You think that that's the only place he goes to or the only time he's awake or something?
The Eldritch One (Celestial Forge)
- Thread starter Optimal Robotics
- Start date
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
Australia was an example of a place that would have daylight while Houston Texas would be at 3am.
Countering an argued stance on no 3am attacks for Eidolon to deal with.
If you are going to contribute to the discussion please consider the whole discussion rather than snipe at the use of a canon example.
Guess that he must have gone clubbing the night before that attack and use some power or another to refresh himself.
Chapter 31: Beat A Motherfucker With Another Motherfucker!
After giving Carol her ultimatum, I turned my attention back to the Parahuman trying to ruin my life. I spent the next hour scouring the entire goddamn city for any kind of elicit cable taps without any guarantee I would recognize them as such. And this is going to be the easy part. Brockton Bay might be a small city, but it's still a city. And I can't go anywhere near my top speed while doing an in depth search like this, so we're taking the dogs. Fortunately we found what we were looking for in the third location I searched. My senses blared to me that this thing on the cables is tinkertech. It looks like it's bolted on. The top bit is a camera looking thing facing off in a random direction, and where a lense would normally be is a boxy flat surface with five small lenses attached.
"Tattletale? That don't look like it belongs."
"Looks like a, uh, directional wifi bridge." She takes out a map and looks at the thing again. "It's facing this way, which means..." She traces her finger along the map. "They're at the Super 8 motel in the South-West section of town!"
"Excellent! Let's go kill us a lying prick." We go back to the rest of the team. They're keeping the staff off of us while we look around. Funnily enough the only thing they insisted on was for the two of us going into the work area to wear fluorescent safety equipment. Weird, but I stopped Tattletale from laughing it off. Safety first and all that, and she is the squishiest one here.
During the dog ride to the motel we were very subdued. Only thing anybody said, was Grue when he told us to go in hard and go in fast. And Regent when he tacked on 'without any lube.' Guess he got over his earlier squeamishness about killing. The motel was in sight in under a half hour. Good time. Only...
"Everybody stop!! Something's wrong!!" I scream. There are several 'broken' auras coming from the motel. Several more than the presence of an IT tinker would suggest, and all of them attached to the metal grating on the windows and entrance. And there just isn't any way all of those locks are broken.
Fortunately Bitch heeded my warning, and gave out a shrill whistle signalling the dogs to stop. Unfortunately, due to my viscous nature, I slipped out of the straps keeping me attached to the dogs. I landed about two feet in front of the entrance.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho! It seems we have a clever one here, da?" A big burly man in dark jeans, a red and white striped shirt, a ski mask, and a festive hat steps forward.
"And just who the hell are you supposed to be?!" Regent yells out. I get up and lunge at him. He catches me as I try to dissolve his skin.
"In Soviet R-r-russia, Valdo finds you!!" As he rolls the 'R'. "Nice try leetle lady." I feel him peel me off of him after just a couple seconds. I only got through his shirt! I tried to counter the throw, but I overcommitted in my melting attempts by half a second. That's all it took for him to grab on and throw me past the entrance. And that's when the pain hit. Mind melting sensory depriving PAIN. I'm vaguely aware of a fight going on in the background, but I can't focus on it. NO!! I will not let these dickheads win today. They have directly stated their intent to kill me and mine. Even if I can't see what I'm doing I have to move.
So I do.
I flailingly get up and move in a direction as fast as I can. The random spasms the electricity force on me, force me to the ground more than once, but through a couple iterations of trial and error I figure out that they can't fuck with my shape shifting. Now I don't know exactly how long I spent randomly flailing about, but I know I was eventually able to start doing so in random directions. One such flail I was able to put my full force into moving into a single direction. I felt something smoosh my front, then give under my weight.
Was that a wall? Wasn't this a brick building? I don't have time to contemplate that anymore as more movement was forced out of me. By some stroke of luck I managed to force myself out of another wall and have my senses returned to me through the absence of pain. The street here... There's a shrinking dog bleeding on the sidewalk, a cloud of darkness further up, and Waldo being thrown out of it. He's followed not long after by a bedraggled looking Tattletale.
"Taylor! He can absorb electricity! Don't let him touch the building!" Absorbs electricity? I break out my biggest mouth to smile for her.
"What wonderful news!" I grab this mother fucker by the feet and smash him directly into the building, destroying a good chunk of wall. And then before he can reach for me I swing him again, keeping his arms away from me with centrifugal force. And then I swing him again and again and again as fast as I can like a goddamn looney tunes character, demolishing another chunk of the wall each time. By the time I got done with the entire outside wall, half the building collapsed inside itself, and the electrical trap looked like it turned itself off. I tossed Waldo on the ground, blood coming out of his nose and eyes half lidded.
"Tattletale, is it safe?" She stares at me a little dumbfounded.
"Yeah, uh, you trashed it."
*BANG*
Holy shit, we're being shot at! My head snaps to the perpetrator as Tattletale retreats back into the smoke. I wade into the wreckage to clean up the, apparently obligatory, mercenaries. Looks like only three of them are still alive, and outfitted with some sort of electricity guns. Fancy asshats aren't they? That first one probably used a real gun to shoot at Tattletale. When the last of them are dead we sift through the wreckage, only to find some horribly crispified electronics. Nobody even got caught in the crossfire except for lots of crushed mercenaries.
Tattletale had to call the boss for transportation. Bitch refused to leave Angelica, the dog, alone even if it turned out she was just unconscious. He sent a cabby that wouldn't ask any questions, and Bitch directed them to her shelter.
Also apparently Bitch has an entire shelter of rescue dogs. This is wild to me.
"Well that went terribly." Says Brian, as all of us except Bitch enter our hideout.
"Gee, you think?" Retorts Alec. "If this was a Saturday morning cartoon all that would be missing would be the villain taunting us after the fact on a massive screen he somehow set up before hand."
"Aren't we villains?" I ask.
"Well I guess technically we are."
"Guys! Focus!" Snaps Brian. "What the fuck happened there!"
"We went in too fast into a prepared trap." Supplies Tattletale. "I should have seen it." She twitches. "If we didn't have Taylor here we would have absolutely blundered right into it."
"Right. Awesome." Brian snarks at us. "Taylor I'm gonna need you to scout this shit beforehand next time it comes up, okay? You call us in after you confirm this shit won't happen again."
"Absolutely, yes."
"Good." And he storms out the door.
"...So Taylor." Says Alec. "Can we talk about how hot that was how you demolished that brute?"
AN: Sorry about the delay guys, been busy with family and holiday stuff.
Also apparently electricity kills through muscle spasms stopping the heart, and electrical burns. Both things Taylor doesn't care about. It can still hurt though.
"Tattletale? That don't look like it belongs."
"Looks like a, uh, directional wifi bridge." She takes out a map and looks at the thing again. "It's facing this way, which means..." She traces her finger along the map. "They're at the Super 8 motel in the South-West section of town!"
"Excellent! Let's go kill us a lying prick." We go back to the rest of the team. They're keeping the staff off of us while we look around. Funnily enough the only thing they insisted on was for the two of us going into the work area to wear fluorescent safety equipment. Weird, but I stopped Tattletale from laughing it off. Safety first and all that, and she is the squishiest one here.
During the dog ride to the motel we were very subdued. Only thing anybody said, was Grue when he told us to go in hard and go in fast. And Regent when he tacked on 'without any lube.' Guess he got over his earlier squeamishness about killing. The motel was in sight in under a half hour. Good time. Only...
"Everybody stop!! Something's wrong!!" I scream. There are several 'broken' auras coming from the motel. Several more than the presence of an IT tinker would suggest, and all of them attached to the metal grating on the windows and entrance. And there just isn't any way all of those locks are broken.
Fortunately Bitch heeded my warning, and gave out a shrill whistle signalling the dogs to stop. Unfortunately, due to my viscous nature, I slipped out of the straps keeping me attached to the dogs. I landed about two feet in front of the entrance.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho! It seems we have a clever one here, da?" A big burly man in dark jeans, a red and white striped shirt, a ski mask, and a festive hat steps forward.
"And just who the hell are you supposed to be?!" Regent yells out. I get up and lunge at him. He catches me as I try to dissolve his skin.
"In Soviet R-r-russia, Valdo finds you!!" As he rolls the 'R'. "Nice try leetle lady." I feel him peel me off of him after just a couple seconds. I only got through his shirt! I tried to counter the throw, but I overcommitted in my melting attempts by half a second. That's all it took for him to grab on and throw me past the entrance. And that's when the pain hit. Mind melting sensory depriving PAIN. I'm vaguely aware of a fight going on in the background, but I can't focus on it. NO!! I will not let these dickheads win today. They have directly stated their intent to kill me and mine. Even if I can't see what I'm doing I have to move.
So I do.
I flailingly get up and move in a direction as fast as I can. The random spasms the electricity force on me, force me to the ground more than once, but through a couple iterations of trial and error I figure out that they can't fuck with my shape shifting. Now I don't know exactly how long I spent randomly flailing about, but I know I was eventually able to start doing so in random directions. One such flail I was able to put my full force into moving into a single direction. I felt something smoosh my front, then give under my weight.
Was that a wall? Wasn't this a brick building? I don't have time to contemplate that anymore as more movement was forced out of me. By some stroke of luck I managed to force myself out of another wall and have my senses returned to me through the absence of pain. The street here... There's a shrinking dog bleeding on the sidewalk, a cloud of darkness further up, and Waldo being thrown out of it. He's followed not long after by a bedraggled looking Tattletale.
"Taylor! He can absorb electricity! Don't let him touch the building!" Absorbs electricity? I break out my biggest mouth to smile for her.
"What wonderful news!" I grab this mother fucker by the feet and smash him directly into the building, destroying a good chunk of wall. And then before he can reach for me I swing him again, keeping his arms away from me with centrifugal force. And then I swing him again and again and again as fast as I can like a goddamn looney tunes character, demolishing another chunk of the wall each time. By the time I got done with the entire outside wall, half the building collapsed inside itself, and the electrical trap looked like it turned itself off. I tossed Waldo on the ground, blood coming out of his nose and eyes half lidded.
"Tattletale, is it safe?" She stares at me a little dumbfounded.
"Yeah, uh, you trashed it."
*BANG*
Holy shit, we're being shot at! My head snaps to the perpetrator as Tattletale retreats back into the smoke. I wade into the wreckage to clean up the, apparently obligatory, mercenaries. Looks like only three of them are still alive, and outfitted with some sort of electricity guns. Fancy asshats aren't they? That first one probably used a real gun to shoot at Tattletale. When the last of them are dead we sift through the wreckage, only to find some horribly crispified electronics. Nobody even got caught in the crossfire except for lots of crushed mercenaries.
Tattletale had to call the boss for transportation. Bitch refused to leave Angelica, the dog, alone even if it turned out she was just unconscious. He sent a cabby that wouldn't ask any questions, and Bitch directed them to her shelter.
Also apparently Bitch has an entire shelter of rescue dogs. This is wild to me.
"Well that went terribly." Says Brian, as all of us except Bitch enter our hideout.
"Gee, you think?" Retorts Alec. "If this was a Saturday morning cartoon all that would be missing would be the villain taunting us after the fact on a massive screen he somehow set up before hand."
"Aren't we villains?" I ask.
"Well I guess technically we are."
"Guys! Focus!" Snaps Brian. "What the fuck happened there!"
"We went in too fast into a prepared trap." Supplies Tattletale. "I should have seen it." She twitches. "If we didn't have Taylor here we would have absolutely blundered right into it."
"Right. Awesome." Brian snarks at us. "Taylor I'm gonna need you to scout this shit beforehand next time it comes up, okay? You call us in after you confirm this shit won't happen again."
"Absolutely, yes."
"Good." And he storms out the door.
"...So Taylor." Says Alec. "Can we talk about how hot that was how you demolished that brute?"
AN: Sorry about the delay guys, been busy with family and holiday stuff.
Also apparently electricity kills through muscle spasms stopping the heart, and electrical burns. Both things Taylor doesn't care about. It can still hurt though.
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PyroTechno
The Procrastination Pokemon
IIRC it also does permanent nerve damage ala Canon Taylor with the pain bomb
Your Taylor, who does not have a central nervous system:
I don't know if you accidentally doubled up on some words here, or if its just really awkward phrasing, but reading this made my brain skip. I'd suggest rewriting/phrasing it to flow a bit better.
Fixed with a comma
Barbaric Bob
The Barbaric One
- Location
- Soon to be plundering a village near you
Can't brute when all your existence is pain
Good tactic for the team itself but I would expect them to also invest in some decent armor at some point, at least after they get shot a few times or something, and for Taylor specifically to get herself some electrical PPE, to start her encounters by restraining targets instead of just sliming them, and to droop her way out of grabs like the slime she is instead of getting thrown around.
Seriously though Taylor has always been adaptive and shown to learn from encounters.
Only if she still uses ion-transmitter-based nerves.
Also can't Brute liquids.
- Location
- Dhaka, Bangladesh
I wonder can Taylor control her chemical composition? If she can, Flouroanimonic acid piranha solution. Blame Vespa for this idea.
- Location
- RS,brasil
ic can however degrade her protein
but again that will take thousands of times the amount needed to kill a human being, like to the point the weapon is tremendous overkill
intersting video on it
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGD-oSwJv3E
so whilst enough electricity could kill Taylor, that is closer to behemoths lighting then any upscale taser
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckSoDW2-wrc
or susbtance N
honestly anyone with FMA alchemy could make the oxygen into ozone and the air into Azido azideazide, making a super explosions with just air
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I think that her regular composition is enough to do something similar if not better. Not only that but her ability to dissolve things is highly selective.
I think that she might be immune to that as well if it's a environmental factor? Also, as demonstrated by Biohazard Guy, she can reabsorb her own decayed slime to replace lost mass.
I previously mentioned how simply Nitroglycerin molecules are.
Edit: also Nitrocellulose, which is the primary component in gunpowder.
Edit: forget that I said anything about Nitroglycerin or Nitrocellulose being simple; Azidoazide Azide is also remarkably simple. Probably not great for explosions, as that would presumably require a mass of material suddenly reacting energetically and the idea of producing a mass of Azidoazide Azide is laughable, but definitely good for producing heat.
Edit: of fuck me running, Thioacetone is just Propane with a Sulfur atom double-bonded to the middle instead of a pair of Hydrogens. God help anyone who's both isolated enough and who has pissed Taylor off enough because she could render areas kilometers in size uninhabitable.
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- Location
- RS,brasil
oh no, even better ozone is still going to explode even if you don't want it to, to the point using it in rockets is technically considered suicidal
View: https://youtu.be/_wLk2j7_KB0?si=GIMWRTFAgexiLoEX&t=180
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She could also ground out such systems by deploying the ever dependable metallic net.
As a offensive measure or a defensive one? Because those are different layers of the Survivability Onion.
Also I was thinking a bit less ad-hock then that; a few things that would be a little bit more purpose-built. Possibly also more organic if she could manage it; Taylor does have Plentimaw mouths, and Nazarickian Slimes come in multiple Elemental flavors, after all.
Edit: even with chimeric Nazarickian Slime anatomy though that's no reason for Taylor to not also resort to implants and armor and whatnot.
Edit: also, especially with Taylor's Plentimaws, there are options slightly better then most metals to make electrical PPE out of.
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- Location
- RS,brasil
chainmail does protect one from electric attacks almost completely, and given she has the ability to skip the long process this would be remarkably easy
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqEesFaboV4
heck she could make a soda can tap chainmail, and it would still be super effective for electric attacks even it its super fragile, and she has the specific power to make it quickly,
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgbVl3AjK6k
and with overlay it would even be obvious
Edit:
actually you know what would be very effective
a car, just a regular ass car, they are effectively a 2 ton power armor specifically designed for comfort ease of use and crumple to make the passager safe
a modern car is likely better as a combat weapon then actual power armor in both comfort, mileage and safety
there are thousands of it and im absolutely certain tattletale can find you a car, how they haven't though of that is actually a bit embarrassing
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A Faraday Suit was kind of exactly what I was thinking of when I said "armor"; I just didn't know that it was already a thing.
Naturally I still think that she should go for redundancies as well, things like a internal conductor better then herself and/or making at least some parts of herself extremely conductive, but, like, yeah this sounds just about perfect. She might want to tweak it a bit to resemble a Puffer Fish skeleton, or modify some of herself to grow a conductive mesh of spikes like one, for extra offensive capability and stretchability, but the basic idea of "Wearable Path Of Least Resistance" itself works.
Plus she wouldn't even need to make it removable if she just melted into it.
Nah that'd be pointless; not only would she want to make them more conductive anyway, which would imply Plentimaw recombination which itself implies that they would be having traits thrown into them anyway, but she can effectively acid-cut and vacuum-weld things apart and together anyway, so she could just make chain-link rings out of things like wire or metal pipes.
Hell she wouldn't even need to make it out of metal; she could make it out of whatever she wanted and then make it metal using Plentimaw mouths.
Hell she could just get a regular suit and turn it into Chain Mail once she got a sample of meshed chain-links.
Sure, as long as you don't need to bring it anywhere smaller then it, or someone brings something that can damage it enough to get to you, or someone immobilizes it, or any number of other things.
Now that isn't to say that they shouldn't get themselves a fucking APC disguised as something street-legal, straight-up No Time To Die that shit, but they'd have to get out at some point so they'd be served well with some personal armor.
Speaking of damage-resistant transportation though Rachel's dogs could stand to have some armor.
Literally one of the first Perks Taylor got was a fuckload, possibly a limitless supply, of high-end car parts.
Dogs are canonically better than cars. We see them smacking around armored PRT vans when the Undersiders decided to smack them around for whatever reason. Only reason one went down right now is to a charged up brute.
Chapter 32: On The Prowl
New
The search for The Instigator, as the PRT is calling him, is progressing. Lisa managed to pull some records, and that motel was legitimately bought out for the night. The funds came from another number man account though, so that's a dead end. Though that once again brings up the fact that our opponents are incredibly rich. Rich enough to totally book a motel. So I have turned my attention to hotels and motels in the area. Upscale first. I managed to search one before school today. The vents-
"Taylor what the fuck!" I'm stage whispered to as Amy all but slams her lunch tray down next to me. "Why did you get my sister expelled!" I blink at her.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"My sister is being expelled for what happened yesterday!" I blink again.
"You mean when New Wave tried to collect on an illegal bounty on the sly?" Amy starts sputtering at that, and the three other people at the table quietly leave. I guess rich kids do have a survival instinct.
"We didn't know it was illegal at the time." She weakly defends. I stare at her, judgingly.
"You know, I wasn't trying to get your sister in trouble, right?"
"Well what did you expect the school would do in the face of a parahuman assault?" I take a deep breath, and ignore the fact that even she thinks it was a big deal.
"Amy, do you know what Winslow High did to Shadow Stalker and her friends when they almost killed me on school grounds? Don't answer that, because the answer's nothing. Fuck and all. In fact, if the latest news on her trial is accurate, Principal Blackwell was actively covering it up." I know she was covering it up, but that's neither her nor there. "I was not expecting the staff here to do anything about this so I didn't even try. I only moved to preserve the footage."
"And used it for blackmail." I raise my eyebrow.
"Your mom told you?"
"Carol did, yes. She couldn't shut up about it once she got home. You know you probably could've gotten him fired just by telling her about it, right?"
"You know I would love to believe that." I give her a rueful smile as I spear a tater tot, and eat it. "I just don't." She had nothing to say to that.
Thankfully nobody else bothered me the rest of the school day. Back to the search for the tinker though, the hotels I'm searching for have air vents. Though contrary to popular belief, air vents are not large enough for humans to fit through. This does not matter to me. I squeezed through a closed door in a camera's blindspot, then up into the ventilation. Sidenote, vents are fucking disgusting. Bugs and dust for days. Nothing I can't dissolve though. No longer exists, no longer bothering me.
The thing about searching through air vents is that it may be stealthy, but it's very slow. For starters I can't go any kind of super sonic due to how unfamiliar I am with this mode of locomotion. And I'm going far slower than my maximum speed to remain stealthy. Apparently vents are also very noisy if you go too fast in them. I spent about an hour or two fumbling around in the vents at the first location as I got a handle on my movement. I got lucky the housekeeping staff didn't call animal control on me or something.
Right now I'm at the seventh location I'm searching after school, each location taking at least an hour to search. It's, uh, quite late at night right now. Probably shouldn't be up so late, but I haven't felt tired since I decided to go hunting tonight. I gotta test how far that goes in the future. I'm looking down at room 307 right now to a room laden with all sorts of tinkertech. Not people having sex like the last forty rooms either, thank God. Seriously, is that all hotel rooms are used for?
"So, has your headache subsided?" Asks a plain, suited man to another plain, suited man
"Yes. Ask your questions." He says, almost resigned. Ooh? I was going to retreat and scout the floor a bit more thoroughly, but this sounds relevant.
"What are the chances of the Elite being able to kill Taylor Hebert?"
"..."
"Well?"
"I'm not getting anything. Only other time this happened is when a priest asked about fending off a vampire. It's like my power thinks she doesn't exist!"
"Oh for fuck's sake, is that why the ambush failed? Well at least Horrorshock wasn't on site. We can set up another location with some suitable bait-"
It's about then that a horrible screeching alarm cut through the walls. Like an air raid siren but far worse. My blood goes cold as I recognize it. The Endbringer alarm. Thankfully it cuts out just as fast. If memory serves the Simmurgh is the next one up, and I don't know what I'd do if she targeted Brockton Bay.
"Well Son of a Bitch! Apollo! Pack your shit, we're leaving. That bitch has the worst timing in the world, I swear." I slowly creep out of the ventilation system and out of the building. Took about ten minutes, then one more to get back to the loft. Normally everybody would be asleep right about now, but the alarm woke them up. Unfortunately I had to get my phone and call Tattletale due to her not being here.
"Mnngrrl. What."
"I found them. They're at a fancy hotel next to the airport."
"Taylor it's..." I hear some muffled thunking in the background. "It's fucking two A.M.!"
"Didn't the siren wake you up?"
"Yeah, and when it shut off I went back to bed!"
"Okay, but listen. They're going to leave in a little bit. We have to move."
"Taylor." She snaps, suddenly sounding much more awake. "Taylor no."
"What? Why not?! We won't catch them if we wait much longer."
"Taylor, are you familiar with the concept of the Truce?"
"...No?"
"Well shit, I guess I gotta explain this now. If they're retreating in response to the Endbringer, that means we have to let them. If we don't, that signals to everybody who hears of it that we will not cooperate in the face of Endbringers, or other S-class threats. This is not a reputation I will tolerate in a city that's such Leviathan bait." Oh God damnit!
"Taylor? Talk to me Taylor. If you don't tell me that you're letting this go, I'm going to have to start sabotaging this little outing. Starting with telling Grue how little you've likely scouted or prepared." I can't even say she's wrong, no matter how much it infuriates.
"I'm letting this go. For now."
"Good. I don't like this any more than you Taylor, but some things just aren't worth it." I hang up. This shit leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I hate it. I stalk down to the kitchen. Alec started making a midnight snack to help him fall back asleep. Gonna need some help 'working' out my frustrations.
The next morning news broke that The Instigator is putting my bounty on hold for a week because of the attack on Canberra. Anybody who tries collecting during that time period will be shot dead instead of getting rich. Wasn't expecting that level of honor from a villainous cape to be honest.
The morning after, I was very tired in school. Apparently any sleep borrowed against myself will count against me within a twenty four hour period. Neat. During lunch Amy surprised me by sitting down next to me.
"You look like shit."
"I feel like shit."
"Wanna talk about it?" I look over at her. Eh, why not.
"I had the fucker in my sights last night. Four feet away before that stupid winged bitch invoked the Truce."
"Huh."
AN: Rolls are saving up for a few big ones guys!
"Taylor what the fuck!" I'm stage whispered to as Amy all but slams her lunch tray down next to me. "Why did you get my sister expelled!" I blink at her.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"My sister is being expelled for what happened yesterday!" I blink again.
"You mean when New Wave tried to collect on an illegal bounty on the sly?" Amy starts sputtering at that, and the three other people at the table quietly leave. I guess rich kids do have a survival instinct.
"We didn't know it was illegal at the time." She weakly defends. I stare at her, judgingly.
"You know, I wasn't trying to get your sister in trouble, right?"
"Well what did you expect the school would do in the face of a parahuman assault?" I take a deep breath, and ignore the fact that even she thinks it was a big deal.
"Amy, do you know what Winslow High did to Shadow Stalker and her friends when they almost killed me on school grounds? Don't answer that, because the answer's nothing. Fuck and all. In fact, if the latest news on her trial is accurate, Principal Blackwell was actively covering it up." I know she was covering it up, but that's neither her nor there. "I was not expecting the staff here to do anything about this so I didn't even try. I only moved to preserve the footage."
"And used it for blackmail." I raise my eyebrow.
"Your mom told you?"
"Carol did, yes. She couldn't shut up about it once she got home. You know you probably could've gotten him fired just by telling her about it, right?"
"You know I would love to believe that." I give her a rueful smile as I spear a tater tot, and eat it. "I just don't." She had nothing to say to that.
Thankfully nobody else bothered me the rest of the school day. Back to the search for the tinker though, the hotels I'm searching for have air vents. Though contrary to popular belief, air vents are not large enough for humans to fit through. This does not matter to me. I squeezed through a closed door in a camera's blindspot, then up into the ventilation. Sidenote, vents are fucking disgusting. Bugs and dust for days. Nothing I can't dissolve though. No longer exists, no longer bothering me.
The thing about searching through air vents is that it may be stealthy, but it's very slow. For starters I can't go any kind of super sonic due to how unfamiliar I am with this mode of locomotion. And I'm going far slower than my maximum speed to remain stealthy. Apparently vents are also very noisy if you go too fast in them. I spent about an hour or two fumbling around in the vents at the first location as I got a handle on my movement. I got lucky the housekeeping staff didn't call animal control on me or something.
Right now I'm at the seventh location I'm searching after school, each location taking at least an hour to search. It's, uh, quite late at night right now. Probably shouldn't be up so late, but I haven't felt tired since I decided to go hunting tonight. I gotta test how far that goes in the future. I'm looking down at room 307 right now to a room laden with all sorts of tinkertech. Not people having sex like the last forty rooms either, thank God. Seriously, is that all hotel rooms are used for?
"So, has your headache subsided?" Asks a plain, suited man to another plain, suited man
"Yes. Ask your questions." He says, almost resigned. Ooh? I was going to retreat and scout the floor a bit more thoroughly, but this sounds relevant.
"What are the chances of the Elite being able to kill Taylor Hebert?"
"..."
"Well?"
"I'm not getting anything. Only other time this happened is when a priest asked about fending off a vampire. It's like my power thinks she doesn't exist!"
"Oh for fuck's sake, is that why the ambush failed? Well at least Horrorshock wasn't on site. We can set up another location with some suitable bait-"
It's about then that a horrible screeching alarm cut through the walls. Like an air raid siren but far worse. My blood goes cold as I recognize it. The Endbringer alarm. Thankfully it cuts out just as fast. If memory serves the Simmurgh is the next one up, and I don't know what I'd do if she targeted Brockton Bay.
"Well Son of a Bitch! Apollo! Pack your shit, we're leaving. That bitch has the worst timing in the world, I swear." I slowly creep out of the ventilation system and out of the building. Took about ten minutes, then one more to get back to the loft. Normally everybody would be asleep right about now, but the alarm woke them up. Unfortunately I had to get my phone and call Tattletale due to her not being here.
"Mnngrrl. What."
"I found them. They're at a fancy hotel next to the airport."
"Taylor it's..." I hear some muffled thunking in the background. "It's fucking two A.M.!"
"Didn't the siren wake you up?"
"Yeah, and when it shut off I went back to bed!"
"Okay, but listen. They're going to leave in a little bit. We have to move."
"Taylor." She snaps, suddenly sounding much more awake. "Taylor no."
"What? Why not?! We won't catch them if we wait much longer."
"Taylor, are you familiar with the concept of the Truce?"
"...No?"
"Well shit, I guess I gotta explain this now. If they're retreating in response to the Endbringer, that means we have to let them. If we don't, that signals to everybody who hears of it that we will not cooperate in the face of Endbringers, or other S-class threats. This is not a reputation I will tolerate in a city that's such Leviathan bait." Oh God damnit!
"Taylor? Talk to me Taylor. If you don't tell me that you're letting this go, I'm going to have to start sabotaging this little outing. Starting with telling Grue how little you've likely scouted or prepared." I can't even say she's wrong, no matter how much it infuriates.
"I'm letting this go. For now."
"Good. I don't like this any more than you Taylor, but some things just aren't worth it." I hang up. This shit leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I hate it. I stalk down to the kitchen. Alec started making a midnight snack to help him fall back asleep. Gonna need some help 'working' out my frustrations.
The next morning news broke that The Instigator is putting my bounty on hold for a week because of the attack on Canberra. Anybody who tries collecting during that time period will be shot dead instead of getting rich. Wasn't expecting that level of honor from a villainous cape to be honest.
The morning after, I was very tired in school. Apparently any sleep borrowed against myself will count against me within a twenty four hour period. Neat. During lunch Amy surprised me by sitting down next to me.
"You look like shit."
"I feel like shit."
"Wanna talk about it?" I look over at her. Eh, why not.
"I had the fucker in my sights last night. Four feet away before that stupid winged bitch invoked the Truce."
"Huh."
AN: Rolls are saving up for a few big ones guys!
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Foxy Boxes
[Verified Box]
- Location
- England
NGL, I'm hoping for an obvious one that isn't as pantswettingly terrifying as mass-produced anti-matter.
Uh oh simmy. You just made Taylor mad
Taylor is feeling a serious case of blueballs.
Wonderful characterization; literally remarkable.
It'd be a hell of a trick to make noise in a vent while moving like a snake or a amoeba.
Thinking about that I think that only Time Flies and the Glove Of The East would be able to help her sleep more restfully.
Should be funny to see what theories these motherfuckers come up with to explain that.
Stuff everyone you care about into your Warehouse and dump them in the next city over before potentially running back to help with some evacuation, Search And Rescue, fighting, and medical efforts?
I don't think that that's how the Truce works unless you go to Endbringer Fights or other S-Class threats.
So that she can pretend that it also doesn't exist?
- Location
- RS,brasil
You know she cal literally eat regular chains and pop out armor, by the wording on the mouth perk that should be possible
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWuqfCsXg00&t=0s
this also applies to almost anything she had in sufficient quantities, I'm surprised Tattletale hasn't thought to try to copy chavalier from Philly
heck, she can eat motorcycles and have a super bike
could she actually eat murder rat and split her back into two capes?
Like my god she has so much potential, the ability to just take two objects and combine it is good enough that for Cavalier to be a protectorate leader
a cavalier that can work on tinker tech + acidbath with a mover rating + Squealer + thinker + blank + immune to all environmental damage and existence erasure
it's honestly a very worm like power, even for how broad and non-thematic it is
very few things work on her, the PRT has absolutely no way of taking her out, if you actually look there are nearly no capes in the city that can even hurt her, much less permanently kill her
bullets (Brute rating), melee weapons(Liquid), normal Tasers (No nerves or muscles), nets (Liquid), concussive grenades (no brain to be concussed), shrapnel (Small cuts dont work) , flash bangs (No eyes), flamethrowers (ineffective due to temperature resistance, production of fire retardant, and lack of needed oxygen), containment foam (Dissolved), Stinger missles (too slow, too small a target)
Armsmaster is mostly useless when it comes to her:
[X] Blade that rearranges into various other weapons (Halberd)[29]
[X] Blade that can cut through steel (Halberd blade, spear[33])
[X] Grappling hook (Halberd blade)[29][18]
[X] Welding device (Halberd blade) [34][18]
[X] Flail (Halberd blade)[29]
[X] Teleporting to his hand (Halberd)[35] Possibly a result of scanning Miss Militia's power.
[✔] Temporal stasis trigger (Halberd) Scanned from Clockblocker
[X] EMP Projector/Electricity field (Halberd, spear)[36]
[✔] Plasma blade (Halberd)[18] ()
[X] The ability to change its size (spear)[37]
[X] Spinning blades (spear)[38]
[X] Echolocation (Halberd, helmet)[29]
[X] Lie detector (helmet)[29] (definitely not working)
[X] Combat predictor (helmet)[29] (has difficult predicting non-standard body plan with progressively more powers)
[X] Psychic shielding (helmet)[39]
[X] Sealed biohazard capabilities (Defiant armor)[40] (not installed yet)
[X] Enhanced strength (Armour)[41] (will do nothing as metals are sensible to acids)
Megaprojects
[✔] Nano-thorn disintegration field (unique Halberd, later incorporated into a spear and his Defiant armor)[42]
nanothorns dont work as the acid will actually destroy the spear in a single hit regardless, even if it would fuck her up badly,
Miss militia also doesn't have many options:
Taylor could survive almost all of these, all of it sans the nuclear weapons that she will not be using
Assault (Striker, get smelted)
Battery (faster than mover rating, can't touch her)
Dauntless (can steal his artifacts and there is the potential of her being able to combine it, and now she has a better weapon then him)
Sere (Legitimate, has the best shot of all the protectorate, as a slime her entire body is filled with water, and dehydration would definitely kill her)
Triumph (Unlikely to harm her, as sonic damage only starts affecting people after 180 decibels, which is way more then he has been shown) Velocity (she is just as fast as him but can act in the world, meaning she can)
Wards:
Aegis: hand-to-hand fighter, will be destroyed, or at least sustain enough costume damage to expose his identity
Weld: brute made of metal, as highly acid susceptible material, also had to hand fighter
Clockblocker: Timestrop essential for setting up ambushes, but he is slow, and Taylor would definitely prioritize him
Crucible: (absolutely can kill Taylor)
Browbeat: (Hand-to-hand fighter, susceptible to acid)
Chariot: (one of the best choices against Taylor)
Flechette: (yes, but a single arrow may not be enough to put Taylor down, given she has no essential organs)
Gallant: (thinker powers don't work, nor do master ones)
Kid Win: (very likely to have a shot at her, has electricity shooting guns and good mobility in hoverboard)
Shadow Stalker: (priority target and excellent bait, no longer working for the BB wards)
Toggle: (absolutely nothing)
Vista: (the strongest cape and the one that absolutely could win this solo, just make the distance between Taylor and the ground increase, and she can't move or attack, severely happened due to being the youngest member)
other villains that are an actual problem:
Hookwolf will damage taylor even if she is super acidic
Krieg: can slow her down significantly, but far less than regular people
Night and Fog: given her eyes are Blank protected and aren't actually eyeballs, she may have to fight Night as a monster all the time, fog also causes severe reactions with Taylor acid, as he is caustic
Skidmark: but only if he used his pawer to the maximum like its theorized
Lung
Some of Bakudas bombs
Travelers are actually a big treat but only due to their non-noelle members
Trickster: annoying support
Sundancer: can disintegrate Taylor if the suns hit
Genesis: can create a perfect counter
Ballistic: a sufficient impact could kill her
Noelle: ironically the least treating of the whole crew, but Taylor wouldn't know about it, if she keeps producing acid the sleeping effect wort work on her, she isn't a shard cape, so her powers don't stop working inside her, not sure if she can copy Taylor, and she is covered by blank 2, taylor is still super afraid of Noelle tho
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWuqfCsXg00&t=0s
this also applies to almost anything she had in sufficient quantities, I'm surprised Tattletale hasn't thought to try to copy chavalier from Philly
heck, she can eat motorcycles and have a super bike
could she actually eat murder rat and split her back into two capes?
Like my god she has so much potential, the ability to just take two objects and combine it is good enough that for Cavalier to be a protectorate leader
a cavalier that can work on tinker tech + acidbath with a mover rating + Squealer + thinker + blank + immune to all environmental damage and existence erasure
it's honestly a very worm like power, even for how broad and non-thematic it is
very few things work on her, the PRT has absolutely no way of taking her out, if you actually look there are nearly no capes in the city that can even hurt her, much less permanently kill her
bullets (Brute rating), melee weapons(Liquid), normal Tasers (No nerves or muscles), nets (Liquid), concussive grenades (no brain to be concussed), shrapnel (Small cuts dont work) , flash bangs (No eyes), flamethrowers (ineffective due to temperature resistance, production of fire retardant, and lack of needed oxygen), containment foam (Dissolved), Stinger missles (too slow, too small a target)
Armsmaster is mostly useless when it comes to her:
[X] Blade that rearranges into various other weapons (Halberd)[29]
[X] Blade that can cut through steel (Halberd blade, spear[33])
[X] Grappling hook (Halberd blade)[29][18]
[X] Welding device (Halberd blade) [34][18]
[X] Flail (Halberd blade)[29]
[X] Teleporting to his hand (Halberd)[35] Possibly a result of scanning Miss Militia's power.
[✔] Temporal stasis trigger (Halberd) Scanned from Clockblocker
[X] EMP Projector/Electricity field (Halberd, spear)[36]
[✔] Plasma blade (Halberd)[18] ()
[X] The ability to change its size (spear)[37]
[X] Spinning blades (spear)[38]
[X] Echolocation (Halberd, helmet)[29]
[X] Lie detector (helmet)[29] (definitely not working)
[X] Combat predictor (helmet)[29] (has difficult predicting non-standard body plan with progressively more powers)
[X] Psychic shielding (helmet)[39]
[X] Sealed biohazard capabilities (Defiant armor)[40] (not installed yet)
[X] Enhanced strength (Armour)[41] (will do nothing as metals are sensible to acids)
Megaprojects
[✔] Nano-thorn disintegration field (unique Halberd, later incorporated into a spear and his Defiant armor)[42]
nanothorns dont work as the acid will actually destroy the spear in a single hit regardless, even if it would fuck her up badly,
Miss militia also doesn't have many options:
Taylor could survive almost all of these, all of it sans the nuclear weapons that she will not be using
- A sheathed combat knife[2]
- A Bowie knife[16]
- A cutlass.[25]
- A steel machete[17]
- A pistol[16]
- A Beretta 92 FS.[26]
- A handgun with a silencer[2]
- A rifle[24]
- A sniper rifle[22]
- An assault rifle[2]
- Two assault rifles[27][18][21]
- A machine gun (could work)
- A pair of Uzis[22]
- A shotgun[29]
- Hollow-point bullets (could work in volume)
- Rubber bullets[21]
- Smoke grenades[29]
- A rocket launcher (could work IF it can hit)
- A flamethrower[18]
- A grenade launcher (Possible depending on the type of grenade)
- A mortar[21]
- A harpoon gun
Assault (Striker, get smelted)
Battery (faster than mover rating, can't touch her)
Dauntless (can steal his artifacts and there is the potential of her being able to combine it, and now she has a better weapon then him)
Sere (Legitimate, has the best shot of all the protectorate, as a slime her entire body is filled with water, and dehydration would definitely kill her)
Triumph (Unlikely to harm her, as sonic damage only starts affecting people after 180 decibels, which is way more then he has been shown) Velocity (she is just as fast as him but can act in the world, meaning she can)
Wards:
Aegis: hand-to-hand fighter, will be destroyed, or at least sustain enough costume damage to expose his identity
Weld: brute made of metal, as highly acid susceptible material, also had to hand fighter
Clockblocker: Timestrop essential for setting up ambushes, but he is slow, and Taylor would definitely prioritize him
Crucible: (absolutely can kill Taylor)
Browbeat: (Hand-to-hand fighter, susceptible to acid)
Chariot: (one of the best choices against Taylor)
Flechette: (yes, but a single arrow may not be enough to put Taylor down, given she has no essential organs)
Gallant: (thinker powers don't work, nor do master ones)
Kid Win: (very likely to have a shot at her, has electricity shooting guns and good mobility in hoverboard)
Shadow Stalker: (priority target and excellent bait, no longer working for the BB wards)
Toggle: (absolutely nothing)
Vista: (the strongest cape and the one that absolutely could win this solo, just make the distance between Taylor and the ground increase, and she can't move or attack, severely happened due to being the youngest member)
other villains that are an actual problem:
Hookwolf will damage taylor even if she is super acidic
Krieg: can slow her down significantly, but far less than regular people
Night and Fog: given her eyes are Blank protected and aren't actually eyeballs, she may have to fight Night as a monster all the time, fog also causes severe reactions with Taylor acid, as he is caustic
Skidmark: but only if he used his pawer to the maximum like its theorized
Lung
Some of Bakudas bombs
Travelers are actually a big treat but only due to their non-noelle members
Trickster: annoying support
Sundancer: can disintegrate Taylor if the suns hit
Genesis: can create a perfect counter
Ballistic: a sufficient impact could kill her
Noelle: ironically the least treating of the whole crew, but Taylor wouldn't know about it, if she keeps producing acid the sleeping effect wort work on her, she isn't a shard cape, so her powers don't stop working inside her, not sure if she can copy Taylor, and she is covered by blank 2, taylor is still super afraid of Noelle tho