even over the phone, Max Anders had perfected being effortlessly intimidating. Not that Jessica cared, of course. She was used to far more intimidating things than an irate boss who also happened to be a family friend.
"He asked to sit outside for a while, and tried to get me to leave him alone. I gave him five minutes, sir, since I figured he probably needed it after whatever his trigger was. He was gone by the time I got back, sir."
"And a fifteen year old boy has managed to hide from you? I know you better than that, Jessica."
"That's just it, sir. He's not just any boy, he's a recent trigger with what's probably at least a Stranger 4 or 5, depending on how well he can shapeshift. He could literally be anyone around here, and I-"
He cut her off. "Enough. I'll send you some help, but once they get there you better find my son."
"Can I ask who you're sending?"
"You know him. He's our resident expert in finding people, among other things."
The votes are in! Josh should really try to get away from the lawyer lady, or at least keep her from taking him to Kaiser, but should hold off on using his power for now. Only one vote for revealing his identity, though, so he's "Theo" for now.
|<>_\<>|
"Theo, you've just had a traumatic event. I'm going to be taking you to your father now, is that all right with you? And, before we go, how is your new body feeling? Do you need anything?"
She looked expectantly at me. She actually didn't look that mean now that she wasn't scaring off people who fight Endbringers for a living (oh good, I still remember those, that could have been embarrassing). Nice suit (with a red shirt, ominously), tall, blonde, not as old as half the lawyers you see on TV. I could see myself trusting her, if it weren't for the fact that she was trying to take me over to the local Übermensch. Yeah, no way in nonexistent Jewish hell, lady.
"Don't worry, I feel fine. Nothing hurts. But about my father," and boy that was not fun to say, "there any way we can... not do that?" I was hoping she would be more on my side than his, in this. Theo's side.
Raised eyebrow. "Well, I do have explicit orders to bring you back safely, but I suppose nothing would be hurt if we were to delay for a bit. Why? Is there something else you wanted to do first, or maybe," and here she leaned in and spoke quieter, "maybe your trigger had something to do with your home life? I know how bad it is after, we can find another option if you're concerned."
Well, that was unexpected. Not that she was willing to work with me - although that was also surprising - but that she apparently had experience regarding triggers. Which was bad news, because it meant she was probably a cape in Kaiser's employ, probably someone old Theo had already known was one. Let's see, Kaiser's loyal follower, blonde, confident getting face to face with Dauntmaster earlier... sounds like one of the twins, the giantesses. Whom I can remember for some reason. Bad sign. Bad, bad sign, considering it meant she was not only a legitimate Nazi instead of just an ally of theirs, but also that she could probably catch me if I tried to run. Not that I had many other options, considering I'm a really bad liar and barely remember anything about Theo's personal life.
"Yeah, it has to do with that. Stuff at home. But, uh, can I have some more time to think on it before we go anywhere? Maybe outside?" Time to see if she buys it.
Aha, she raised an eyebrow. A hole in my story already? "It's been sort of chilly lately. Any particular reason for wanting to spend some time out there?"
Okay, okay. Lying? Never been my strong suit. I grimace - hopefully it looks in-character, embarrassed rather than guilty. "I've become a little... claustrophobic. I think it might have been the trigger, and being stuck in this room isn't helping."
What? No, I'm not actually claustrophobic. Assuming the me that is writing this is the me I think it is (because being a fanfic character is the only logical explanation), that would have been much, much worse. I might have woken up terrified in the locker instead of merely a POI for the local hate group. I don't have a history of being nice to my characters, and little weaknesses like that... ooph.
Anyway, I've never seen someone do a 180 that fast. She must really be hung up on how bad triggers are. I feel bad for using it to manipulate her, but honestly a supervillain lawyer should be better at this kinda thing. The eyebrow went back down and she leaned over in her seat, putting the few papers she had had back in her briefcase before locking the shiny clasps again. "I think we can manage that. Come on, I saw some benches out front. Let's get you settled."
|<>_\<>|
Two minutes later, I was standing, alone, by a decorative bench in front of the school. Fenja (or Menja, or actually maybe just a really confident blonde lawyer, but I'm just going to call her Fenja for now) had gone back to "get my phone back" after I had "set it down" in the room. I hadn't, of course, lost my phone - although now that I mention it I had no idea whether Theo had one to begin with. It certainly wasn't in any of the pockets in the backpack or on my baggy clothes.
Anyways. She probably had seen through the lie, but let me have my moment of privacy anyways. Her mistake, I suppose. It wasn't exactly a complicated escape - I just had to walk across to the parking lot and cross the street. I was going to walk another two blocks to find a new bus stop instead of waiting at the one in front of the school, since Fenja was due to come out any minute, but as it happened I didn't need to - right as I passed the first one, a city bus pulled up.
It turns out Theo carried a surprising amount of small bills with him, even at school. Maybe he was used to buying a lunch, with cash, in the cafeteria. Maybe it was some sort of Catholic Schoolboy drug that had somehow gotten popular. Or maybe having a rich dad with issues connecting has its advantages. Whatever the reason, it made it very easy to get on the first bus that came by without doing anything suspicious like trying to figure out if I had a metro card, or begging for a free ride.
|<>_\<>|
What do you do on the bus?
[]Sit in the back and don't bother anyone.
[]Sit in the back, pull your hood up, and see if you can covertly manage to use your powers.
[]Hey, look, some skinheads! Sit by them.
[]Sit by the nice-looking old Asian lady.
[]Write-in.
|<>_\<>|
Where do you get off the bus? If you wait til the central station, you can catch one more bus to somewhere else in town. For reference, it's about 12:30pm, and the date (according to Theo's essay) is April 5th, 3 days before story start.
Near:
[]Get off at Central Station and loiter. You're sure something plot-relevant will happen eventually.
[]Head to Arcadia. Time to have some fun accosting the Wards!
[]Head to the public library. Time to study!
[]Head to the PRT building. You need help, fast.
Far:
[]Head to the Undersider base. If there's anyone here who you can trust it's them. Besides, surprising Tats is always fun.
[]Why not fight Lung? It worked out well for Taylor.
[]Quick! Head to Winslow! Taylor needs a friend!
[]Head to the Boat Graveyard. You want to test your powers in relative privacy, and that many fanfic writers can't be wrong, can they?
[]Write-in.
|<>_\<>|
Reference Map
|<O>L<O>|
"What do you mean, you lost him?" Even outside of his villain persona, even over the phone, Max Anders had perfected being effortlessly intimidating. Not that Jessica cared, of course. She was used to far more intimidating things than an irate boss who also happened to be a family friend.
"He asked to sit outside for a while, and tried to get me to leave him alone. I gave him five minutes, sir, since I figured he probably needed it after whatever his trigger was. He was gone by the time I got back, sir."
"And a fifteen year old boy has managed to hide from you? I know you better than that, Jessica."
"That's just it, sir. He's not just any boy, he's a recent trigger with what's probably at least a Stranger 4 or 5, depending on how well he can shapeshift. He could literally be anyone around here, and I-"
He cut her off. "Enough. I'll send you some help, but once they get there you better find my son."
"Can I ask who you're sending?"
"You know him. He's our resident expert in finding people, among other things."
Last edited:
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
[X] Sit by the nice-looking old Asian lady.
[X] Head to the public library. Time to study!
The library also has Internet so we can start writing poorly disguised Wormfic on Wordpress and spoiler everybody about everything!
[X] Head to the public library. Time to study!
The library also has Internet so we can start writing poorly disguised Wormfic on Wordpress and spoiler everybody about everything!
Helpful Advice said:
mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
[x]Sit in the back and don't bother anyone.
[x]Head to the PRT building. You need help, fast.
Since we just ran away from now-perturbed E88 who're sending out a dedicated finder for us, probably a good idea to get somewhere with the resources to Deal With Some Of This at least a bit better than playing Stranger Hide And Seek in public.
[x]Head to the PRT building. You need help, fast.
Since we just ran away from now-perturbed E88 who're sending out a dedicated finder for us, probably a good idea to get somewhere with the resources to Deal With Some Of This at least a bit better than playing Stranger Hide And Seek in public.
Clay 1.3
- Location
- USA
Striking the Aleph 3
|<>_\<>|
I stepped onto the bus and was immediately hit with a wall of sound. Music, I think, but not the good kind, not even the moderately okay kind. More the kind of stuff I always pictured Squealer playing while she drove, if that image helps. I grabbed one of the brochures as I boarded, since I had no idea where I was going to begin with.
It wasn't a bunch of Merchants having a drug-fueled dance party on the bus, unexpectedly. It was a handful of people -six, on a second glance - in their late twenties, maybe one or two a bit younger, most of them with tattoos I unfortunately recognized. A poem with extra-stylized letter E's, some blocky eights, a straight-up swastika (oh look, a spark of anger! My Jewish education did its job well) on one extra tall guy. A girl near the back of the group didn't have any marks I could see, but given it was her phone blasting the 'music' I wouldn't count her out of the group.
Just my luck, running into a bunch of skinheads as I was trying to flee the first Nazi. They probably weren't all members of the gang, to be fair, but even if all of them were just moderately-enthusiastic it could be trouble. I sidled around them, nearly tripping over the groceries of a little old Asian lady sitting slightly further down the aisle. She apologized pretty quick - at least, I think she did, I have no idea what she said - and I decided that, since both of us were obviously pretty nervous about the sixsome only a few feet away, I would sit with her. Show of solidarity, sorta, even if neither of us could understand the other.
We sat together for a few minutes, with her occasionally pointing excitedly at things out the window and trying to mime what she meant. I spent some time trying to guess what she meant, not that I knew if I had succeeded, and one time when I fanboyed over Glory Girl flying by she got all happy and handed me an apple from her bag. Lucky me, since I had missed lunch. It was only as I bit into it that I saw the asshats glaring at me behind my back (I had ended up turned towards her, so I hadn't been looking their way). Oops. Apparently they didn't like me making friends outside my race, or maybe I looked Jewish enough for them to want to harass me. Neither were fun on my end.
I don't know if she also looked their way, or if I accidentally ruined the mood, but our 'conversation' slowed to a halt after that. Oh well. I took the chance to go through Theo's backpack, looking for map I had picked up - might as well figure out where I want to go. The other stuff in his bag was pretty uninteresting, anyway, except for a phone (locked, unfortunately) and a domino mask still in its plastic wrapping.
Let's see. Where to go. I'm pretty sure any story I can tell at the moment would get me laughed at, returned to Kaiser, or arrested, so that puts local PD or the PRT out of the question, especially since my standard SI-with-metaknowledge card seems to be slowly dying as I lose my various handy memories. Don't really want to wander into any gang territory by accident, since even if my as-yet unidentified powers turn out to be handy in a fight that doesn't mean I want to find myself in one, so I should go somewhere moderately central.
Maybe I could go to one of the local schools? I know most of the Wards are at Arcadia, but that shoves the Unwritten Rules into the woodchipper and also has the same issues as the PRT. Winslow... sounds awful to begin with, and neither Taylor nor Sophia are good people to approach out of costume. Huh... interesting correlation, that. I wonder how much more violent the Wards would be if more of them went to Winslow. I'd be tempted to write that as a fanfic if I weren't, you know, living one.
Boardwalk seems nice, but I think wandering around confusedly for a while would get me forcibly ejected. Same with about every other area of interest I can spot here. Unless... the library. Right smack dab on this bus's route, if I stay on after we pass through the main station. I can't believe author!me would do something that overdone. Maybe I lucked out, then? Is someone else writing me? Or maybe this is my own writing, but something further along in the story drives this choice, which is why I'm consciously thinking about how weird of a decision this is.
Dammit. That's going to give me a headache. Anyways, once I get to the library, what options do I have? Definitely make a PHO account, maybe start writing down what remaining Worm facts I still recall on whatever passes for Bet's Google Drive. Ooh! I can probably get the Maggie Holt books! Or were those just in Twig? Nah, they're probably somewhere in there. I've always wanted to see Pact from literally any other perspective than the terminally awful one we get to experience.
As the bus pulls into the station I hang onto my bookbag, expecting at least my new friend to have to get off. But no, literally nobody moved. The bus just sat there expectantly for a few minutes. The song the non-tattooed girl changed to a mildly better one, and they were quick to skip it, get it back to ear-aching stuff instead.
Apparently we were all going the same direction. It makes sense for me and for my seatmate, but why the skinheads? Weird.
The ride to the library's stop was shorter than it had appeared on the map. I guess this set of streets just wasn't as busy as others, or something. I stood up a bit early, catching myself on the standing poles with a snigger from the peanut gallery, before I walked off. I made sure to thank the driver, don't worry.
I stood for a moment in front of the library. It was a nice building, unexpectedly. I mean, I knew Taylor loved it, but I guess I had this subconscious interpretation of "everything in Brockton Bay is falling apart". In reality, though... no wonder she liked the place, it looked like Hogwarts. Big walls of tan blocks, fancy stonework I don't know the name of all across the roof, windows you could convince yourself were imported from a castle or a church... wow.
Before I walked in I turned to wave goodbye to the nice Asian lady as the bus turned the corner. That would turn out to be one of the more important events of this evening.
You see, even if I couldn't understand what she had said to me on the bus I could still read her facial expressions. As the bus turned the corner I could see quite clearly that she looked very, very afraid. And the Empire crew, having moved from their seats to surround her, looked very, very happy.
|<>_\<>|
[]Eh, she'll be fine. I'm overreacting about this. Go into the library anyway. PICK 3
--[]Check PHO, see what's been happening.
--[]Look for Maggie Holt books. Maybe look for Barber John while you're at it.
--[]Try to write down a few Worm spoilers.
--[]Start messaging someone on PHO. Local hero, local villain, Dragon, Faultline, who?
--[]Hm. You don't know the PHO tag of the person you want to contact. Maybe you can put it on a public board like AllSeeingEye did?
--[]Test your power on a few patrons.
[]Oh no! Call the cops with your story of suspicious-looking people sitting menacingly!
--[]Your work here is done. Go into the library. See options above.
--[]Yeah, this is Brockton Bay. Best to be safe - follow that bus!
----[]Run. See options below for what to do if the cops don't show in time.
----[]Walk. Again, see options below.
[]Oh no! You have to help! Run after the bus, and use the map to take shortcuts! (Author Note: Don't worry about not making it in time).
--[]They seemed to not want to bother her with you there to watch. You should be able to talk them out of this! (Note: if this goes south, Josh won't be wearing a mask.)
--[]Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[]Menace without your powers.
------[]Menace with obvious power use.
----[]Come in and attack them straight-off. You're a cape, you should be able to manage a few unsuspecting gangbangers.
[]There was a phone in Theo's backpack. Maybe if you call your father or someone else in the organization, they can order this group to back off?
|<O>L<O>|
Some minutes earlier.
Viktor scrolled to zoom in, compared the paused video on his screen to the photo he had pulled from the school's cameras. "Yes, it's him. He definitely caught Number 27 inbound."
"Are you sure that's what it was? If we screw this up, if we send them the wrong way and Max finds out, it'll be our heads." Jessica had been pacing worriedly the past few minutes, obviously impatient about the short time it had taken him to find the information.
He turned to roll his eyes in her direction. "Well, considering I just hacked the damn thing's camera feed I think you can trust me about which bus it was. Now we just have to wait for him to get off somewhere, and hope it's somewhere we can get people to in time."
She paused in her pacing. "Actually, there's another thing to be concerned about. I know those people, and they aren't just passing Empire members."
"No?"
"No. That's Sally Montreal, and today is the day she's been scheduled to make her first kill. And his new appearance - all curly-haired and short - isn't as Aryan as it used to be."
"Shit."
|<>_\<>|
[X]Sit by the nice-looking old Asian lady.
[X]Head to the public library. Time to study!
Wow. Library, huh? Talk about the most boring option. Don't worry, I made the most of it!
[X]Head to the public library. Time to study!
Wow. Library, huh? Talk about the most boring option. Don't worry, I made the most of it!
|<>_\<>|
I stepped onto the bus and was immediately hit with a wall of sound. Music, I think, but not the good kind, not even the moderately okay kind. More the kind of stuff I always pictured Squealer playing while she drove, if that image helps. I grabbed one of the brochures as I boarded, since I had no idea where I was going to begin with.
It wasn't a bunch of Merchants having a drug-fueled dance party on the bus, unexpectedly. It was a handful of people -six, on a second glance - in their late twenties, maybe one or two a bit younger, most of them with tattoos I unfortunately recognized. A poem with extra-stylized letter E's, some blocky eights, a straight-up swastika (oh look, a spark of anger! My Jewish education did its job well) on one extra tall guy. A girl near the back of the group didn't have any marks I could see, but given it was her phone blasting the 'music' I wouldn't count her out of the group.
Just my luck, running into a bunch of skinheads as I was trying to flee the first Nazi. They probably weren't all members of the gang, to be fair, but even if all of them were just moderately-enthusiastic it could be trouble. I sidled around them, nearly tripping over the groceries of a little old Asian lady sitting slightly further down the aisle. She apologized pretty quick - at least, I think she did, I have no idea what she said - and I decided that, since both of us were obviously pretty nervous about the sixsome only a few feet away, I would sit with her. Show of solidarity, sorta, even if neither of us could understand the other.
We sat together for a few minutes, with her occasionally pointing excitedly at things out the window and trying to mime what she meant. I spent some time trying to guess what she meant, not that I knew if I had succeeded, and one time when I fanboyed over Glory Girl flying by she got all happy and handed me an apple from her bag. Lucky me, since I had missed lunch. It was only as I bit into it that I saw the asshats glaring at me behind my back (I had ended up turned towards her, so I hadn't been looking their way). Oops. Apparently they didn't like me making friends outside my race, or maybe I looked Jewish enough for them to want to harass me. Neither were fun on my end.
I don't know if she also looked their way, or if I accidentally ruined the mood, but our 'conversation' slowed to a halt after that. Oh well. I took the chance to go through Theo's backpack, looking for map I had picked up - might as well figure out where I want to go. The other stuff in his bag was pretty uninteresting, anyway, except for a phone (locked, unfortunately) and a domino mask still in its plastic wrapping.
Let's see. Where to go. I'm pretty sure any story I can tell at the moment would get me laughed at, returned to Kaiser, or arrested, so that puts local PD or the PRT out of the question, especially since my standard SI-with-metaknowledge card seems to be slowly dying as I lose my various handy memories. Don't really want to wander into any gang territory by accident, since even if my as-yet unidentified powers turn out to be handy in a fight that doesn't mean I want to find myself in one, so I should go somewhere moderately central.
Maybe I could go to one of the local schools? I know most of the Wards are at Arcadia, but that shoves the Unwritten Rules into the woodchipper and also has the same issues as the PRT. Winslow... sounds awful to begin with, and neither Taylor nor Sophia are good people to approach out of costume. Huh... interesting correlation, that. I wonder how much more violent the Wards would be if more of them went to Winslow. I'd be tempted to write that as a fanfic if I weren't, you know, living one.
Boardwalk seems nice, but I think wandering around confusedly for a while would get me forcibly ejected. Same with about every other area of interest I can spot here. Unless... the library. Right smack dab on this bus's route, if I stay on after we pass through the main station. I can't believe author!me would do something that overdone. Maybe I lucked out, then? Is someone else writing me? Or maybe this is my own writing, but something further along in the story drives this choice, which is why I'm consciously thinking about how weird of a decision this is.
Dammit. That's going to give me a headache. Anyways, once I get to the library, what options do I have? Definitely make a PHO account, maybe start writing down what remaining Worm facts I still recall on whatever passes for Bet's Google Drive. Ooh! I can probably get the Maggie Holt books! Or were those just in Twig? Nah, they're probably somewhere in there. I've always wanted to see Pact from literally any other perspective than the terminally awful one we get to experience.
As the bus pulls into the station I hang onto my bookbag, expecting at least my new friend to have to get off. But no, literally nobody moved. The bus just sat there expectantly for a few minutes. The song the non-tattooed girl changed to a mildly better one, and they were quick to skip it, get it back to ear-aching stuff instead.
Apparently we were all going the same direction. It makes sense for me and for my seatmate, but why the skinheads? Weird.
The ride to the library's stop was shorter than it had appeared on the map. I guess this set of streets just wasn't as busy as others, or something. I stood up a bit early, catching myself on the standing poles with a snigger from the peanut gallery, before I walked off. I made sure to thank the driver, don't worry.
I stood for a moment in front of the library. It was a nice building, unexpectedly. I mean, I knew Taylor loved it, but I guess I had this subconscious interpretation of "everything in Brockton Bay is falling apart". In reality, though... no wonder she liked the place, it looked like Hogwarts. Big walls of tan blocks, fancy stonework I don't know the name of all across the roof, windows you could convince yourself were imported from a castle or a church... wow.
Before I walked in I turned to wave goodbye to the nice Asian lady as the bus turned the corner. That would turn out to be one of the more important events of this evening.
You see, even if I couldn't understand what she had said to me on the bus I could still read her facial expressions. As the bus turned the corner I could see quite clearly that she looked very, very afraid. And the Empire crew, having moved from their seats to surround her, looked very, very happy.
|<>_\<>|
[]Eh, she'll be fine. I'm overreacting about this. Go into the library anyway. PICK 3
--[]Check PHO, see what's been happening.
--[]Look for Maggie Holt books. Maybe look for Barber John while you're at it.
--[]Try to write down a few Worm spoilers.
--[]Start messaging someone on PHO. Local hero, local villain, Dragon, Faultline, who?
--[]Hm. You don't know the PHO tag of the person you want to contact. Maybe you can put it on a public board like AllSeeingEye did?
--[]Test your power on a few patrons.
[]Oh no! Call the cops with your story of suspicious-looking people sitting menacingly!
--[]Your work here is done. Go into the library. See options above.
--[]Yeah, this is Brockton Bay. Best to be safe - follow that bus!
----[]Run. See options below for what to do if the cops don't show in time.
----[]Walk. Again, see options below.
[]Oh no! You have to help! Run after the bus, and use the map to take shortcuts! (Author Note: Don't worry about not making it in time).
--[]They seemed to not want to bother her with you there to watch. You should be able to talk them out of this! (Note: if this goes south, Josh won't be wearing a mask.)
--[]Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[]Menace without your powers.
------[]Menace with obvious power use.
----[]Come in and attack them straight-off. You're a cape, you should be able to manage a few unsuspecting gangbangers.
[]There was a phone in Theo's backpack. Maybe if you call your father or someone else in the organization, they can order this group to back off?
|<O>L<O>|
Some minutes earlier.
Viktor scrolled to zoom in, compared the paused video on his screen to the photo he had pulled from the school's cameras. "Yes, it's him. He definitely caught Number 27 inbound."
"Are you sure that's what it was? If we screw this up, if we send them the wrong way and Max finds out, it'll be our heads." Jessica had been pacing worriedly the past few minutes, obviously impatient about the short time it had taken him to find the information.
He turned to roll his eyes in her direction. "Well, considering I just hacked the damn thing's camera feed I think you can trust me about which bus it was. Now we just have to wait for him to get off somewhere, and hope it's somewhere we can get people to in time."
She paused in her pacing. "Actually, there's another thing to be concerned about. I know those people, and they aren't just passing Empire members."
"No?"
"No. That's Sally Montreal, and today is the day she's been scheduled to make her first kill. And his new appearance - all curly-haired and short - isn't as Aryan as it used to be."
"Shit."
|<>_\<>|
Sorry if it was unclear, but Josh isn't actually a shapeshifter. They just think Theo is because when he was swapped in he suddenly looked different.
Let's see, if it helps with the decision... Josh has a feeling his power is the kind that can easily be used in combat, so he's not a a fragile Thinker, Tinker, or weak Master.
Let's see, if it helps with the decision... Josh has a feeling his power is the kind that can easily be used in combat, so he's not a a fragile Thinker, Tinker, or weak Master.
Last edited:
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
[X] Oh no! You have to help! Run after the bus, and use the map to take shortcuts! (Author Note: Don't worry about not making it in time).
--[X] Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[X]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[X]Menace without your powers.
Not that we'll be all that useful without our powers, but I don't really want to endanger the entire bus right off...
--[X] Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[X]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[X]Menace without your powers.
Not that we'll be all that useful without our powers, but I don't really want to endanger the entire bus right off...
mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
[X] Oh no! You have to help! Run after the bus, and use the map to take shortcuts! (Author Note: Don't worry about not making it in time).
--[X] Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[X]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[X]Menace without your powers.
Oh this'll be something.
--[X] Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[X]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[X]Menace without your powers.
Oh this'll be something.
- Location
- Tarn-Vedra
[X] Oh no! You have to help! Run after the bus, and use the map to take shortcuts! (Author Note: Don't worry about not making it in time).
--[X] Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[X]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[X]Menace without your powers.
--[X] Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[X]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[X]Menace without your powers.
Clay 1.4
- Location
- USA
Striking the Aleph 4
|<>_\<>|
I tried to turn my back, to go into the library and forget I had met the woman, but I just couldn't. I suppose it was a good sign, that Worm hadn't managed to take my humanity yet, but damn if it weren't inconvenient.
I looked to where the bus was going around the corner, somewhat dismayed that I was already behind. There was no way I was going to catch up with them, not unless rush hour came four hours early. Unless...
Taking my bag - Theo's bag, but mine now, I figured - off of my shoulder, I sat it on the ground and started to paw through it, looking for something I knew was in there. I paused as an elastic band caught on my finger, pulling out the domino mask before I continued my search for the bus map I had picked up.
After finding it I sat down and examined it for a moment. It was... dense, to say the least, but I managed to figure out where the next stop for Route 27 would be. It was actually only a about block and a half away from me, since I had the luxury of crossing through the park around the library, but the path the bus took to get there was winding enough that I just might make it at the same time.
Well, no sense dawdling. I zipped the bag back up and slung it over my shoulder, map crumpled in one hand, mask clasped in the other, got to my feet, and ran.
|<>_\<>|
In the end, I barely made it. I was gasping and still maybe twenty feet away as I saw them herd her off the bus and into the nearest alley.
Maybe I'm not as great a runner as Taylor. So sue me. "A for Effort" doesn't help as much when you're trying to stop a hate crime, though.
I pulled on the mask as I stumbled forward, trying to calm my breathing down to a less embarrassing level. Wheezing heroes don't make for a very intimidating image. Thing is, I still had to make it to them in time. I tried to balance out catching my breath and continuing forward, but, well, it's difficult.
As is, I was mostly not out of breath anymore when I reached the mouth of the alleyway. I could see them there, maybe halfway down where they couldn't be seen in passing, gathered around her cowering form. There were six of them, one - the untattooed girl - in the middle, closest to the old lady, the other five standing back and jeering. Were... were they cheering her on? Had I stumbled into one of those Empire Initiations that were briefly mentioned in Worm? Because, if so, this had suddenly gotten a lot more serious.
"Leave her alone!" I didn't realize I had stepped out to face them until the words were already coming out of my mouth. Woohoo heroic instinct. Hopefully it wouldn't get me killed.
They all looked back at me, eyebrows raised, obviously somewhat nonplussed. Then one of the ones further away from me, the one with the distinct swastika tattoo, nudged the girl forward. I guess she was nominated as the one to speak to me - maybe facing down an outsider gets her brownie points.
"Scram, kid." Kid? We looked almost the same age. Maybe she was short for an older teen? Although, I'm not the tallest myself. She might have just been assuming I was a middle schooler - it wouldn't be the first time. "This is really, really not the time or place to play Legend. Take the mask off and go pretend to be a cape somewhere else." That done, she turned back to the old lady and - completely ignoring that I, a potential witness, had yet to walk away - pulled a knife out of her boot.
Huh. They didn't believe me, didn't believe that I was anything more than a schoolboy, someone pretending to have powers in the hope it would scare them away. I mean, that's not too unreasonable of an assumption - I can't have been the first person to wear a mask and hope it would work - but this was Brockton Bay, for heaven's sake. Cape density-wise, that wasn't the smartest decision they could have made.
I stood up straighter, feeling my power - as undefined as it was - swell inside me.
They were going to regret that.
|<>_\<>|
Vote for how to start the fight! Some of the stuff down here is hints as to his power - the same kind of instincts Josh himself gets about it. Feel free to choose a few (I have a whole fight scene to write here, and some of these don't make much sense without). After tallying I'll give him time for two power uses and one charge or one more power use before they come after him.
[]Use your power on yourself. You know it won't hurt you, because Manton limits are your friend, and you have a feeling it's at least partially meant to be used as a buff.
--[]Try for something more offensive.
--[]Try for something more defensive.
[]Charge at them. You may want to vote for the first option if you choose this, but he can charge in.
--[]Quietly
----[]Attack the girl with the knife.
----[]Attack the leader, the guy with the swastika.
----[]Attack [other gang member]
----[]Attack wildly, hitting whoever comes close.
----[]Grab the woman and hightail it out of there.
----[]Write-in.
--[]BATTLE CRY! (Write in!)
----[]Attack the girl with the knife.
----[]Attack the leader, the guy with the swastika.
----[]Attack [other gang member]
----[]Attack wildly, hitting whoever comes close.
----[]Grab the woman and hightail it out of there.
----[]Write-in.
[]Stay back and work from a distance (requires power use).
--[]Use your power on the fallen woman.
----[]Something defensive.
----[]Something offensive.
--[]Use your power on [insert gang member]
----[]Something to inconvenience or slow them.
----[]Something to hurt them.
----[]Something to immobilize them (may not be successful).
[]Run away! You're tired, there's six of them, and you barely know the woman. It's not worth it.
[]Write-in
|<O>L<O>|
"What do you mean, you lost him?" Kaiser was upset by the news, to say the least. Enraged might have been a better word, if his exclamation was more passionate and less cold.
Victor chose his words very carefully. "We tracked him as far as the library stop, sir, but after he got off he was in a blindspot, no cameras pointing the right way. He definitely didn't enter the library, or even sit on the steps. I'm sorry, but without more to go on there's no way to tell where he went from--" He stopped.
"Viktor?"
"I just heard something from across the park. Sounds like yelling - we should check it out. Jessica, let's move. No point wasting time to suit up when we can probably deal with this outside of costume anyway."[/SPOILER]
[7]Oh no! You have to help! Run after the bus, and use the map to take shortcuts! (Author Note: Don't worry about not making it in time).
--[6]Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[5]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[4]Menace without your powers.
--[6]Put on that domino mask and get ready to defend her.
----[5]Menace them to see if you even have to fight.
------[4]Menace without your powers.
|<>_\<>|
I tried to turn my back, to go into the library and forget I had met the woman, but I just couldn't. I suppose it was a good sign, that Worm hadn't managed to take my humanity yet, but damn if it weren't inconvenient.
I looked to where the bus was going around the corner, somewhat dismayed that I was already behind. There was no way I was going to catch up with them, not unless rush hour came four hours early. Unless...
Taking my bag - Theo's bag, but mine now, I figured - off of my shoulder, I sat it on the ground and started to paw through it, looking for something I knew was in there. I paused as an elastic band caught on my finger, pulling out the domino mask before I continued my search for the bus map I had picked up.
After finding it I sat down and examined it for a moment. It was... dense, to say the least, but I managed to figure out where the next stop for Route 27 would be. It was actually only a about block and a half away from me, since I had the luxury of crossing through the park around the library, but the path the bus took to get there was winding enough that I just might make it at the same time.
Well, no sense dawdling. I zipped the bag back up and slung it over my shoulder, map crumpled in one hand, mask clasped in the other, got to my feet, and ran.
|<>_\<>|
In the end, I barely made it. I was gasping and still maybe twenty feet away as I saw them herd her off the bus and into the nearest alley.
Maybe I'm not as great a runner as Taylor. So sue me. "A for Effort" doesn't help as much when you're trying to stop a hate crime, though.
I pulled on the mask as I stumbled forward, trying to calm my breathing down to a less embarrassing level. Wheezing heroes don't make for a very intimidating image. Thing is, I still had to make it to them in time. I tried to balance out catching my breath and continuing forward, but, well, it's difficult.
As is, I was mostly not out of breath anymore when I reached the mouth of the alleyway. I could see them there, maybe halfway down where they couldn't be seen in passing, gathered around her cowering form. There were six of them, one - the untattooed girl - in the middle, closest to the old lady, the other five standing back and jeering. Were... were they cheering her on? Had I stumbled into one of those Empire Initiations that were briefly mentioned in Worm? Because, if so, this had suddenly gotten a lot more serious.
"Leave her alone!" I didn't realize I had stepped out to face them until the words were already coming out of my mouth. Woohoo heroic instinct. Hopefully it wouldn't get me killed.
They all looked back at me, eyebrows raised, obviously somewhat nonplussed. Then one of the ones further away from me, the one with the distinct swastika tattoo, nudged the girl forward. I guess she was nominated as the one to speak to me - maybe facing down an outsider gets her brownie points.
"Scram, kid." Kid? We looked almost the same age. Maybe she was short for an older teen? Although, I'm not the tallest myself. She might have just been assuming I was a middle schooler - it wouldn't be the first time. "This is really, really not the time or place to play Legend. Take the mask off and go pretend to be a cape somewhere else." That done, she turned back to the old lady and - completely ignoring that I, a potential witness, had yet to walk away - pulled a knife out of her boot.
Huh. They didn't believe me, didn't believe that I was anything more than a schoolboy, someone pretending to have powers in the hope it would scare them away. I mean, that's not too unreasonable of an assumption - I can't have been the first person to wear a mask and hope it would work - but this was Brockton Bay, for heaven's sake. Cape density-wise, that wasn't the smartest decision they could have made.
I stood up straighter, feeling my power - as undefined as it was - swell inside me.
They were going to regret that.
|<>_\<>|
Vote for how to start the fight! Some of the stuff down here is hints as to his power - the same kind of instincts Josh himself gets about it. Feel free to choose a few (I have a whole fight scene to write here, and some of these don't make much sense without). After tallying I'll give him time for two power uses and one charge or one more power use before they come after him.
[]Use your power on yourself. You know it won't hurt you, because Manton limits are your friend, and you have a feeling it's at least partially meant to be used as a buff.
--[]Try for something more offensive.
--[]Try for something more defensive.
[]Charge at them. You may want to vote for the first option if you choose this, but he can charge in.
--[]Quietly
----[]Attack the girl with the knife.
----[]Attack the leader, the guy with the swastika.
----[]Attack [other gang member]
----[]Attack wildly, hitting whoever comes close.
----[]Grab the woman and hightail it out of there.
----[]Write-in.
--[]BATTLE CRY! (Write in!)
----[]Attack the girl with the knife.
----[]Attack the leader, the guy with the swastika.
----[]Attack [other gang member]
----[]Attack wildly, hitting whoever comes close.
----[]Grab the woman and hightail it out of there.
----[]Write-in.
[]Stay back and work from a distance (requires power use).
--[]Use your power on the fallen woman.
----[]Something defensive.
----[]Something offensive.
--[]Use your power on [insert gang member]
----[]Something to inconvenience or slow them.
----[]Something to hurt them.
----[]Something to immobilize them (may not be successful).
[]Run away! You're tired, there's six of them, and you barely know the woman. It's not worth it.
[]Write-in
|<O>L<O>|
"What do you mean, you lost him?" Kaiser was upset by the news, to say the least. Enraged might have been a better word, if his exclamation was more passionate and less cold.
Victor chose his words very carefully. "We tracked him as far as the library stop, sir, but after he got off he was in a blindspot, no cameras pointing the right way. He definitely didn't enter the library, or even sit on the steps. I'm sorry, but without more to go on there's no way to tell where he went from--" He stopped.
"Viktor?"
"I just heard something from across the park. Sounds like yelling - we should check it out. Jessica, let's move. No point wasting time to suit up when we can probably deal with this outside of costume anyway."[/SPOILER]
Last edited:
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
[X]Stay back and work from a distance (requires power use).
--[X]Use your power on the girl without a tattoo.
----[X]Something to inconvenience or slow them.
--[X]Use your power on the girl without a tattoo.
----[X]Something to inconvenience or slow them.
Clay 1.5
- Location
- USA
Striking the Aleph 5
|<>_\<>|
|<>_\<>|
As I stood there awkwardly, I floundered to figure out how to use my power. I didn't end up with a fancy mental instruction booklet like most natural triggers, you see. At most it was... hm. Sort of like I had a targeting reticule, aiming where I wanted to push, but also some sort of control over exactly how I push, if that makes sense. There was a creepy bit too - I only had a sense that I could use it when I 'moused over' somebody else. I was probably going to have something horrifying, like skin-kinesis or cancer summoning.
Well, when in doubt, experiment on yourself. I took a look at my hand - oh, looks like I picked up a scrape on my knuckle somewhere, wonder when that happened - and focused, trying for something small. I aimed for the back of my hand - worst case, it doesn't get in the way of my grabbing things.
You can imagine my relief when, instead of a bubble of pus or a paper-thin forcefield or grass or something, I simply sprouted a metal plate from my skin. Not the disgusting sort of 'sprouted', either, more like the metal just so happened to be coming through a door in the shape of me. Oh, thank god, I'm just a weirder version of Kaiser, I thought, followed shortly by Ohhh, ohhh this is bad, I'm a weirder version of Kaiser, as I realized the implications. Yeah, this is definitely something written by my real world self. Giving the Jewish kid the powerset of Kaiser's perfect heir? Just my thing.
Oh well. No point dwelling on it - I have a citizen to save. In the past second or so, tattooless still hadn't gotten around to actually attacking her, still just gesturing. I took advantage of my extra few moments to push bits of metal out everywhere I could think of - face, hands, neck, even some less-sharp ones along my torso in case someone decided to stab me. You know, for someone who wasn't the intended recipient, I feel like I'm really getting the hang of these powers. That's not to say I was actually good yet, though. I couldn't see myself - unless I figured out how to make a mirror, but that's something for later - but I imagined I either looked like a very confused Lung cosplayer or a very angry cactus. Either way, obviously a cape.
I turned back towards the sixsome, fully armored up (shouldn't this be heavier?) and froze. The girl was in the act of bringing the knife down, the kindly old woman hiding behind her arms. Maybe I had spent a tad too long armoring up.
I reached forward, almost instinctively but more panicked than anything, and pushed at the old woman, on her upper chest right about where the knife was about to land. I shut my eyes for a moment, unsure of whether I wanted to see what happened if I failed.
A clang and a curse startled my eyes open again. The circle had backed up some, staring warily at the pair in the center. The inductee was clutching her bleeding wrist, switchblade on the ground beside her, while my rescue was looking more than a little freaked out by the trio of blades sticking out of her collarbone area.
No time like the present, and they were going to start looking around in a moment or two. I inhaled and started to run pell-mell at them, yelling as I went. "PLAYING LEGEND? I'LL SHOW YOU PLAYING!"
Hey, I've never done this before. I'm a fifteen year old who's somehow not in shock from waking up surrounded by Nazis and in the wrong universe, I'm nervous because I'm about to get in a six-on-one fight, and, I repeat, I have never, ever had to improvise on the spot an inspiring thing to call as I charge into battle.
On the bright side, it did startle them. One guy actually jumped. Then about half of them pulled out guns and started firing. Oops.
I bent my head as I covered the relatively short distance, hiding the gap in the steel I had left for my eyes and mouth. I could hear the bullets crashing into my head plating - and hoo boy I was glad I had made those thick - but for whatever reason they weren't as much of a headache as I might have expected, considering my 'armor' was pretty low effort.
Suddenly, the bullets stopped coming, leaving the alleyway eerily silent. I hesitated before slowing down and lifting my head, which proved a mistake.
It turns out, even if I somehow don't feel the weight of all this steel as much as I should, it still affects my momentum. A lot. What that means is that, by the time I realized that five of the six had turned and fled once they realized their bullets weren't working, shoving the still-stunned girl towards me as some sort of sick distraction, I was far too close to slow down safely.
Even as I tried to bring myself to a halt, I crashed into her, and I felt it fully as more than a dozen inch-long barbs tore jagged tears across her upper body. She fell as I did, passed out and somewhat nailed to me, and glared accusingly at me through the tear across her right eye.
|<>_\<>|
For whatever reason, the old woman doesn't seem to want to hang around you anymore, even after you (painlessly) pull the spikes off of her chest. She heads home on her own, leaving you alone with the bleeding un-initiated Empire girl.
Immediately: (Choose what Josh does first)
--[]Go through her pockets. You might as well find out her name, and unless you want to go back to Max you're... kinda broke.
[]Call 911, get the untattooed girl an ambulance.
--[]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
----[]If she wakes up, you're willing to talk while you wait.
--[]They'll get here in time, maybe. Leave her.
[]Abandon her to her death. She can enjoy the karma of being a Nazi and an attempted murderer.
[]Write-in.
Next (Choose what Josh does after he finishes dealing with this.)
[]I mean, the library is still right around the corner.
[]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
--[]Rogue (nonviolent? Really?)
--[]Independent (read: vigilante)
--[]Ward
[]Go find the Undersiders! You and Bitch have so much synergy it's not fair. Assuming you can use her dogs' larger bodies, that is. And assuming she remotely trusts you.
[]Go fight Lung. You should be able to manage it, now. You sorta almost took down a few powerless humans who were completely unprepared.
[]Go back to the Anders household and pass it off as
[]Check in on the girl in the hospital, under a fake name of course. How do hospitals manage that part of patient security, anyways?
[]Write-in.
|<>_\<>|
Name
[]What name does the media and/or Protectorate PR give him? This will be counted over the next several chapters, and feel free to submit multiple.
--[]Armadillo Kid (because Armadillo is almost certainly taken).
--[]Tinsel.
--[]Write-in.
|<O>L<O>|
"Interesting," Victor said under his breath as he watched from his vantage point among the trees in the park.
"What?" Fenja still had no idea what was happening, which wasn't helped by the fact that she didn't have a pair of binoculars to aim at a convenient mirrored window.
"I know that Theo has met at least two of those men before, which raises the question of why he didn't react to them in particular. I suspect he may be having memory troubles. I'm going to stay back and observe for a while more."
"Memory issues? And that's good how?" She was understandably panicked at the idea.
"Don't worry, you won't be blamed for it. However, as he has already met you in your civilian identity, I should probably have someone else as a partner. Nothing personal. Although, speaking of personal... can you send Rune my way, if she's free? Someone closer to his age might be helpful if he's having trouble recognizing people."
She sighed. "Sure. I'll tell her to text you, alright?"
"That works, thanks."
I would like to note, for the record, that the powerset was selected before the idea for this quest was even conceptualized, and somewhat inspired said quest. Make of that what you will.
|<>_\<>|
SO, I may have screwed up the votes in this case. It's on me, not you, but to be fair I really have no experience writing options for a fight prompt. Next time I'll give things more general about the fight, such as "stick near this one person", "aim to maim", "aim to immobilize", "fight up close", "fight from a distance" instead of asking you guys to write the beginning of the fight for me.
Anyways, since writing this is the only way for me to stay awake in class, I'm going to take my votes early, which means we have a slight tie.
Josh's main action is to use his power on himself, defensively, with 4 votes. His secondary action is to try to stop the knife girl without hurting her, with a grand total of 1 vote. Here's where the tie comes in. I'm going to flip a coin between "Quietly" and "PLAYING LEGEND? I'LL SHOW YOU PLAYING!" (which... ouch, that BPPB thinks so little of my banter ability). Sorry, Atriama.
Okay, pulling the coin out...
Balancing on finger...
Flipping...
Oh look, it's spinning on the table, that's always fun.
It settles on one side, and the winner is...
Anyways, since writing this is the only way for me to stay awake in class, I'm going to take my votes early, which means we have a slight tie.
Josh's main action is to use his power on himself, defensively, with 4 votes. His secondary action is to try to stop the knife girl without hurting her, with a grand total of 1 vote. Here's where the tie comes in. I'm going to flip a coin between "Quietly" and "PLAYING LEGEND? I'LL SHOW YOU PLAYING!" (which... ouch, that BPPB thinks so little of my banter ability). Sorry, Atriama.
Okay, pulling the coin out...
Balancing on finger...
Flipping...
Oh look, it's spinning on the table, that's always fun.
It settles on one side, and the winner is...
|<>_\<>|
As I stood there awkwardly, I floundered to figure out how to use my power. I didn't end up with a fancy mental instruction booklet like most natural triggers, you see. At most it was... hm. Sort of like I had a targeting reticule, aiming where I wanted to push, but also some sort of control over exactly how I push, if that makes sense. There was a creepy bit too - I only had a sense that I could use it when I 'moused over' somebody else. I was probably going to have something horrifying, like skin-kinesis or cancer summoning.
Well, when in doubt, experiment on yourself. I took a look at my hand - oh, looks like I picked up a scrape on my knuckle somewhere, wonder when that happened - and focused, trying for something small. I aimed for the back of my hand - worst case, it doesn't get in the way of my grabbing things.
You can imagine my relief when, instead of a bubble of pus or a paper-thin forcefield or grass or something, I simply sprouted a metal plate from my skin. Not the disgusting sort of 'sprouted', either, more like the metal just so happened to be coming through a door in the shape of me. Oh, thank god, I'm just a weirder version of Kaiser, I thought, followed shortly by Ohhh, ohhh this is bad, I'm a weirder version of Kaiser, as I realized the implications. Yeah, this is definitely something written by my real world self. Giving the Jewish kid the powerset of Kaiser's perfect heir? Just my thing.
Oh well. No point dwelling on it - I have a citizen to save. In the past second or so, tattooless still hadn't gotten around to actually attacking her, still just gesturing. I took advantage of my extra few moments to push bits of metal out everywhere I could think of - face, hands, neck, even some less-sharp ones along my torso in case someone decided to stab me. You know, for someone who wasn't the intended recipient, I feel like I'm really getting the hang of these powers. That's not to say I was actually good yet, though. I couldn't see myself - unless I figured out how to make a mirror, but that's something for later - but I imagined I either looked like a very confused Lung cosplayer or a very angry cactus. Either way, obviously a cape.
I turned back towards the sixsome, fully armored up (shouldn't this be heavier?) and froze. The girl was in the act of bringing the knife down, the kindly old woman hiding behind her arms. Maybe I had spent a tad too long armoring up.
I reached forward, almost instinctively but more panicked than anything, and pushed at the old woman, on her upper chest right about where the knife was about to land. I shut my eyes for a moment, unsure of whether I wanted to see what happened if I failed.
A clang and a curse startled my eyes open again. The circle had backed up some, staring warily at the pair in the center. The inductee was clutching her bleeding wrist, switchblade on the ground beside her, while my rescue was looking more than a little freaked out by the trio of blades sticking out of her collarbone area.
No time like the present, and they were going to start looking around in a moment or two. I inhaled and started to run pell-mell at them, yelling as I went. "PLAYING LEGEND? I'LL SHOW YOU PLAYING!"
Hey, I've never done this before. I'm a fifteen year old who's somehow not in shock from waking up surrounded by Nazis and in the wrong universe, I'm nervous because I'm about to get in a six-on-one fight, and, I repeat, I have never, ever had to improvise on the spot an inspiring thing to call as I charge into battle.
On the bright side, it did startle them. One guy actually jumped. Then about half of them pulled out guns and started firing. Oops.
I bent my head as I covered the relatively short distance, hiding the gap in the steel I had left for my eyes and mouth. I could hear the bullets crashing into my head plating - and hoo boy I was glad I had made those thick - but for whatever reason they weren't as much of a headache as I might have expected, considering my 'armor' was pretty low effort.
Suddenly, the bullets stopped coming, leaving the alleyway eerily silent. I hesitated before slowing down and lifting my head, which proved a mistake.
It turns out, even if I somehow don't feel the weight of all this steel as much as I should, it still affects my momentum. A lot. What that means is that, by the time I realized that five of the six had turned and fled once they realized their bullets weren't working, shoving the still-stunned girl towards me as some sort of sick distraction, I was far too close to slow down safely.
Even as I tried to bring myself to a halt, I crashed into her, and I felt it fully as more than a dozen inch-long barbs tore jagged tears across her upper body. She fell as I did, passed out and somewhat nailed to me, and glared accusingly at me through the tear across her right eye.
|<>_\<>|
For whatever reason, the old woman doesn't seem to want to hang around you anymore, even after you (painlessly) pull the spikes off of her chest. She heads home on her own, leaving you alone with the bleeding un-initiated Empire girl.
Immediately: (Choose what Josh does first)
--[]Go through her pockets. You might as well find out her name, and unless you want to go back to Max you're... kinda broke.
[]Call 911, get the untattooed girl an ambulance.
--[]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
----[]If she wakes up, you're willing to talk while you wait.
--[]They'll get here in time, maybe. Leave her.
[]Abandon her to her death. She can enjoy the karma of being a Nazi and an attempted murderer.
[]Write-in.
Next (Choose what Josh does after he finishes dealing with this.)
[]I mean, the library is still right around the corner.
[]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
--[]Rogue (nonviolent? Really?)
--[]Independent (read: vigilante)
--[]Ward
[]Go find the Undersiders! You and Bitch have so much synergy it's not fair. Assuming you can use her dogs' larger bodies, that is. And assuming she remotely trusts you.
[]Go fight Lung. You should be able to manage it, now. You sorta almost took down a few powerless humans who were completely unprepared.
[]Go back to the Anders household and pass it off as
[]Check in on the girl in the hospital, under a fake name of course. How do hospitals manage that part of patient security, anyways?
[]Write-in.
Yeah, there's some details about the power that I know and Josh doesn't. It is intended as an alternate bud of Kaiser's shard, although tactically it probably works more like an untrained Marquis. One detail that y'all get early: since I don't want to go through the usual "new cape must enter exercise regimen" storyline I'm giving him a bit of Brute/Breaker that minimizes the weight and/or impact of all of that metal.
|<>_\<>|
Name
[]What name does the media and/or Protectorate PR give him? This will be counted over the next several chapters, and feel free to submit multiple.
--[]Armadillo Kid (because Armadillo is almost certainly taken).
--[]Tinsel.
--[]Write-in.
|<O>L<O>|
"Interesting," Victor said under his breath as he watched from his vantage point among the trees in the park.
"What?" Fenja still had no idea what was happening, which wasn't helped by the fact that she didn't have a pair of binoculars to aim at a convenient mirrored window.
"I know that Theo has met at least two of those men before, which raises the question of why he didn't react to them in particular. I suspect he may be having memory troubles. I'm going to stay back and observe for a while more."
"Memory issues? And that's good how?" She was understandably panicked at the idea.
"Don't worry, you won't be blamed for it. However, as he has already met you in your civilian identity, I should probably have someone else as a partner. Nothing personal. Although, speaking of personal... can you send Rune my way, if she's free? Someone closer to his age might be helpful if he's having trouble recognizing people."
She sighed. "Sure. I'll tell her to text you, alright?"
"That works, thanks."
mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
[x]Call 911, get the untattooed girl an ambulance.
--[x]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[x]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
[x]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
[x]Ward
--[x]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[x]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
[x]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
[x]Ward
[x]Call 911, get the untattooed girl an ambulance.
--[x]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[x]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
[x]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
[x]Ward
--[x]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[x]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
[x]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
[x]Ward
- Location
- Fort Worth TX
[x]Call 911, get the untattooed girl an ambulance.
--[x]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[x]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
[x]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
[x]Ward
--[x]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[x]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
[x]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
[x]Ward
Pottery 2.1
- Location
- USA
Striking the Aleph 6
|<>_\<>|
I paced back and forth at the mouth of the alley, nervous beneath the metal mask. I had been happy to let most of the other bits of spiny armor drop off, but I figured I might need to have a secret identity when this was all over, so had I kept the extra-thick Pinhead impersonation on.
I was waiting for help. I had called 911 on Theo's phone, and had barely managed to read off what the nearby street sign said before the person on the other end had interrupted.
"Excuse me, sir, I see a recent report at that location of a parahuman attack. Is this injury related?"
Damn, Nazis worked fast. "I- yeah, it is. Why?"
"Protocol requires that we send a PRT unit ahead of any other emergency vehicles in these situations. I have already dispatched one, don't worry, and the hospital is near enough to your location that the ambulance should arrive shortly after. The officers also have medical training. Now, as for your friend..."
The guy on the other end went on for another minute or so about proper steps to take for stab wounds - pull the object out (except for certain locations or types of objects), stop the bleeding, keep pressure, et cetera. Fun subject matter. I turned around as he went on, checking on the girl, who had already bled out a surprising amount from the seven or eight wounds I could see. Mentally, I went over what I had on me that could help. Not much, I realized. I had ripped the majority of Theo's clothes to shreds when I went porcupine - I was holding on to just enough for privacy with some strategically placed hooks - and everything else in the alley didn't look safe to sit in, much less stuff inside someone's body. I briefly contemplated the waterproof-looking backpack, or maybe the papers inside, before I had an idea.
I interrupted the dispatcher. "Hey, I don't think I have any cloth or anything I can use to stop her from bleeding, and there's already a lot of blood on the ground, but if I had something to seal the wounds that wasn't porous would that be safe?"
He seemed a bit nonplussed. I guess he wasn't used to callers offering their own solutions, maybe. "You mean something like superglue?"
My eyes flicked to the edge of my field of vision, where I could see the outline of the metal I wore. "Something like that. More... filling the wounds completely than pulling the skin shut."
"I don't see any reason why it shouldn't. It sounds like you don't want me to know what it is, but remember that you'll have to explain it to the officers once they arrive."
"Alright. I'm going to set the phone down now so I can do it." For whatever reason his phone didn't seem to have speakerphone. Stupid Earth Bet technology.
Okay. Permission granted, so here goes. I knelt down - idly creating a kneepad to keep the blood off of me, scary how quickly it became easy to use on myself - and looked her over. No individual gash looked particularly awful, except for the one over her eye, but add eight or nine smaller injuries together and you get a lot of blood loss, along with who knows what else underneath the skin on the deeper ones. I went for one of the less-risky ones first, a shallow one across her right elbow, and focused, pulled. The metal flowed easily, sliding through the gap like I was watching a wipe transition instead of merging weeping flesh with metal from a different universe.
Well, that was less horrific than I had pictured it being. I hadn't accidentally formed another knife to cut her deeper, I hadn't overshot and ripped the hole wider. All good. A quick test and... yeah, if I wanted to I could just pop it out. Perfect.
Carefully, I sealed over all the others. I hesitated with the one over her eye, before deciding to leave that one to the professionals. She wouldn't bleed out from one hole, and if she had a chance at vision I didn't want to take it from her.
Actually, now that I was looking at her eyes... the uninjured one was open, obviously trying not to move but occasionally flicking towards my face before wincing slightly as the gouged one moved as well. She must have woken up when I was metal-bandaging her. Weird.
She opened her mouth, took a shuddering breath. "Why-" cough "-why are you helping me?" Her whisper was rough - she was in pain, of course.
I wasn't, so I spoke normally. "They did this, not me. I don't want to hurt people."
The left edge of her lip quirked up at that. "Thank you. I'm-" cough "-I'm Sally."
"I don't care. You're a horrible person, a card-carrying white supremacist, and I'm pretty sure the world would be a better place without you in it, but I'm even more sure that I don't want to be a murderer." With that, I turned away and walked over to where I could see down the street. She might have tried to say something as I left, but whatever it was I couldn't hear. Poor Nazi, can't speak above a whisper. Impressive pain tolerance that she could talk at all, though.
I wasn't standing there long when the PRT van pulled around the corner, probably not the same one I saw earlier but similar enough that I couldn't tell the difference. The driver saw me, saying something over his shoulder to the others in the back. Telling them that there was still a cape here, probably. Hopefully I wouldn't get arrested, but I could probably avoid any serious trouble, and it was more important to get the girl help than anything.
Four of them piled out of the back of the van, the driver coming out his door, but all of them staying close enough that they could make it back in if I went violent. At least, I assume that's why they didn't get more than a few feet away and trained their guns on me. Maybe I should have switched my helmet-mask out for something less villain-looking, although the all-metal masks are hard enough to make look heroic without having to deal with my complete lack of artistic experience and the odd handicap of having it sprout out of my face.
"Unknown parahuman, please get down on the ground and kneel on your hands." The driver had pulled a megaphone from the seat beside him. I obeyed, of course. No sense not, although I did drop the makeshift kneepads before I knelt.
Three of them approached carefully, two taking up positions behind my back while a third went to check on Sally. He checked her pulse, from what I could see, and gave a thumbs up to the others.
The driver spoke up again. "Unknown parahuman, did you intend to injure the civilian? Are you having trouble controlling your powers?"
I shook my head. "No, you're safe. I just meant to scare them away, not hurt anybody. She was shoved into me."
They calmed down at that, somewhat - which is weird, since there's no reason to trust what I, a random cape who just hurt someone, said - and the two near the van stopped aiming their guns at me, though they kept them in a semi-ready position. The two behind me stayed where they were but the driver motioned for me to come over to where they stood.
"Okay, young man," he said once I was standing by him, "there are a few places we can go from here. Either way you have to come down to the station with us, to give a statement, unless you want us to assume that you're potentially hostile in future interactions. Are you going to come calmly?"
"Yeah, I am." This was somewhat surreal. Honestly, I had no idea what I expected, but it was more dramatic than this... come-over-and-talk stuff. "Um, while we wait for the ambulance... I was wondering if you could say what it would take to get me into the Wards. I'm hoping to get some sort of deal."
He grimaced. "I'm really not the one to ask, kid." He had dropped the official-sounding voice once he was done with his set of 'unknown parahuman' questions. "They don't bother giving the troops the same information they give the recruiters, see. Let's see... gotta have powers of course, gotta be the right age, gotta agree to all the paperwork and stuff. Can't leave the city without permission, I don't think. That's all I got, I think."
Well, that was underwhelming. "Thanks, sir," I responded anyway. Nothing lost by being polite to the people taking me in.
We sat there for a bit, waiting as one of the officers periodically checked the girl's wrist. They had given her painkillers, I think, so she was just lying there instead of trying to talk. Good for me, I suppose.
"Oh, wait!" I turned back to the officer leaning against the van next to me. "I completely forgot - you're going to need a parent present when you sign on, otherwise the contract isn't legal. Slipped my mind."
A parent, eh?
Fuck.
|<>_\<>|
How do you deal with this obstacle?
[]What do you mean, parents? You're an orphan! Who was never in the foster system and has no connection to that ruckus at Immaculata. Try to join the Wards on your own.
[]Ask for a tour of the Rig and whatever other pre-signing stuff they do to try to entice potential Wards before 'changing your mind' and becoming an ____. (Please mention where he should live if he does this).
--[]independent hero.
--[]villain.
--[]rogue? Hang out with Parian!
[]Let them call Mr. Anders up. Hey, he might let you join! If you're lucky. Even if he says no at first, you might be able to convince him somehow. Might.
[]Tell them you have problems with your parents and need protective custody.
--[]Try to convince them your father is a ____
----[]criminal
------[]supervillain
--------[]Kaiser (yeah, who cares about those Unwritten Rules anyways?)
--[]Tell them something else (write-in).
[]Write-in
[]@Ellery on SB had an idea I'm embarrassed I didn't come up with: try to get Kayden to sign off instead.
|<>_\<>|
Name voting! You have time, although the voting will determine how much.
[]Armadillo Kid (Almost as bad as Chubster. Could only be PPR)
[1]Tinsel (Happy holidays!)
[]Pincushion (Is this him or his enemies?)
[1]Rüstung (German for "Armor", dammit Kaiser)
[]Write-in
[5]Call 911, get the untattooed girl an ambulance.
--[4]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[4]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
Next:
[3]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
--[3]Ward
--[4]Stick around in the alley, make sure that girl isn't going to bleed out.
----[4]You're there on medical duty. Ignore things that aren't related to her survival.
Next:
[3]Hey, you have powers now! Go register with the Protectorate as a
--[3]Ward
|<>_\<>|
I paced back and forth at the mouth of the alley, nervous beneath the metal mask. I had been happy to let most of the other bits of spiny armor drop off, but I figured I might need to have a secret identity when this was all over, so had I kept the extra-thick Pinhead impersonation on.
I was waiting for help. I had called 911 on Theo's phone, and had barely managed to read off what the nearby street sign said before the person on the other end had interrupted.
"Excuse me, sir, I see a recent report at that location of a parahuman attack. Is this injury related?"
Damn, Nazis worked fast. "I- yeah, it is. Why?"
"Protocol requires that we send a PRT unit ahead of any other emergency vehicles in these situations. I have already dispatched one, don't worry, and the hospital is near enough to your location that the ambulance should arrive shortly after. The officers also have medical training. Now, as for your friend..."
The guy on the other end went on for another minute or so about proper steps to take for stab wounds - pull the object out (except for certain locations or types of objects), stop the bleeding, keep pressure, et cetera. Fun subject matter. I turned around as he went on, checking on the girl, who had already bled out a surprising amount from the seven or eight wounds I could see. Mentally, I went over what I had on me that could help. Not much, I realized. I had ripped the majority of Theo's clothes to shreds when I went porcupine - I was holding on to just enough for privacy with some strategically placed hooks - and everything else in the alley didn't look safe to sit in, much less stuff inside someone's body. I briefly contemplated the waterproof-looking backpack, or maybe the papers inside, before I had an idea.
I interrupted the dispatcher. "Hey, I don't think I have any cloth or anything I can use to stop her from bleeding, and there's already a lot of blood on the ground, but if I had something to seal the wounds that wasn't porous would that be safe?"
He seemed a bit nonplussed. I guess he wasn't used to callers offering their own solutions, maybe. "You mean something like superglue?"
My eyes flicked to the edge of my field of vision, where I could see the outline of the metal I wore. "Something like that. More... filling the wounds completely than pulling the skin shut."
"I don't see any reason why it shouldn't. It sounds like you don't want me to know what it is, but remember that you'll have to explain it to the officers once they arrive."
"Alright. I'm going to set the phone down now so I can do it." For whatever reason his phone didn't seem to have speakerphone. Stupid Earth Bet technology.
Okay. Permission granted, so here goes. I knelt down - idly creating a kneepad to keep the blood off of me, scary how quickly it became easy to use on myself - and looked her over. No individual gash looked particularly awful, except for the one over her eye, but add eight or nine smaller injuries together and you get a lot of blood loss, along with who knows what else underneath the skin on the deeper ones. I went for one of the less-risky ones first, a shallow one across her right elbow, and focused, pulled. The metal flowed easily, sliding through the gap like I was watching a wipe transition instead of merging weeping flesh with metal from a different universe.
Well, that was less horrific than I had pictured it being. I hadn't accidentally formed another knife to cut her deeper, I hadn't overshot and ripped the hole wider. All good. A quick test and... yeah, if I wanted to I could just pop it out. Perfect.
Carefully, I sealed over all the others. I hesitated with the one over her eye, before deciding to leave that one to the professionals. She wouldn't bleed out from one hole, and if she had a chance at vision I didn't want to take it from her.
Actually, now that I was looking at her eyes... the uninjured one was open, obviously trying not to move but occasionally flicking towards my face before wincing slightly as the gouged one moved as well. She must have woken up when I was metal-bandaging her. Weird.
She opened her mouth, took a shuddering breath. "Why-" cough "-why are you helping me?" Her whisper was rough - she was in pain, of course.
I wasn't, so I spoke normally. "They did this, not me. I don't want to hurt people."
The left edge of her lip quirked up at that. "Thank you. I'm-" cough "-I'm Sally."
"I don't care. You're a horrible person, a card-carrying white supremacist, and I'm pretty sure the world would be a better place without you in it, but I'm even more sure that I don't want to be a murderer." With that, I turned away and walked over to where I could see down the street. She might have tried to say something as I left, but whatever it was I couldn't hear. Poor Nazi, can't speak above a whisper. Impressive pain tolerance that she could talk at all, though.
I wasn't standing there long when the PRT van pulled around the corner, probably not the same one I saw earlier but similar enough that I couldn't tell the difference. The driver saw me, saying something over his shoulder to the others in the back. Telling them that there was still a cape here, probably. Hopefully I wouldn't get arrested, but I could probably avoid any serious trouble, and it was more important to get the girl help than anything.
Four of them piled out of the back of the van, the driver coming out his door, but all of them staying close enough that they could make it back in if I went violent. At least, I assume that's why they didn't get more than a few feet away and trained their guns on me. Maybe I should have switched my helmet-mask out for something less villain-looking, although the all-metal masks are hard enough to make look heroic without having to deal with my complete lack of artistic experience and the odd handicap of having it sprout out of my face.
"Unknown parahuman, please get down on the ground and kneel on your hands." The driver had pulled a megaphone from the seat beside him. I obeyed, of course. No sense not, although I did drop the makeshift kneepads before I knelt.
Three of them approached carefully, two taking up positions behind my back while a third went to check on Sally. He checked her pulse, from what I could see, and gave a thumbs up to the others.
The driver spoke up again. "Unknown parahuman, did you intend to injure the civilian? Are you having trouble controlling your powers?"
I shook my head. "No, you're safe. I just meant to scare them away, not hurt anybody. She was shoved into me."
They calmed down at that, somewhat - which is weird, since there's no reason to trust what I, a random cape who just hurt someone, said - and the two near the van stopped aiming their guns at me, though they kept them in a semi-ready position. The two behind me stayed where they were but the driver motioned for me to come over to where they stood.
"Okay, young man," he said once I was standing by him, "there are a few places we can go from here. Either way you have to come down to the station with us, to give a statement, unless you want us to assume that you're potentially hostile in future interactions. Are you going to come calmly?"
"Yeah, I am." This was somewhat surreal. Honestly, I had no idea what I expected, but it was more dramatic than this... come-over-and-talk stuff. "Um, while we wait for the ambulance... I was wondering if you could say what it would take to get me into the Wards. I'm hoping to get some sort of deal."
He grimaced. "I'm really not the one to ask, kid." He had dropped the official-sounding voice once he was done with his set of 'unknown parahuman' questions. "They don't bother giving the troops the same information they give the recruiters, see. Let's see... gotta have powers of course, gotta be the right age, gotta agree to all the paperwork and stuff. Can't leave the city without permission, I don't think. That's all I got, I think."
Well, that was underwhelming. "Thanks, sir," I responded anyway. Nothing lost by being polite to the people taking me in.
We sat there for a bit, waiting as one of the officers periodically checked the girl's wrist. They had given her painkillers, I think, so she was just lying there instead of trying to talk. Good for me, I suppose.
"Oh, wait!" I turned back to the officer leaning against the van next to me. "I completely forgot - you're going to need a parent present when you sign on, otherwise the contract isn't legal. Slipped my mind."
A parent, eh?
Fuck.
|<>_\<>|
How do you deal with this obstacle?
[]What do you mean, parents? You're an orphan! Who was never in the foster system and has no connection to that ruckus at Immaculata. Try to join the Wards on your own.
[]Ask for a tour of the Rig and whatever other pre-signing stuff they do to try to entice potential Wards before 'changing your mind' and becoming an ____. (Please mention where he should live if he does this).
--[]independent hero.
--[]villain.
--[]rogue? Hang out with Parian!
[]Let them call Mr. Anders up. Hey, he might let you join! If you're lucky. Even if he says no at first, you might be able to convince him somehow. Might.
[]Tell them you have problems with your parents and need protective custody.
--[]Try to convince them your father is a ____
----[]criminal
------[]supervillain
--------[]Kaiser (yeah, who cares about those Unwritten Rules anyways?)
--[]Tell them something else (write-in).
[]Write-in
[]@Ellery on SB had an idea I'm embarrassed I didn't come up with: try to get Kayden to sign off instead.
|<>_\<>|
Name voting! You have time, although the voting will determine how much.
[]Armadillo Kid (Almost as bad as Chubster. Could only be PPR)
[1]Tinsel (Happy holidays!)
[]Pincushion (Is this him or his enemies?)
[1]Rüstung (German for "Armor", dammit Kaiser)
[]Write-in
Sorry if the PRT dialogue broke SOD. I've never been arrested and it's been a while since I've read anything with usable quotes. It's also 2am as I write this.
Last edited:
[X]Tell them you have problems with your parents and need protective custody.
--[X]Try to convince them your father is a ____
----[X]criminal
------[X]supervillain
--------[X]Kaiser (yeah, who cares about those Unwritten Rules anyways?)
---------[X] Emphasize that your body is different after your Trigger, and it seemed to be a major health hazard to stick around for long.
[X]Tinsel (Happy holidays!)
The PRT already knew who Kaiser was and so we can give them detailed info matching their info for validation, so we just need to convince them the trigger event changed us to...not be a very good nazi poster boy
--[X]Try to convince them your father is a ____
----[X]criminal
------[X]supervillain
--------[X]Kaiser (yeah, who cares about those Unwritten Rules anyways?)
---------[X] Emphasize that your body is different after your Trigger, and it seemed to be a major health hazard to stick around for long.
[X]Tinsel (Happy holidays!)
The PRT already knew who Kaiser was and so we can give them detailed info matching their info for validation, so we just need to convince them the trigger event changed us to...not be a very good nazi poster boy
Pottery 2.2
- Location
- USA
Pottery 2.2
|<>_\<>|
"So, I hear you are looking to join the Wards. By any chance have you decided on a name that I can put down on your file? No? Numbered file it is. Hello, Potential Ward 33782. My name is Harold Classer, and I'm in charge of getting you signed up."
The man who came in to the interrogation room (complete with a handcuff bar on the table, not that I was attached) not long after the nice troopers dropped me off there spoke a mile a minute, though he slowed down as he got to more detailed stuff, and seemed determined to help me get through whatever paperwork was necessary without actually letting me get a word in edgewise.
Five minutes later, he was still talking. He had moved right from introductions to an explanation of the pay scaling system, or something. I couldn't pay attention and had distracted myself with a sort of extra-sharp cat's cradle in my right hand. Good times.
Hold up. He had stopped talking, and was looking at me expectantly. Shit! What did I miss? Did I- oh. He had pushed some sheet of paper over the table at me. "You'll need to get this form to your parent or guardian before we can consider your application. It's a legal measure they put in place shortly after the founding of the Wards, to avoid lawsuits and to keep minors relatively safe."
I took the paper, looked it over. It wasn't very complicated, barely half a page that amounted to little more than 'I consent to having my child, ___, enrolled in the local Wards program, with all the requirements and risks that entails.' Fun stuff, for someone trying to get away from their parents.
He must have mistook my expression for something else. "You don't have to carry the filled-out form around with you - I know how risky that can be. We normally let the parent come here on their own to fill it out, and we make sure to only store the paperwork in a highly encrypted form. It's actually a code made by a Tinker ally of ours, so it's very secure."
I smiled. Secret identities - cute, for people who actually had a useful identity in this world. I suppose I'd care more about it later on, so I should still work to keep it secret, but for now I was more concerned about survival. "Mr. Clapper-"
"Classer."
"-Right, sorry. Classer. I really, really don't want to go back home right about now. Is there any way I can join the Wards without telling my, uh, guardian? I'm worried they might not be so happy with the... new me." Also the fact that I'm not sure how well I can pass myself off as Theo, and the fact that Nazis with a history of violence have short tempers.
He sat up at that, and pulled his briefcase onto the table. "If you are concerned about your safety, there are groups we can contact. Child Protective Services might be tricky about your identity, but Youth Guard is normally willing to work around it. It'll be nice to work with them instead of against them for once, to be honest." He paused in his shuffling of papers inside his briefcase. Realized what he had just said, maybe. "Not to marginalize your situation, of course."
Finding what he was looking for, Classer snapped the case shut and pulled a pen out of his pocket, sitting the new sheet of paper in front of him. "Okay, now, I'll need you to start with the basics. Have you been hurt physically, or deprived of essentials, by these people in the past?" The page had a series of empty rectangles, large enough that it was probably meant for neatly categorized notes about whatever child the signer was concerned about.
Tricky question, though. "I don't think so? I'm also having some... memory and identity issues, though, so I can't be certain. It's just that I went through some physical and mental changes when I got my powers, and I'm pretty sure that none of the people in my father's social circle would react well to them. They tend to be violent about these things."
He sat the pen down. "If you don't recall much, this is going to be tricky, unless you give me more to work with. Do your father and his friends often engage in criminal acts, or do you know of anything else similarly damning?"
Okay. Dilemma. I don't really want to expose Kaiser, because on the off chance they decide they don't want me dead I don't want to push them over the edge by outing their damn emperor. On the other hand, if I don't give the PRT anything there's a decent chance I'm screwed once the Empire gets their gauntlets on me.
Interruption. The door opening, some PRT agent sticking his helmeted head inside. "Sorry, sir, but you're going to have to leave now. The kid's lawyer just arrived. We'll escort him to this room as soon as you're cleared out." He pulled back out, shut the door again, this time without the click of a lock. Did I mention they had locked me in here the first time? Yeah.
Classer sighed. "Alright. Sorry, kid. Was hoping I could help you out here, but I'd need more time to get anything decent done." He barely took thirty seconds to gather his stuff together before heading for the exit.
"Wait!" He turned at the sound of my voice. I knew he had to leave - stupid random lawyer, getting in the way - but I could compromise on my dilemma, give him something that help a little bit, hopefully. "My father - he's a gang member. An important one, in the Empire 88. I don't know the exact details, but he's definitely done stuff, and would probably try to get me involved in the same group if I don't join you guys." That should be enough to get me somewhere, right?
"I'll see what I can do. Thanks, kid. Luck." The door shut behind him.
|<>_\<>|
It wasn't the lawyer lady from the school. That had surprised me so much that I had said it aloud.
The man smirked at that. "How astute. No, Medhall's legal department decided that someone as relevant to the company needed representation with less bias than what a family friend would show. Now, I understand that you've been trying to avoid your father's associates since this began. Can you tell me why that is?"
Oof. On the spot. "Well, I-"
Suddenly he cut me off, turning to look at the wall to my right. "What the hell is that?"
I looked too, startled. The concrete wall was... cracking, slightly bulging outward. Slowly, but speeding up, hairline cracks were zigzagging across the surface, widening as whatever was on the other side pushed.
Oh, shit. Something was coming through. Only one thing to do - I pushed outward, hurriedly, at both the new lawyer's skin and at my own. It didn't take long to cover us fully in makeshift armor, but I still barely finished in time before the concrete exploded in a flood of shards.
The flood was of water, too, which explained what had forced it's way through. The liquid stopped midair a few inches after breaking through, pulling itself back to wrap around the person standing - well, floating, thanks to the pillar of water - on the other side of the rubble. Maybe that doesn't give the right impression. You know ATLA? Picture Aang's water tornado impression from the beginning, except only a few feet high instead of towering over a warship.
It was a teenage girl, maybe a year or two older than me. She had a nice costume, if one that looked homemade - crimson all over, with enough white cross shapes that I was pretty sure she had just cut up a bunch of lifeguard uniforms to make it. Clever way to get recognizable waterproof costume material, if that's what you go for. The top half was pretty obviously just taken from a uniform, but the bottom had loose legs swirling with the flow, long enough that I couldn't see whatever she had on her feet. She kept her head above the water, with one of those cowboy bandanna style masks around her mouth made of - you guessed it - a square of lifeguard swimsuit, her hair exposed but wet enough that I couldn't tell if it was light brown or drenched blonde. The rest of her body drifted lazily as she gathered the water back to herself in a few streams of water, pulling them
She cleared her throat. Oh, had she been speaking? I couldn't hear through the armor's slight muffling affect and the rushing of her water. I let the armor around my ears fall off. As I listened, I dropped and regrew more areas piecemeal until I had a decent covering that I could still walk in.
"Hey, you. Stilts, right?" I shook my head, still having not removed the jawplate enough to talk clearly. "No? Well, you can pick a name later. You can call me Swirl, and you've been tragically misinformed about the people you were just meeting with. Trust me, I've seen it from where you're sitting, and they aren't as on your side as they seem. Come with me, and I can help you, and I promise I'm not trying to screw you over."
She stretched out her arm. Promise, eh? If only I had a Thinker power of some sort I could get some assurance about that. As for whether the PRT was corrupt, or maybe whether she was talking about something deeper... I did have the remnants of memories about that, stupid Deus Ex Machina mental block, but I was pretty sure nothing actually bad had been done this early.
Unless... I'd been assuming this entire time that I was dealing with canon Wormverse, with the addition of me. However, while I couldn't list off the local cape scene anymore, there was one thing I was certain about: this girl, either my rescuer or my attacker, wasn't supposed to be here. And that meant that, whatever this was, it wasn't canon Brockton Bay.
Yay?
|<>_\<>|
[]Go with the girl!
--[]You don't trust her. Go with the intent to betray her and return to the Protectorate.
--[]She might be right - there's obviously canon divergence here, who's to say the Protectorate's evil parts haven't made their way to Brockton?
--[]Write-in.
[]The girl is obviously insane/a villain.
--[]Turn your back on her and go to help those inside the hole.
--[]Attack back! Whatever she's up to, better to stop it now.
--[]Write-in.
[]Thanks for the exit, but no thanks for the offer.
--[]If neither the Wards nor the Empire can help, you'll have to join one of the other gangs nearby.
----[]Faultline's Crew. They should appreciate your problems, if no one else does.
----[]Uber and Leet! They seem good at surviving in a city full of gangs.
----[]Just wait for the weekend and see if you can find Taylor during the Lung fight. You've read enough fanfiction that that memory hasn't started to fade yet.
-------[]Help Taylor and join her as a team of two.
-------[]Help Taylor and join the Undersiders with her.
-------[]Help Lung and join the ABB, keeping your skin covered so they can't tell your race. Yeah, that'll definitely work.
-------[]Write-in.
--[]Write-in.
[]Screw it. Cover yourself in metal and pretend to be a Case 53.
[]Write-in.
|<>_\<>|
Name voting!
[]Armadillo Kid (Almost as bad as Chubster. Could only be Protectorate PR)
[1]Tinsel (Happy holidays!)
[]Pincushion (Is this him or his enemies?)
[1]Rüstung (German for "Armor", dammit Kaiser)
[2]Ancile (the Shield of Mars)
[1]Golem (I mean, why fix what isn't broken?)
[]Write-in
[3]Tell them you have problems with your parents and need protective custody.
--[2]Tell them something else (write-in).
----[2]He's just an E88 supporter, who would be against your joining the Wards. Understatement?
--[2]Tell them something else (write-in).
----[2]He's just an E88 supporter, who would be against your joining the Wards. Understatement?
|<>_\<>|
"So, I hear you are looking to join the Wards. By any chance have you decided on a name that I can put down on your file? No? Numbered file it is. Hello, Potential Ward 33782. My name is Harold Classer, and I'm in charge of getting you signed up."
The man who came in to the interrogation room (complete with a handcuff bar on the table, not that I was attached) not long after the nice troopers dropped me off there spoke a mile a minute, though he slowed down as he got to more detailed stuff, and seemed determined to help me get through whatever paperwork was necessary without actually letting me get a word in edgewise.
Five minutes later, he was still talking. He had moved right from introductions to an explanation of the pay scaling system, or something. I couldn't pay attention and had distracted myself with a sort of extra-sharp cat's cradle in my right hand. Good times.
Hold up. He had stopped talking, and was looking at me expectantly. Shit! What did I miss? Did I- oh. He had pushed some sheet of paper over the table at me. "You'll need to get this form to your parent or guardian before we can consider your application. It's a legal measure they put in place shortly after the founding of the Wards, to avoid lawsuits and to keep minors relatively safe."
I took the paper, looked it over. It wasn't very complicated, barely half a page that amounted to little more than 'I consent to having my child, ___, enrolled in the local Wards program, with all the requirements and risks that entails.' Fun stuff, for someone trying to get away from their parents.
He must have mistook my expression for something else. "You don't have to carry the filled-out form around with you - I know how risky that can be. We normally let the parent come here on their own to fill it out, and we make sure to only store the paperwork in a highly encrypted form. It's actually a code made by a Tinker ally of ours, so it's very secure."
I smiled. Secret identities - cute, for people who actually had a useful identity in this world. I suppose I'd care more about it later on, so I should still work to keep it secret, but for now I was more concerned about survival. "Mr. Clapper-"
"Classer."
"-Right, sorry. Classer. I really, really don't want to go back home right about now. Is there any way I can join the Wards without telling my, uh, guardian? I'm worried they might not be so happy with the... new me." Also the fact that I'm not sure how well I can pass myself off as Theo, and the fact that Nazis with a history of violence have short tempers.
He sat up at that, and pulled his briefcase onto the table. "If you are concerned about your safety, there are groups we can contact. Child Protective Services might be tricky about your identity, but Youth Guard is normally willing to work around it. It'll be nice to work with them instead of against them for once, to be honest." He paused in his shuffling of papers inside his briefcase. Realized what he had just said, maybe. "Not to marginalize your situation, of course."
Finding what he was looking for, Classer snapped the case shut and pulled a pen out of his pocket, sitting the new sheet of paper in front of him. "Okay, now, I'll need you to start with the basics. Have you been hurt physically, or deprived of essentials, by these people in the past?" The page had a series of empty rectangles, large enough that it was probably meant for neatly categorized notes about whatever child the signer was concerned about.
Tricky question, though. "I don't think so? I'm also having some... memory and identity issues, though, so I can't be certain. It's just that I went through some physical and mental changes when I got my powers, and I'm pretty sure that none of the people in my father's social circle would react well to them. They tend to be violent about these things."
He sat the pen down. "If you don't recall much, this is going to be tricky, unless you give me more to work with. Do your father and his friends often engage in criminal acts, or do you know of anything else similarly damning?"
Okay. Dilemma. I don't really want to expose Kaiser, because on the off chance they decide they don't want me dead I don't want to push them over the edge by outing their damn emperor. On the other hand, if I don't give the PRT anything there's a decent chance I'm screwed once the Empire gets their gauntlets on me.
Interruption. The door opening, some PRT agent sticking his helmeted head inside. "Sorry, sir, but you're going to have to leave now. The kid's lawyer just arrived. We'll escort him to this room as soon as you're cleared out." He pulled back out, shut the door again, this time without the click of a lock. Did I mention they had locked me in here the first time? Yeah.
Classer sighed. "Alright. Sorry, kid. Was hoping I could help you out here, but I'd need more time to get anything decent done." He barely took thirty seconds to gather his stuff together before heading for the exit.
"Wait!" He turned at the sound of my voice. I knew he had to leave - stupid random lawyer, getting in the way - but I could compromise on my dilemma, give him something that help a little bit, hopefully. "My father - he's a gang member. An important one, in the Empire 88. I don't know the exact details, but he's definitely done stuff, and would probably try to get me involved in the same group if I don't join you guys." That should be enough to get me somewhere, right?
"I'll see what I can do. Thanks, kid. Luck." The door shut behind him.
|<>_\<>|
It wasn't the lawyer lady from the school. That had surprised me so much that I had said it aloud.
The man smirked at that. "How astute. No, Medhall's legal department decided that someone as relevant to the company needed representation with less bias than what a family friend would show. Now, I understand that you've been trying to avoid your father's associates since this began. Can you tell me why that is?"
Oof. On the spot. "Well, I-"
Suddenly he cut me off, turning to look at the wall to my right. "What the hell is that?"
I looked too, startled. The concrete wall was... cracking, slightly bulging outward. Slowly, but speeding up, hairline cracks were zigzagging across the surface, widening as whatever was on the other side pushed.
Oh, shit. Something was coming through. Only one thing to do - I pushed outward, hurriedly, at both the new lawyer's skin and at my own. It didn't take long to cover us fully in makeshift armor, but I still barely finished in time before the concrete exploded in a flood of shards.
The flood was of water, too, which explained what had forced it's way through. The liquid stopped midair a few inches after breaking through, pulling itself back to wrap around the person standing - well, floating, thanks to the pillar of water - on the other side of the rubble. Maybe that doesn't give the right impression. You know ATLA? Picture Aang's water tornado impression from the beginning, except only a few feet high instead of towering over a warship.
It was a teenage girl, maybe a year or two older than me. She had a nice costume, if one that looked homemade - crimson all over, with enough white cross shapes that I was pretty sure she had just cut up a bunch of lifeguard uniforms to make it. Clever way to get recognizable waterproof costume material, if that's what you go for. The top half was pretty obviously just taken from a uniform, but the bottom had loose legs swirling with the flow, long enough that I couldn't see whatever she had on her feet. She kept her head above the water, with one of those cowboy bandanna style masks around her mouth made of - you guessed it - a square of lifeguard swimsuit, her hair exposed but wet enough that I couldn't tell if it was light brown or drenched blonde. The rest of her body drifted lazily as she gathered the water back to herself in a few streams of water, pulling them
She cleared her throat. Oh, had she been speaking? I couldn't hear through the armor's slight muffling affect and the rushing of her water. I let the armor around my ears fall off. As I listened, I dropped and regrew more areas piecemeal until I had a decent covering that I could still walk in.
"Hey, you. Stilts, right?" I shook my head, still having not removed the jawplate enough to talk clearly. "No? Well, you can pick a name later. You can call me Swirl, and you've been tragically misinformed about the people you were just meeting with. Trust me, I've seen it from where you're sitting, and they aren't as on your side as they seem. Come with me, and I can help you, and I promise I'm not trying to screw you over."
She stretched out her arm. Promise, eh? If only I had a Thinker power of some sort I could get some assurance about that. As for whether the PRT was corrupt, or maybe whether she was talking about something deeper... I did have the remnants of memories about that, stupid Deus Ex Machina mental block, but I was pretty sure nothing actually bad had been done this early.
Unless... I'd been assuming this entire time that I was dealing with canon Wormverse, with the addition of me. However, while I couldn't list off the local cape scene anymore, there was one thing I was certain about: this girl, either my rescuer or my attacker, wasn't supposed to be here. And that meant that, whatever this was, it wasn't canon Brockton Bay.
Yay?
|<>_\<>|
[]Go with the girl!
--[]You don't trust her. Go with the intent to betray her and return to the Protectorate.
--[]She might be right - there's obviously canon divergence here, who's to say the Protectorate's evil parts haven't made their way to Brockton?
--[]Write-in.
[]The girl is obviously insane/a villain.
--[]Turn your back on her and go to help those inside the hole.
--[]Attack back! Whatever she's up to, better to stop it now.
--[]Write-in.
[]Thanks for the exit, but no thanks for the offer.
--[]If neither the Wards nor the Empire can help, you'll have to join one of the other gangs nearby.
----[]Faultline's Crew. They should appreciate your problems, if no one else does.
----[]Uber and Leet! They seem good at surviving in a city full of gangs.
----[]Just wait for the weekend and see if you can find Taylor during the Lung fight. You've read enough fanfiction that that memory hasn't started to fade yet.
-------[]Help Taylor and join her as a team of two.
-------[]Help Taylor and join the Undersiders with her.
-------[]Help Lung and join the ABB, keeping your skin covered so they can't tell your race. Yeah, that'll definitely work.
-------[]Write-in.
--[]Write-in.
[]Screw it. Cover yourself in metal and pretend to be a Case 53.
[]Write-in.
|<>_\<>|
Name voting!
[]Armadillo Kid (Almost as bad as Chubster. Could only be Protectorate PR)
[1]Tinsel (Happy holidays!)
[]Pincushion (Is this him or his enemies?)
[1]Rüstung (German for "Armor", dammit Kaiser)
[2]Ancile (the Shield of Mars)
[1]Golem (I mean, why fix what isn't broken?)
[]Write-in
- Location
- USA
Happy Halloween!
[X]Tinsel (Happy holidays!)
[X]Thanks for the exit, but no thanks for the offer.
--[X]If neither the Wards nor the Empire can help, you'll have to join one of the other gangs nearby.
----[X]Just wait for the weekend and see if you can find Taylor during the Lung fight. You've read enough fanfiction that that memory hasn't started to fade yet.
-------[X]Help Taylor and join her as a team of two.
[X]Thanks for the exit, but no thanks for the offer.
--[X]If neither the Wards nor the Empire can help, you'll have to join one of the other gangs nearby.
----[X]Just wait for the weekend and see if you can find Taylor during the Lung fight. You've read enough fanfiction that that memory hasn't started to fade yet.
-------[X]Help Taylor and join her as a team of two.
Pottery 2.3
- Location
- USA
Pottery 2.3
|<>_\<>|
"Are you insane? You could have hurt somebody! You don't just go busting holes in buildings - what if that had been load bearing, huh?" I slapped away her outstretched hand once my mouth was free enough to talk, pushing myself up off the ground on my own. Better to avoid people who tended towards collateral damage, right?
Oh. She looked... hurt. Maybe that had came out a little harsher than I intended. I sighed. "Look, I don't know you, but I'm stressed and I was on my way to what might have been a good deal in there. I'm sorry for shouting, alright?"
She smiled, hurt expression almost vanishing in an instant. I would have pegged her for trying to manipulate me, but her eyes still glimmered in a way that I was pretty sure had nothing to do with water powers.
"It's alright, I can't expect you to trust me this quickly. Never met a trusting cape, no reason to think you would be. Just, if you need something, please remember that I offered, alright?" She smiled as she spoke, but it looked... off, somehow. Like the muscles weren't all lining up the way they should. Maybe there was a deeper reason for her whole "suspended in water" thing, I thought to myself as I watched her swish down the street. She had turned around as soon as she was done talking and started to leave - hopefully I hadn't offended her, on the off chance she was actually on the side of the angels.
Well, I can leave wondering about cape weaknesses for another day. At the moment I'm kind of alone in Brockton Bay, the sun is setting, and I need a place to stay. Preferably a place that has other capes I can team up with, since I really don't want to fight off Kaiser on my own. I just "broke out" of the PRT building, which means I really don't want to ask them for help for a while yet, at least not until I have a peace offering. Staying at a shelter - supposing I can even find one - or on the streets probably isn't a good idea, considering the number of predator supervillains in this city and my relative naivete. I have honestly no idea where any of the other groups hang out, and probably couldn't get
I also have no money. Literal beggars can't be choosers, I guess. Gotta go with the only option offered.
"Hey, Swirl!" I called down the street. She stopped moving after a second, right over a storm drain. I guess she doesn't exactly have to worry about her water draining away, considering she controls it. Turning back around, she looked at me expectantly.
I cleared my throat. "If I were to come with you, do I have to join whatever group this is?"
She laughed. "No, of course not. What good would forcing people to join do? Why, are you interested?"
Nod. "Yeah, I need a place to stay, for the next few days at least. Could I-?"
"Of course! Well, come on then, no point waiting for it to get chilly. I have friends who keep safehouses, I can probably get you into one."
|<>_\<>|
The door took a special knock to get open, but she had scribbled down the code on a piece of paper before she dropped me off. "This isn't one of our identity-safe ones, so be careful, all right? Don't go showing off your powers to your roommate or anything."
Still, it opened quickly. The guy on the other side seemed happy to see me, at least, beaming as he led me through the hallway.
"Hi! Nice to meet you. I'm Jeremy. Oh - the bedroom on the left is the open one. Do you have any stuff?"
"No, sorry," I said, looking past him into the empty space. It had a bed and a dresser, but not much else.
"No worries. I'm a bit of a hoarder, so we should have extras of whatever you need. Just an excuse for me to buy more once you've used it, so go wild." He said that last part leaning in like it was some secret, even though there was nobody else in the apartment.
"Oh, uh, thanks." I was a bit nonplussed. I mean, I had been expecting niceness as whatever conspiracy group this was tried to recruit me, but free everything? That was a bit much. I think. Maybe it wasn't - I've never been part of one - but it sounded like a lot. Unless, I suppose, if the idea was to recruit capes. Then it made sense.
"Well, I'll leave you to get settled in. Sheets are in the cupboard. You like grilled chicken?"
|<>_\<>|
Finally, Sunday evening rolled around. I swear time moves slower here on Bet, although that may have been my impatience to actually get stuff done. Where was that work ethic before I became a self-insert, huh?
I had spent the week online, trying to figure out where the hell I was going to have to go to find the fight scene from the first chapters. Funny thing: the ABB doesn't advertise online. Highly annoying. In the end - that is, on Friday - it turned out all I had to do was ask Jeremy, who was both knowledgeable and forthcoming about the various gang territories in the Bay. I think I puzzled him a bit, with my uneven knowledge of the city, but not so much that he questioned it while telling me where to find gang members of my choice.
I'm pretty sure he knows I'm a cape, if not anything specific. He drew me a map, and went so far as to include rooftop routes and - somehow - hero patrol routes. It makes sense, I suppose, considering how I ended up here, but it's interesting that he hasn't actually mentioned it yet.
Anyways. I had taken a bus from the apartment - which was actually conveniently close to the station - to the Docks, and had just spent the next few hours wandering around out of costume. I really didn't want to get into a fight if I could avoid it, so I stayed to the well lit main streets as I waited in the hope that muggers, like vampires, dislike bright lights. Stupid in retrospect, but it worked. Nobody came close the entire time, which may have to do with the gathering that was supposed to happen later that night. Midway through I just sat on a clean spot on a bench and started reading a book Jeremy had loaned me - some dystopian fiction about secret alien overlords and conspiracies that I found wonderfully ironic until I tried to recall what, exactly, was ironic about it.
I was only a few pages from the end when something happened. Annoying, right? I slid a nearby leaf between the pages and got up, steel beginning to slide across my face as I jogged towards the roaring and the gunshots. Fire lit the sky only a block or two away, and it looked like I would have time to get there in time.
Oh, yeah. That's another thing I did this week - I shut the door and quietly practiced with my metal powers. I still wasn't sure how I wanted to look, but I had figured out how to get a good amount of coverage out fairly quickly. Weirdly, Jeremy never questioned the extra chunks of metal in the dumpster below my window. He's nice like that.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned around, a blade coming out at an odd angle from my knuckles, barely missing the person's face as he ducked down.
"Hey, relax, okay? It's just me."
The guy speaking had a full-face mask with a voice changer built in, so I had no idea who "just me" was. His costume was a deep yellow, with orange armored areas around his chest, and with light blue arrow-ended lines that followed the shape of his body. He had a quiver, full of what might have been thick steel arrows, but no bow for whatever reason.
He shrugged all of a sudden. "My bad. Forgot about this thing." He reached behind him, and I tensed as his hand neared the weapons, but it went to his neck at the last second, unzipping something so that he could pull the face-fitting fabric off. And... it was Jeremy. My roommate. Whom I had been warned not to let find out about my identity, who apparently already knew and had followed me here. Delightful. "Sorry about that. Our orders have me keeping an eye on you, even when you go out in costume. Bosses really don't like when potential recruits get creamed, so I even have to do this for Brutes. You can call me... Vector. And yes, I know about the other guy in the city. It's not the name association I hoped for." He grimaced at that, which I could see now that his face was exposed. Which reminded me - mine wasn't. He was assuming my reactions instead of basing them on my expression like a normal person. No wonder he was wasting time.
"Look, Jere- Vector," I said, voice barely muffled. I was proud of that. "I really need to get to where that fight is going on, okay? If I'm late I barely stand a chance."
Raised eyebrow. "Are you sure? Yeah, yeah, you are. Dragon hunting on your first night, ambitious. How are you planning to beat him, then? I've already pinged Swirl, by the way."
"I was going - wait, you're stalling. I don't have time for this. She doesn't have time for this."
The eyebrow went higher. " 'She'? Interesting. Well, we can't leave whomever it is to dry. Just, let us help, okay?" He pulled his mask back on, voice going deep and Batmanlike once more. "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go!"
|<>_\<>|
We knew we had reached the right alley when we suddenly had to fight through a stream of fleeing Asian gangsters. Turning the corner, I was treated to a sight - two or three unconscious guys, a bunch of charred garbage, and, of course, a half-scaled man with a corona of flames, whose head snapped towards us as we came into view.
Suddenly, a pillar of water slammed down on the other end of the alley, Swirl riding it once more. "Stand down, Lung. You're surrounded and outnumbered." He laughed at that, scales creeping further up his chest.
"I may be outnumbered, I may be surrounded, but it is you four who chose the wrong battle tonight."
|<>_\<>|
Immediately (not limited to one choice):
[]Sprout things off of Lung's exposed flesh, to try and slow him down.
[]Armor up your allies, then stay back and act as a force multiplier. Ties with previous option.
[]Armor yourself up and charge in.
[]Look up and try to find Taylor. She should still be peeking over the edge of the building, if you recall correctly.
--[]Well, she doesn't have any exposed skin you can use without hurting her, but some of her larger bugs are still flying around. Give them razor blades and spines, see if she wants to help out.
--[]Try to bind her so you can have a chance to talk without her vanishing during the fight. Will definitely end well.
Aftermath:
[]Try to talk to Armsmaster.
[]Try to catch up with Taylor. If you fail, try to find her at Winslow.
[]The Undersiders have to be somewhere nearby. Maybe you can find them, somehow?
[]Stick with Vector and Swirl. They've continually had your back - might as well start actually trusting them to protect you.
[5]Thanks for the exit, but no thanks for the offer.
--[5]If neither the Wards nor the Empire can help, you'll have to join one of the other gangs nearby.
----[3]Just wait for the weekend and see if you can find Taylor during the Lung fight. You've read enough fanfiction that that memory hasn't started to fade yet.
-------[2]Write-in: Help Taylor do what she wants.
--[5]If neither the Wards nor the Empire can help, you'll have to join one of the other gangs nearby.
----[3]Just wait for the weekend and see if you can find Taylor during the Lung fight. You've read enough fanfiction that that memory hasn't started to fade yet.
-------[2]Write-in: Help Taylor do what she wants.
I'll have to apologize. It seems I gave you an option (see above) while forgetting that said option takes place six days in the future. I know, right? Seven chapters and barely an afternoon has gone by. I'll try to speed it up a bit.
That said, Josh needs a place to stay, and his best bet right now is to stick with the girl, which a few of you voted to do anyways as an undercover hero with intent to betray. Which we all know went well in canon, right?
That said, Josh needs a place to stay, and his best bet right now is to stick with the girl, which a few of you voted to do anyways as an undercover hero with intent to betray. Which we all know went well in canon, right?
|<>_\<>|
"Are you insane? You could have hurt somebody! You don't just go busting holes in buildings - what if that had been load bearing, huh?" I slapped away her outstretched hand once my mouth was free enough to talk, pushing myself up off the ground on my own. Better to avoid people who tended towards collateral damage, right?
Oh. She looked... hurt. Maybe that had came out a little harsher than I intended. I sighed. "Look, I don't know you, but I'm stressed and I was on my way to what might have been a good deal in there. I'm sorry for shouting, alright?"
She smiled, hurt expression almost vanishing in an instant. I would have pegged her for trying to manipulate me, but her eyes still glimmered in a way that I was pretty sure had nothing to do with water powers.
"It's alright, I can't expect you to trust me this quickly. Never met a trusting cape, no reason to think you would be. Just, if you need something, please remember that I offered, alright?" She smiled as she spoke, but it looked... off, somehow. Like the muscles weren't all lining up the way they should. Maybe there was a deeper reason for her whole "suspended in water" thing, I thought to myself as I watched her swish down the street. She had turned around as soon as she was done talking and started to leave - hopefully I hadn't offended her, on the off chance she was actually on the side of the angels.
Well, I can leave wondering about cape weaknesses for another day. At the moment I'm kind of alone in Brockton Bay, the sun is setting, and I need a place to stay. Preferably a place that has other capes I can team up with, since I really don't want to fight off Kaiser on my own. I just "broke out" of the PRT building, which means I really don't want to ask them for help for a while yet, at least not until I have a peace offering. Staying at a shelter - supposing I can even find one - or on the streets probably isn't a good idea, considering the number of predator supervillains in this city and my relative naivete. I have honestly no idea where any of the other groups hang out, and probably couldn't get
I also have no money. Literal beggars can't be choosers, I guess. Gotta go with the only option offered.
"Hey, Swirl!" I called down the street. She stopped moving after a second, right over a storm drain. I guess she doesn't exactly have to worry about her water draining away, considering she controls it. Turning back around, she looked at me expectantly.
I cleared my throat. "If I were to come with you, do I have to join whatever group this is?"
She laughed. "No, of course not. What good would forcing people to join do? Why, are you interested?"
Nod. "Yeah, I need a place to stay, for the next few days at least. Could I-?"
"Of course! Well, come on then, no point waiting for it to get chilly. I have friends who keep safehouses, I can probably get you into one."
|<>_\<>|
The door took a special knock to get open, but she had scribbled down the code on a piece of paper before she dropped me off. "This isn't one of our identity-safe ones, so be careful, all right? Don't go showing off your powers to your roommate or anything."
Still, it opened quickly. The guy on the other side seemed happy to see me, at least, beaming as he led me through the hallway.
"Hi! Nice to meet you. I'm Jeremy. Oh - the bedroom on the left is the open one. Do you have any stuff?"
"No, sorry," I said, looking past him into the empty space. It had a bed and a dresser, but not much else.
"No worries. I'm a bit of a hoarder, so we should have extras of whatever you need. Just an excuse for me to buy more once you've used it, so go wild." He said that last part leaning in like it was some secret, even though there was nobody else in the apartment.
"Oh, uh, thanks." I was a bit nonplussed. I mean, I had been expecting niceness as whatever conspiracy group this was tried to recruit me, but free everything? That was a bit much. I think. Maybe it wasn't - I've never been part of one - but it sounded like a lot. Unless, I suppose, if the idea was to recruit capes. Then it made sense.
"Well, I'll leave you to get settled in. Sheets are in the cupboard. You like grilled chicken?"
|<>_\<>|
Finally, Sunday evening rolled around. I swear time moves slower here on Bet, although that may have been my impatience to actually get stuff done. Where was that work ethic before I became a self-insert, huh?
I had spent the week online, trying to figure out where the hell I was going to have to go to find the fight scene from the first chapters. Funny thing: the ABB doesn't advertise online. Highly annoying. In the end - that is, on Friday - it turned out all I had to do was ask Jeremy, who was both knowledgeable and forthcoming about the various gang territories in the Bay. I think I puzzled him a bit, with my uneven knowledge of the city, but not so much that he questioned it while telling me where to find gang members of my choice.
I'm pretty sure he knows I'm a cape, if not anything specific. He drew me a map, and went so far as to include rooftop routes and - somehow - hero patrol routes. It makes sense, I suppose, considering how I ended up here, but it's interesting that he hasn't actually mentioned it yet.
Anyways. I had taken a bus from the apartment - which was actually conveniently close to the station - to the Docks, and had just spent the next few hours wandering around out of costume. I really didn't want to get into a fight if I could avoid it, so I stayed to the well lit main streets as I waited in the hope that muggers, like vampires, dislike bright lights. Stupid in retrospect, but it worked. Nobody came close the entire time, which may have to do with the gathering that was supposed to happen later that night. Midway through I just sat on a clean spot on a bench and started reading a book Jeremy had loaned me - some dystopian fiction about secret alien overlords and conspiracies that I found wonderfully ironic until I tried to recall what, exactly, was ironic about it.
I was only a few pages from the end when something happened. Annoying, right? I slid a nearby leaf between the pages and got up, steel beginning to slide across my face as I jogged towards the roaring and the gunshots. Fire lit the sky only a block or two away, and it looked like I would have time to get there in time.
Oh, yeah. That's another thing I did this week - I shut the door and quietly practiced with my metal powers. I still wasn't sure how I wanted to look, but I had figured out how to get a good amount of coverage out fairly quickly. Weirdly, Jeremy never questioned the extra chunks of metal in the dumpster below my window. He's nice like that.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned around, a blade coming out at an odd angle from my knuckles, barely missing the person's face as he ducked down.
"Hey, relax, okay? It's just me."
The guy speaking had a full-face mask with a voice changer built in, so I had no idea who "just me" was. His costume was a deep yellow, with orange armored areas around his chest, and with light blue arrow-ended lines that followed the shape of his body. He had a quiver, full of what might have been thick steel arrows, but no bow for whatever reason.
He shrugged all of a sudden. "My bad. Forgot about this thing." He reached behind him, and I tensed as his hand neared the weapons, but it went to his neck at the last second, unzipping something so that he could pull the face-fitting fabric off. And... it was Jeremy. My roommate. Whom I had been warned not to let find out about my identity, who apparently already knew and had followed me here. Delightful. "Sorry about that. Our orders have me keeping an eye on you, even when you go out in costume. Bosses really don't like when potential recruits get creamed, so I even have to do this for Brutes. You can call me... Vector. And yes, I know about the other guy in the city. It's not the name association I hoped for." He grimaced at that, which I could see now that his face was exposed. Which reminded me - mine wasn't. He was assuming my reactions instead of basing them on my expression like a normal person. No wonder he was wasting time.
"Look, Jere- Vector," I said, voice barely muffled. I was proud of that. "I really need to get to where that fight is going on, okay? If I'm late I barely stand a chance."
Raised eyebrow. "Are you sure? Yeah, yeah, you are. Dragon hunting on your first night, ambitious. How are you planning to beat him, then? I've already pinged Swirl, by the way."
"I was going - wait, you're stalling. I don't have time for this. She doesn't have time for this."
The eyebrow went higher. " 'She'? Interesting. Well, we can't leave whomever it is to dry. Just, let us help, okay?" He pulled his mask back on, voice going deep and Batmanlike once more. "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go!"
|<>_\<>|
We knew we had reached the right alley when we suddenly had to fight through a stream of fleeing Asian gangsters. Turning the corner, I was treated to a sight - two or three unconscious guys, a bunch of charred garbage, and, of course, a half-scaled man with a corona of flames, whose head snapped towards us as we came into view.
Suddenly, a pillar of water slammed down on the other end of the alley, Swirl riding it once more. "Stand down, Lung. You're surrounded and outnumbered." He laughed at that, scales creeping further up his chest.
"I may be outnumbered, I may be surrounded, but it is you four who chose the wrong battle tonight."
|<>_\<>|
Immediately (not limited to one choice):
[]Sprout things off of Lung's exposed flesh, to try and slow him down.
[]Armor up your allies, then stay back and act as a force multiplier. Ties with previous option.
[]Armor yourself up and charge in.
[]Look up and try to find Taylor. She should still be peeking over the edge of the building, if you recall correctly.
--[]Well, she doesn't have any exposed skin you can use without hurting her, but some of her larger bugs are still flying around. Give them razor blades and spines, see if she wants to help out.
--[]Try to bind her so you can have a chance to talk without her vanishing during the fight. Will definitely end well.
Aftermath:
[]Try to talk to Armsmaster.
[]Try to catch up with Taylor. If you fail, try to find her at Winslow.
[]The Undersiders have to be somewhere nearby. Maybe you can find them, somehow?
[]Stick with Vector and Swirl. They've continually had your back - might as well start actually trusting them to protect you.
Pottery 2.4
- Location
- USA
Pottery 2.4
|<>_\<>|
Lung stalked forward, and my first response was to run.
It's quite a reasonable response, in my opinion. He's an intimidating man even without the extra foot or two of height, and the scales and claws don't help either. But I had barely made it two steps when a hand on my arm pulled me to a stop. I turned, panicked, but it was just Vector keeping me there. Still not idea, I supposed, but better than someone who wanted me in the hospital.
"What are you waiting for? Suit me up."
Suit him... oh, he wanted armor. Or something. Well, I supposed it made sense - as cool as it would be for me to play Kaiser (curse that evil asshole) and charge in like some medieval knight, rescuing Princess Swirl from the dragon, I really didn't have the hand-eye coordination to do that. Putting the hurt on a few gangsters, in a tight alley with no room to maneuver, was a completely different matter than actually having to run around and dodge blasts of flame. It was a little embarrassing to admit, even in my head, but I was happiest to stand far, far away from the action while the others used my power the way it was meant to be used.
Let's see. What would be good for Vector to use? He looked like the type to run around a lot, so I didn't want to give him something heavy, since even with that weight-decreasing effect things gave had the extra momentum would probably be killer. How about... push. A ripple under the yellow spandex, across his body, as a flexible but tough layer filled in what little extra space I there was.
He held a hand up to his face and ripped a hole in the spandex of his wrist, taking a look at what now lay underneath. As the lamplight glittered off what I now realized looked like scales, his mask turned towards me. I couldn't help but imagine Jeremy under there, cocking a questioning eyebrow at me.
"What?" I said defensively.
He sighed, and pulled off his gloves, letting the metal second skin shine free. "It'll work, I suppose, but I wonder where your inspiration came from." My eyes slid over to where Swirl had somehow gotten Lung trapped in a dumpster, now starting to glow cherry-red in spots. My cheeks turned the same color, under the mostly-symmetrical steel bars I had arranged to protect my face and identity. Oops. "Swirl needs help, but I'd appreciate a weapon or two while I make my way over. Just, uh, not reptile claws, okay?"
Jeez, way to rub it in. Then he jogged off towards the clouds of steam starting to billow.
Oh, wait, shit, that's my cue. I focused on his hands and, hurriedly since he was about to attack, sprouted the first thing that came to mind. Six blades slid quickly past his knuckles, three on each side, every one thin as a pencil but sharper than a pencil had any right to be. Sorry, Marvel. I apparently have trouble with creativity when stressed. They don't exist on Bet, I think, so it shouldn't matter much anyways. I almost gave him cleats, but those shoes looked pretty nice.
Vector took it in stride, though, using one hand in a run-by attempted hamstring before running up the wall for a step or two and doing some kind of kick-off flip to drive his three right claws almost straight down Lung's back, ripping them out - along with a fair portion of what I thought was spine, ugh - and causing the giant to collapse. Damn.
As he continued to savage the rapidly-healing back, I took a look at Swirl. She was kinda tired looking, and her water pile was thick with ash. It also looked slightly smaller, weirdly. Maybe she lost access to evaporated water? Either way, she needed some help. Since she didn't seem to move much - or at all, to be honest - when using her power, and had had no trouble flipping a dumpster earlier with her water, I decided to go heavier on her. Thick, thick sheets of metal all around her torso, mostly pushed out of her neck and arms since that was what was exposed, one edge slicing out an inch above her waist, meeting in seams that I pushed at until the metal started to bend. I was going to have to figure out a way to join parts together at some point, it seemed. The flowy pants were tricky, since I didn't know how covered she was under there and I didn't want to accidentally expose a teammate, so I tried to cover as much as I could by pushing down and out from her bare feet. She ended up looking a bit like a wierd Russian Doll, but I sorta think the was okay with that - a fireball bounced off of her shell a moment later.
"What the hell?" I whispered to myself. I thought Vector had him down! I looked over to the orange-and-yellow cape, noting that he was waving something in my direction. A few things, actually, all lightly glowing... were those the Wolverine claws I gave him? Wow, definitely not adamantium then, if Lung was able to melt them that easily. I suppose Vector would be needing new weapons now. Probably something thicker, to keep from falling for the same trick twice.
I gave him a new layer of scales on his hands first, dropping the old ones alongside the warped blades. As for what weapons he probably wanted... I opted for a sword, thick but hopefully not too heavy for the muscular man, out of the meat of his right hand, supported by a band around the rest of the hand. The other side got claws, of course, just to annoy him (why is that part of my brain even active right now?), but also a thicker blade out of the knuckles, since he had done so well punching earlier. All in all, it took at most a full second to grow, and before it was even done he had charged towards the now-taller dragonman and started hacking at his back, drawing him away from where Swirl floated.
They were doing an impressive amount of damage. Scraps of steel or whatever metal those scales were made of littered the ground from both sides of the fight, not that any gaps were showing on anybody - Lung kept healing, and I had been repushing to fill any broken bits of armor. I stood a moment, wondering what I could possibly do to help before he got too big to handle, when out of nowhere a bee flew up my nose.
It must have been a funny sight, watching me dance around for a few seconds before I simply grew a plug down my nostril and pushed it out. Weird that a bee would still be out with all the fire only a across the street, unless...
Yes! I clenched my fist in victory, barely resisting pumping it in the air. Almost right where she started, maybe a few feet further from the fight, was a black figure, silhouetted almost invisibly against the night sky. I contemplated trying to wave to her, or signal otherwise, but that would probably get misread as a threat. She was skittish at this point, I think, and I hadn't figured how to make movable armor without gaps if she decided I wasn't an ally.
Thinking for a moment, I idly held up a gloved hand underneath the buzzing bee, to see if I could get it to land. And, shockingly, it did, almost immediately. Maybe not so shockingly since Taylor was involved, but cool all the same. I pondered the little creature until a renewed set of crashing tugged my eyes over to the alley. Swirl was dealing handily with the fire, and occasionally crashing a truckload of water into Lung and knocking him into the wall. Wow, she really didn't like walls, did she? A part of me somewhat disconnected from the fight sniggered at that. Meanwhile, Vector was still being all jumpy, taking advantage of the sword's reach to hit what bare skin remained on Lung's body.
Ooh, there was an idea. Lung still had plenty of patches that weren't toughened up by silvery scales yet, even if most of them were pretty small, the size of a quarter at most. I turned my focus to my buzzing little friend, and focused. And, slowly so as not to make it asymmetrical and not flightworthy, a pointed blade slid seamlessly from the bee's abdomen.
That panicked Taylor. Skitter, I should probably get around to using that name instead. Don't want metaknowledge to get me stung into the ER. Anyways, the bee flew up unsteadily, and an angry buzzing filled the air as various other bugs formed a small bug growing swarm around me. I held very, very still, and started quietly sliding thin shields out of every bit of exposed skin I could feel, just in case. I followed the bladed bee with my eyes as it wobbled upwards to where Tay- Skitter sat, the rest of the swarm floating threateningly around me. There was a tense moment that dragged on after the bit of flying metal flew beyond the shine of the lights, but eventually the buzzing died down, a few bugs flying down to land in my upraised, immobilized hand. Apparently I had won her approval with that trick.
Looking at the denizens of my metal-shod palm, I thought. The few bees got the same treatment as their fellow, and the moths and - ugh - cockroaches were also given neat little razor blades pointing out of the bottom. Then the beetles showed up, and the spiders, both of who got needle-like armor over top since they tended to crawl more than fly, at least as I recalled. I was definitely not letting the outside of this gauntlet touch me after I was done, that was for sure.
I had to give up when faced with the gnats and ants, their little bodies too small for me to form anything without engulfing them. Skitter took it in stride anyways, clearing them away and putting more roaches there. All in all I was probably only messing around with the bugs for thirty seconds or so, before she decided she had enough and sent them off towards Lung in an oddly glittering cloud. He had lost a lot of the open spaces Vector had aimed for by then, although the scales themselves had openings between, going by the redness that tinged the swarm after he landed. His roaring got even louder, if that was even possible, and he grew another few inches in the next second or two.
It was in the middle of that roaring that I started hearing another sound underneath, a roar more motorized than monstrous that got louder quickly. All three of the fighters paused, for a moment, and then Vector sprinted out of the alley, beckoning towards Swirl as he went. She followed him in a gush, dropping maybe half of her water in a blast that send Lung stumbling as they fled. A tendril of the clear liquid reached out for me as she passed, looping around my waist and dragging me along. I was grateful for all the armor I had put on while interacting with Skitter - probably saved me some asphalt in my skin.
Speaking of, I dropped just enough parts of my neck armor to turn my head. Sure enough, as Swirl pulled the three of us away at the speed of an ocean wave, a blue batcycle pulled up, the rider leaping off to a spectacular three-point landing. As whichever one that was leveled his polearm at Lung, a smattering of reflective flecks sailed upwards into the night.
|<>_\<>|
Back at the apartment, I decided to pull out the computer Vector - ach, Jeremy - had gotten me. I had thought while enjoying the watery ride, and decided that, while my current friends were pretty nice, I had nothing to lose by reaching out to the damn main character. Assuming my author self Outside could get her character right - nothing more threatening than a PTSD/Paranoid/Trigger-Happy!bug controller.
As I could recall - and that was fading, even as I tried to sketch out some rough notes on a page in a notepad - Taylor had gone online at school the next day, googled the Undersiders she had met, and then somehow gotten a message from Tattletale. Right?
|<>_\<>|
What do you want to do?
Choose a few, so there's overlap.
[]Curiosity
---[]Look up your friends!
------[]Or just go into the next room and talk to Jeremy. He's been honest so far, you think.
---[]Wait until morning, then see what the internet says about tonight's events.
---[]Make a PHO account and put out a post about the fight. See if you can get Taylor's attention.
[]Practicality
---[]Figure out the local cape scene - this half-knowledge is getting annoying.
---[]You don't want to expose yourself too much. A missed connection on PHO is the best way to find her without being obvious, assuming she looks for you.
---[]Spend the night looking up weapon styles and armor mechanisms. Best to be prepared.
[]Kayfabe
---[]Make your own wiki page! If the mods let you.
------[]Tie one of those online email addresses to it, so Taylor has a way to contact you.
---[]Make a PHO account and post about:
------[]Your cape identity! (Please vote on the names!)
------[]Write-in.
---[]Spend the night figuring how to make cooler armor.
Immediately:
[2]Armor up your allies, then stay back and act as a force multiplier.
[3]Look up and try to find Taylor. She should still be peeking over the edge of the building, if you recall correctly.
--[3]Well, she doesn't have any exposed skin you can use without hurting her, but some of her larger bugs are still flying around. Give them razor blades and spines, see if she wants to help out.
Aftermath:
[2]Try to catch up with Taylor. If you fail, try to contact her on PHO.
[2]Armor up your allies, then stay back and act as a force multiplier.
[3]Look up and try to find Taylor. She should still be peeking over the edge of the building, if you recall correctly.
--[3]Well, she doesn't have any exposed skin you can use without hurting her, but some of her larger bugs are still flying around. Give them razor blades and spines, see if she wants to help out.
Aftermath:
[2]Try to catch up with Taylor. If you fail, try to contact her on PHO.
|<>_\<>|
Lung stalked forward, and my first response was to run.
It's quite a reasonable response, in my opinion. He's an intimidating man even without the extra foot or two of height, and the scales and claws don't help either. But I had barely made it two steps when a hand on my arm pulled me to a stop. I turned, panicked, but it was just Vector keeping me there. Still not idea, I supposed, but better than someone who wanted me in the hospital.
"What are you waiting for? Suit me up."
Suit him... oh, he wanted armor. Or something. Well, I supposed it made sense - as cool as it would be for me to play Kaiser (curse that evil asshole) and charge in like some medieval knight, rescuing Princess Swirl from the dragon, I really didn't have the hand-eye coordination to do that. Putting the hurt on a few gangsters, in a tight alley with no room to maneuver, was a completely different matter than actually having to run around and dodge blasts of flame. It was a little embarrassing to admit, even in my head, but I was happiest to stand far, far away from the action while the others used my power the way it was meant to be used.
Let's see. What would be good for Vector to use? He looked like the type to run around a lot, so I didn't want to give him something heavy, since even with that weight-decreasing effect things gave had the extra momentum would probably be killer. How about... push. A ripple under the yellow spandex, across his body, as a flexible but tough layer filled in what little extra space I there was.
He held a hand up to his face and ripped a hole in the spandex of his wrist, taking a look at what now lay underneath. As the lamplight glittered off what I now realized looked like scales, his mask turned towards me. I couldn't help but imagine Jeremy under there, cocking a questioning eyebrow at me.
"What?" I said defensively.
He sighed, and pulled off his gloves, letting the metal second skin shine free. "It'll work, I suppose, but I wonder where your inspiration came from." My eyes slid over to where Swirl had somehow gotten Lung trapped in a dumpster, now starting to glow cherry-red in spots. My cheeks turned the same color, under the mostly-symmetrical steel bars I had arranged to protect my face and identity. Oops. "Swirl needs help, but I'd appreciate a weapon or two while I make my way over. Just, uh, not reptile claws, okay?"
Jeez, way to rub it in. Then he jogged off towards the clouds of steam starting to billow.
Oh, wait, shit, that's my cue. I focused on his hands and, hurriedly since he was about to attack, sprouted the first thing that came to mind. Six blades slid quickly past his knuckles, three on each side, every one thin as a pencil but sharper than a pencil had any right to be. Sorry, Marvel. I apparently have trouble with creativity when stressed. They don't exist on Bet, I think, so it shouldn't matter much anyways. I almost gave him cleats, but those shoes looked pretty nice.
Vector took it in stride, though, using one hand in a run-by attempted hamstring before running up the wall for a step or two and doing some kind of kick-off flip to drive his three right claws almost straight down Lung's back, ripping them out - along with a fair portion of what I thought was spine, ugh - and causing the giant to collapse. Damn.
As he continued to savage the rapidly-healing back, I took a look at Swirl. She was kinda tired looking, and her water pile was thick with ash. It also looked slightly smaller, weirdly. Maybe she lost access to evaporated water? Either way, she needed some help. Since she didn't seem to move much - or at all, to be honest - when using her power, and had had no trouble flipping a dumpster earlier with her water, I decided to go heavier on her. Thick, thick sheets of metal all around her torso, mostly pushed out of her neck and arms since that was what was exposed, one edge slicing out an inch above her waist, meeting in seams that I pushed at until the metal started to bend. I was going to have to figure out a way to join parts together at some point, it seemed. The flowy pants were tricky, since I didn't know how covered she was under there and I didn't want to accidentally expose a teammate, so I tried to cover as much as I could by pushing down and out from her bare feet. She ended up looking a bit like a wierd Russian Doll, but I sorta think the was okay with that - a fireball bounced off of her shell a moment later.
"What the hell?" I whispered to myself. I thought Vector had him down! I looked over to the orange-and-yellow cape, noting that he was waving something in my direction. A few things, actually, all lightly glowing... were those the Wolverine claws I gave him? Wow, definitely not adamantium then, if Lung was able to melt them that easily. I suppose Vector would be needing new weapons now. Probably something thicker, to keep from falling for the same trick twice.
I gave him a new layer of scales on his hands first, dropping the old ones alongside the warped blades. As for what weapons he probably wanted... I opted for a sword, thick but hopefully not too heavy for the muscular man, out of the meat of his right hand, supported by a band around the rest of the hand. The other side got claws, of course, just to annoy him (why is that part of my brain even active right now?), but also a thicker blade out of the knuckles, since he had done so well punching earlier. All in all, it took at most a full second to grow, and before it was even done he had charged towards the now-taller dragonman and started hacking at his back, drawing him away from where Swirl floated.
They were doing an impressive amount of damage. Scraps of steel or whatever metal those scales were made of littered the ground from both sides of the fight, not that any gaps were showing on anybody - Lung kept healing, and I had been repushing to fill any broken bits of armor. I stood a moment, wondering what I could possibly do to help before he got too big to handle, when out of nowhere a bee flew up my nose.
It must have been a funny sight, watching me dance around for a few seconds before I simply grew a plug down my nostril and pushed it out. Weird that a bee would still be out with all the fire only a across the street, unless...
Yes! I clenched my fist in victory, barely resisting pumping it in the air. Almost right where she started, maybe a few feet further from the fight, was a black figure, silhouetted almost invisibly against the night sky. I contemplated trying to wave to her, or signal otherwise, but that would probably get misread as a threat. She was skittish at this point, I think, and I hadn't figured how to make movable armor without gaps if she decided I wasn't an ally.
Thinking for a moment, I idly held up a gloved hand underneath the buzzing bee, to see if I could get it to land. And, shockingly, it did, almost immediately. Maybe not so shockingly since Taylor was involved, but cool all the same. I pondered the little creature until a renewed set of crashing tugged my eyes over to the alley. Swirl was dealing handily with the fire, and occasionally crashing a truckload of water into Lung and knocking him into the wall. Wow, she really didn't like walls, did she? A part of me somewhat disconnected from the fight sniggered at that. Meanwhile, Vector was still being all jumpy, taking advantage of the sword's reach to hit what bare skin remained on Lung's body.
Ooh, there was an idea. Lung still had plenty of patches that weren't toughened up by silvery scales yet, even if most of them were pretty small, the size of a quarter at most. I turned my focus to my buzzing little friend, and focused. And, slowly so as not to make it asymmetrical and not flightworthy, a pointed blade slid seamlessly from the bee's abdomen.
That panicked Taylor. Skitter, I should probably get around to using that name instead. Don't want metaknowledge to get me stung into the ER. Anyways, the bee flew up unsteadily, and an angry buzzing filled the air as various other bugs formed a small bug growing swarm around me. I held very, very still, and started quietly sliding thin shields out of every bit of exposed skin I could feel, just in case. I followed the bladed bee with my eyes as it wobbled upwards to where Tay- Skitter sat, the rest of the swarm floating threateningly around me. There was a tense moment that dragged on after the bit of flying metal flew beyond the shine of the lights, but eventually the buzzing died down, a few bugs flying down to land in my upraised, immobilized hand. Apparently I had won her approval with that trick.
Looking at the denizens of my metal-shod palm, I thought. The few bees got the same treatment as their fellow, and the moths and - ugh - cockroaches were also given neat little razor blades pointing out of the bottom. Then the beetles showed up, and the spiders, both of who got needle-like armor over top since they tended to crawl more than fly, at least as I recalled. I was definitely not letting the outside of this gauntlet touch me after I was done, that was for sure.
I had to give up when faced with the gnats and ants, their little bodies too small for me to form anything without engulfing them. Skitter took it in stride anyways, clearing them away and putting more roaches there. All in all I was probably only messing around with the bugs for thirty seconds or so, before she decided she had enough and sent them off towards Lung in an oddly glittering cloud. He had lost a lot of the open spaces Vector had aimed for by then, although the scales themselves had openings between, going by the redness that tinged the swarm after he landed. His roaring got even louder, if that was even possible, and he grew another few inches in the next second or two.
It was in the middle of that roaring that I started hearing another sound underneath, a roar more motorized than monstrous that got louder quickly. All three of the fighters paused, for a moment, and then Vector sprinted out of the alley, beckoning towards Swirl as he went. She followed him in a gush, dropping maybe half of her water in a blast that send Lung stumbling as they fled. A tendril of the clear liquid reached out for me as she passed, looping around my waist and dragging me along. I was grateful for all the armor I had put on while interacting with Skitter - probably saved me some asphalt in my skin.
Speaking of, I dropped just enough parts of my neck armor to turn my head. Sure enough, as Swirl pulled the three of us away at the speed of an ocean wave, a blue batcycle pulled up, the rider leaping off to a spectacular three-point landing. As whichever one that was leveled his polearm at Lung, a smattering of reflective flecks sailed upwards into the night.
|<>_\<>|
Back at the apartment, I decided to pull out the computer Vector - ach, Jeremy - had gotten me. I had thought while enjoying the watery ride, and decided that, while my current friends were pretty nice, I had nothing to lose by reaching out to the damn main character. Assuming my author self Outside could get her character right - nothing more threatening than a PTSD/Paranoid/Trigger-Happy!bug controller.
As I could recall - and that was fading, even as I tried to sketch out some rough notes on a page in a notepad - Taylor had gone online at school the next day, googled the Undersiders she had met, and then somehow gotten a message from Tattletale. Right?
|<>_\<>|
What do you want to do?
Choose a few, so there's overlap.
[]Curiosity
---[]Look up your friends!
------[]Or just go into the next room and talk to Jeremy. He's been honest so far, you think.
---[]Wait until morning, then see what the internet says about tonight's events.
---[]Make a PHO account and put out a post about the fight. See if you can get Taylor's attention.
[]Practicality
---[]Figure out the local cape scene - this half-knowledge is getting annoying.
---[]You don't want to expose yourself too much. A missed connection on PHO is the best way to find her without being obvious, assuming she looks for you.
---[]Spend the night looking up weapon styles and armor mechanisms. Best to be prepared.
[]Kayfabe
---[]Make your own wiki page! If the mods let you.
------[]Tie one of those online email addresses to it, so Taylor has a way to contact you.
---[]Make a PHO account and post about:
------[]Your cape identity! (Please vote on the names!)
------[]Write-in.
---[]Spend the night figuring how to make cooler armor.
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