- Location
- Canada
How does she still have ammo after WEEKS in Hell? Is her armor making more for her out of pure solidified RAGE?
Taylor is DOOMed
- Thread starter mp3.1415player
- Start date
- Crossover
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Ask yourself this question... In the Doom games, why are you able to find ammo everywhere even after entering Hell it's self?
Then you remember that the UAC has been sending expeditions to hell to explore it in addition to merely exploiting it. Taylor's probably been finding ammo catches. Why said ammo catches have BFG ammo too, I don't know.
Then you remember that the UAC has been sending expeditions to hell to explore it in addition to merely exploiting it. Taylor's probably been finding ammo catches. Why said ammo catches have BFG ammo too, I don't know.
It's implied that her armor's storage space is, for all practical purposes, unlimited. If the mars base is large enough, she could've theoretically picked up enough ammo to last through weeks of being in hell, and, well, I assume it resets when she dies. Also, iirc there's a thing you can get in doom(2016) that gives you infinite ammo if you're above a certain amount of armor, so that could be it, too. And if gear (or at least ammo) persists between lives, she'd have built up a truly staggering amount of ammunition after running through the mars base hundreds of times.
Selonianth
Writer of Words
The "Rich get Richer" rune I think. It's part of the speedrun.
- Location
- The deathworld-in-miniature that is Australia
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Also, most UAC ammo (apart from the Heavy Assault Rifle, at least) that is not energy cells like the Plasma Rifle and Mr. Death, the physical stuff, is made of solidified energy. You can see this in the lore entry for the Handgun, the first weapon you pick up. There's a reason that when you take the chainsaw to a demon ammo spews out, and that is that your suit is capable of transforming the Argent energy that comes spraying out of a demon that was chainsawed to death into ammo for the small amoury's worth of guns you're toting around. tl;dr you're shooting demon guts you've ripped and torn converted to dakka at the remaining demons. The Doom Slayer is a self-sustaining form of dakka. At least until he runs out of demons. And thus, so is Taylor. And presumably, with her (assumed) greater understanding of the UAC's technology compared to the Doom Slayer (who didn't really care, considering the cost and potential pitfalls, and had reason to have those beliefs), she'll be able to modify the ammo convertor to run off any sufficiently energy-dense source, such as electricity from a fusion reactor or similar.
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- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Given the theoretical material density of an Endbringer, she'll likely latch on like a tick and just go Energizer Bunny on it.
MaskedCritic
Verified Obsessed with Yuri
- Location
- Fluttershy's Secret Dungeon Shrine to Metal
I just watched the DOOM 2016 100% run from AGDQ2020 yesterday, so... Omake!
Souvenirs
Dad seemed... oddly unfazed by the details she shared with him between ravenous bites of pizza. It was nice. Actually it was very nice, after all the screaming and crying that the weird PRT Agent kept collapsing into when she shared it with him. She didn't know what was wrong with the guy, it's not like the pictures were that bad, seriously! Sure Dad flinched at a few here and there, but she couldn't really blame him; for all their amazing technology and wonderful documentation the UAC had a pretty horrible file format for images. So many of the pictures came out distorted or incomprehensible once they were printed out, and one of them even started bleeding colors off the page! Shoddy engineering, that.
Pausing for a drink after she finished off another slice, Taylor paused as she remembered something vitally important. "I can't believe I almost forgot! I brought back presents!" Quickly digging into her armor's pockets, she started pulling out various stone tablets with glowing runes on them, selfies of her in strangely pixelated rooms, little statues of her in her armor of various colors, and half of a lever from one of the weird mechanisms that revealed the pixelated rooms. "It was the strangest thing, after a while I started finding these little statues of me everywhere, and those weird rooms I took selfies in were surprisingly well hidden. A lever that revealed one of them ended up breaking off when I pulled it a bit too hard, funny story, the demon sneaking up on me looked so surprised with it sticking out of its forehead, kinda like a unicorn! Too bad I forgot to get a picture of it, but at least I kept the lever, it was too funny not to.
"Oh! This one is my favorite!" She paused as she grabbed out a statue that matched her armor's color perfectly. "I don't know why but I just had to give the little gal a fistbump when I found her, and it was so weirdly satisfying that she instantly became my favorite. Here, you try!" Taylor adjusted the statue so it was in the proper position and held it out towards her dad, who proceeded to humor her.
"Huh..." Danny muttered, as a contented smile washed over his face. She was right, that was weirdly satisfying.
Souvenirs
Dad seemed... oddly unfazed by the details she shared with him between ravenous bites of pizza. It was nice. Actually it was very nice, after all the screaming and crying that the weird PRT Agent kept collapsing into when she shared it with him. She didn't know what was wrong with the guy, it's not like the pictures were that bad, seriously! Sure Dad flinched at a few here and there, but she couldn't really blame him; for all their amazing technology and wonderful documentation the UAC had a pretty horrible file format for images. So many of the pictures came out distorted or incomprehensible once they were printed out, and one of them even started bleeding colors off the page! Shoddy engineering, that.
Pausing for a drink after she finished off another slice, Taylor paused as she remembered something vitally important. "I can't believe I almost forgot! I brought back presents!" Quickly digging into her armor's pockets, she started pulling out various stone tablets with glowing runes on them, selfies of her in strangely pixelated rooms, little statues of her in her armor of various colors, and half of a lever from one of the weird mechanisms that revealed the pixelated rooms. "It was the strangest thing, after a while I started finding these little statues of me everywhere, and those weird rooms I took selfies in were surprisingly well hidden. A lever that revealed one of them ended up breaking off when I pulled it a bit too hard, funny story, the demon sneaking up on me looked so surprised with it sticking out of its forehead, kinda like a unicorn! Too bad I forgot to get a picture of it, but at least I kept the lever, it was too funny not to.
"Oh! This one is my favorite!" She paused as she grabbed out a statue that matched her armor's color perfectly. "I don't know why but I just had to give the little gal a fistbump when I found her, and it was so weirdly satisfying that she instantly became my favorite. Here, you try!" Taylor adjusted the statue so it was in the proper position and held it out towards her dad, who proceeded to humor her.
"Huh..." Danny muttered, as a contented smile washed over his face. She was right, that was weirdly satisfying.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@MaskedCritic - 'He dad, sorry I'm late but a bunch of SOONTOBESORRY girls shoved me in my locker, but I have selfies(from hell)!' - that's perfect for Taylor's current mindset.
- Location
- America
I wonder if any parahuman powers were involved it be funny to have all the thinkers, go "Taylor Hebert is not a parahuman or related to parahumans or endbringers at all"
" but she just ripped a brute in half"
"Clearly that is a normal ability for her experiences".
" but she just ripped a brute in half"
"Clearly that is a normal ability for her experiences".
7. DOOMed VI: DOOM comes to Brockton Bay. Eventually.
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
A ripple in the air expanded into a pink mist, out of which a massively armored power-suit stepped, the figure hefting a huge gently humming energy gun like it was a toy. The matte purple helmet turned from side to side, reflections of the scenery showing in the golden faceplate.
There was a long pause.
Then there was a lot of vicious swearing.
Really, one hell of a lot. For some minutes. To the level that small birds fell from the sky, trailing smoke.
Then the armored figure stomped off through undergrowth, still swearing under its breath, leaving deep footprints behind it. It pushed through everything in the way with a sort of remorseless negligence, only diverting its path when it came across a large pile of enormous boulders, at which point it turned and walked around them.
As the figure disappeared into the distance trailing obscenities in its wake, some of them in a language that no living thing on the planet had ever heard, silence fell once more.
A few minutes later, the pink mist left behind rippled again and a smaller figure came out of it. The humanoid creature, some five feet tall and strongly built, looking like a more upright version of some form of ape, but with horns and claws that would scare a rampaging tiger into hiding under the bed, also looked around. It seemed tense and worried but when it saw the footprints relaxed a little.
A sound from behind it made it whip around in a blur of motion and raise a hand, a ball of fire leaving it with a loud whoosh then impacting on the large bird that had incautiously squawked from its perch on an old tree some fifty yards away. Most of the tree vanished in the ensuing blast, with only a small cloud of feathers falling gently from the sky, burning and smoking on the way down.
The creature stared at the results, then carefully looked around, before going back into the mist. Not long after, it re-emerged, at the head of a column of bizarre figures that walked, slithered, flew, and floated across the ground, following the line of footprints. All of them were silent and seemed intent.
A massive green flash in the distance caused them all to stop and stare at the mushroom cloud of fire and smoke that rose over the horizon, a shock wave rolling over them several seconds later.
The creatures made a strange sound, then started moving again a little faster. They gave the impression that anything that got in the way was going to have a very bad, and most likely very short, day…
Once the last of them had vanished, the normal sounds of the area slowly resumed as wildlife came out of the horrified stupor it had fallen into, then very quickly went in the opposite direction. Not long after that, the entire area was as bare of any life smart enough to know when to get the fuck out of Dodge as any desert on the planet.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
With an eye-wrenching distortion, space tore open again. The pink mist followed, and through it came the figure in armor. It looked around once more, then stared at the overcast sky and shouted a very rude word that made the entire area briefly shudder, before striding forth into the ruins of what appeared to have once been a small city. Smoke rose from a few places but other than that it was quiet and nothing moved.
Half a mile later, it stopped and watched as three humanoid things came out of a half-wrecked concrete and stone building a hundred yards away. They looked pale, more or less female, and nearly but not quite human in a disturbing manner that would make a normal person very worried before running for his or her life.
The armored figure didn't look impressed. It lifted the energy gun and aimed it. "Move or die," it said. "I'm not in the mood and I'm going home."
The middle figure raised a hand, its long pale hair blowing in the breeze. Without the slightest hesitation the armored person fired. The figure was blown backwards in an explosion of plasma, the other two watching with what appeared to be shocked surprise, before they turned back, giving off a very dangerous air.
It wasn't even close to the radiating fury coming from the person in armor who was almost literally glowing with anger, reality itself wavering around it as it stalked forward. "I warned you," it said with eerie calm, totally out of keeping with the aura of terror it was producing. Small animals hiding in nearby buildings that had frozen in instinctive terror fell over and twitched, before going still. The member of the trio who had been blown sixty yards into a building got to its feet, shuddered a little, then started running back, while the remaining two attacked.
An unnerving laugh came before the entire area lit up with weapons fire, screams, a lot of swearing, and ultimately several absolutely enormous blasts that accompanied a sound like the universe crying out in agony, something that carried for many miles. Then all was silent again.
When, a quarter of an hour later, the procession of strange creatures came through, they all stopped and looked at the quarter mile glass lined crater where a small city had once been. Many glances were exchanged. A ripple of sound went through the huge group, one that almost sounded… awe-struck.
Then the entire collection carefully rounded the crater, which glowed deep at the bottom with eldritch energies, and resumed following the footprints, which ultimately vanished into another cloud of pink mist.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
A forest far in the northern lands, snow on the ground and the pine trees, the light of an aurora far above the only illumination, bore witness to a pink mist. Out of it came the armored figure, a different but no less lethal weapon ready for action. Again, it looked around. Again, it swore.
"This is beginning to annoy me," it said evenly. "I am definitely not seeing the funny side. Do not push your luck." It moved off into the dark forest, the trees almost seeming to bend out of the way of the aura of dark rage it was emitting.
Many miles away, in a small log cabin half buried in snow, a man suddenly woke and stared into the dark. He didn't move a muscle but lay there rigid and lightly sweating for nearly half an hour. Dimly in the distance he could hear a couple of odd-sounding explosions, then all was quiet. He relaxed a little, but tensed again shortly after. His head lifted and seemed to follow something in the distance for a while, then finally he relaxed properly, sagging into his bed and letting out a breath.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead with a hand he looked at it in the dim rippling light coming through the window, shook his head, then rolled over and went back to sleep.
"Not getting involved in that," he muttered in Russian, rather vehemently.
Soon the cabin echoed to even breathing with the occasional snore, while the forest surrounding him gradually came back to life and the dark shadows that seemed much deeper than they should have been turned into merely a lack of relative illumination instead of… something else. Something… terrifying.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Oh, come on!" the person in armor shouted in apocalyptic fury as it peered from side to side. "You think this is funny? Really? Do you want me to come looking for you right now?"
A sound from one of the apparently abandoned buildings to the side made it snap around and inspect it suspiciously, moving almost too fast to see the movement, the effect almost being like stop motion animation. A different weapon than the one it had been holding was suddenly in its hands. It peered carefully at the building, which emitted another strange sound.
Tilting its head, it chuckled unnervingly. "Oh, I see you in there," it said menacingly. "Yeah, you'd better hide. Not that it's going to help you much. I'm really not in the right frame of mind to play games."
A different building made a different noise, which echoed throughout the otherwise weirdly silent city. With a mechanical grinding sound, something deep inside the darkened interior stirred.
Without looking back the armored person pointed the weapon it was holding to the side and fired twice. Blue balls of violently hot metallic plasma disappeared into the building which immediately erupted in tiny fragments, rising almost gracefully high into the air. A small device was tossed after the shots, moments later the remains of the building shuddering heavily as a strange sound accompanied a purple glow, before the entire thing imploded into a smoking hole.
Then the figure stalked into the first building. Moments later the shooting began once more.
Some time later, the procession of strange creatures appeared. The ones in front stopped, causing the entire crowd to do likewise, before with almost military precision the bulk of them fanned out into the remains of the city while the core group followed the trail of craters and wreckage. Peculiar sounds came from all around, along with whooshing fireballs, roaring rockets, constant blasts from many sources, and the occasional earth shattering kaboom. The flying creatures that produced these screamed in triumph before following the rest.
All was quiet after that, only the clinking sounds of super-heated metal slowly cooling from a molten state breaking the silence in what had once been a city long evacuated by the original owners, and now a wasteland that couldn't even properly be called ruins.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Right! That fucking does it! I'm going to absolutely fucking wreck these fuckers, then if I'm not home I will find you and I will end you and I will fucking dance on your ashes, DO YOU HEAR ME?"
The scream of unalloyed rage rang out over the entire area, causing thousands of demonic things to stop what they were doing instantly, then turn and as one stare towards where it came from. Deep underground their leader and god looked up, a worried expression crossing his distorted face, although he had no idea why a wave of terror had gone through him.
He never had time to find out.
By the time the trailing creatures came out of the pink mist, all that was left was an enormous hole that radiated heat and otherworldly energies, where nothing at all was left alive, not even microbes. It had been sterilized as efficiently as if the sun itself had touched down.
They looked around, then followed the trail. Soon the area was back to being a glass crater with nothing moving in it, surrounded by the remains of walls.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
PRT ENE Director Emily Piggot looked at the somewhat unassuming, thin, and slightly balding man on the other side of her desk. She was doing everything in her power to stay calm.
He, strangely, was doing a better job of that than she was, but in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. For some reason she was feeling like she was locked in a room with something that would quite readily eat her liver and smile while it did, which was something she simply couldn't understand and didn't like one little bit. Behind her unwelcome visitor she could see Armsmaster and Miss Militia who both also looked oddly worried.
"Mr Hebert," she said in tones of command, "I still don't quite know why we're having this meeting. We've already told you that there's nothing we can help you with in this case. It's a matter for the police, not the PRT."
Danny Hebert, who was standing in the middle of the room with his arms by his sides, looking on the face of it entirely harmless, the civilian dock worker that the data they had on him said he was, still somehow managed to make her lean back slightly when he met her eyes.
"I will ask the question one more time, Director Piggot," he said completely calmly. "Where. Is. My. Daughter?"
"I have no idea," she replied, her voice betraying her unease and anger. "As I said, this is a police matter, not something we can help you with."
There was a pause, then he nodded once. "I see." He turned away. "I shall have to make further investigations myself, then, as you're unwilling to help." Moving towards the door, he almost absently added, "I'll track down Sophia Hess first, I think."
Director Piggot and the other two people present all froze.
"After all, as a Ward in Winslow, one who has been torturing my daughter for close to two years, and who was the last one to see her before she vanished, I'm sure she could shed some light on this matter," he added as he reached for the door handle. He looked back at her, the overhead lights reflecting from his glasses. "I doubt she wants to talk about it but I can be persuasive." The man smiled slightly. "Comes from years of negotiating contracts and suchlike, you see. You learn what to say to people to make them agree to your… requirements."
Emily opened her mouth, feeling a sensation in the pit of her stomach she didn't much like.
"Sometimes it's how you say it rather than what you say," he continued with what looked almost like a serene cheerfulness, which was making her skin crawl. "I'm very good at this sort of thing."
Armsmaster put his hand on the door. "How did you know about Sophia Hess?" he grated.
Hebert didn't take his eyes off Emily's, but he replied calmly and quietly, "It doesn't take a genius to work out from the clues left in the journal Taylor wrote that many of the things she described would best be explained as the effects of a Parahuman ability. She replaced the lock on her locker several times, but those girls always got into it. Even when she brought in a much better one than the school issued locks, one from our basement, it didn't stop them. Either she was being attacked by a professional locksmith, which seemed unlikely, or someone with the ability to open her locker without a trace then close it again, or possibly access the inside of it without opening it, was involved. I did a little research, asked some people I know, and wouldn't you know it, one of the Wards here in Brockton is a Parahuman who can walk through walls."
He smiled somewhat grimly and adjusted his glasses with one hand. Emily couldn't look away. "Lots of rumors that a Ward attended Winslow are going around too, of course. Shadow Stalker is known to be… shall we say, somewhat antisocial at best? It's unlikely that someone of that… attitude… would do well in Arcadia where it's known that most of the Wards attend. I made a few inquiries, asked a few people I know who have kids in Arcadia, and no one could think of someone who appeared to have the rather distinctive personality traits that Shadow Stalker was said to show. On the other hand, there were several people who mentioned that Sophia Hess was… Well, not to put too fine a point on it, a violent bitch as someone told me. Emma Barnes is too short to be Shadow Stalker, Madison Clements is much too short, but Sophia Hess matches the body type your own promotional literature shows perfectly."
He stared at her as she looked back, aghast. Armsmaster still had his hand on the door but was listening intently, while Miss Militia's eyes were closed in what looked like pain.
"A little more investigating brought up the interesting point that Shadow Stalker had apparently come very close to killing several criminals over the last year or two, using those crossbows she carries. Oddly enough you might like to know that at least two of those cases were after she joined the Wards."
Emily winced.
"So, yes, I know that Shadow Stalker is Sophia Hess, or at least I was ninety percent sure of it, until Armsmaster here confirmed it for me. Thanks for that, by the way."
Armsmaster winced.
"I'll be having words with Alan Barnes and Emma too, of course, and the Clements family, but right now I think I should talk to Sophia. It's been two weeks since Taylor disappeared from that locker your pet psychopath and her associates pushed her into. The school doesn't want to help for some reason, which I can guess is a mix of incompetence and corruption although I'm not sure of the percentages yet, the cops aren't doing anything useful, and from what I've been told off the record by a couple of contacts, this is due to PRT interference. Again, yet more evidence that a Parahuman was involved." His voice was still completely controlled but there was a level of danger under it that made all three of the others listen whether they wanted to or not.
"I'd be the first person to admit I haven't been a very good father to my daughter for a lot longer than it should have been for reasons that we don't need to go into, but I'm fucked if I'm going to just sit and wait for someone to finally get around to doing what they're paid to do. It looks like that will never happen in any case. So, unless you can tell me right now where Taylor is and what happened to her, I will arrange to look for her with my own resources, regardless of your wishes or interference. And god help all of you if you get in my way, because I can guarantee you won't like what happens if you do."
"Are you threatening us, Mr Hebert?" Armsmaster said grimly.
Danny Hebert turned his head to meet the Tinker's eyes through his visor.
"Yes. Although I think of it more as a promise."
This time, Miss Militia was the one who winced. Armsmaster glowered.
"Everything you've said is covered by an NDA which you will have to sign before you can be allowed to leave, and if you mention anything at all about this you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Armsmaster growled.
"An NDA signed under duress is not valid, and neither can one be used to cover up an illegal act," the horrible man said without raising his voice. "Basic contract law even in this day and age. If you attempt to stop me, I will use every resource I have available to make totally certain that everyone involved in this from the Chief Director down to the PRT janitors has their careers ruined and with any luck ends up in jail. I've already got more than enough evidence to give the press the scoop of a lifetime." He leaned a little closer. "Just fucking try me, Armsmaster."
"We can arrest you," the Tinker snarled.
"You can, yes. I'm willing to go to jail for my daughter. And if I do that, in about… twelve hours, give or take, every news organization in the world will get everything I've gathered about how unbelievably incompetently this entire situation has been handled, along with the names of every single person involved, how, and why." He smiled in a rather bloodthirsty manner as Emily felt her heart sink into her boots. "I'm not an idiot, I took precautions before coming in here. And I very much doubt you can find all the copies of the data I have in time. I sent it off days ago. I also made certain to take precautions in case someone got the bright idea to… encourage me… to talk. So, either you do your goddamn jobs and find my daughter, or get out of the way and let me do it. Your choice."
"And if we call your bluff?" Armsmaster said, sounding furious.
Hebert adjusted his glasses again. "Oh, trust me, it's not a bluff. You really don't want to push me on this. I have nothing to lose right now and you people have everything to lose. And I'd hate to have to really get serious..." He trailed off, then shrugged a little. "Hopefully it won't come to that."
As Emily was about to try to say something to get the situation back under what little control it had started with, since she could see Armsmaster was at the point of doing something more idiotic than usual, there was a brilliant greenish flash outside the window. The dark of the late winter evening gave way to virtual daylight for a second or two, making her violently twitch and spin in her chair to look out across the city. Far off towards the docks a weirdly colored fireball was rising into the sky, dimming as it slowly faded. Alarms went off all over the place, then several seconds later an enormous detonation shook the entire building.
"What the fuck was that?" she shouted, struggling to her feet and moving to the window in an attempt to work out where the blast had come from. She could see glass falling to the street from some of the other buildings in view from the shockwave although the PRT building was hardened against such damage.
Armsmaster and Miss Militia joined her at the window, all three of them watching as the fireball ascended into the night sky and faded from view. The effect was that of a very small nuclear weapon, she thought in horrified awe. Left behind past the buildings she could see a glowing area that was rather more slowly dimming away.
"That was Winslow school," Miss Militia said in horror.
A moment later, Emily turned quickly around as she remembered the final person in the room.
Danny Hebert was gone.
"Oh, Jesus Christ," she mumbled, "I have a really bad feeling about this..."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor inspected where the school had been with grim approval. It was a good start, but there were a lot of other things she needed to do quite soon. In the distance sirens were going mad but she ignored them as irrelevant.
The sound of tires crunching through the rubble scattered all over the roads for a couple of blocks in every direction, on the other hand, made her turn, weapon ready, until she recognized the car. The vehicle stopped a few yards away and a familiar figure got out, silhouetted against the burning building on the other side of the road.
She smiled inside her armor, put her gun away, and walked over.
"I'm back, Dad," she said as she reached out and hugged him.
"Looks like you had an interesting time," he said, almost calmly, although she could see tears in his eyes under his glasses.
"You could put it like that, yeah," she said with a laugh as she let go and reached up to take her helmet off for the first time in what seemed like months. Fresh air, a sensation she'd nearly forgotten, caressed her face, bringing with it the smell of smoke and plasma discharges. She noticed that she was eye to eye with her father which was a little odd since he was about six foot five, but she ignored that for the moment.
"Sorry I took so long, you wouldn't believe the trouble I've had finding my way back," she added, with a slightly uneven smile. He looked her up and down, then nodded.
"You came back. That's all that matters."
She hugged him again.
When she let go once more, she looked around, then rather dubiously at the car, which she doubted was up to the weight of her power armor. He followed her eyes, then looked at her again in an evaluating manner. "I think you'll have to follow me."
"Can we get a pizza on the way?" she asked hopefully. "You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to one."
He laughed. "Of course. You can have all the pizza you want. Sergio's?"
Taylor grinned. "You read my mind."
With a smile, he got back into the car, and as she jogged alongside it, drove off into the night.
By the time the sirens, complete with an enormous number of emergency vehicles from everyone from the fire department to the PRT had arrived some minutes later, the area was still once more, only the crackling of burning wood audible.
A last few strange shadows disappeared into the dark but no one noticed as they were much more concerned with where Winslow wasn't.
There was a long pause.
Then there was a lot of vicious swearing.
Really, one hell of a lot. For some minutes. To the level that small birds fell from the sky, trailing smoke.
Then the armored figure stomped off through undergrowth, still swearing under its breath, leaving deep footprints behind it. It pushed through everything in the way with a sort of remorseless negligence, only diverting its path when it came across a large pile of enormous boulders, at which point it turned and walked around them.
As the figure disappeared into the distance trailing obscenities in its wake, some of them in a language that no living thing on the planet had ever heard, silence fell once more.
A few minutes later, the pink mist left behind rippled again and a smaller figure came out of it. The humanoid creature, some five feet tall and strongly built, looking like a more upright version of some form of ape, but with horns and claws that would scare a rampaging tiger into hiding under the bed, also looked around. It seemed tense and worried but when it saw the footprints relaxed a little.
A sound from behind it made it whip around in a blur of motion and raise a hand, a ball of fire leaving it with a loud whoosh then impacting on the large bird that had incautiously squawked from its perch on an old tree some fifty yards away. Most of the tree vanished in the ensuing blast, with only a small cloud of feathers falling gently from the sky, burning and smoking on the way down.
The creature stared at the results, then carefully looked around, before going back into the mist. Not long after, it re-emerged, at the head of a column of bizarre figures that walked, slithered, flew, and floated across the ground, following the line of footprints. All of them were silent and seemed intent.
A massive green flash in the distance caused them all to stop and stare at the mushroom cloud of fire and smoke that rose over the horizon, a shock wave rolling over them several seconds later.
The creatures made a strange sound, then started moving again a little faster. They gave the impression that anything that got in the way was going to have a very bad, and most likely very short, day…
Once the last of them had vanished, the normal sounds of the area slowly resumed as wildlife came out of the horrified stupor it had fallen into, then very quickly went in the opposite direction. Not long after that, the entire area was as bare of any life smart enough to know when to get the fuck out of Dodge as any desert on the planet.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
With an eye-wrenching distortion, space tore open again. The pink mist followed, and through it came the figure in armor. It looked around once more, then stared at the overcast sky and shouted a very rude word that made the entire area briefly shudder, before striding forth into the ruins of what appeared to have once been a small city. Smoke rose from a few places but other than that it was quiet and nothing moved.
Half a mile later, it stopped and watched as three humanoid things came out of a half-wrecked concrete and stone building a hundred yards away. They looked pale, more or less female, and nearly but not quite human in a disturbing manner that would make a normal person very worried before running for his or her life.
The armored figure didn't look impressed. It lifted the energy gun and aimed it. "Move or die," it said. "I'm not in the mood and I'm going home."
The middle figure raised a hand, its long pale hair blowing in the breeze. Without the slightest hesitation the armored person fired. The figure was blown backwards in an explosion of plasma, the other two watching with what appeared to be shocked surprise, before they turned back, giving off a very dangerous air.
It wasn't even close to the radiating fury coming from the person in armor who was almost literally glowing with anger, reality itself wavering around it as it stalked forward. "I warned you," it said with eerie calm, totally out of keeping with the aura of terror it was producing. Small animals hiding in nearby buildings that had frozen in instinctive terror fell over and twitched, before going still. The member of the trio who had been blown sixty yards into a building got to its feet, shuddered a little, then started running back, while the remaining two attacked.
An unnerving laugh came before the entire area lit up with weapons fire, screams, a lot of swearing, and ultimately several absolutely enormous blasts that accompanied a sound like the universe crying out in agony, something that carried for many miles. Then all was silent again.
When, a quarter of an hour later, the procession of strange creatures came through, they all stopped and looked at the quarter mile glass lined crater where a small city had once been. Many glances were exchanged. A ripple of sound went through the huge group, one that almost sounded… awe-struck.
Then the entire collection carefully rounded the crater, which glowed deep at the bottom with eldritch energies, and resumed following the footprints, which ultimately vanished into another cloud of pink mist.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
A forest far in the northern lands, snow on the ground and the pine trees, the light of an aurora far above the only illumination, bore witness to a pink mist. Out of it came the armored figure, a different but no less lethal weapon ready for action. Again, it looked around. Again, it swore.
"This is beginning to annoy me," it said evenly. "I am definitely not seeing the funny side. Do not push your luck." It moved off into the dark forest, the trees almost seeming to bend out of the way of the aura of dark rage it was emitting.
Many miles away, in a small log cabin half buried in snow, a man suddenly woke and stared into the dark. He didn't move a muscle but lay there rigid and lightly sweating for nearly half an hour. Dimly in the distance he could hear a couple of odd-sounding explosions, then all was quiet. He relaxed a little, but tensed again shortly after. His head lifted and seemed to follow something in the distance for a while, then finally he relaxed properly, sagging into his bed and letting out a breath.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead with a hand he looked at it in the dim rippling light coming through the window, shook his head, then rolled over and went back to sleep.
"Not getting involved in that," he muttered in Russian, rather vehemently.
Soon the cabin echoed to even breathing with the occasional snore, while the forest surrounding him gradually came back to life and the dark shadows that seemed much deeper than they should have been turned into merely a lack of relative illumination instead of… something else. Something… terrifying.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Oh, come on!" the person in armor shouted in apocalyptic fury as it peered from side to side. "You think this is funny? Really? Do you want me to come looking for you right now?"
A sound from one of the apparently abandoned buildings to the side made it snap around and inspect it suspiciously, moving almost too fast to see the movement, the effect almost being like stop motion animation. A different weapon than the one it had been holding was suddenly in its hands. It peered carefully at the building, which emitted another strange sound.
Tilting its head, it chuckled unnervingly. "Oh, I see you in there," it said menacingly. "Yeah, you'd better hide. Not that it's going to help you much. I'm really not in the right frame of mind to play games."
A different building made a different noise, which echoed throughout the otherwise weirdly silent city. With a mechanical grinding sound, something deep inside the darkened interior stirred.
Without looking back the armored person pointed the weapon it was holding to the side and fired twice. Blue balls of violently hot metallic plasma disappeared into the building which immediately erupted in tiny fragments, rising almost gracefully high into the air. A small device was tossed after the shots, moments later the remains of the building shuddering heavily as a strange sound accompanied a purple glow, before the entire thing imploded into a smoking hole.
Then the figure stalked into the first building. Moments later the shooting began once more.
Some time later, the procession of strange creatures appeared. The ones in front stopped, causing the entire crowd to do likewise, before with almost military precision the bulk of them fanned out into the remains of the city while the core group followed the trail of craters and wreckage. Peculiar sounds came from all around, along with whooshing fireballs, roaring rockets, constant blasts from many sources, and the occasional earth shattering kaboom. The flying creatures that produced these screamed in triumph before following the rest.
All was quiet after that, only the clinking sounds of super-heated metal slowly cooling from a molten state breaking the silence in what had once been a city long evacuated by the original owners, and now a wasteland that couldn't even properly be called ruins.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Right! That fucking does it! I'm going to absolutely fucking wreck these fuckers, then if I'm not home I will find you and I will end you and I will fucking dance on your ashes, DO YOU HEAR ME?"
The scream of unalloyed rage rang out over the entire area, causing thousands of demonic things to stop what they were doing instantly, then turn and as one stare towards where it came from. Deep underground their leader and god looked up, a worried expression crossing his distorted face, although he had no idea why a wave of terror had gone through him.
He never had time to find out.
By the time the trailing creatures came out of the pink mist, all that was left was an enormous hole that radiated heat and otherworldly energies, where nothing at all was left alive, not even microbes. It had been sterilized as efficiently as if the sun itself had touched down.
They looked around, then followed the trail. Soon the area was back to being a glass crater with nothing moving in it, surrounded by the remains of walls.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
PRT ENE Director Emily Piggot looked at the somewhat unassuming, thin, and slightly balding man on the other side of her desk. She was doing everything in her power to stay calm.
He, strangely, was doing a better job of that than she was, but in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. For some reason she was feeling like she was locked in a room with something that would quite readily eat her liver and smile while it did, which was something she simply couldn't understand and didn't like one little bit. Behind her unwelcome visitor she could see Armsmaster and Miss Militia who both also looked oddly worried.
"Mr Hebert," she said in tones of command, "I still don't quite know why we're having this meeting. We've already told you that there's nothing we can help you with in this case. It's a matter for the police, not the PRT."
Danny Hebert, who was standing in the middle of the room with his arms by his sides, looking on the face of it entirely harmless, the civilian dock worker that the data they had on him said he was, still somehow managed to make her lean back slightly when he met her eyes.
"I will ask the question one more time, Director Piggot," he said completely calmly. "Where. Is. My. Daughter?"
"I have no idea," she replied, her voice betraying her unease and anger. "As I said, this is a police matter, not something we can help you with."
There was a pause, then he nodded once. "I see." He turned away. "I shall have to make further investigations myself, then, as you're unwilling to help." Moving towards the door, he almost absently added, "I'll track down Sophia Hess first, I think."
Director Piggot and the other two people present all froze.
"After all, as a Ward in Winslow, one who has been torturing my daughter for close to two years, and who was the last one to see her before she vanished, I'm sure she could shed some light on this matter," he added as he reached for the door handle. He looked back at her, the overhead lights reflecting from his glasses. "I doubt she wants to talk about it but I can be persuasive." The man smiled slightly. "Comes from years of negotiating contracts and suchlike, you see. You learn what to say to people to make them agree to your… requirements."
Emily opened her mouth, feeling a sensation in the pit of her stomach she didn't much like.
"Sometimes it's how you say it rather than what you say," he continued with what looked almost like a serene cheerfulness, which was making her skin crawl. "I'm very good at this sort of thing."
Armsmaster put his hand on the door. "How did you know about Sophia Hess?" he grated.
Hebert didn't take his eyes off Emily's, but he replied calmly and quietly, "It doesn't take a genius to work out from the clues left in the journal Taylor wrote that many of the things she described would best be explained as the effects of a Parahuman ability. She replaced the lock on her locker several times, but those girls always got into it. Even when she brought in a much better one than the school issued locks, one from our basement, it didn't stop them. Either she was being attacked by a professional locksmith, which seemed unlikely, or someone with the ability to open her locker without a trace then close it again, or possibly access the inside of it without opening it, was involved. I did a little research, asked some people I know, and wouldn't you know it, one of the Wards here in Brockton is a Parahuman who can walk through walls."
He smiled somewhat grimly and adjusted his glasses with one hand. Emily couldn't look away. "Lots of rumors that a Ward attended Winslow are going around too, of course. Shadow Stalker is known to be… shall we say, somewhat antisocial at best? It's unlikely that someone of that… attitude… would do well in Arcadia where it's known that most of the Wards attend. I made a few inquiries, asked a few people I know who have kids in Arcadia, and no one could think of someone who appeared to have the rather distinctive personality traits that Shadow Stalker was said to show. On the other hand, there were several people who mentioned that Sophia Hess was… Well, not to put too fine a point on it, a violent bitch as someone told me. Emma Barnes is too short to be Shadow Stalker, Madison Clements is much too short, but Sophia Hess matches the body type your own promotional literature shows perfectly."
He stared at her as she looked back, aghast. Armsmaster still had his hand on the door but was listening intently, while Miss Militia's eyes were closed in what looked like pain.
"A little more investigating brought up the interesting point that Shadow Stalker had apparently come very close to killing several criminals over the last year or two, using those crossbows she carries. Oddly enough you might like to know that at least two of those cases were after she joined the Wards."
Emily winced.
"So, yes, I know that Shadow Stalker is Sophia Hess, or at least I was ninety percent sure of it, until Armsmaster here confirmed it for me. Thanks for that, by the way."
Armsmaster winced.
"I'll be having words with Alan Barnes and Emma too, of course, and the Clements family, but right now I think I should talk to Sophia. It's been two weeks since Taylor disappeared from that locker your pet psychopath and her associates pushed her into. The school doesn't want to help for some reason, which I can guess is a mix of incompetence and corruption although I'm not sure of the percentages yet, the cops aren't doing anything useful, and from what I've been told off the record by a couple of contacts, this is due to PRT interference. Again, yet more evidence that a Parahuman was involved." His voice was still completely controlled but there was a level of danger under it that made all three of the others listen whether they wanted to or not.
"I'd be the first person to admit I haven't been a very good father to my daughter for a lot longer than it should have been for reasons that we don't need to go into, but I'm fucked if I'm going to just sit and wait for someone to finally get around to doing what they're paid to do. It looks like that will never happen in any case. So, unless you can tell me right now where Taylor is and what happened to her, I will arrange to look for her with my own resources, regardless of your wishes or interference. And god help all of you if you get in my way, because I can guarantee you won't like what happens if you do."
"Are you threatening us, Mr Hebert?" Armsmaster said grimly.
Danny Hebert turned his head to meet the Tinker's eyes through his visor.
"Yes. Although I think of it more as a promise."
This time, Miss Militia was the one who winced. Armsmaster glowered.
"Everything you've said is covered by an NDA which you will have to sign before you can be allowed to leave, and if you mention anything at all about this you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Armsmaster growled.
"An NDA signed under duress is not valid, and neither can one be used to cover up an illegal act," the horrible man said without raising his voice. "Basic contract law even in this day and age. If you attempt to stop me, I will use every resource I have available to make totally certain that everyone involved in this from the Chief Director down to the PRT janitors has their careers ruined and with any luck ends up in jail. I've already got more than enough evidence to give the press the scoop of a lifetime." He leaned a little closer. "Just fucking try me, Armsmaster."
"We can arrest you," the Tinker snarled.
"You can, yes. I'm willing to go to jail for my daughter. And if I do that, in about… twelve hours, give or take, every news organization in the world will get everything I've gathered about how unbelievably incompetently this entire situation has been handled, along with the names of every single person involved, how, and why." He smiled in a rather bloodthirsty manner as Emily felt her heart sink into her boots. "I'm not an idiot, I took precautions before coming in here. And I very much doubt you can find all the copies of the data I have in time. I sent it off days ago. I also made certain to take precautions in case someone got the bright idea to… encourage me… to talk. So, either you do your goddamn jobs and find my daughter, or get out of the way and let me do it. Your choice."
"And if we call your bluff?" Armsmaster said, sounding furious.
Hebert adjusted his glasses again. "Oh, trust me, it's not a bluff. You really don't want to push me on this. I have nothing to lose right now and you people have everything to lose. And I'd hate to have to really get serious..." He trailed off, then shrugged a little. "Hopefully it won't come to that."
As Emily was about to try to say something to get the situation back under what little control it had started with, since she could see Armsmaster was at the point of doing something more idiotic than usual, there was a brilliant greenish flash outside the window. The dark of the late winter evening gave way to virtual daylight for a second or two, making her violently twitch and spin in her chair to look out across the city. Far off towards the docks a weirdly colored fireball was rising into the sky, dimming as it slowly faded. Alarms went off all over the place, then several seconds later an enormous detonation shook the entire building.
"What the fuck was that?" she shouted, struggling to her feet and moving to the window in an attempt to work out where the blast had come from. She could see glass falling to the street from some of the other buildings in view from the shockwave although the PRT building was hardened against such damage.
Armsmaster and Miss Militia joined her at the window, all three of them watching as the fireball ascended into the night sky and faded from view. The effect was that of a very small nuclear weapon, she thought in horrified awe. Left behind past the buildings she could see a glowing area that was rather more slowly dimming away.
"That was Winslow school," Miss Militia said in horror.
A moment later, Emily turned quickly around as she remembered the final person in the room.
Danny Hebert was gone.
"Oh, Jesus Christ," she mumbled, "I have a really bad feeling about this..."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor inspected where the school had been with grim approval. It was a good start, but there were a lot of other things she needed to do quite soon. In the distance sirens were going mad but she ignored them as irrelevant.
The sound of tires crunching through the rubble scattered all over the roads for a couple of blocks in every direction, on the other hand, made her turn, weapon ready, until she recognized the car. The vehicle stopped a few yards away and a familiar figure got out, silhouetted against the burning building on the other side of the road.
She smiled inside her armor, put her gun away, and walked over.
"I'm back, Dad," she said as she reached out and hugged him.
"Looks like you had an interesting time," he said, almost calmly, although she could see tears in his eyes under his glasses.
"You could put it like that, yeah," she said with a laugh as she let go and reached up to take her helmet off for the first time in what seemed like months. Fresh air, a sensation she'd nearly forgotten, caressed her face, bringing with it the smell of smoke and plasma discharges. She noticed that she was eye to eye with her father which was a little odd since he was about six foot five, but she ignored that for the moment.
"Sorry I took so long, you wouldn't believe the trouble I've had finding my way back," she added, with a slightly uneven smile. He looked her up and down, then nodded.
"You came back. That's all that matters."
She hugged him again.
When she let go once more, she looked around, then rather dubiously at the car, which she doubted was up to the weight of her power armor. He followed her eyes, then looked at her again in an evaluating manner. "I think you'll have to follow me."
"Can we get a pizza on the way?" she asked hopefully. "You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to one."
He laughed. "Of course. You can have all the pizza you want. Sergio's?"
Taylor grinned. "You read my mind."
With a smile, he got back into the car, and as she jogged alongside it, drove off into the night.
By the time the sirens, complete with an enormous number of emergency vehicles from everyone from the fire department to the PRT had arrived some minutes later, the area was still once more, only the crackling of burning wood audible.
A last few strange shadows disappeared into the dark but no one noticed as they were much more concerned with where Winslow wasn't.
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TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
So.
Ash Beast (maybe? Wild Guess based on EXPLOSIONS), Nilbog, the Three Blasphemies, the Machine Army (I think?) And the Sleeper (who went NOPE!).
Angry Taylor was Angry.
And apparently has a bunch of demon cultists (as in, cultists who are demons) following her. Either for the opportunity to invade or because Necromonger Rules (You Keep What You Kill, and she killed their previous boss SUPER hard)
Ash Beast (maybe? Wild Guess based on EXPLOSIONS), Nilbog, the Three Blasphemies, the Machine Army (I think?) And the Sleeper (who went NOPE!).
Angry Taylor was Angry.
And apparently has a bunch of demon cultists (as in, cultists who are demons) following her. Either for the opportunity to invade or because Necromonger Rules (You Keep What You Kill, and she killed their previous boss SUPER hard)
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- Location
- Somewhere over the Rainbow
FTFY
After all, I bet there are multiple Hell-Planes...
Goodby, Ellisburg~!
Anyone else want to poke the big ball of RAGE that is Taylor. I bet on Coil making someone poke her.
- Location
- The world inside my head
First one isn't clear. That *could* just have been one of her own explosions.
Then Blasphemies, Sleeper (survived), Eagleton, Nilbog (wasn't sure at first but somehow I missed the underground god the first time.)
Ash Beast is the logical choice, but it's not certain.
EDIT:
They aren't near Sleeper. She's going through spontaneous Hell portals to various locations on Earth-Bet.
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We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
I find it amusing that the Sleeper only survived by literally just going back to bed.
johnwedd
Above Average man
- Location
- usa
considering they just lost a bunch of S class threats, a handful of demons that aren't sure if they want senpai to notice them is a relatively fair trade.
- Location
- Do you really care?
More like very, very, very careful demon surveillance, just to be absolutely sure that The Taylor is really still gone and hasn't decided to come back.
Yeah, someone's going to be walking/slithering/oozing very softly if they know what's good for them.
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- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I half expect most of them are like 'well, she's still safer to be around than the old boss, as long as you're not an asshole...'
Zeuseus
KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GOD!!
Can't believe that didn't click. I figured the Sleeper out but didn't even notice the other four.