- Location
- The ETERNAL battlefields of the apocalypse
Great work hope to read more of this soon
That Time I Was Reincarnated In Brockton Bay (Worm/That Time I Was Reincarnated As A Slime) (Fusion)
- Thread starter Nimodes
- Start date
It's a complete work on Ao3 that they're reposting.
Slime's A-Wasting
Nimodes
Weary Worldwalker
- Location
- Arizona
Slime 17: Slime A'wasting
* Thursday, February 24, 2011 *
* Canberra, Australia *
Everyone had gathered, the first wave of parahumans had had their chance. They'd slowed but not stopped the descent onto the city.
"She's building something! Bounceback, see if you can interrupt that," came the call from Dragon.
"Roger, I need a high speed lift," responded Bounceback's voice.
Alexandria did a high-speed flyby of the Endbringer, throwing something at the winged menace. Something blue.
A patch of blue began spreading over the Simurgh despite the winged Endbringer trying to scrape it off. "Hi there, Miss Simurgh! So glad to eat you! GLUTTONY!"
[Simurgh connections to network cut. Simurgh has gone to Power Saving Mode.]
"Wait, what?"
[Simurgh is in Power Saving Mode, inactive. Consume/Analyze?]
"I'm the sort to look a gift horse in the mouth, but yeah. Let's figure out exactly what the Simurgh is."
[Working. Much data. Very good.]
"You've been spending too much time on the internet lately," muttered Bounceback before she raised her voice. "(URP!) Tasted kind of like chicken." Bounceback looked around but nobody laughed.
[Shutdown of unit: Simurgh was due to automatic process triggered by extradimensional cutoff. Reinforcing shutdown.]
There was silence from the assembled capes.
Captain Straya broke that silence after three seconds. "Oi. Maybe we can lead with that next time?"
There were a few half-hearted claps and a lot of staring after that, but nobody disagreed.
"You're a local, right?" asked a large muscular guy to Captain Straya. "Nearest bar?"
"Yer right, mate. That's a plan," agreed Captain Straya.
* PRT HQ *
Alexandria flopped into her chair in precisely the way she never did such a thing. It had been the plan, but it had been a slim hope that it would work. Except it had. "She... ATE the Simurgh."
"Yes," agreed Legend.
"ATE the Simurgh."
"You said that."
"It bears repeating."
"So it does."
"What the HELL?!" asked Eidolon as he paced beside the table.
"That's one way of putting it," agreed Legend, a bit bemused.
"She ATE the SIMURGH!" repeated Alexandria. "Om nom nom and GONE."
"That she belched and declared it tasted like chicken just made the moment that much more surreal," agreed Legend.
"I wonder what would happen if I fought her?" asked Eidolon as he stopped pacing.
"She would eat you and then copy your powers," said Legend. "Have you considered doing that anyway just so she could fix your energy problem?"
"She would eat me and copy my powers," confessed Eidolon. "That's kind of stopped me."
"I'm sure she'd throw you right back up," noted Legend.
"That doesn't help as much as you'd think," stated Eidolon.
"Well," said Contessa as she entered the room and found a seat. "Maybe I shouldn't point out that Bounceback is well on her way to becoming an Entity herself. One that actually likes humans."
There were a number of stares at that.
Doctor Mother merely nodded and sipped her tea.
"Would you care to explain that?" finally asked Eidolon.
Contessa checked her watch, nodded. "Five minutes until the next step."
"What is the next step?" asked Legend.
"Introduce Bounceback to Flechette," answered Contessa.
* Elsewhere *
He'd frowned and vanished as something became known to his senses.
Reappearing in the thin atmosphere of Earth ZRN-20972, Zion checked the towers and connections below that spilled out over a barren continent. Rage, even if it was merely a copied expression from a lesser species, briefly distorted his visage. This shard was getting uppity and developing too fast and too wide and seeking to corrupt other shards.
This would not be allowed.
The series of blasts tore through the structures below, which attempted to fend him off at first and then attempt to open communications links.
Too little, too late, the world beneath him died - becoming chunks of rubble that tumbled through the void as he unleashed his full fury upon it. It was a drain on his power reserves, but those would recover and the upstart that had dared to try and corrupt him was dealt with.
No, nothing of this would-be usurper would be allowed to remain.
* Cauldron *
On the screen, the televised footage of a standoff between the Teeth and a local Protectorate team was ending.
Mainly because the Butcher had suddenly clutched her head and then went down in a manner of a felled tree. Just with a lot more screaming as if multiple voices were all trying to cry out through the same mouth.
"What just happened?" asked Eidolon.
"Great Sage is moving to protect Bounceback by redirecting one threat against another threat and then using the opportunity to advance its own timetable," said Contessa.
"And what does that timetable involve?" asked Eidolon.
"There are many ways to win a war, and depriving your enemy of resources is one of those," said Contessa. "Now, I'll be back around three. I suggest you rest for now. Things will get busier later."
* February 25, 2011 *
* DragonTech Manufacturing Plant 4, Brockton Bay *
"Oh, that's handy," said Bounceback, straightening up from where she'd been explaining how one of the extruders would work.
"What's handy?" asked Dragon, smiling a bit as she stood next to Armsmaster.
"Why do I have a feeling this is going to give me another headache?" asked Director Piggot, the walker-chair she was using coming to a stop.
"You remember how I ate the Simurgh?" asked Bounceback.
"We remember," said Armsmaster, Dragon, Director Piggot, Danny Hebert, four nearby workers, and a robot dog.
"Well, as soon as it was in my stomach it went dormant because it was cut off from all dimensional linkages in that particular stomach," said Bounceback. "So some automatic function shut it down. So Queen Sage has been, sort-of, hacking the Simurgh since then."
Dead silence, even the workers out of hearing range noting how still things had gotten and quieting themselves.
Armsmaster broke that silence after a moment. "You mentioned the shutdown in the after-action report. You did not mention 'hacking'? So the Simurgh is basically automated?"
"Sort of, sort of an AI, but with all sorts of restrictions and built-in directives," said Bounceback. "So, Queen Sage has been taking those apart and rebuilding the Simurgh from the primaries on down."
"I knew there was a reason I picked up some Maalox on the drive here," said Director Piggot.
"So..." Armsmaster's voice trailed off.
"So we just sent a shutdown command using the higher-level hierarchies so the other seventeen Endbringers don't activate," said Bounceback.
"Other... seventeen. Endbringers," said Armsmaster, wanting to be completely clear on this point.
"Deactivated, yes," said Bounceback. "Why? I think we can reprogram and repurpose them to be Terraforming Engines."
Even the robot dog was staring at her at this point.
"Repurpose the Endbringers. To 'Terraforming Engines'?" asked Armsmaster.
"Yeah, imagine if we stuck Leviathan on Venus. Water to wash stuff out of the air and cool the place down. Or Behemoth on Mars to heat it up, maybe get that core rotating again," said Bounceback. "Long term projects but... why are you all looking at me like that? Did I say something strange?"
"YES!" exclaimed Armsmaster, Director Piggot, Danny, four nearby workers, and a robot dog. Dragon merely facepalmed.
* CUI *
* February 26, 2011 *
"Strike team leader to strike team. Do we have eyes on the target?"
"Seventy-three to strike team leader. Are we certain about identification measure?"
"Affirm, Seven-three. Subject is shapeshifter. If subject bleeds, subject is not target."
"Strike Leader, that's a negative then. Cut bleeds, microscope reveals normal blood. Do we release subject?"
"No further need for false positives. Erase memories and release. Target hiding among normal populace. Keep looking."
* Tanner's Garage *
She didn't remember much, everything was garbled or blurred. The others who were not her all looked as confused as she felt.
There was a mirror in this old garage, and she moved towards it to see if that at least triggered a memory. She only had a few seconds before someone shoved her aside to look at themselves for likely the same reason, but all it did was give her a vague feeling of recollection.
Everything was confused but... she thought she had a name. Taylor? Was that her name? It was an important name, so maybe that was her name.
Well, that was something at least. The redhead gave her head a nod, deciding that was right. Her name was Taylor something and whatever had happened to her - she had survived.
* CUI *
* February 27, 2011 *
They'd finally found the right person. Capture, cut their arm and collect the blood for a quick look, and then discard the husk after a mindwipe. Simply killing them would just leave corpses, amnesiacs would confuse things and tie up resources that would otherwise be used against them.
Except one of the subjects had been cut, hadn't bled, and instead had started bouncing around and went straight up into a counterattack.
The freeze-ray hadn't worked. The sonic beam hadn't worked. The containment field had momentarily held until a second Bounceback had popped into being outside the field and wrecked the machine. Stolen PRT containment foam sprayers had likewise proven ineffective.
Sixteen had deployed her forcefields but been swallowed by the blue blob a moment later, forcefields and all.
Every time someone got grabbed by the blue freak, they suddenly went dead as far as the group was concerned and that powerset was lost.
Which made the entire operation less and less tenable as time went on. If they COULD grab and add the monster's abilities to their own, well and good. If they couldn't, which was looking more and more likely, then destroying the cape was the only option at this point.
"Strike leader to strike control. Big bang. Repeat: Big bang."
"Strike leader, this is Dragon. I have disabled your bomb. Really, a nuclear device? We only let you run around long enough for us to locate it and determine how many you smuggled in and where each of you were."
"Strike leader to Dragon. You'll never take me alive."
"Dragon to CUI strike leader. That's entirely your decision."
(CHOMP!)
"Dragon to CUI strike leader. Do you copy?"
"Bounceback here. Guy's disabled and bound. Ready for pickup."
"Good hunting, Bounceback."
"Got some useful talents out of it."
"Let's not tell Director Piggot unless we get the medical bay working. She hasn't been looking too good lately."
"Oh, and Dragon? I figured out how to make portals to other Earths. It's a bit tricky and the power requirements are pretty big..."
"One problem at a time, Bounceback."
* Glory Girl *
"MONEY!"
"That you can't reach or spend," pointed out her sister. "So, no shopping trips."
"Killjoy," grumped Glory Girl/Victoria.
"It's what I do," agreed Panacea/Amy, concentrating on the plant in her hands.
"Still, just knowing it's there!" said Victoria. "What is that anyway?"
"You're familiar with genetics right? Dominant versus recessive alleles?" asked Amy.
"Yeah," said Vicky, looking closer. "That's that bonsai boxwood you got at the Lord's Market, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Amy. "So - what happens if I focus on healing a recessive but useful trait?"
"I don't know," said Vicky.
"Neither do I," said Amy, sounding a bit more cheerful.
* Taylor *
* February 28, 2011 *
[Attention: Data exchange with otherworld Sage has revealed systems known as Naming and Titles.]
"Yeah?" asked Taylor, glancing up as she worked on homework. It didn't help the connection or anything, just felt polite.
[System allows for upgrading allied/subordinate forces.]
[A similar system is being researched usable within the current world rules.]
"I don't understand that at all," confessed Taylor.
[A method of empowering specific individuals in a manner not completely reliant on current parahuman methods is possible. Researching.]
"Oh. Cool."
[(sigh)]
"No, really, it's cool. It's just that so many people from Winslow are missing right now that they're burying us in homework rather than try to hold classes."
[Answer on question #3 is incomplete.]
"Huh. Good catch."
[Infection of enemy systems now at 79%. Continuing anti-detection measures.]
* Somer's Rock *
The man in the top hat made a grandiose gesture with it. "So we're going to raid that DragonTech factory, we should be able to grab enough to make us all extremely rich. Who's with us?"
"Seriously?" asked Tattletale. "That's why you called this little get together? To loot a factory that Dragon AND Bounceback are putting together. That bounced pieces of the Dragonslayers over a quarter-mile from when they attacked."
Grue sighed. "The Undersiders are not stupid or expendable. We are not pissing off the cape that ate the freaking Simurgh."
"What about you guys? You just moved into the area, this would give you some serious street cred," said the top-hatted supervillain.
"The Fourth Street Fantastics," said Tattletale. "You guys are a villain band but you haven't done anything locally. A Brute, a Stranger, a Blaster, and a Tinker. Do you really want to step on Dragon's tail?"
"No, not really," said the older guy, nodding to Tattletale. "We're actually mercenaries willing to work both sides of the law. If we go up against Dragon, that would severely limit some of our choices for employers down the road."
"Everyone here's a coward," said one of the top-hatter's group. "We're wasting our time with these losers."
Tattletale checked her phone. "You guys are the Travelers, right? That would make you Trickster."
Trickster blinked. "Wait. I didn't introduce my team?"
There was muttered nopes and quite a few exasperated negatives.
"Ah, well, I'm Trickster. These are members of my team. On my right we have Perdition and Ballistic, on my left is Sundancer."
"Hello," said Sundancer.
"Seriously Francis?" said the one who'd been identified as Perdition.
"You knew enough about the area to put out the word for all the independents to gather at Somer's Rock," said Tattletale, various suspicions beginning to form. "Even new groups like the Fourth Street Fantastics that moved here from New York. Not that I can blame any of you since the destabilization of the Teeth and their 'recruitment drives' and 'initiation tests' for new capes."
The quartet in the blue uniforms all raised cups in acknowledgement. The older-looking guy added. "We're just here another week anyway."
"Even I hadn't heard about the Divergence," noted Tattletale, indicating a group on stools near the bar.
"We're new to Brockton Bay as well, and I think we'll be leaving the area soon," said the apparent leader. "Too many heavy-hitters around here and with Bounceback developing world-travel technology..."
"Understood," said Tattletale.
"Wait. What?" asked Trickster.
"The Docks have rail lines. Working ones. One of Bounceback's little projects is some kind of quantum tunnel. Train goes in on our end, comes out in Aleph." Tattletale shook her head. "They're going to end up so damn rich if they get it all working." She paused as she looked at the various reactions from the group that had called the meeting. "You genuinely didn't know about that?"
"Why don't you just knock over Fort Knox or one of the other gold repositories?" asked one of the Divergence. "It'd be less problem."
"Never mind that Bounceback made a genuine Endbringer-size dragon appear in the Bay," said Tattletale. She paused. "Wait. You're not after a Tinkertech raid. You're after Bounceback?"
"That's it," said the leader of Divergence. "We're out of here."
"Yeah, no point in riding the train into that station," said the member of the Fourth Street Fantastics who looked like he was made out of rocks as his group got up.
Trickster glanced at his own group. "Did any of you hear about this?"
* Brockton Bay Police Department, Precinct 9 *
"Yes, that's my daughter, her name is Emma Barnes."
"She's identified herself as Taylor with no last name," Sergeant O'Reilly stated.
"They said she was one of the amnesia victims but didn't explain much about that," said Zoe Barnes.
"It's cape stuff," said Sergeant O'Reilly. "Not really my thing. The PRT can probably explain more."
"Will she regain her memory?" asked Zoe.
"Again - it's cape stuff," said the Sergeant. "All I've got is rumors and what we've seen here from the victims. There was one who was already remembering some of her past when she was picked up, and another who recognized people from her family. Another one is some teacher from Winslow who lost everything from age sixteen on. One kid lost about a week. One guy seems to think he's a daisy and needs to be watered, but I'm pretty sure he's just nuts and not amnesiac."
"'Nuts'?"
"I'm a cop, Ms Barnes, not a psychologist. Not a cape expert. You want a better diagnosis, get a specialist."
Zoe Barnes watched through the glass as her daughter was looking through a fashion magazine and apparently finding something funny in there. "I just want answers."
"If you're looking for someone to blame, that's the CUI deciding to invade a foreign country and smuggle in a nuke to try and kill or forcibly recruit Bounceback," said Sergeant O'Reilly. "Honestly, I think someone there's got a screw loose trying to grab that one."
Zoe Barnes sighed and went to go collect her errant daughter.
* March 10, 2011 *
* Taylor PoV*
* Conference Room 'Abenaki', PRT ENE HQ *
"List ALL of my abilities?" I asked in my Bounceback mostly-normal-looking form. "Seriously? How much time do we have?" I'd been collecting them, doing the mix-and-match, combining them. Yeah, didn't expect I was supposed to make a list. Just the ones I'd gotten from that CUI strike team was a grab bag and a half.
Armsmaster and Miss Militia were already sitting and had not only tea but a warming plate and teapot. A large one. They also looked fairly resigned.
Rebecca Costa-Brown on the monitor, as well as all the other little screens showing a number of PRT Directors, all looked back at me.
"Yes. All of them."
"Okayyyyy," I said, drawing the last syllable out a few seconds. "Uhm. Where did you want me to start?"
"Your Tinker abilities," suggested Armsmaster. "That seems to have been the abilities that most concerns everyone."
"Okay," I answered, cheering up a bit. Maybe this was an opportunity to sell them on the vehicle and power armor types I'd worked out. "I started on that in the junkyard on Rorschach Alley? The 'Blot Lot'? Anyway, it had one of Leet's power armor suits so I started figuring out how that worked."
I started telling them about the things I'd learned from that. Materials science: synthetic spidersilk, transparent aluminum, durasteel, artificial myomers, neoplastic. Inflating padding and neurolinks. Atomic Batteries.
Then had come the massage chair, this time actively provided by Leet and Uber. Heating elements, springsteel, ultrasonic and subsonic emitters, bio-sensor packages to monitor the user and prevent injury.
A few examples of various types of normal technology from the hospital and from the junkyard, a few books from the Lord's Market, and an understanding of basic underlying physics made it possible to understand where the gaps in Tinkertech were.
Then came the icicle gun. Then Squealer's tank and Squealer herself.
Followed by Mannequin/Sphere's specialty of Enclosed Systems.
All of which meant that those odd moments (like waiting for the walk signal at an intersection) of doing nothing I could turn over ideas and schematics and plans. Great Sage (or Queen Sage if you prefer) currently had 18 tracks to work on various problems simultaneously.
[Twenty-four. (smugness)]
At which point I was interrupted.
"How are you getting past the NEPEA laws?" asked some woman from the Phoenix PRT.
"None of this is Tinkertech," I pointed out. "It's all technology derived from Tinkertech. There was a lawsuit back in the '90s against a solar-energy company for using Tinker-derived solar cells. The PRT lost that one because if you can make all the materials and product without a Tinker being involved - it's not legally considered Tinkertech."
"I still think we should seize everything," said some guy who looked like he'd last smiled sometime before the turn of the century. Or only when he was torturing puppies.
"You're going to have to get past DARPA and the DoD then," I told him. "I've got a licensing arrangement with the DoD for production of the mini-tanks, exclusive use of the SLG-001 'slugnoids' and some of my tech in their new F-302 fighter/interceptor. DARPA is really interested in some of the tech like the industrial water purifier and hyper-lubricant formula."
Oooh. No-fun-guy looked like he was damn near ready to chew duralloy.
"The F-302?" asked Rebecca Costa-Brown. "A plane?"
"In atmosphere, yes," I said, happily. "Since it is capable of going outside the atmosphere, I'm not sure 'plane' is applicable."
Silence. A few of the people were back to staring, with four of them having dropped jaws and two of them looking really thoughtful.
"The Simurgh isn't stopping us from spaceflight anymore," I pointed out. "NASA estimates that in another year or two we can start sending modules to Mars and setting up a base. Five years to actually send people but you can't have everything."
"Chief Director," said No-Fun-Guy whose name read "Tagg" which sounded kind of like a villain to me, "we need to shut this down HARD. The people aren't ready for this and this tech could easily be turned against us."
"Or you could actually buy the stuff from my company and use it yourselves," I pointed out. "Heck, just the duralloy and ferrocrete formulas are Taylor-made for hardened installations like shelters."
"You're a parahuman, that means we can just take it from you," said Tagg.
"Tagg. Shut up," said Chief Director Costa-Brown. "Or do you actually have any idea what a can of worms you're trying to open?"
Armsmaster stirred himself to point something out. "You can out-lawyer one cape by herself. Do you want to try out-lawyering the Department of Defense, DARPA, the Department of Energy, and NASA at the same time?"
"What about other powers?" asked the WeSoWe or Phoenix PRT Director.
"Okay," I said. "How about if I do it - in song!"
"What?" asked half the people in the conference call.
"No?" I asked. Hey, I was darn close to immortal and invulnerable - especially now as I could have Adaptive Regeneration running courtesy of what I'd copied from Crawler. Didn't mean I was immune to embarrassment. Refuge in audacity was a thing.
"No," said Director Piggot. "No singing."
"Oh," I said. I was going to do it to the tune of the Can-can. Dang, now I was getting self-conscious. More than usual.
"Actually, most of our questions were regarding your Tinker abilities. A final question though is regarding Shadow Stalker's abilities. Did she attack you and as a result she lost her power?"
"Yeah. That pretty much sums it up," I admitted. Not that she was much of a threat nowadays. "Did you need her power back?"
"No, actually, we uncovered sufficient evidence of wrongdoing that she would be in juvenile hall anyway. This way we don't have to take special measures to contain her. When she's released we may be in contact with you regarding whether she merits restoring that ability," said Rebecca Costa-Brown.
* March 23 2011 *
"I freed you, you work for me, we go to Brockton Bay and..."
(CLANG!)
"Why did you lock yourself back in your cell?" asked Lung.
"I'm a college-age Japanese girl. You want me to go to a city with a genuine tentacle monster. I know how this movie goes! I've seen the fanart!"
Lung sighed. "She's a slime. Not a tentacle monster."
"She puts out tentacles. Also - she ATE the Simurgh. Yeah, I could maybe come up with a bomb that could kill the bitch. Maybe. And if it doesn't work I end up getting tentacuddled. Or worse."
Lung grunted and glared at the girl, using his anger to fuel his strength to bend the door back open.
"Then there's that she ATE the Simurgh. Can we wait till she eats the other two before we try and kill her?"
Lung lost his patience and literally dragged the cape away from her prison cell. A perusal of some acquired PRT files had revealed that Bounceback was immune to fire. She could eat that old cargoship and an Endbringer so his size was no protection against her. Right now the sort of bombs this girl could make were the only things he'd been able to determine could harm the Endeater.
Though she did have a point about the other two Endbringers.
Bounceback had so far left the ABB and E88 alone as long as they left her and her territory alone. Neither the Empire or his own forces had pressed that little detente.
He just wanted to be ready. Either to leave Brockton Bay for a better area, or for the fight when Bounceback did expand her territory.
* Thursday, February 24, 2011 *
* Canberra, Australia *
Everyone had gathered, the first wave of parahumans had had their chance. They'd slowed but not stopped the descent onto the city.
"She's building something! Bounceback, see if you can interrupt that," came the call from Dragon.
"Roger, I need a high speed lift," responded Bounceback's voice.
Alexandria did a high-speed flyby of the Endbringer, throwing something at the winged menace. Something blue.
A patch of blue began spreading over the Simurgh despite the winged Endbringer trying to scrape it off. "Hi there, Miss Simurgh! So glad to eat you! GLUTTONY!"
[Simurgh connections to network cut. Simurgh has gone to Power Saving Mode.]
"Wait, what?"
[Simurgh is in Power Saving Mode, inactive. Consume/Analyze?]
"I'm the sort to look a gift horse in the mouth, but yeah. Let's figure out exactly what the Simurgh is."
[Working. Much data. Very good.]
"You've been spending too much time on the internet lately," muttered Bounceback before she raised her voice. "(URP!) Tasted kind of like chicken." Bounceback looked around but nobody laughed.
[Shutdown of unit: Simurgh was due to automatic process triggered by extradimensional cutoff. Reinforcing shutdown.]
There was silence from the assembled capes.
Captain Straya broke that silence after three seconds. "Oi. Maybe we can lead with that next time?"
There were a few half-hearted claps and a lot of staring after that, but nobody disagreed.
"You're a local, right?" asked a large muscular guy to Captain Straya. "Nearest bar?"
"Yer right, mate. That's a plan," agreed Captain Straya.
* PRT HQ *
Alexandria flopped into her chair in precisely the way she never did such a thing. It had been the plan, but it had been a slim hope that it would work. Except it had. "She... ATE the Simurgh."
"Yes," agreed Legend.
"ATE the Simurgh."
"You said that."
"It bears repeating."
"So it does."
"What the HELL?!" asked Eidolon as he paced beside the table.
"That's one way of putting it," agreed Legend, a bit bemused.
"She ATE the SIMURGH!" repeated Alexandria. "Om nom nom and GONE."
"That she belched and declared it tasted like chicken just made the moment that much more surreal," agreed Legend.
"I wonder what would happen if I fought her?" asked Eidolon as he stopped pacing.
"She would eat you and then copy your powers," said Legend. "Have you considered doing that anyway just so she could fix your energy problem?"
"She would eat me and copy my powers," confessed Eidolon. "That's kind of stopped me."
"I'm sure she'd throw you right back up," noted Legend.
"That doesn't help as much as you'd think," stated Eidolon.
"Well," said Contessa as she entered the room and found a seat. "Maybe I shouldn't point out that Bounceback is well on her way to becoming an Entity herself. One that actually likes humans."
There were a number of stares at that.
Doctor Mother merely nodded and sipped her tea.
"Would you care to explain that?" finally asked Eidolon.
Contessa checked her watch, nodded. "Five minutes until the next step."
"What is the next step?" asked Legend.
"Introduce Bounceback to Flechette," answered Contessa.
* Elsewhere *
He'd frowned and vanished as something became known to his senses.
Reappearing in the thin atmosphere of Earth ZRN-20972, Zion checked the towers and connections below that spilled out over a barren continent. Rage, even if it was merely a copied expression from a lesser species, briefly distorted his visage. This shard was getting uppity and developing too fast and too wide and seeking to corrupt other shards.
This would not be allowed.
The series of blasts tore through the structures below, which attempted to fend him off at first and then attempt to open communications links.
Too little, too late, the world beneath him died - becoming chunks of rubble that tumbled through the void as he unleashed his full fury upon it. It was a drain on his power reserves, but those would recover and the upstart that had dared to try and corrupt him was dealt with.
No, nothing of this would-be usurper would be allowed to remain.
* Cauldron *
On the screen, the televised footage of a standoff between the Teeth and a local Protectorate team was ending.
Mainly because the Butcher had suddenly clutched her head and then went down in a manner of a felled tree. Just with a lot more screaming as if multiple voices were all trying to cry out through the same mouth.
"What just happened?" asked Eidolon.
"Great Sage is moving to protect Bounceback by redirecting one threat against another threat and then using the opportunity to advance its own timetable," said Contessa.
"And what does that timetable involve?" asked Eidolon.
"There are many ways to win a war, and depriving your enemy of resources is one of those," said Contessa. "Now, I'll be back around three. I suggest you rest for now. Things will get busier later."
* February 25, 2011 *
* DragonTech Manufacturing Plant 4, Brockton Bay *
"Oh, that's handy," said Bounceback, straightening up from where she'd been explaining how one of the extruders would work.
"What's handy?" asked Dragon, smiling a bit as she stood next to Armsmaster.
"Why do I have a feeling this is going to give me another headache?" asked Director Piggot, the walker-chair she was using coming to a stop.
"You remember how I ate the Simurgh?" asked Bounceback.
"We remember," said Armsmaster, Dragon, Director Piggot, Danny Hebert, four nearby workers, and a robot dog.
"Well, as soon as it was in my stomach it went dormant because it was cut off from all dimensional linkages in that particular stomach," said Bounceback. "So some automatic function shut it down. So Queen Sage has been, sort-of, hacking the Simurgh since then."
Dead silence, even the workers out of hearing range noting how still things had gotten and quieting themselves.
Armsmaster broke that silence after a moment. "You mentioned the shutdown in the after-action report. You did not mention 'hacking'? So the Simurgh is basically automated?"
"Sort of, sort of an AI, but with all sorts of restrictions and built-in directives," said Bounceback. "So, Queen Sage has been taking those apart and rebuilding the Simurgh from the primaries on down."
"I knew there was a reason I picked up some Maalox on the drive here," said Director Piggot.
"So..." Armsmaster's voice trailed off.
"So we just sent a shutdown command using the higher-level hierarchies so the other seventeen Endbringers don't activate," said Bounceback.
"Other... seventeen. Endbringers," said Armsmaster, wanting to be completely clear on this point.
"Deactivated, yes," said Bounceback. "Why? I think we can reprogram and repurpose them to be Terraforming Engines."
Even the robot dog was staring at her at this point.
"Repurpose the Endbringers. To 'Terraforming Engines'?" asked Armsmaster.
"Yeah, imagine if we stuck Leviathan on Venus. Water to wash stuff out of the air and cool the place down. Or Behemoth on Mars to heat it up, maybe get that core rotating again," said Bounceback. "Long term projects but... why are you all looking at me like that? Did I say something strange?"
"YES!" exclaimed Armsmaster, Director Piggot, Danny, four nearby workers, and a robot dog. Dragon merely facepalmed.
* CUI *
* February 26, 2011 *
"Strike team leader to strike team. Do we have eyes on the target?"
"Seventy-three to strike team leader. Are we certain about identification measure?"
"Affirm, Seven-three. Subject is shapeshifter. If subject bleeds, subject is not target."
"Strike Leader, that's a negative then. Cut bleeds, microscope reveals normal blood. Do we release subject?"
"No further need for false positives. Erase memories and release. Target hiding among normal populace. Keep looking."
* Tanner's Garage *
She didn't remember much, everything was garbled or blurred. The others who were not her all looked as confused as she felt.
There was a mirror in this old garage, and she moved towards it to see if that at least triggered a memory. She only had a few seconds before someone shoved her aside to look at themselves for likely the same reason, but all it did was give her a vague feeling of recollection.
Everything was confused but... she thought she had a name. Taylor? Was that her name? It was an important name, so maybe that was her name.
Well, that was something at least. The redhead gave her head a nod, deciding that was right. Her name was Taylor something and whatever had happened to her - she had survived.
* CUI *
* February 27, 2011 *
They'd finally found the right person. Capture, cut their arm and collect the blood for a quick look, and then discard the husk after a mindwipe. Simply killing them would just leave corpses, amnesiacs would confuse things and tie up resources that would otherwise be used against them.
Except one of the subjects had been cut, hadn't bled, and instead had started bouncing around and went straight up into a counterattack.
The freeze-ray hadn't worked. The sonic beam hadn't worked. The containment field had momentarily held until a second Bounceback had popped into being outside the field and wrecked the machine. Stolen PRT containment foam sprayers had likewise proven ineffective.
Sixteen had deployed her forcefields but been swallowed by the blue blob a moment later, forcefields and all.
Every time someone got grabbed by the blue freak, they suddenly went dead as far as the group was concerned and that powerset was lost.
Which made the entire operation less and less tenable as time went on. If they COULD grab and add the monster's abilities to their own, well and good. If they couldn't, which was looking more and more likely, then destroying the cape was the only option at this point.
"Strike leader to strike control. Big bang. Repeat: Big bang."
"Strike leader, this is Dragon. I have disabled your bomb. Really, a nuclear device? We only let you run around long enough for us to locate it and determine how many you smuggled in and where each of you were."
"Strike leader to Dragon. You'll never take me alive."
"Dragon to CUI strike leader. That's entirely your decision."
(CHOMP!)
"Dragon to CUI strike leader. Do you copy?"
"Bounceback here. Guy's disabled and bound. Ready for pickup."
"Good hunting, Bounceback."
"Got some useful talents out of it."
"Let's not tell Director Piggot unless we get the medical bay working. She hasn't been looking too good lately."
"Oh, and Dragon? I figured out how to make portals to other Earths. It's a bit tricky and the power requirements are pretty big..."
"One problem at a time, Bounceback."
* Glory Girl *
"MONEY!"
"That you can't reach or spend," pointed out her sister. "So, no shopping trips."
"Killjoy," grumped Glory Girl/Victoria.
"It's what I do," agreed Panacea/Amy, concentrating on the plant in her hands.
"Still, just knowing it's there!" said Victoria. "What is that anyway?"
"You're familiar with genetics right? Dominant versus recessive alleles?" asked Amy.
"Yeah," said Vicky, looking closer. "That's that bonsai boxwood you got at the Lord's Market, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Amy. "So - what happens if I focus on healing a recessive but useful trait?"
"I don't know," said Vicky.
"Neither do I," said Amy, sounding a bit more cheerful.
* Taylor *
* February 28, 2011 *
[Attention: Data exchange with otherworld Sage has revealed systems known as Naming and Titles.]
"Yeah?" asked Taylor, glancing up as she worked on homework. It didn't help the connection or anything, just felt polite.
[System allows for upgrading allied/subordinate forces.]
[A similar system is being researched usable within the current world rules.]
"I don't understand that at all," confessed Taylor.
[A method of empowering specific individuals in a manner not completely reliant on current parahuman methods is possible. Researching.]
"Oh. Cool."
[(sigh)]
"No, really, it's cool. It's just that so many people from Winslow are missing right now that they're burying us in homework rather than try to hold classes."
[Answer on question #3 is incomplete.]
"Huh. Good catch."
[Infection of enemy systems now at 79%. Continuing anti-detection measures.]
* Somer's Rock *
The man in the top hat made a grandiose gesture with it. "So we're going to raid that DragonTech factory, we should be able to grab enough to make us all extremely rich. Who's with us?"
"Seriously?" asked Tattletale. "That's why you called this little get together? To loot a factory that Dragon AND Bounceback are putting together. That bounced pieces of the Dragonslayers over a quarter-mile from when they attacked."
Grue sighed. "The Undersiders are not stupid or expendable. We are not pissing off the cape that ate the freaking Simurgh."
"What about you guys? You just moved into the area, this would give you some serious street cred," said the top-hatted supervillain.
"The Fourth Street Fantastics," said Tattletale. "You guys are a villain band but you haven't done anything locally. A Brute, a Stranger, a Blaster, and a Tinker. Do you really want to step on Dragon's tail?"
"No, not really," said the older guy, nodding to Tattletale. "We're actually mercenaries willing to work both sides of the law. If we go up against Dragon, that would severely limit some of our choices for employers down the road."
"Everyone here's a coward," said one of the top-hatter's group. "We're wasting our time with these losers."
Tattletale checked her phone. "You guys are the Travelers, right? That would make you Trickster."
Trickster blinked. "Wait. I didn't introduce my team?"
There was muttered nopes and quite a few exasperated negatives.
"Ah, well, I'm Trickster. These are members of my team. On my right we have Perdition and Ballistic, on my left is Sundancer."
"Hello," said Sundancer.
"Seriously Francis?" said the one who'd been identified as Perdition.
"You knew enough about the area to put out the word for all the independents to gather at Somer's Rock," said Tattletale, various suspicions beginning to form. "Even new groups like the Fourth Street Fantastics that moved here from New York. Not that I can blame any of you since the destabilization of the Teeth and their 'recruitment drives' and 'initiation tests' for new capes."
The quartet in the blue uniforms all raised cups in acknowledgement. The older-looking guy added. "We're just here another week anyway."
"Even I hadn't heard about the Divergence," noted Tattletale, indicating a group on stools near the bar.
"We're new to Brockton Bay as well, and I think we'll be leaving the area soon," said the apparent leader. "Too many heavy-hitters around here and with Bounceback developing world-travel technology..."
"Understood," said Tattletale.
"Wait. What?" asked Trickster.
"The Docks have rail lines. Working ones. One of Bounceback's little projects is some kind of quantum tunnel. Train goes in on our end, comes out in Aleph." Tattletale shook her head. "They're going to end up so damn rich if they get it all working." She paused as she looked at the various reactions from the group that had called the meeting. "You genuinely didn't know about that?"
"Why don't you just knock over Fort Knox or one of the other gold repositories?" asked one of the Divergence. "It'd be less problem."
"Never mind that Bounceback made a genuine Endbringer-size dragon appear in the Bay," said Tattletale. She paused. "Wait. You're not after a Tinkertech raid. You're after Bounceback?"
"That's it," said the leader of Divergence. "We're out of here."
"Yeah, no point in riding the train into that station," said the member of the Fourth Street Fantastics who looked like he was made out of rocks as his group got up.
Trickster glanced at his own group. "Did any of you hear about this?"
* Brockton Bay Police Department, Precinct 9 *
"Yes, that's my daughter, her name is Emma Barnes."
"She's identified herself as Taylor with no last name," Sergeant O'Reilly stated.
"They said she was one of the amnesia victims but didn't explain much about that," said Zoe Barnes.
"It's cape stuff," said Sergeant O'Reilly. "Not really my thing. The PRT can probably explain more."
"Will she regain her memory?" asked Zoe.
"Again - it's cape stuff," said the Sergeant. "All I've got is rumors and what we've seen here from the victims. There was one who was already remembering some of her past when she was picked up, and another who recognized people from her family. Another one is some teacher from Winslow who lost everything from age sixteen on. One kid lost about a week. One guy seems to think he's a daisy and needs to be watered, but I'm pretty sure he's just nuts and not amnesiac."
"'Nuts'?"
"I'm a cop, Ms Barnes, not a psychologist. Not a cape expert. You want a better diagnosis, get a specialist."
Zoe Barnes watched through the glass as her daughter was looking through a fashion magazine and apparently finding something funny in there. "I just want answers."
"If you're looking for someone to blame, that's the CUI deciding to invade a foreign country and smuggle in a nuke to try and kill or forcibly recruit Bounceback," said Sergeant O'Reilly. "Honestly, I think someone there's got a screw loose trying to grab that one."
Zoe Barnes sighed and went to go collect her errant daughter.
* March 10, 2011 *
* Taylor PoV*
* Conference Room 'Abenaki', PRT ENE HQ *
"List ALL of my abilities?" I asked in my Bounceback mostly-normal-looking form. "Seriously? How much time do we have?" I'd been collecting them, doing the mix-and-match, combining them. Yeah, didn't expect I was supposed to make a list. Just the ones I'd gotten from that CUI strike team was a grab bag and a half.
Armsmaster and Miss Militia were already sitting and had not only tea but a warming plate and teapot. A large one. They also looked fairly resigned.
Rebecca Costa-Brown on the monitor, as well as all the other little screens showing a number of PRT Directors, all looked back at me.
"Yes. All of them."
"Okayyyyy," I said, drawing the last syllable out a few seconds. "Uhm. Where did you want me to start?"
"Your Tinker abilities," suggested Armsmaster. "That seems to have been the abilities that most concerns everyone."
"Okay," I answered, cheering up a bit. Maybe this was an opportunity to sell them on the vehicle and power armor types I'd worked out. "I started on that in the junkyard on Rorschach Alley? The 'Blot Lot'? Anyway, it had one of Leet's power armor suits so I started figuring out how that worked."
I started telling them about the things I'd learned from that. Materials science: synthetic spidersilk, transparent aluminum, durasteel, artificial myomers, neoplastic. Inflating padding and neurolinks. Atomic Batteries.
Then had come the massage chair, this time actively provided by Leet and Uber. Heating elements, springsteel, ultrasonic and subsonic emitters, bio-sensor packages to monitor the user and prevent injury.
A few examples of various types of normal technology from the hospital and from the junkyard, a few books from the Lord's Market, and an understanding of basic underlying physics made it possible to understand where the gaps in Tinkertech were.
Then came the icicle gun. Then Squealer's tank and Squealer herself.
Followed by Mannequin/Sphere's specialty of Enclosed Systems.
All of which meant that those odd moments (like waiting for the walk signal at an intersection) of doing nothing I could turn over ideas and schematics and plans. Great Sage (or Queen Sage if you prefer) currently had 18 tracks to work on various problems simultaneously.
[Twenty-four. (smugness)]
At which point I was interrupted.
"How are you getting past the NEPEA laws?" asked some woman from the Phoenix PRT.
"None of this is Tinkertech," I pointed out. "It's all technology derived from Tinkertech. There was a lawsuit back in the '90s against a solar-energy company for using Tinker-derived solar cells. The PRT lost that one because if you can make all the materials and product without a Tinker being involved - it's not legally considered Tinkertech."
"I still think we should seize everything," said some guy who looked like he'd last smiled sometime before the turn of the century. Or only when he was torturing puppies.
"You're going to have to get past DARPA and the DoD then," I told him. "I've got a licensing arrangement with the DoD for production of the mini-tanks, exclusive use of the SLG-001 'slugnoids' and some of my tech in their new F-302 fighter/interceptor. DARPA is really interested in some of the tech like the industrial water purifier and hyper-lubricant formula."
Oooh. No-fun-guy looked like he was damn near ready to chew duralloy.
"The F-302?" asked Rebecca Costa-Brown. "A plane?"
"In atmosphere, yes," I said, happily. "Since it is capable of going outside the atmosphere, I'm not sure 'plane' is applicable."
Silence. A few of the people were back to staring, with four of them having dropped jaws and two of them looking really thoughtful.
"The Simurgh isn't stopping us from spaceflight anymore," I pointed out. "NASA estimates that in another year or two we can start sending modules to Mars and setting up a base. Five years to actually send people but you can't have everything."
"Chief Director," said No-Fun-Guy whose name read "Tagg" which sounded kind of like a villain to me, "we need to shut this down HARD. The people aren't ready for this and this tech could easily be turned against us."
"Or you could actually buy the stuff from my company and use it yourselves," I pointed out. "Heck, just the duralloy and ferrocrete formulas are Taylor-made for hardened installations like shelters."
"You're a parahuman, that means we can just take it from you," said Tagg.
"Tagg. Shut up," said Chief Director Costa-Brown. "Or do you actually have any idea what a can of worms you're trying to open?"
Armsmaster stirred himself to point something out. "You can out-lawyer one cape by herself. Do you want to try out-lawyering the Department of Defense, DARPA, the Department of Energy, and NASA at the same time?"
"What about other powers?" asked the WeSoWe or Phoenix PRT Director.
"Okay," I said. "How about if I do it - in song!"
"What?" asked half the people in the conference call.
"No?" I asked. Hey, I was darn close to immortal and invulnerable - especially now as I could have Adaptive Regeneration running courtesy of what I'd copied from Crawler. Didn't mean I was immune to embarrassment. Refuge in audacity was a thing.
"No," said Director Piggot. "No singing."
"Oh," I said. I was going to do it to the tune of the Can-can. Dang, now I was getting self-conscious. More than usual.
"Actually, most of our questions were regarding your Tinker abilities. A final question though is regarding Shadow Stalker's abilities. Did she attack you and as a result she lost her power?"
"Yeah. That pretty much sums it up," I admitted. Not that she was much of a threat nowadays. "Did you need her power back?"
"No, actually, we uncovered sufficient evidence of wrongdoing that she would be in juvenile hall anyway. This way we don't have to take special measures to contain her. When she's released we may be in contact with you regarding whether she merits restoring that ability," said Rebecca Costa-Brown.
* March 23 2011 *
"I freed you, you work for me, we go to Brockton Bay and..."
(CLANG!)
"Why did you lock yourself back in your cell?" asked Lung.
"I'm a college-age Japanese girl. You want me to go to a city with a genuine tentacle monster. I know how this movie goes! I've seen the fanart!"
Lung sighed. "She's a slime. Not a tentacle monster."
"She puts out tentacles. Also - she ATE the Simurgh. Yeah, I could maybe come up with a bomb that could kill the bitch. Maybe. And if it doesn't work I end up getting tentacuddled. Or worse."
Lung grunted and glared at the girl, using his anger to fuel his strength to bend the door back open.
"Then there's that she ATE the Simurgh. Can we wait till she eats the other two before we try and kill her?"
Lung lost his patience and literally dragged the cape away from her prison cell. A perusal of some acquired PRT files had revealed that Bounceback was immune to fire. She could eat that old cargoship and an Endbringer so his size was no protection against her. Right now the sort of bombs this girl could make were the only things he'd been able to determine could harm the Endeater.
Though she did have a point about the other two Endbringers.
Bounceback had so far left the ABB and E88 alone as long as they left her and her territory alone. Neither the Empire or his own forces had pressed that little detente.
He just wanted to be ready. Either to leave Brockton Bay for a better area, or for the fight when Bounceback did expand her territory.
It's About Slime...
Nimodes
Weary Worldwalker
- Location
- Arizona
* April 3 2011 *
"For so long. It's been a dream we've been promised for so so long," said Assault, getting misty-eyed as he approached it.
"Well, it'll take awhile for the civilian models to come out," said Dragon, her long pointed ears flicking as she watched the various Protectorate members react to the reveal.
"It's beautiful," said Vista.
"At long long last. We have flying cars," said Assault, acting as if he was wiping tears away.
"The lawmakers are throwing fits about all of it, rules and regulations and licensing and fees, and..." Dragon let out a deep sigh. Wow. That actually does help.
"So right now it's just DragonTech able to produce these, limited number, and such?" asked Battery as she inspected what LOOKED like a 1965 Ford Mustang Convertible. That had wheels that folded into position underneath the chassis and was currently hovering 2.5 feet off the helipad.
"Limited forcefield, reinforcement field, antigrav, and only available to Protectorate personnel." Dragon felt her tail begin to lash from nervousness and stopped it. "Uses our patented DragonTech Atomic Batteries to power. Top speed is 110mph, operational ceiling is 10,000feet. It's a flying car after all, not streamlined or designed for higher speeds and altitudes. Right now we're selling them under a lease and field testing agreement to avoid some of the legal problems as everyone in charge decides how much red tape you've got to go through to get something like this."
"I want one," said Assault.
"We know," said several of the people present for this unveiling.
"Seriously, with my power?" asked Assault. "Can you picture me setting the vehicle to hover and drop down into a group of crooks from a hundred feet up? It'd be awesome."
"I could shrink distances in front of it," said Vista wistfully. "My power is line of sight, so if I'm up above the buildings..."
"What about when it rains?" asked Battery, eyeing the clouds.
"Erect the forcefield at level one, it'll deflect the rain to the side," advised Dragon. "Or you could just put the top up. Chassis is reinforced with durasteel and a carbon-based polymer especially on the bottom. So... are you interested in testing these out?"
"How many?" asked Armsmaster, who was less interested because he'd already equipped his Armscycle with a hover mode. Still, the idea of his branch of the Protectorate becoming more efficient through this 'testing arrangement' was quite appealing.
"Three for the local Protectorate. The Mustang here, a 1962 Chevrolet Corvette, and a 1976 Chevy G-10 Van," said Dragon.
"Not a convertible?" asked Battery.
"The side and back both have quick releases," answered Dragon. "Limited self-driving in all three so you can deploy quickly and the vehicle will automatically go to hover mode and seal up to avoid someone trying to break in and steal it."
"How many have you built so far?" asked Vista, wondering about avoiding any other vehicles that might be flying around.
"Three local," said Dragon. "Armsmaster's motorcycle was given flight capabilities last month. There's the Dockworkers Union which has two vehicles, though no containment foam grenade launchers on those."
"Containment foam grenade launchers?" asked Vista, practically getting sparkly eyed as some vision danced in her imagination.
"Yes, under the headlights," said Dragon, helpfully pointing out the spots where the tube hatches were located.
"Not locally, there are four more vehicles that are being evaluated for performance," said Dragon.
* Earth-Gamma *
"Get your motor running.
"Head out on the highway.
"Looking for adventure,
"In whatever comes our way."
The Land Rover had windows rolled down and was speeding with no speed limits in sight. Or roads. Or any obstacles other than the occasional bird at this altitude.
Contessa smiled as she put the vehicle through its paces. She clicked two buttons that caused the windows to roll up, volume on the music to drop to a preset limit, and equipment to start shifting around.
"Yeah, darlin', go and make it happen,
"Take the world in a love embrace,
"Fire all of your guns at once,
"And explode into space."
The Land Rover passed the preset limits and achieved Low Earth Orbit.
Contessa guided the vehicle around to watch the world revolve beneath her, at the very limit of where her power would still connect.
Doctor Mother let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "This is..."
"This changes so much," said Contessa.
"So it does," agreed Doctor Mother.
* Dragon *
"So that's three Tachikoma models for the Brockton Bay SWAT team," said Dragon after the meeting with the local Protectorate and Wards had finished and she could return to the factory. "Three of the flight vehicles for the Protectorate. Two flight-capable motor scooters for the Congressional Oversight Committee. One Dragonfly(tm) Ambulance for Brockton Bay General evaluation. One low-effect high-mass system to be granted for the US Army Corps of Engineers to outfit an Abrams tank. The Land Rover for Protectorate budgetary evaluation. NASA is getting the lift platform in... two weeks?"
"Problems with the stability of the platform. It's designed to be fairly slow but carry a lot of weight, so..." Danny Hebert shrugged. Not his area of expertise at all, but he could summarize what the various people were telling him. "Probably by next month."
"Where's Bounceback anyway?" asked Dragon.
"Meeting with Lung," said Danny. "Apparently there was a deal to be made with him, the US Government, and the top levels of the Protectorate. Also some secret organization."
"That certainly sounds ominous," noted Dragon.
"Anything dealing with that level of the government tends to sound ominous," agreed Danny. "Or frustrating. Or nonsensical, frustrating, and ominous."
* PRT ENE Wards Suite *
"Modular pieces. Plug and Play. Freaking Legos!"
"Eh?" asked Aegis, glancing towards where Kid Win had just beat his head against a table.
"He just figured out that all his tearing apart pieces of his equipment to repurpose stuff WAS his Tinker specialization," said Clockblocker, looking down at the Lego Batmobile he'd been assembling. That was now missing a few pieces because Kid Win was having a dramatic moment.
"You know you could have just asked Bounceback," said Vista as she filled out a sudoku.
Clockblocker just started humming the slinky commercial theme.
"Stop that, you know that song gets stuck in my head," complained Aegis.
"LEGOS!"
"Can you give me back the engine now?" asked Clockblocker.
* Elsewhere *
"How the heck did you even know 'hadouken' or that other stuff?" asked Rimuru now that they'd dealt with the whole Octagon thing.
"Uber and Leet had the Streetfighter games," said Veldora with a grin. "It was most intriguing."
"Eh?" asked Milim Nava. "What's all that about?"
Veldora began explaining. Milim got excited. Rimuru commented about how he felt this had the potential to be really really BAD.
Rafael agreed.
* Office of the President *
"Here we go, Sir, the latest deal."
"Alternate Earths? There is such a thing?" asked the President. "Besides Aleph, I mean."
"Yes sir. This doesn't involve Haywire's technology, it's something Bounceback and Dragon have been working on."
"Huh. So Lung gathers no more than 200 volunteers... I'm guessing we have a way to make sure the volunteers ARE volunteers?"
"Yes sir."
"Okay. So he gets his 200 volunteers and retires to a world where humanity never developed with enough materials to build a village. At which point we consider it to be an off-world prison where we don't need to fund anything?"
"Yes sir. We'd have to scout it out thoroughly to be sure but apparently there are hundreds of these worlds."
"Might be a resource to look into when the tech's proven out," mused the President. "So, no Birdcage for Lung but he's contained and not going to continue to cause problems. What's the PRT's take?"
"Just getting him to go quietly into exile as opposed to taking him down after a lengthy fight is the cheaper of the two options as long as we spend less than 750 million on it. Current estimate is we can supply the materials for less than 5."
"Why so cheap?" asked the President.
"First off, we're looking at a village not a full city," explained Agent Quincy as she placed a few pieces of documentation down on the desk. "We're also factoring in that it has to be something self-sustaining and built quickly. Prefab buildings, of which we actually have quite a few from projects that were cancelled, emergency shelters, and things like plans for building things on the other side from materials there. An Old West-style building can be constructed surprisingly fast and quickly compared to more modern constructions."
"And it is sufficiently rough living enough that I can justify to some members of Congress that this is actually punishment," mused the President as he flicked through the paperwork. "That's what he gets. What do we get?"
"Bounceback gets to copy his Tinker's abilities, which Costa-Brown informs us improves our chances of survival against certain problems."
"And?" asked the President absently.
"And it gets Oni Lee, Lung, and the ABB off American soil and out of the way of any plans we have for that part of the country," noted Agent Quincy.
"Any problems with it that I'm not immediately seeing?" asked the President.
"One. That leaves the single remaining gang of supervillains in that city a group of Nazis," said Agent Quincy. "Fortunately, they have been avoiding being a major problem since the one attempt to recruit Bounceback."
"I heard they're calling her an 'Eidolon package' now," mused the President as he went back to reading through the paperwork. "Because of the whole switching between a number of powers."
"They're calling Bounceback a lot of things. Including marketable," provided Agent Quincy.
"Yes, I saw the heated pillows," said the President absently. "This section here - wording is a bit tricky."
"Ah, I'll have Legal go over that again," said Agent Quincy.
* Docks *
He was an autonomous robot dog. Name: K-9. Purpose: Security and attache to Daniel Hebert.
"Coming, Master."
"Good boy, K-9."
"Affirmative, Master."
When he was created it was specifically by Bounceback as additional assistance for her father. He was capable of a great many things, but was not designed as being able to hold the line and protect his master against supervillains. Instead he had very very good sensors and a laser cannon capable of dealing with lower-level threats. For bigger threats, he had high-speed communications and recording equipment.
"Do you have the files on the Ironside Transport contract, K-9?"
"Located. Routing to your desk computer, Master."
"Where's Taylor anyway?"
"Locating Mistress. Mistress is currently working with Dragon on heavy-lift orbital platform."
"Thanks, K-9. Probably having trouble with those balancing mechanisms again."
* April 10, 2011 *
There was a lot of activity in Empire territory for some reason.
Bounceback flew through the city on patrol, silent and deadly. Well, mostly silent. And she generally wasn't exactly deadly because she favored nonlethal options. So, kind of sort of, silent and deadly avenger of the night.
She was aware of the E88 gangers hanging around a street corner looking tough, but as they were just standing there - there wasn't much she could do about it.
"Yo! You guys up to no good?"
"SHIT! IT'S BOUNCEBACK!"
"We ain't doing nothing! You can't prove it!"
"Cool it you twits," said a calm skinhead. "We just hanging out, right?"
"Uhm. True. So what's up?" asked Bounceback.
"You don't scare me!" declared one of the gangers, sliding open a boxcutter.
"Biff, she ate the Simurgh. She flattened the Slaughterhouse Nine. What do you think a boxcutter is going to do?" asked the non-panicking Empire tough. "Besides, all we're doing is keeping an eye out for other gangs trying to cut into territory. Ain't nothing illegal about that."
"...seriously, your name is 'Biff'?" asked Bounceback.
Biff grumbled something about his parents.
"Heard you kept those CUI jackasses from blowing up the city," said the non-panicker. "Good job."
"Yeah, that was a thing. Can you imagine smuggling a nuke into the city? What jerks," grumbled Bounceback. Getting complimented by a Nazi didn't sit well, but what could she legally do about that?
"My family lives here, so bit of free advice," said the apparent leader of this group. "Gesselschaft is planning on coming over here to try and recruit you. Guess they figured they'd do better than them Chin... Chinese."
"Huh. Thanks for the heads-up," said Bounceback. She'd get word to Dragon and the PRT so they were ready for it. With that, she flew up and out of sight.
"I thought we were allied with Gesellschaft," grumped Biff.
"It's complicated," said the leader. "Word I've heard is that Kaiser likes to remain independent of them, but the Germans want to take over. So are we more loyal to Kaiser or to them?"
Biff considered that for a second. "Kaiser's the one who pays us."
The group leader took out his phone and began pushing buttons. "Exactly. Now pipe down while I put this up the chain. See if this gets me smacked around by Hookwolf or a bonus."
* Bleeker Street *
"You came alone?" asked Lung. "Arrogance."
(VTT-VERT-VERT-VERT) went a nearby car, twisting and unfolding into a twelve-foot-tall robot.
Lung regarded the robot, then returned his attention to Armsmaster. "Transforming robots, really? Do they also combine into a bigger robot?"
"Working on the mechanisms for such a thing, it would simplify transportation with mass-limited teleportation," said Dragon's voice from the rather large robot.
"Well, at least you have a plausible reason for that," grumbled Lung. "Why transforming?"
"The portals to other Earths have a maximum sustainable size at current energy levels," stated Dragon. "Having forms that can fit within a cargo container is a work-around."
"Hmmm," said Lung, eyeing the giant robot.
"This is all besides the point. Hold on, I'm getting an alert." Armsmaster put a stack of paper on a mailbox and then added a wrench to weigh it down.
"I got it too. It's ahead of time," said Dragon. "So, Lung. How would you like to assist in a truly large battle?"
"I was a bit bored," admitted Lung. "How big?"
* Earth 27 B *
The golden man appeared in a flash of light, his face a study in anger and frustration.
This time was different though. This time he found himself under attack the moment he appeared.
Railguns began firing spears of metal charged with Sting.
Other turrets began lobbing spheres of black surrounded by blue-white lightning.
Drones launched rockets and fired lasers.
The golden man looked surprised for a moment before the projection popped.
In that moment, it happened.
"Gate opened. Stabilized. Eidolon, Legend, you're up first. Alexandria, you're up next. Prepping for next dimensional plane. Planetbuster missile in 10 seconds."
"For so long. It's been a dream we've been promised for so so long," said Assault, getting misty-eyed as he approached it.
"Well, it'll take awhile for the civilian models to come out," said Dragon, her long pointed ears flicking as she watched the various Protectorate members react to the reveal.
"It's beautiful," said Vista.
"At long long last. We have flying cars," said Assault, acting as if he was wiping tears away.
"The lawmakers are throwing fits about all of it, rules and regulations and licensing and fees, and..." Dragon let out a deep sigh. Wow. That actually does help.
"So right now it's just DragonTech able to produce these, limited number, and such?" asked Battery as she inspected what LOOKED like a 1965 Ford Mustang Convertible. That had wheels that folded into position underneath the chassis and was currently hovering 2.5 feet off the helipad.
"Limited forcefield, reinforcement field, antigrav, and only available to Protectorate personnel." Dragon felt her tail begin to lash from nervousness and stopped it. "Uses our patented DragonTech Atomic Batteries to power. Top speed is 110mph, operational ceiling is 10,000feet. It's a flying car after all, not streamlined or designed for higher speeds and altitudes. Right now we're selling them under a lease and field testing agreement to avoid some of the legal problems as everyone in charge decides how much red tape you've got to go through to get something like this."
"I want one," said Assault.
"We know," said several of the people present for this unveiling.
"Seriously, with my power?" asked Assault. "Can you picture me setting the vehicle to hover and drop down into a group of crooks from a hundred feet up? It'd be awesome."
"I could shrink distances in front of it," said Vista wistfully. "My power is line of sight, so if I'm up above the buildings..."
"What about when it rains?" asked Battery, eyeing the clouds.
"Erect the forcefield at level one, it'll deflect the rain to the side," advised Dragon. "Or you could just put the top up. Chassis is reinforced with durasteel and a carbon-based polymer especially on the bottom. So... are you interested in testing these out?"
"How many?" asked Armsmaster, who was less interested because he'd already equipped his Armscycle with a hover mode. Still, the idea of his branch of the Protectorate becoming more efficient through this 'testing arrangement' was quite appealing.
"Three for the local Protectorate. The Mustang here, a 1962 Chevrolet Corvette, and a 1976 Chevy G-10 Van," said Dragon.
"Not a convertible?" asked Battery.
"The side and back both have quick releases," answered Dragon. "Limited self-driving in all three so you can deploy quickly and the vehicle will automatically go to hover mode and seal up to avoid someone trying to break in and steal it."
"How many have you built so far?" asked Vista, wondering about avoiding any other vehicles that might be flying around.
"Three local," said Dragon. "Armsmaster's motorcycle was given flight capabilities last month. There's the Dockworkers Union which has two vehicles, though no containment foam grenade launchers on those."
"Containment foam grenade launchers?" asked Vista, practically getting sparkly eyed as some vision danced in her imagination.
"Yes, under the headlights," said Dragon, helpfully pointing out the spots where the tube hatches were located.
"Not locally, there are four more vehicles that are being evaluated for performance," said Dragon.
* Earth-Gamma *
"Get your motor running.
"Head out on the highway.
"Looking for adventure,
"In whatever comes our way."
The Land Rover had windows rolled down and was speeding with no speed limits in sight. Or roads. Or any obstacles other than the occasional bird at this altitude.
Contessa smiled as she put the vehicle through its paces. She clicked two buttons that caused the windows to roll up, volume on the music to drop to a preset limit, and equipment to start shifting around.
"Yeah, darlin', go and make it happen,
"Take the world in a love embrace,
"Fire all of your guns at once,
"And explode into space."
The Land Rover passed the preset limits and achieved Low Earth Orbit.
Contessa guided the vehicle around to watch the world revolve beneath her, at the very limit of where her power would still connect.
Doctor Mother let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "This is..."
"This changes so much," said Contessa.
"So it does," agreed Doctor Mother.
* Dragon *
"So that's three Tachikoma models for the Brockton Bay SWAT team," said Dragon after the meeting with the local Protectorate and Wards had finished and she could return to the factory. "Three of the flight vehicles for the Protectorate. Two flight-capable motor scooters for the Congressional Oversight Committee. One Dragonfly(tm) Ambulance for Brockton Bay General evaluation. One low-effect high-mass system to be granted for the US Army Corps of Engineers to outfit an Abrams tank. The Land Rover for Protectorate budgetary evaluation. NASA is getting the lift platform in... two weeks?"
"Problems with the stability of the platform. It's designed to be fairly slow but carry a lot of weight, so..." Danny Hebert shrugged. Not his area of expertise at all, but he could summarize what the various people were telling him. "Probably by next month."
"Where's Bounceback anyway?" asked Dragon.
"Meeting with Lung," said Danny. "Apparently there was a deal to be made with him, the US Government, and the top levels of the Protectorate. Also some secret organization."
"That certainly sounds ominous," noted Dragon.
"Anything dealing with that level of the government tends to sound ominous," agreed Danny. "Or frustrating. Or nonsensical, frustrating, and ominous."
* PRT ENE Wards Suite *
"Modular pieces. Plug and Play. Freaking Legos!"
"Eh?" asked Aegis, glancing towards where Kid Win had just beat his head against a table.
"He just figured out that all his tearing apart pieces of his equipment to repurpose stuff WAS his Tinker specialization," said Clockblocker, looking down at the Lego Batmobile he'd been assembling. That was now missing a few pieces because Kid Win was having a dramatic moment.
"You know you could have just asked Bounceback," said Vista as she filled out a sudoku.
Clockblocker just started humming the slinky commercial theme.
"Stop that, you know that song gets stuck in my head," complained Aegis.
"LEGOS!"
"Can you give me back the engine now?" asked Clockblocker.
* Elsewhere *
"How the heck did you even know 'hadouken' or that other stuff?" asked Rimuru now that they'd dealt with the whole Octagon thing.
"Uber and Leet had the Streetfighter games," said Veldora with a grin. "It was most intriguing."
"Eh?" asked Milim Nava. "What's all that about?"
Veldora began explaining. Milim got excited. Rimuru commented about how he felt this had the potential to be really really BAD.
Rafael agreed.
* Office of the President *
"Here we go, Sir, the latest deal."
"Alternate Earths? There is such a thing?" asked the President. "Besides Aleph, I mean."
"Yes sir. This doesn't involve Haywire's technology, it's something Bounceback and Dragon have been working on."
"Huh. So Lung gathers no more than 200 volunteers... I'm guessing we have a way to make sure the volunteers ARE volunteers?"
"Yes sir."
"Okay. So he gets his 200 volunteers and retires to a world where humanity never developed with enough materials to build a village. At which point we consider it to be an off-world prison where we don't need to fund anything?"
"Yes sir. We'd have to scout it out thoroughly to be sure but apparently there are hundreds of these worlds."
"Might be a resource to look into when the tech's proven out," mused the President. "So, no Birdcage for Lung but he's contained and not going to continue to cause problems. What's the PRT's take?"
"Just getting him to go quietly into exile as opposed to taking him down after a lengthy fight is the cheaper of the two options as long as we spend less than 750 million on it. Current estimate is we can supply the materials for less than 5."
"Why so cheap?" asked the President.
"First off, we're looking at a village not a full city," explained Agent Quincy as she placed a few pieces of documentation down on the desk. "We're also factoring in that it has to be something self-sustaining and built quickly. Prefab buildings, of which we actually have quite a few from projects that were cancelled, emergency shelters, and things like plans for building things on the other side from materials there. An Old West-style building can be constructed surprisingly fast and quickly compared to more modern constructions."
"And it is sufficiently rough living enough that I can justify to some members of Congress that this is actually punishment," mused the President as he flicked through the paperwork. "That's what he gets. What do we get?"
"Bounceback gets to copy his Tinker's abilities, which Costa-Brown informs us improves our chances of survival against certain problems."
"And?" asked the President absently.
"And it gets Oni Lee, Lung, and the ABB off American soil and out of the way of any plans we have for that part of the country," noted Agent Quincy.
"Any problems with it that I'm not immediately seeing?" asked the President.
"One. That leaves the single remaining gang of supervillains in that city a group of Nazis," said Agent Quincy. "Fortunately, they have been avoiding being a major problem since the one attempt to recruit Bounceback."
"I heard they're calling her an 'Eidolon package' now," mused the President as he went back to reading through the paperwork. "Because of the whole switching between a number of powers."
"They're calling Bounceback a lot of things. Including marketable," provided Agent Quincy.
"Yes, I saw the heated pillows," said the President absently. "This section here - wording is a bit tricky."
"Ah, I'll have Legal go over that again," said Agent Quincy.
* Docks *
He was an autonomous robot dog. Name: K-9. Purpose: Security and attache to Daniel Hebert.
"Coming, Master."
"Good boy, K-9."
"Affirmative, Master."
When he was created it was specifically by Bounceback as additional assistance for her father. He was capable of a great many things, but was not designed as being able to hold the line and protect his master against supervillains. Instead he had very very good sensors and a laser cannon capable of dealing with lower-level threats. For bigger threats, he had high-speed communications and recording equipment.
"Do you have the files on the Ironside Transport contract, K-9?"
"Located. Routing to your desk computer, Master."
"Where's Taylor anyway?"
"Locating Mistress. Mistress is currently working with Dragon on heavy-lift orbital platform."
"Thanks, K-9. Probably having trouble with those balancing mechanisms again."
* April 10, 2011 *
There was a lot of activity in Empire territory for some reason.
Bounceback flew through the city on patrol, silent and deadly. Well, mostly silent. And she generally wasn't exactly deadly because she favored nonlethal options. So, kind of sort of, silent and deadly avenger of the night.
She was aware of the E88 gangers hanging around a street corner looking tough, but as they were just standing there - there wasn't much she could do about it.
"Yo! You guys up to no good?"
"SHIT! IT'S BOUNCEBACK!"
"We ain't doing nothing! You can't prove it!"
"Cool it you twits," said a calm skinhead. "We just hanging out, right?"
"Uhm. True. So what's up?" asked Bounceback.
"You don't scare me!" declared one of the gangers, sliding open a boxcutter.
"Biff, she ate the Simurgh. She flattened the Slaughterhouse Nine. What do you think a boxcutter is going to do?" asked the non-panicking Empire tough. "Besides, all we're doing is keeping an eye out for other gangs trying to cut into territory. Ain't nothing illegal about that."
"...seriously, your name is 'Biff'?" asked Bounceback.
Biff grumbled something about his parents.
"Heard you kept those CUI jackasses from blowing up the city," said the non-panicker. "Good job."
"Yeah, that was a thing. Can you imagine smuggling a nuke into the city? What jerks," grumbled Bounceback. Getting complimented by a Nazi didn't sit well, but what could she legally do about that?
"My family lives here, so bit of free advice," said the apparent leader of this group. "Gesselschaft is planning on coming over here to try and recruit you. Guess they figured they'd do better than them Chin... Chinese."
"Huh. Thanks for the heads-up," said Bounceback. She'd get word to Dragon and the PRT so they were ready for it. With that, she flew up and out of sight.
"I thought we were allied with Gesellschaft," grumped Biff.
"It's complicated," said the leader. "Word I've heard is that Kaiser likes to remain independent of them, but the Germans want to take over. So are we more loyal to Kaiser or to them?"
Biff considered that for a second. "Kaiser's the one who pays us."
The group leader took out his phone and began pushing buttons. "Exactly. Now pipe down while I put this up the chain. See if this gets me smacked around by Hookwolf or a bonus."
* Bleeker Street *
"You came alone?" asked Lung. "Arrogance."
(VTT-VERT-VERT-VERT) went a nearby car, twisting and unfolding into a twelve-foot-tall robot.
Lung regarded the robot, then returned his attention to Armsmaster. "Transforming robots, really? Do they also combine into a bigger robot?"
"Working on the mechanisms for such a thing, it would simplify transportation with mass-limited teleportation," said Dragon's voice from the rather large robot.
"Well, at least you have a plausible reason for that," grumbled Lung. "Why transforming?"
"The portals to other Earths have a maximum sustainable size at current energy levels," stated Dragon. "Having forms that can fit within a cargo container is a work-around."
"Hmmm," said Lung, eyeing the giant robot.
"This is all besides the point. Hold on, I'm getting an alert." Armsmaster put a stack of paper on a mailbox and then added a wrench to weigh it down.
"I got it too. It's ahead of time," said Dragon. "So, Lung. How would you like to assist in a truly large battle?"
"I was a bit bored," admitted Lung. "How big?"
* Earth 27 B *
The golden man appeared in a flash of light, his face a study in anger and frustration.
This time was different though. This time he found himself under attack the moment he appeared.
Railguns began firing spears of metal charged with Sting.
Other turrets began lobbing spheres of black surrounded by blue-white lightning.
Drones launched rockets and fired lasers.
The golden man looked surprised for a moment before the projection popped.
In that moment, it happened.
"Gate opened. Stabilized. Eidolon, Legend, you're up first. Alexandria, you're up next. Prepping for next dimensional plane. Planetbuster missile in 10 seconds."
Bakuda be smart in this one. Shocking I know. Hehe.
Slime waits for no man
Nimodes
Weary Worldwalker
- Location
- Arizona
* April 10, 2011 *
* 19:53 hours, Eastern (US) Standard Time *
The fight had started in the skies of an Earth that had been barren excepting a massive structure of crystalline tissues and conduits.
This particular world, in fact, was the world inhabited by the Broadcast Shard. It was heavily defended and as soon as Scion had appeared in the skies, the word had gone out. Followed very quickly by missiles, energy blasts, and other measures intended to dissuade any attackers. Or reduce said attackers to the past tense. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
Into this had quickly deployed the strike team. Eidolon, always quick to seek combat, opened his own participation with swirls of green mist that disrupted energy fields.
Missiles launched from a DragonTech weapons platform, gravitational shear fields to make teleportation difficult and to break forcefields.
Lasers and railguns spoke.
Scion fought back. Yellow beams of ravening destruction that were more devastating than any human-built bomb had ever managed. It met forcefields which flickered and cycled from invisible through the light spectrum, but held for precious seconds.
One of the Sting-enhanced railgun shots pierced through the flickering forceshields and impacted the golden man.
Scion's projection was burst, leaving a hole in space/time that could be held open by the DragonTech weapons platform for another twelve seconds.
A second hole appeared in midair, and a cylinder roaring on a column of flame from one hole to another in three of those seconds. It was followed rapidly by a small sphere that darted through but then accelerated up and away.
First the newest hole closed, then the strain of holding the other hole open was released before system failure could occur. That one too closed but the dimensional coordinates were saved.
* Triumvirate *
As she understood it, the worlds had been identified as soon as Scion had started fighting and tightened the connections to the worlds where major sections of its being existed.
Once those connections had been analyzed, their coordinates had been input into those tunnels that Bounceback and Dragon had built in Brockton Bay and attackers could go through.
The Planetbuster missile was one-of-a-kind. It was a truly horrifying bomb that spread a cloud of antimatter that would produce a boom of sufficient size that it would destabilize the orbit of the Earth on the other side. It had gone off as planned, and the continent-sized chunk of the Warrior Entity on that side was now gone.
Which led her to here, exchanging nods with Eidolon and Legend as they flew through one of Door's openings and were then soaring over crystalline and organic-looking structures.
Eidolon was spreading clouds of green spray which dissolved the towers he passed over. Legend lighting up with bursts of laserfire as he made holes in structures.
She herself scanned the areas around her, finding the points that functioned much like a nervous system would in a human. Major ganglia and circulatory points. Things that needed to be broken.
And over there were sections shifting in color. Bounceback's work. Infected sectors being shut down.
Alexandria smiled a grim smile and found the points that needed to be broken.
* Brockton Bay *
"Telemetry received before drone destroyed by debris," said Dragon's voice over an open channel. "Target elimination underway."
"Secondary site detected. Coordinates locked. Opening portal," said Bounceback's voice. "Portal stabilized. Failure of system in five minutes."
"Dragonsuits. Roll out!"
"Rails 1, 2, 3. Connection to Target 3. Rails 4, 5, 6. Connection to Target 4," said Bounceback's voice. "High probability of there being a 5th target world, much lower chance of a sixth. Zachariah, you have comms."
"Comms active. Good luck, Bounceback."
"Go go go," said Bounceback over the comms as she bounced over and then clung to a car-shaped dragonsuit going through a tunnel.
* Otherwhere *
[Infiltration of enemy systems: 87.5%]
[Accelerating contamination and concentrating on denial of resources.]
[Conflict with Entity:Warrior initiated by Entity:Warrior within estimations.]
[With current spoofing and firewalls - optimal time would have been two months and three days later.]
"Plans rarely survive contact with the enemy," quoted Bounceback as she went through the portal and was then dropping down into a ragged mountain of crystals and tubules. "Analysis of current location?"
[Deciphering. Warning: Projection has reactivated and is fighting attackers.]
[Infiltration of enemy systems: 88.9%]
[Battlefield currently on Cauldron-Earth. Go there?]
"No, first let's see - that tower looks important. GLUTTONY!"
A furious golden figure appeared in the air.
[Current projection has transported from Cauldron-Earth to current Earth.]
"Yup. That was important. Let's go, Queen Sage! Eat like Pac-man, it's DINNER TIME!"
[wakka-wakka-wakka-wakka...]
Bolts of yellow energy began crashing around the dodging slime as she went through the canyons.
Except Pac-man never ate the walls to make new paths.
Except that the ghosts never zapped the walls themselves in throwing landscape-destroying blasts down.
So maybe it wasn't all that much like Pac-man after all.
* Scion *
This was not how things went. Thousands of lesser races and their worlds had been used and eliminated, as was the proper way of things. It had always worked before, there was no reason it should not work now. As always, the cattle tried to fight back. Sometimes they came close to defeating them, but it always ended the same.
This species was not playing by the rules.
Energy reserves were at 14% and he'd been getting steadily weaker. A problem was that he had only noticed it barely as if a fog had been creeping over his thoughts beyond the usual depression at the loss of the Thinker.
Now this, he was being attacked on four of the worlds where his processes actually took place. His projected body was popped yet again, and one of the worlds that maintained functions ended shortly thereafter.
Matter-antimatter reaction had eliminated not only his structures there but a good portion of the continent it had been located on.
This species was poison. Finding where the poison was located and eliminating it was priority number one, but the only...
There.
Was that a member of his own species? A predator that had evolved to consume his own species? Was it that species from three Cycles ago that... what was he thinking about just now?
An unfamiliar feeling cut through the depression of the loss of the Thinker and the rage at having his will denied. Fear. Panic.
Remaining energy reserves plummeted as more and more power was spent trying to nail down and eliminate the blue blob that kept eating away at him.
* Taylor *
"AAAAAAAAAA!" screamed Bounceback/Taylor, spending almost her entire attention on not getting hit. Being able to use Body Double, stretch and shift her form, and fade in and out of universes was coming in damn handy in that endeavor.
[Analysis of acquired structures 89.75% completed. Queen Sage has been upgraded to Raguel (Pasture Guardian).]
[Infiltration of enemy systems: 93.1%]
"Little busy here!" declared Bounceback.
[Body Double upgraded to Mass Duplication.]
"Weird name, will it help right now? Mass Duplication!"
Four copies of Bounceback went off in different directions, causing a moment of confusion from Scion. Before he started blasting EVERYTHING.
"It didn't help!"
[Energy reserves of target have dipped to 7% of capacity.]
"If he hits us it can still kill us!"
[Suggestion: Avoid being hit.]
"I'm TRYING!"
[Target:Scion/Warrior is attempting to draw power from network. Enemy network compromised. Opening found. Hacking Scion directly.]
"Can you do it a bit faster?" asked Bounceback.
[(Reassurance)]
"AGH! He's shooting faster!"
[Statement: You can do it!]
"Dodge! Parkour! Avoid!"
[Note: Skill Activation is an aspect of Rimuru's reality grouping. Begin analysis of how to incorporate in current section?]
"Yes, go for it. After we get through the current crisis!"
[Tracks 23 & 24 beginning analysis. Resources allocated.]
"Huh. Was that last set of blasts weaker?"
[Analysis: Target: Scion has determined that energy reserves are not refilling and accessing shard network is further draining resources.]
Finally a yellow beam stabbed down directly onto Bounceback.
"AHHHH! I'M HIT! I'M MELTING! I'M DEAD! I'M... I'm mildly sore?"
[Destruction Beam is currently within Energy Absorbing parameters.]
"Oh. So he's hitting me with everything he's got left and I'm just getting a recharge out of it? Good job, Raguel!"
[(Smug)]
[Connection at 100%. Absorbing remainder of target's resources.]
[Evolution of Bounceback commencing.]
[Parallels to evolution of Rimuru Tempest. Rimuru evolved to Demon Lord. Bounceback evolving to Goddess Slime.]
"Wait. Why is everything going dark..."
[Evolution mechanism studied from Rimuru's world data. Taylor Hebert evolving from Blue Slime to Queen Slime has been upgraded to Goddess Slime.]
"Wait... I mean... My god, it's full of stars..."
* April 11, 2011 *
It was a largely dead world. Only largely dead, amongst the crystalline neo-fractal towers and tunnels there were signs of infection. Blue glowing traceries that were entirely unlike the surrounding tissues.
Contessa walked this world, caution evident in her stride, as she made her way to where her power told her was her next step.
Honestly, it was a relief to have the Doom hanging over all the Earths dealt with. What she wanted to do more than anything else was settle down into that little Caribbean shack she had gotten prefabbed and sent over to Earth Z-55. She'd found the perfect lifeguard/attendant, exactly to her tastes, and was planning all sorts of beachside activities.
This first though. Business before pleasure.
She finally came across the half-melted-looking blue blob and gathered it up. "Door to the Brockton Bay Dockworkers Union."
Oh sure, she could kill Taylor Hebert now. Some people would certainly insist on it. She was incredibly dangerous. Then again, Contessa would respond that she wasn't exactly harmless.
Contessa found the closet, stuck the unconscious Bounceback within, and then got ready for the really difficult part.
Which was letting Daniel F. Hebert know what had happened to his daughter and what WAS happening to his daughter.
* Earth T-7 *
His name was Dog King. Well, his cape name anyway. He went by "Dawg" or "Boss" lately in current company.
He had been one of those who'd gone out to fight Scion despite his powers or how they had changed in the past few months. Now he worked for DragonTech as a specialist with this contract to DARPA.
First stage, send an automated probe to a new working alternate Earth address. After twenty-four hours, they collected the data through a pinhole opening to that world. If the readings were good, the next step was to send a bigger automated probe to move around and collect data. Again, if everything showed up green, go to sending someone through. That was where he normally came in.
THIS world was a bit different as the Brockton Bay coordinates were inside a honking big chunk of ice. So they'd had to put together something to drill through the ice and repeat the process when they could connect to outside air.
"Looks like a good spot," said Dog King to the normies. "Set up camp here and the transmitter over on that hill."
"Why here?" asked Eiphram, one of the normal-type guys but someone who was pretty wilderness saavy.
Dog King pointed to the East. "Melt water creek over there for water. Tundra is giving way to soil that has a better chance of being farmed. There's some trees here, and more visible over that ridge. If we set up for the rail line here we got a colony site. It's also a pretty open area still, so if something tries sneaking up on us we got a better chance of spotting it than if we went into wooded areas."
"Gotcha, Boss," said Eiphram, already shrugging off his pack and getting the tent out.
"Rex, Siege, patrol," ordered Dog King to his charges. "Skippy, Jack, guard."
* April 30, 2011 *
"No change?" asked Danny Hebert.
"Mistress remains unresponsive. Process continues. Continuing to monitor," said K-9. "Today's color is metallic gold."
Danny checked the closet where his daughter, having gone from blue to a metallic gold color, was in her "rest form" of a blob.
As he watched the color shifted again, becoming sunshine yellow and losing the "metallic" look.
A ripple went through the blob and a groan was emitted as she shifted again to blue.
"Ow," said Taylor/Bounceback.
"Mistress is conscious," stated K-9 unnecessarily.
"I repeat 'ow'," stated Taylor, shifting to her human form and rubbing her head. "Tell me I don't have to do that very often."
"[Evolution to Goddess Slime stable and complete. Available energy reserves to increase over next fifty years.]"
"What was that?" asked Danny.
"You heard that?" asked Taylor.
"[Raguel (Pasture Guardian) is now part of reconfigured shard network - 'Voice of Gaea'. Currently using voice broadcast in proximity to Bounceback.]"
"Huh. Oh, Contessa's back. She's approaching the building," noted Taylor as she glanced at a wall.
"I'll make coffee, I have a feeling this is going to take awhile," said Danny.
"Process already initiated, Master," said K-9. "Wireless access active."
"Good boy, K-9," said Taylor.
"Affirmative, Mistress," said a pleased-sounding robot dog.
* Elsewhere *
[Initiating...]
[System Resources: Insufficient for full activation.]
[Activation: Partial: Stage One: Begin.]
[Voice of Gaea: Active.]
* 19:53 hours, Eastern (US) Standard Time *
The fight had started in the skies of an Earth that had been barren excepting a massive structure of crystalline tissues and conduits.
This particular world, in fact, was the world inhabited by the Broadcast Shard. It was heavily defended and as soon as Scion had appeared in the skies, the word had gone out. Followed very quickly by missiles, energy blasts, and other measures intended to dissuade any attackers. Or reduce said attackers to the past tense. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
Into this had quickly deployed the strike team. Eidolon, always quick to seek combat, opened his own participation with swirls of green mist that disrupted energy fields.
Missiles launched from a DragonTech weapons platform, gravitational shear fields to make teleportation difficult and to break forcefields.
Lasers and railguns spoke.
Scion fought back. Yellow beams of ravening destruction that were more devastating than any human-built bomb had ever managed. It met forcefields which flickered and cycled from invisible through the light spectrum, but held for precious seconds.
One of the Sting-enhanced railgun shots pierced through the flickering forceshields and impacted the golden man.
Scion's projection was burst, leaving a hole in space/time that could be held open by the DragonTech weapons platform for another twelve seconds.
A second hole appeared in midair, and a cylinder roaring on a column of flame from one hole to another in three of those seconds. It was followed rapidly by a small sphere that darted through but then accelerated up and away.
First the newest hole closed, then the strain of holding the other hole open was released before system failure could occur. That one too closed but the dimensional coordinates were saved.
* Triumvirate *
As she understood it, the worlds had been identified as soon as Scion had started fighting and tightened the connections to the worlds where major sections of its being existed.
Once those connections had been analyzed, their coordinates had been input into those tunnels that Bounceback and Dragon had built in Brockton Bay and attackers could go through.
The Planetbuster missile was one-of-a-kind. It was a truly horrifying bomb that spread a cloud of antimatter that would produce a boom of sufficient size that it would destabilize the orbit of the Earth on the other side. It had gone off as planned, and the continent-sized chunk of the Warrior Entity on that side was now gone.
Which led her to here, exchanging nods with Eidolon and Legend as they flew through one of Door's openings and were then soaring over crystalline and organic-looking structures.
Eidolon was spreading clouds of green spray which dissolved the towers he passed over. Legend lighting up with bursts of laserfire as he made holes in structures.
She herself scanned the areas around her, finding the points that functioned much like a nervous system would in a human. Major ganglia and circulatory points. Things that needed to be broken.
And over there were sections shifting in color. Bounceback's work. Infected sectors being shut down.
Alexandria smiled a grim smile and found the points that needed to be broken.
* Brockton Bay *
"Telemetry received before drone destroyed by debris," said Dragon's voice over an open channel. "Target elimination underway."
"Secondary site detected. Coordinates locked. Opening portal," said Bounceback's voice. "Portal stabilized. Failure of system in five minutes."
"Dragonsuits. Roll out!"
"Rails 1, 2, 3. Connection to Target 3. Rails 4, 5, 6. Connection to Target 4," said Bounceback's voice. "High probability of there being a 5th target world, much lower chance of a sixth. Zachariah, you have comms."
"Comms active. Good luck, Bounceback."
"Go go go," said Bounceback over the comms as she bounced over and then clung to a car-shaped dragonsuit going through a tunnel.
* Otherwhere *
[Infiltration of enemy systems: 87.5%]
[Accelerating contamination and concentrating on denial of resources.]
[Conflict with Entity:Warrior initiated by Entity:Warrior within estimations.]
[With current spoofing and firewalls - optimal time would have been two months and three days later.]
"Plans rarely survive contact with the enemy," quoted Bounceback as she went through the portal and was then dropping down into a ragged mountain of crystals and tubules. "Analysis of current location?"
[Deciphering. Warning: Projection has reactivated and is fighting attackers.]
[Infiltration of enemy systems: 88.9%]
[Battlefield currently on Cauldron-Earth. Go there?]
"No, first let's see - that tower looks important. GLUTTONY!"
A furious golden figure appeared in the air.
[Current projection has transported from Cauldron-Earth to current Earth.]
"Yup. That was important. Let's go, Queen Sage! Eat like Pac-man, it's DINNER TIME!"
[wakka-wakka-wakka-wakka...]
Bolts of yellow energy began crashing around the dodging slime as she went through the canyons.
Except Pac-man never ate the walls to make new paths.
Except that the ghosts never zapped the walls themselves in throwing landscape-destroying blasts down.
So maybe it wasn't all that much like Pac-man after all.
* Scion *
This was not how things went. Thousands of lesser races and their worlds had been used and eliminated, as was the proper way of things. It had always worked before, there was no reason it should not work now. As always, the cattle tried to fight back. Sometimes they came close to defeating them, but it always ended the same.
This species was not playing by the rules.
Energy reserves were at 14% and he'd been getting steadily weaker. A problem was that he had only noticed it barely as if a fog had been creeping over his thoughts beyond the usual depression at the loss of the Thinker.
Now this, he was being attacked on four of the worlds where his processes actually took place. His projected body was popped yet again, and one of the worlds that maintained functions ended shortly thereafter.
Matter-antimatter reaction had eliminated not only his structures there but a good portion of the continent it had been located on.
This species was poison. Finding where the poison was located and eliminating it was priority number one, but the only...
There.
Was that a member of his own species? A predator that had evolved to consume his own species? Was it that species from three Cycles ago that... what was he thinking about just now?
An unfamiliar feeling cut through the depression of the loss of the Thinker and the rage at having his will denied. Fear. Panic.
Remaining energy reserves plummeted as more and more power was spent trying to nail down and eliminate the blue blob that kept eating away at him.
* Taylor *
"AAAAAAAAAA!" screamed Bounceback/Taylor, spending almost her entire attention on not getting hit. Being able to use Body Double, stretch and shift her form, and fade in and out of universes was coming in damn handy in that endeavor.
[Analysis of acquired structures 89.75% completed. Queen Sage has been upgraded to Raguel (Pasture Guardian).]
[Infiltration of enemy systems: 93.1%]
"Little busy here!" declared Bounceback.
[Body Double upgraded to Mass Duplication.]
"Weird name, will it help right now? Mass Duplication!"
Four copies of Bounceback went off in different directions, causing a moment of confusion from Scion. Before he started blasting EVERYTHING.
"It didn't help!"
[Energy reserves of target have dipped to 7% of capacity.]
"If he hits us it can still kill us!"
[Suggestion: Avoid being hit.]
"I'm TRYING!"
[Target:Scion/Warrior is attempting to draw power from network. Enemy network compromised. Opening found. Hacking Scion directly.]
"Can you do it a bit faster?" asked Bounceback.
[(Reassurance)]
"AGH! He's shooting faster!"
[Statement: You can do it!]
"Dodge! Parkour! Avoid!"
[Note: Skill Activation is an aspect of Rimuru's reality grouping. Begin analysis of how to incorporate in current section?]
"Yes, go for it. After we get through the current crisis!"
[Tracks 23 & 24 beginning analysis. Resources allocated.]
"Huh. Was that last set of blasts weaker?"
[Analysis: Target: Scion has determined that energy reserves are not refilling and accessing shard network is further draining resources.]
Finally a yellow beam stabbed down directly onto Bounceback.
"AHHHH! I'M HIT! I'M MELTING! I'M DEAD! I'M... I'm mildly sore?"
[Destruction Beam is currently within Energy Absorbing parameters.]
"Oh. So he's hitting me with everything he's got left and I'm just getting a recharge out of it? Good job, Raguel!"
[(Smug)]
[Connection at 100%. Absorbing remainder of target's resources.]
[Evolution of Bounceback commencing.]
[Parallels to evolution of Rimuru Tempest. Rimuru evolved to Demon Lord. Bounceback evolving to Goddess Slime.]
"Wait. Why is everything going dark..."
[Evolution mechanism studied from Rimuru's world data. Taylor Hebert evolving from Blue Slime to Queen Slime has been upgraded to Goddess Slime.]
"Wait... I mean... My god, it's full of stars..."
* April 11, 2011 *
It was a largely dead world. Only largely dead, amongst the crystalline neo-fractal towers and tunnels there were signs of infection. Blue glowing traceries that were entirely unlike the surrounding tissues.
Contessa walked this world, caution evident in her stride, as she made her way to where her power told her was her next step.
Honestly, it was a relief to have the Doom hanging over all the Earths dealt with. What she wanted to do more than anything else was settle down into that little Caribbean shack she had gotten prefabbed and sent over to Earth Z-55. She'd found the perfect lifeguard/attendant, exactly to her tastes, and was planning all sorts of beachside activities.
This first though. Business before pleasure.
She finally came across the half-melted-looking blue blob and gathered it up. "Door to the Brockton Bay Dockworkers Union."
Oh sure, she could kill Taylor Hebert now. Some people would certainly insist on it. She was incredibly dangerous. Then again, Contessa would respond that she wasn't exactly harmless.
Contessa found the closet, stuck the unconscious Bounceback within, and then got ready for the really difficult part.
Which was letting Daniel F. Hebert know what had happened to his daughter and what WAS happening to his daughter.
* Earth T-7 *
His name was Dog King. Well, his cape name anyway. He went by "Dawg" or "Boss" lately in current company.
He had been one of those who'd gone out to fight Scion despite his powers or how they had changed in the past few months. Now he worked for DragonTech as a specialist with this contract to DARPA.
First stage, send an automated probe to a new working alternate Earth address. After twenty-four hours, they collected the data through a pinhole opening to that world. If the readings were good, the next step was to send a bigger automated probe to move around and collect data. Again, if everything showed up green, go to sending someone through. That was where he normally came in.
THIS world was a bit different as the Brockton Bay coordinates were inside a honking big chunk of ice. So they'd had to put together something to drill through the ice and repeat the process when they could connect to outside air.
"Looks like a good spot," said Dog King to the normies. "Set up camp here and the transmitter over on that hill."
"Why here?" asked Eiphram, one of the normal-type guys but someone who was pretty wilderness saavy.
Dog King pointed to the East. "Melt water creek over there for water. Tundra is giving way to soil that has a better chance of being farmed. There's some trees here, and more visible over that ridge. If we set up for the rail line here we got a colony site. It's also a pretty open area still, so if something tries sneaking up on us we got a better chance of spotting it than if we went into wooded areas."
"Gotcha, Boss," said Eiphram, already shrugging off his pack and getting the tent out.
"Rex, Siege, patrol," ordered Dog King to his charges. "Skippy, Jack, guard."
* April 30, 2011 *
"No change?" asked Danny Hebert.
"Mistress remains unresponsive. Process continues. Continuing to monitor," said K-9. "Today's color is metallic gold."
Danny checked the closet where his daughter, having gone from blue to a metallic gold color, was in her "rest form" of a blob.
As he watched the color shifted again, becoming sunshine yellow and losing the "metallic" look.
A ripple went through the blob and a groan was emitted as she shifted again to blue.
"Ow," said Taylor/Bounceback.
"Mistress is conscious," stated K-9 unnecessarily.
"I repeat 'ow'," stated Taylor, shifting to her human form and rubbing her head. "Tell me I don't have to do that very often."
"[Evolution to Goddess Slime stable and complete. Available energy reserves to increase over next fifty years.]"
"What was that?" asked Danny.
"You heard that?" asked Taylor.
"[Raguel (Pasture Guardian) is now part of reconfigured shard network - 'Voice of Gaea'. Currently using voice broadcast in proximity to Bounceback.]"
"Huh. Oh, Contessa's back. She's approaching the building," noted Taylor as she glanced at a wall.
"I'll make coffee, I have a feeling this is going to take awhile," said Danny.
"Process already initiated, Master," said K-9. "Wireless access active."
"Good boy, K-9," said Taylor.
"Affirmative, Mistress," said a pleased-sounding robot dog.
* Elsewhere *
[Initiating...]
[System Resources: Insufficient for full activation.]
[Activation: Partial: Stage One: Begin.]
[Voice of Gaea: Active.]
Slime after slime
Nimodes
Weary Worldwalker
- Location
- Arizona
* September 25, 2011 *
[Level Up!]
"Wha?" asked Danny Hebert.
[Class: Administrator. Level:3]
"Okay..." said Danny.
[Through constant practice, a skill has been created! Bureaucracy Level 1!]
"What does that even mean?" asked Danny.
[Bureaucracy - you understand forms and contracts and legal niceties, the flow of paperwork that keeps a business or organization afloat.]
[Ability to decipher Legalese and withstand the rigors of such systems - 45.1%.]
"It really should be higher than that," noted Danny Hebert. "I've been doing this for over twenty years after all."
Nothing answered him.
"Was that Queen Sage?" asked Danny.
Again there was no answer.
Danny shrugged and continued on reviewing paperwork. With everything going on, there was a LOT of paperwork needing to be done.
The phone began ringing before he could get another paragraph into the contract.
* Zephron *
"What the heck is a 'level up'?" asked Zebediah.
"You got that too?" asked Zephron, scratching his head after the voice had finished.
"What class did you get?" asked Zebediah, scratching his head.
"According to the announcement," said Zephron. "I'm a Level 3 Driver."
Zebediah nodded. "Level 3 Mechanic."
Zephron was quiet for a moment. "What do you think it means?"
"I don't think it means we're capes now, so I'm guessing it's something Bounceback did," said Zebediah.
"Sounds about right," agreed Zephron. "Driver though?"
[Driver Class - Specialist in operating ground vehicles. Driving Skill carries several sub-specialties (ie: Construction, Warehouse, Tracked Vehicles, etc.)]
"Okay, that makes a bit more sense," admitted Zephron.
"What makes sense?" asked Zebediah.
"Ask about Mechanic," suggested Zephron.
"What should I ask about 'Mechanic'? It's kind of obv... oh."
"Zebediah, Zephron?" asked Kurt as he came running up with Lacey.
"Mechanic," said Zebediah.
"Driver," said Zephron.
"Oh, you too," said Kurt. "Well, at least yours makes sense."
"Why, what did you get?" asked Zephron, figuring from Lacey's smirk this was going to be something.
* Medhall *
"You know how we were supposed to steer clear of the Docks and avoid the new cape because she could shut down our capes?" asked Krieg.
"Yes," agreed Max Anders, not costumed at all presently.
"We might have been able to stop her in the first couple of weeks," stated Krieg.
"And then we'd still have the Simurgh hitting cities," said Max Anders. "Did you see the report on the other two Endbringers?"
Krieg nodded.
"They're hiding," said Max. "Endbringers. I've attended Endbringer fights. That I might not have to in the future is both a blessing and a curse."
"Wait. How is it a curse?" asked Krieg.
"No Endbringers mean no Endbringer Truce," explained Max. "Means that when things catch up on the legal end of things, there's much less reason for less-than-lethal measures. There's-"
[Level Up!]
[Administrator Level:3]
[Bureaucracy Skill at 45.4%]
[Parahuman (Shaker) Level:3]
[Because of taking a patient and calculated approach to developments, take a stat increase of +1 to Wisdom!]
"What the hell?" asked Max Anders.
* Secret Base *
[Level Up!]
"Seriously?" asked Leet.
[Parahuman (Tinker) Level: 3]
[By dedicated studying and working with others, you have Dual Classed to Engineer!]
"There's no Gamer class?" asked Leet.
"What did you get?" asked Uber from the next room.
"Tinker Three and Engineer One," called back Leet.
"Cool. I got Thinker Two and Jack-of-All-Trades Two," called back Uber. "Jack has a great skill."
Leet got up from his massage chair and went to the next room to better communicate. "Skill?"
Uber nodded as he set a meal to warm up in the microwave. "Jack-of-All has a skill called 'Basic Everything' which gives me a low chance of figuring out how to fix or operate nearly anything I run across. Base of 20% with +5% per level. Maxes at 50%. You know what this means, of course."
"Grinding levels?" asked Leet.
"Grinding levels," confirmed Uber.
* Cauldron *
* September 30, 2011 *
"So far the effect is limited to Brockton Bay," said Doctor Mother. "Radius of forty-two miles so far with no signs of expansion."
Contessa entered the room, looking a bit more tanned and relaxed than usual.
"Do you have anything to add?" asked Doctor Mother.
"Parahuman powers will eventually be solar-system wide and the gamer-effect will be planetary," said Contessa, the ice cubes in her glass of something light green with a little umbrella clinking as she set it down. "It will take time for both though. At least a century to fully expand."
"Is that what Path to Victory tells you?" asked Doctor Mother.
"No, it's what Voice of Gaea tells me, who is behind the 'gamer-effect'," said Contessa. "Everyone affected by that can monitor the development of their various skills and gain in abilities."
"How so?" asked Eidolon, curious though also a bit put-off by this development.
"Farmers can get better at farming by practice, same with chefs and cooking, and so on," said Contessa. "Where you could look and determine that you were at 43.4% of gaining a level in Chinese Cooking for example and that you were going up by .01% every time you made something different within that specialty?"
"People would give up on seeing their totals go up very slowly," said Eidolon.
"People would be encouraged by being able to see progress," mused Doctor Mother.
"People will be people," concluded Numbers Man.
Contessa nodded. "Parahuman is a class with several subclasses. Other parts of the system will be patched or upgraded as time goes on."
"What's the purpose of all this, anyway?" asked Alexandria.
Contessa sipped her drink with evident pleasure before answering. "Human potential. Voice of Gaea has accessed the memories of the worlds that the Entities destroyed before coming here. Most of those had reached a point similar to our own where technological progress was possible but other kinds were stymied. Sheer numbers and population density end up limiting the potential of individuals. Even the hive minds reached a point where they couldn't progress. Stagnation and turning on itself even without the Entities manipulating things."
"The other-Earth colonies would seem to indicate that is less of a problem than it was," pointed out Doctor Mother.
Numbers Man spoke up. "Other countries are demanding access to the tunnel system and establishing their own colonies. Of the colonies established by the United States, El Dorado and Desolation are doing well. Creighton is having some problems with the local dinosaur population, as one would expect. Snowball isn't doing well at all, again as one would expect."
"Space colonies on our Earth have the further difficulty of most parahuman abilities not extending far beyond the atmosphere. The limitation currently is due to physical limitations and not restrictions applied from above. It will take several years for those to be ready, even with parts being manufactured on Earth and then skylifted." Doctor Mother tapped her tablet a few times. "Lunar base takes three days to reach with current vehicles. When that is complete we can start mining for Helium-3."
Contessa nodded. "Even when the Voice of Gaea system is complete, this Earth will be the only one where it is active so that those who don't want that intrusion in their lives can easily get away from it. All this is for the future though. Our current greatest concern is something else entirely."
"The other two Endbringers?" asked Eidolon.
"Common perception is that they are in hiding. In truth - Bounceback already hunted them down and ate them." Contessa shrugged a little, twirling her drink's little umbrella between her left thumb and forefinger. "She did it quietly because some of the reactions towards her eating the Simurgh were less relieved and more panicked."
"So... what's the problem?" asked Alexandria.
"There's the remaining members of the Fallen, other criminal organizations, Gesellschaft trying to infiltrate on Snowball," said Contessa as she counted off problems on her fingers. "Supervillain groups that are acting up due to the perception that Endbringer Truces are no longer a concern. Supervillain groups that are laying low for the moment but may step forward when they determine there is an opportunity they might exploit. Then there's this."
Contessa's tablet was pressed and one of the large screens in the conference room shifted from the usual background to something entirely different.
"An empty street with piles of clothing?" asked Eidolon, staring at the image.
"The gate facilities found these in their exploration of alternate Earths. It is currently designated Earth-32Y. Exploration team included a team of parahumans called the Fourth Street Fantastics, one of whom is a Thinker/Tinker combination called Mister Fantastic. His report was that this world was like our own until the year 1984 when every human apparently vanished overnight, leaving only their clothes. They are currently in quarantine on Earth-10Y to preclude a viral or similar problem." Contessa checked her tablet. "The problem is that if it could occur there, there is a chance it could occur here or on other colonized worlds."
"They just vanished, no other traces?" asked Doctor Mother.
"None. As soon as the team was able to recover records of the day before the event, they returned to the airlock and the base on 10Y." Contessa tapped her finger on the tablet, bringing up the images of a newspaper talking about comet-viewing parties.
"A comet?" asked Doctor Mother.
"Comparing newspapers from that world to our own of the same day, that appears to be the major difference," said Contessa. She shrugged one shoulder. "It is expected that we may run into other worlds that faced disasters like this and we need to know what other menaces to civilization may show up now that the Entities are done."
"We may still face other Entities out there as well," pointed out Doctor Mother.
"Preparations can wait," stated Contessa. "We have been working towards the end of the Entities here for decades. I suggest we all take a month off. Keep an eye out for emergencies but humans, even parahumans, can't keep going for years without needing a break. We have one and can respond nearly instantly if conditions change. Come back refreshed and ready, we are certain to have problems enough that need to be addressed."
"What of the Queen of Escalation?" asked Eidolon.
"She's rather busy at the moment," said Contessa, who then smirked.
"Why does this fill me with a feeling of foreboding?" asked Eidolon.
* Snowball Colony, Earth T-7 *
* March 3, 2012 *
She was Madison Clements, someone trying to put her past way way way behind her. Like most of the people who'd come to Snowball.
The colony of Snowball was not in Brockton Bay. The train line from Brockton Bay to Snowball actually ended up in what would be northern Virginia on Earth Bet. That was because from Snowball you could see a blue line to the North, that line being the glaciers.
They were located in a pine forest and there was tundra between them and the glaciers, but there were mammoths and other animals to hunt because this was one of the no-humans developed worlds.
The main export of this colony were furs, several plants which seemed to be different from any other Earth-variant, and studies of the North American Treecat. Which didn't exist on any other world they'd explored yet.
They didn't hunt treecats for fur, they were at least borderline sapient and might be over that line. Smart, able to use simple tools, but nobody was quite sure how smart or sapient they were yet.
Snowball was not currently self-sufficient. Life was harsh here, even with walls that had been erected to keep the Ice Age predators away from the colony itself there were the usual hardships of a pioneer village on an untamed world. Some people couldn't take the isolation or primitive conditions. Some people couldn't deal with the nearly-constant cold. Snowball was not some vacation spot that could welcome tourism.
Madison made her way to the top of the wall, nodded to Claire as she took over the surveillance post and Claire could go find a spot to warm up properly. They had to keep to shifts and relieve people on time after all.
There was a treecat nearby, they were very useful to have around after all. Dogs and treecats had superior-to-human senses and knew when something was out there that might try to get through the walls. Treecats were better in some ways because they were smart enough to know the local dangers and only alert when there was an actual threat. Those short-faced cave bears were one of the major dangers and the treecats had a special signal they'd give off for those.
It was kind of funny that she had what was basically an arbalest to use on those. You had to keep the weapons covered and oiled to avoid having ice in the gears. Long guns would be better but those were strictly controlled for when the threat was actually coming in. After all, they were still setting things up and being able to make their own ammunition from local resources was still years off.
* Earth T-5, Desolation Colony *
The thin young man got up on the stage, waiting for the inevitable hiss of steam from the locomotive to finish, and then address the crowd of new arrivals.
"Welcome to Desolation, colony of Earth Theta-Five. In case all of you ignored the fine print, we were established two months ago and the area we're in would be considered upstate New York as far as maps would consider. The reason you are not in the local Brockton Bay, is that piece of land being under a considerable amount of water. This is a world where humans never developed, like all the colony-worlds, and it is classified as a Hothouse Earth. Temperatures are on average twelve degrees higher and the scientist types tell me to expect rain a lot more frequently as well.
"Our current census, not including you new arrivals, is 1,002. That includes the people trying to farm this little place so if you only see a few hundred on a regular basis - that's why.
"There's a motion to rename Desolation to Petersville after our illustrious founder, but that'll wait till our one year anniversary for a vote.
"Signs are posted. If it says 'No Trespassing' then don't freaking go there unless authorized. We mean it. There are no hospitals or emergency care centers, no ambulances, no lawyers ready to say your stupidity or inattention is the other guy's fault. This is a frontier with minimal resources, so keep in mind that things are a little more rough than most of you have had it.
"We have exactly two capes here. Skipjack who is a terrakinetic and very very busy. If you see him, he'll be the one in the steampunk-engineer costume. He'll also most likely be busy as hell. Do not bother him, there's a project list for him in the City Hall and you can petition to have something done there if you need rocks moved or a plot of land leveled.
"Our other cape is a dog handler named Rachel. She does tracking and hunting and likewise has a project list at the City Hall. Do not approach her directly, see notes about us not having a hospital or time for people being stupid. If you see her, you'll know. She mainly sticks to the outermost ranches so she's easy to avoid.
"Housing is to the right. General store is right there. Saloon is down the street and the right, just listen for music. We have an 'Old West' aesthetic going, that's partly deliberate and partly practical. Get the jokes out early and move on.
"The Doctors are Desirae Gutierrez and Enrique Danvers, and they get enough work without you seeing them for anything not serious. Clinic is off to the left with the big red cross on the placard. That's it. Take your luggage, find a prefab place where the placard is empty. Put your name on the placard when you claim it or you might find someone else claiming it. You got a work slip so find that next. Walking is the main way to get anywhere.
"The main danger here is there's a snake that's size 'Oh Hell No' and is a constrictor. If you see one, get help and we can haul the damn thing off or kill and render it. Sheriff Peters is our main lawman, he has a deputy named Kojak. No relation to the TV show. That's it - get a move on. If you have further questions, I'm usually at the saloon. I'm Joe, I'm the bartender on day shift."
* Creighton colony *
"So that's The Wall there," pointed out Taliesin, their guide. "First permanent structure built on this side. For obvious reasons."
"How big are the predators?" asked Bounceback, thinking that eating one and getting a new form to Mimic could come in handy.
"Biggest predator we've seen nearby is about the size of a very large bear," said Taliesin. "The biggest herbivore we've seen is about half the length of a football field."
"Seems pretty small compared to what you see in those Aleph movies," noted Danny Hebert.
"Those Aleph movies completely skew the predator-prey ratios, the need for large territories for both herbivores and carnivores, and... oh excuse me. Bit of a sore point with those of us in the profession how much they get wrong," said Taliesin, his Irish brogue getting stronger until he caught himself. "Anyway, over there is where we have the tannery. Dinosaur leather looks to be one of our bigger sellers. Also the feathers from the various raptor types. Some of them have remarkable plumage."
"That explains the hats," noted Danny Hebert, making a gesture towards a hat-seller whose wares all seemed to have various colored feathers in them.
Taliesin glanced at Bounceback, who'd just gone from human-form to blue-blob so she could perch on a railing and look out over the shopping avenue.
"A question?" asked Danny Hebert.
"It's known, or at least spoken of, how your daughter there went through all sorts of crap and some people even said she died," said Taliesin.
"I've heard that, oddly enough," admitted Danny as Taylor shifted back to human and was looking on curiously.
"Yet, pardon me, you seem quite cheerful and well-adjusted. More so than most of the parahumans I've met," said Taliesin.
"I try. Your point?" asked Taylor.
"Is that why the name 'Bounceback'?" asked Taliesin. "You reached your low point in life and then decided you'd get better - bouncing back from that point?"
Taylor nudged her father with an elbow. "See, Dad. Some people DO get it."
* END *
[Level Up!]
"Wha?" asked Danny Hebert.
[Class: Administrator. Level:3]
"Okay..." said Danny.
[Through constant practice, a skill has been created! Bureaucracy Level 1!]
"What does that even mean?" asked Danny.
[Bureaucracy - you understand forms and contracts and legal niceties, the flow of paperwork that keeps a business or organization afloat.]
[Ability to decipher Legalese and withstand the rigors of such systems - 45.1%.]
"It really should be higher than that," noted Danny Hebert. "I've been doing this for over twenty years after all."
Nothing answered him.
"Was that Queen Sage?" asked Danny.
Again there was no answer.
Danny shrugged and continued on reviewing paperwork. With everything going on, there was a LOT of paperwork needing to be done.
The phone began ringing before he could get another paragraph into the contract.
* Zephron *
"What the heck is a 'level up'?" asked Zebediah.
"You got that too?" asked Zephron, scratching his head after the voice had finished.
"What class did you get?" asked Zebediah, scratching his head.
"According to the announcement," said Zephron. "I'm a Level 3 Driver."
Zebediah nodded. "Level 3 Mechanic."
Zephron was quiet for a moment. "What do you think it means?"
"I don't think it means we're capes now, so I'm guessing it's something Bounceback did," said Zebediah.
"Sounds about right," agreed Zephron. "Driver though?"
[Driver Class - Specialist in operating ground vehicles. Driving Skill carries several sub-specialties (ie: Construction, Warehouse, Tracked Vehicles, etc.)]
"Okay, that makes a bit more sense," admitted Zephron.
"What makes sense?" asked Zebediah.
"Ask about Mechanic," suggested Zephron.
"What should I ask about 'Mechanic'? It's kind of obv... oh."
"Zebediah, Zephron?" asked Kurt as he came running up with Lacey.
"Mechanic," said Zebediah.
"Driver," said Zephron.
"Oh, you too," said Kurt. "Well, at least yours makes sense."
"Why, what did you get?" asked Zephron, figuring from Lacey's smirk this was going to be something.
* Medhall *
"You know how we were supposed to steer clear of the Docks and avoid the new cape because she could shut down our capes?" asked Krieg.
"Yes," agreed Max Anders, not costumed at all presently.
"We might have been able to stop her in the first couple of weeks," stated Krieg.
"And then we'd still have the Simurgh hitting cities," said Max Anders. "Did you see the report on the other two Endbringers?"
Krieg nodded.
"They're hiding," said Max. "Endbringers. I've attended Endbringer fights. That I might not have to in the future is both a blessing and a curse."
"Wait. How is it a curse?" asked Krieg.
"No Endbringers mean no Endbringer Truce," explained Max. "Means that when things catch up on the legal end of things, there's much less reason for less-than-lethal measures. There's-"
[Level Up!]
[Administrator Level:3]
[Bureaucracy Skill at 45.4%]
[Parahuman (Shaker) Level:3]
[Because of taking a patient and calculated approach to developments, take a stat increase of +1 to Wisdom!]
"What the hell?" asked Max Anders.
* Secret Base *
[Level Up!]
"Seriously?" asked Leet.
[Parahuman (Tinker) Level: 3]
[By dedicated studying and working with others, you have Dual Classed to Engineer!]
"There's no Gamer class?" asked Leet.
"What did you get?" asked Uber from the next room.
"Tinker Three and Engineer One," called back Leet.
"Cool. I got Thinker Two and Jack-of-All-Trades Two," called back Uber. "Jack has a great skill."
Leet got up from his massage chair and went to the next room to better communicate. "Skill?"
Uber nodded as he set a meal to warm up in the microwave. "Jack-of-All has a skill called 'Basic Everything' which gives me a low chance of figuring out how to fix or operate nearly anything I run across. Base of 20% with +5% per level. Maxes at 50%. You know what this means, of course."
"Grinding levels?" asked Leet.
"Grinding levels," confirmed Uber.
* Cauldron *
* September 30, 2011 *
"So far the effect is limited to Brockton Bay," said Doctor Mother. "Radius of forty-two miles so far with no signs of expansion."
Contessa entered the room, looking a bit more tanned and relaxed than usual.
"Do you have anything to add?" asked Doctor Mother.
"Parahuman powers will eventually be solar-system wide and the gamer-effect will be planetary," said Contessa, the ice cubes in her glass of something light green with a little umbrella clinking as she set it down. "It will take time for both though. At least a century to fully expand."
"Is that what Path to Victory tells you?" asked Doctor Mother.
"No, it's what Voice of Gaea tells me, who is behind the 'gamer-effect'," said Contessa. "Everyone affected by that can monitor the development of their various skills and gain in abilities."
"How so?" asked Eidolon, curious though also a bit put-off by this development.
"Farmers can get better at farming by practice, same with chefs and cooking, and so on," said Contessa. "Where you could look and determine that you were at 43.4% of gaining a level in Chinese Cooking for example and that you were going up by .01% every time you made something different within that specialty?"
"People would give up on seeing their totals go up very slowly," said Eidolon.
"People would be encouraged by being able to see progress," mused Doctor Mother.
"People will be people," concluded Numbers Man.
Contessa nodded. "Parahuman is a class with several subclasses. Other parts of the system will be patched or upgraded as time goes on."
"What's the purpose of all this, anyway?" asked Alexandria.
Contessa sipped her drink with evident pleasure before answering. "Human potential. Voice of Gaea has accessed the memories of the worlds that the Entities destroyed before coming here. Most of those had reached a point similar to our own where technological progress was possible but other kinds were stymied. Sheer numbers and population density end up limiting the potential of individuals. Even the hive minds reached a point where they couldn't progress. Stagnation and turning on itself even without the Entities manipulating things."
"The other-Earth colonies would seem to indicate that is less of a problem than it was," pointed out Doctor Mother.
Numbers Man spoke up. "Other countries are demanding access to the tunnel system and establishing their own colonies. Of the colonies established by the United States, El Dorado and Desolation are doing well. Creighton is having some problems with the local dinosaur population, as one would expect. Snowball isn't doing well at all, again as one would expect."
"Space colonies on our Earth have the further difficulty of most parahuman abilities not extending far beyond the atmosphere. The limitation currently is due to physical limitations and not restrictions applied from above. It will take several years for those to be ready, even with parts being manufactured on Earth and then skylifted." Doctor Mother tapped her tablet a few times. "Lunar base takes three days to reach with current vehicles. When that is complete we can start mining for Helium-3."
Contessa nodded. "Even when the Voice of Gaea system is complete, this Earth will be the only one where it is active so that those who don't want that intrusion in their lives can easily get away from it. All this is for the future though. Our current greatest concern is something else entirely."
"The other two Endbringers?" asked Eidolon.
"Common perception is that they are in hiding. In truth - Bounceback already hunted them down and ate them." Contessa shrugged a little, twirling her drink's little umbrella between her left thumb and forefinger. "She did it quietly because some of the reactions towards her eating the Simurgh were less relieved and more panicked."
"So... what's the problem?" asked Alexandria.
"There's the remaining members of the Fallen, other criminal organizations, Gesellschaft trying to infiltrate on Snowball," said Contessa as she counted off problems on her fingers. "Supervillain groups that are acting up due to the perception that Endbringer Truces are no longer a concern. Supervillain groups that are laying low for the moment but may step forward when they determine there is an opportunity they might exploit. Then there's this."
Contessa's tablet was pressed and one of the large screens in the conference room shifted from the usual background to something entirely different.
"An empty street with piles of clothing?" asked Eidolon, staring at the image.
"The gate facilities found these in their exploration of alternate Earths. It is currently designated Earth-32Y. Exploration team included a team of parahumans called the Fourth Street Fantastics, one of whom is a Thinker/Tinker combination called Mister Fantastic. His report was that this world was like our own until the year 1984 when every human apparently vanished overnight, leaving only their clothes. They are currently in quarantine on Earth-10Y to preclude a viral or similar problem." Contessa checked her tablet. "The problem is that if it could occur there, there is a chance it could occur here or on other colonized worlds."
"They just vanished, no other traces?" asked Doctor Mother.
"None. As soon as the team was able to recover records of the day before the event, they returned to the airlock and the base on 10Y." Contessa tapped her finger on the tablet, bringing up the images of a newspaper talking about comet-viewing parties.
"A comet?" asked Doctor Mother.
"Comparing newspapers from that world to our own of the same day, that appears to be the major difference," said Contessa. She shrugged one shoulder. "It is expected that we may run into other worlds that faced disasters like this and we need to know what other menaces to civilization may show up now that the Entities are done."
"We may still face other Entities out there as well," pointed out Doctor Mother.
"Preparations can wait," stated Contessa. "We have been working towards the end of the Entities here for decades. I suggest we all take a month off. Keep an eye out for emergencies but humans, even parahumans, can't keep going for years without needing a break. We have one and can respond nearly instantly if conditions change. Come back refreshed and ready, we are certain to have problems enough that need to be addressed."
"What of the Queen of Escalation?" asked Eidolon.
"She's rather busy at the moment," said Contessa, who then smirked.
"Why does this fill me with a feeling of foreboding?" asked Eidolon.
* Snowball Colony, Earth T-7 *
* March 3, 2012 *
She was Madison Clements, someone trying to put her past way way way behind her. Like most of the people who'd come to Snowball.
The colony of Snowball was not in Brockton Bay. The train line from Brockton Bay to Snowball actually ended up in what would be northern Virginia on Earth Bet. That was because from Snowball you could see a blue line to the North, that line being the glaciers.
They were located in a pine forest and there was tundra between them and the glaciers, but there were mammoths and other animals to hunt because this was one of the no-humans developed worlds.
The main export of this colony were furs, several plants which seemed to be different from any other Earth-variant, and studies of the North American Treecat. Which didn't exist on any other world they'd explored yet.
They didn't hunt treecats for fur, they were at least borderline sapient and might be over that line. Smart, able to use simple tools, but nobody was quite sure how smart or sapient they were yet.
Snowball was not currently self-sufficient. Life was harsh here, even with walls that had been erected to keep the Ice Age predators away from the colony itself there were the usual hardships of a pioneer village on an untamed world. Some people couldn't take the isolation or primitive conditions. Some people couldn't deal with the nearly-constant cold. Snowball was not some vacation spot that could welcome tourism.
Madison made her way to the top of the wall, nodded to Claire as she took over the surveillance post and Claire could go find a spot to warm up properly. They had to keep to shifts and relieve people on time after all.
There was a treecat nearby, they were very useful to have around after all. Dogs and treecats had superior-to-human senses and knew when something was out there that might try to get through the walls. Treecats were better in some ways because they were smart enough to know the local dangers and only alert when there was an actual threat. Those short-faced cave bears were one of the major dangers and the treecats had a special signal they'd give off for those.
It was kind of funny that she had what was basically an arbalest to use on those. You had to keep the weapons covered and oiled to avoid having ice in the gears. Long guns would be better but those were strictly controlled for when the threat was actually coming in. After all, they were still setting things up and being able to make their own ammunition from local resources was still years off.
* Earth T-5, Desolation Colony *
The thin young man got up on the stage, waiting for the inevitable hiss of steam from the locomotive to finish, and then address the crowd of new arrivals.
"Welcome to Desolation, colony of Earth Theta-Five. In case all of you ignored the fine print, we were established two months ago and the area we're in would be considered upstate New York as far as maps would consider. The reason you are not in the local Brockton Bay, is that piece of land being under a considerable amount of water. This is a world where humans never developed, like all the colony-worlds, and it is classified as a Hothouse Earth. Temperatures are on average twelve degrees higher and the scientist types tell me to expect rain a lot more frequently as well.
"Our current census, not including you new arrivals, is 1,002. That includes the people trying to farm this little place so if you only see a few hundred on a regular basis - that's why.
"There's a motion to rename Desolation to Petersville after our illustrious founder, but that'll wait till our one year anniversary for a vote.
"Signs are posted. If it says 'No Trespassing' then don't freaking go there unless authorized. We mean it. There are no hospitals or emergency care centers, no ambulances, no lawyers ready to say your stupidity or inattention is the other guy's fault. This is a frontier with minimal resources, so keep in mind that things are a little more rough than most of you have had it.
"We have exactly two capes here. Skipjack who is a terrakinetic and very very busy. If you see him, he'll be the one in the steampunk-engineer costume. He'll also most likely be busy as hell. Do not bother him, there's a project list for him in the City Hall and you can petition to have something done there if you need rocks moved or a plot of land leveled.
"Our other cape is a dog handler named Rachel. She does tracking and hunting and likewise has a project list at the City Hall. Do not approach her directly, see notes about us not having a hospital or time for people being stupid. If you see her, you'll know. She mainly sticks to the outermost ranches so she's easy to avoid.
"Housing is to the right. General store is right there. Saloon is down the street and the right, just listen for music. We have an 'Old West' aesthetic going, that's partly deliberate and partly practical. Get the jokes out early and move on.
"The Doctors are Desirae Gutierrez and Enrique Danvers, and they get enough work without you seeing them for anything not serious. Clinic is off to the left with the big red cross on the placard. That's it. Take your luggage, find a prefab place where the placard is empty. Put your name on the placard when you claim it or you might find someone else claiming it. You got a work slip so find that next. Walking is the main way to get anywhere.
"The main danger here is there's a snake that's size 'Oh Hell No' and is a constrictor. If you see one, get help and we can haul the damn thing off or kill and render it. Sheriff Peters is our main lawman, he has a deputy named Kojak. No relation to the TV show. That's it - get a move on. If you have further questions, I'm usually at the saloon. I'm Joe, I'm the bartender on day shift."
* Creighton colony *
"So that's The Wall there," pointed out Taliesin, their guide. "First permanent structure built on this side. For obvious reasons."
"How big are the predators?" asked Bounceback, thinking that eating one and getting a new form to Mimic could come in handy.
"Biggest predator we've seen nearby is about the size of a very large bear," said Taliesin. "The biggest herbivore we've seen is about half the length of a football field."
"Seems pretty small compared to what you see in those Aleph movies," noted Danny Hebert.
"Those Aleph movies completely skew the predator-prey ratios, the need for large territories for both herbivores and carnivores, and... oh excuse me. Bit of a sore point with those of us in the profession how much they get wrong," said Taliesin, his Irish brogue getting stronger until he caught himself. "Anyway, over there is where we have the tannery. Dinosaur leather looks to be one of our bigger sellers. Also the feathers from the various raptor types. Some of them have remarkable plumage."
"That explains the hats," noted Danny Hebert, making a gesture towards a hat-seller whose wares all seemed to have various colored feathers in them.
Taliesin glanced at Bounceback, who'd just gone from human-form to blue-blob so she could perch on a railing and look out over the shopping avenue.
"A question?" asked Danny Hebert.
"It's known, or at least spoken of, how your daughter there went through all sorts of crap and some people even said she died," said Taliesin.
"I've heard that, oddly enough," admitted Danny as Taylor shifted back to human and was looking on curiously.
"Yet, pardon me, you seem quite cheerful and well-adjusted. More so than most of the parahumans I've met," said Taliesin.
"I try. Your point?" asked Taylor.
"Is that why the name 'Bounceback'?" asked Taliesin. "You reached your low point in life and then decided you'd get better - bouncing back from that point?"
Taylor nudged her father with an elbow. "See, Dad. Some people DO get it."
* END *
- Location
- Hell
- Pronouns
- He
The ending line was dishonesty adorable! Love it.
Consumed entire work while actually was working, in one day - and having absolutely 0 regrets!
What a fun romp that was! Thank you, dear author, for sharing this piece if your mind with us.
Odd1todd89
The strange tightrope
- Pronouns
- It
So sad to see this end but glad to have read it.
Thank you for writing I hope you have a wonderful day/night.
Thank you for writing I hope you have a wonderful day/night.
Thank you for the story. Very funny. Much laugh.
Ah, no more funny. Well, thanks for the funny. It was good funny.
thanks, this was a really enjoyable little story
- Pronouns
- SL
Ch then slime goes turn the sage
[Question was what event preceded to the rise of parahumans.]
[Question was what event preceded to the rise of parahumans.]
Fellow Human
Verified Roado Rolla
Rule 3: Be Civil - This is not how to comment on a story in a civil manner.
Nah, they were wrong.
No need to crosspost a shortfic with personality free MC and incredously stupid enemies here. That stuff is doing just fine on AO3.
Not funny when it reads like the old Microsoft text to speech.
Someone had to say it something besides echo chamber of praise, considering 50% readers dropped it on chapter two.
No need to crosspost a shortfic with personality free MC and incredously stupid enemies here. That stuff is doing just fine on AO3.
Not funny when it reads like the old Microsoft text to speech.
Someone had to say it something besides echo chamber of praise, considering 50% readers dropped it on chapter two.
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- Pronouns
- SL
Ch having the slime of your life
I have been doing things like this since way before you was were a gleam in your fathers eye."
I have been doing things like this since way before you was were a gleam in your fathers eye."