Timelooping Tinker
Oh no! The supergenius bomb tinker Bakuda has been trapped in an endless...
Oh no! The supergenius bomb tinker Bakuda has been trapped in an endless...
Timelooping Tinker (Worm Fanfic (AU))
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Timelooping Tinker
Oh no! The supergenius bomb tinker Bakuda has been trapped in an endless recursion of time! But don't despair, boys and girls! Blasting out of a piddling temporal anomaly will be child's play for the most explosive woman in the world! How hard could it be?
- This fic is now complete! -
Chapter 1: Bakuda vs. Lung!
Chapter 2: Bakuda's new plan!
Chapter 3: Bakuda and Weaver vs. Brockton Bay!
Chapter 4: Bakuda and Weaver vs. Coil!
Chapter 5: Bakuda vs. the Secret of the Time Loops!
Chapter 6: Bakuda vs. String Theory!
Chapter 7: Bakuda vs. Scion!
Finale 1: Bakuda vs. the Sands of Time!
Finale 2: Bakuda and the Blasts from the Pasts!
Finale 3: Bakuda and the Children of the Future!
Ultimate Finale: Contessa and Scion vs. the Ultimate Mystery of the Time Loops!
...
This is a totally insane humor fic, completely unlike my other long stories. I was writing something dark and I needed some lightness to balance it. So I wrote this fun story about a...a psychotic villain...who blows everything up...with sadistic superweapons...again and again and again...huh. Damn. I didn't think this through...
Omakes
Chapter 7 spoilers:
Twinkle, twinkle by @jerkface.
Epilogue 2 spoilers:
Deleted Scenes by @Thinker6
Oh no! The supergenius bomb tinker Bakuda has been trapped in an endless recursion of time! But don't despair, boys and girls! Blasting out of a piddling temporal anomaly will be child's play for the most explosive woman in the world! How hard could it be?
- This fic is now complete! -
Chapter 1: Bakuda vs. Lung!
Chapter 2: Bakuda's new plan!
Chapter 3: Bakuda and Weaver vs. Brockton Bay!
Chapter 4: Bakuda and Weaver vs. Coil!
Chapter 5: Bakuda vs. the Secret of the Time Loops!
Chapter 6: Bakuda vs. String Theory!
Chapter 7: Bakuda vs. Scion!
Finale 1: Bakuda vs. the Sands of Time!
Finale 2: Bakuda and the Blasts from the Pasts!
Finale 3: Bakuda and the Children of the Future!
Ultimate Finale: Contessa and Scion vs. the Ultimate Mystery of the Time Loops!
...
This is a totally insane humor fic, completely unlike my other long stories. I was writing something dark and I needed some lightness to balance it. So I wrote this fun story about a...a psychotic villain...who blows everything up...with sadistic superweapons...again and again and again...huh. Damn. I didn't think this through...
Omakes
Chapter 7 spoilers:
Twinkle, twinkle by @jerkface.
Epilogue 2 spoilers:
Deleted Scenes by @Thinker6
Last edited:
Timelooping Tinker
Chapter 1: Bakuda vs. Lung!
Bakuda stared at Lung in disbelief. He wanted to kill her, his only ally in the Birdcage, just to make the other villains see what a scary nutjob he was.
Crazy bastard. But she'd make him pay for underestimating her.
Bakuda flicked her arm, and an arrangement of bedsprings and twisted scrap metal dropped from her sleeve into her open hand. "I'll punch a hole in the outside of the cell if you come any closer. Air flows out of the room, door seals shut, we both suffocate."
"You are not fast enough."
"Wanna bet?"
He did.
----------
Bakuda felt the brush of cool air on her skin. A cacophany of sound swelled around her. Footsteps, voices, rustling of papers. The sounds of a college classroom going out of session.
She was alive?
She opened her eyes. In front of her was a corkboard with a single sheet of paper pinned in the center. The score listings for her quantum physics course at Cornell. The final exam.
That final exam.
Oh fucking hell no.
She wasn't alive. She was dead. And this was hell.
"Oooh, look at this. 'Grace the Ace' got fifth place on the final. That gives her, what, a B minus for the semester?"
"Heh. Guess ten hours of studying a day isn't a substitute for talent."
"I know! Seriously! I told miss high school valedictorian, it takes more than hard work to make it in the big leagues. You need at least a glimmer of actual intelligence-."
Bakuda spun a hundred and eighty degrees and decked 'Ginny the Genuis' in the face. The pudgy pissant squawked and tumbled to the ground, a trickle of blood leaking from one nostril.
The bustle of students gave way to a deathly silence.
Bakuda glared at the other students, daring them to make a move. She didn't understand how she was alive, how she was back at Cornell during her trigger event, or how she had apparently, improbably, gone back in time. But she did understand one thing.
She was Bakuda. The greatest bomb expert in the world. And if this was hell, she was going to show the devil the true meaning of fucking hellfire.
Bakuda turned to her old rival, still sprawled on the floor in shock.
"Run, little girl." she hissed. "You have no idea how lucky you are that I have bigger fish to fry."
She licked her lips. "And incinerate. And disintegrate. And implode. And warp into twisted parodies of nature. And overload their nervous systems with ultimate agony and lock them that way forever, preserved in an endless, frozen moment of time. Ahahahahahaha!"
Bakuda turned on her heel and stalked out of the physics department, making her way to engineering. Had to whip up a few HE and stun grenades, so she could hold off security while she turned the high energy synchrotron into something useful.
As she walked, she noticed that she had a thin strip of white tickertape paper clutched in her left hand. She untangled the paper from her fingers and smoothed out the wrinkles. There was a message, printed in plain black and white lettering.
PATHETIC. GANKED BY LUNG LIKE A CHUMP. TRY HARDER THIS TIME.
A message from her future self?
The epiphany set her mind on fire, and sent her thoughts into overdrive. That was the only explanation. Her very existence, here and now, was proof of Lipschitz's multiple-worlds theory. One of her alternate future selves must have made a device that triggered on her past self's death and transplanted her mind into a new body in the endless sea of nearly identical alternate worlds.
Truly amazing. A supreme masterwork of a device. And what did her supergenius future self do with her real ultimate power?
Send her condescending motivational messages filled with snarky bullshit.
PATHETIC. GANKED BY LUNG LIKE A CHUMP. TRY HARDER THIS TIME.
Bakuda gritted her teeth. Well you know what? Fuck that, and fuck her. No one mocked her and got away with it. Not even herself. She'd show that bitch who was boss.
...
Lung inspected the small metal capsule. "These will allow my soldiers to defeat the Empire brutes? Hookwolf, Fenja, and Menja?"
Bakuda grinned behind her gas mask. "Yeah, like this!"
She leaped out the window and jammed her thumb on the detonator. The building turned into a pillar of flame, molten fragments of brick and mortar pouring into the street, a miniature flow of lava.
She backed off a safe distance and lay on the sidewalk, watching the fireworks, laughing and laughing and laughing.
"Take that you traitor motherfucker! Not so tough after all! You made Leviathan your bitch and I made you mine. Guess what? That makes me the queen bitch of Brockton Bay from now on!"
Wait. There was movement in the blast zone. A massive metal clad monster rose from the lava, wreathed in living flame. It caught sight of Bakuda and roared in triumph.
Well, fuck.
-----------
AMAZING. GANKED BY LUNG IN THREE HOURS INSTEAD OF THREE MONTHS. YOUR STUNNING IMPROVEMENT IN EFFICIENCY IS TRULY THE HALLMARK OF A GENIUS.
Bakuda crushed the tickertape in her hand.
...
Lung inspected the small metal capsule. "My soldiers can use these to-"
Bakuda grinned behind her gas mask. "Yeah, like this!"
She leaped out the window and jammed her thumb on the detonator. The building pulsed, its shape warping and squirming and expanding. Within seconds the transformation was complete. The building was now a twisted nest of millions of inch-wide, tube-like tunnels, interlinking in elaborate, sanity-defying violations of geometry that would make MC Escher weep.
Bakuda jumped up and down and clapped her hands with glee.
"Take that you brainless brute! Do you even comprehend what I've done to you? Reshaped you into a five hundred foot long tapeworm, paralyzed and trapped in an infinite maze till you starve to death! Ahahahahaha!"
Bakuda laughed and laughed and laughed. She was a genius, and Vista's power was awesome. The month she spent taking readings of the girl's power were well worth it. She'd have to buy her a beer. Oh, wait, shit, Vista was underage. What did the tyke drink for fun, anyway? Orange juice? Kool aid? She hadn't really paid attention during her stakeouts-
There was movement in the blast zone. Segments of the tubes melted and a sinuous, flame-wreathed shape rose into view. The five hundred foot long, inch wide dragon caught sight of Bakuda and gave a squeaky, high-pitched roar of triumph.
Well, fuck.
----------
OH MY FUCKING GOD. SELF-INFLICTED DEATH BY TAPEWORM LUNG. YOU'RE SO INCOMPETENT IT'S ACTUALLY KIND OF AWESOME.
Bakuda crushed the tickertape in her hand. This meant war.
...
Lung inspected the small metal capsule. "My soldiers can-"
Bakuda scowled. "Die, motherfucker, die!"
The air around her shimmered. A protective effect, a shield bubble just large enough to cover her body.
Then the world turned gray.
Five minutes later, the dust began to settle. The dust. Three full city blocks around her had been transmuted into a mass of fine, gray dust. The buildings, the cars, the people. Everything.
Bakuda disengaged her shield bubble and surveyed the results of her handiwork. Then she grinned. She whooped, she cried, and laughed and laughed and laughed.
"Yes! Hell yes!" shouted Bakuda. "That's what you get, you son of a bitch! I fucking killed you! You're dead! You're gone! You're dust! Ahahahahahahahaha!"
A man in a blue bodysuit appeared at her side in a blur of motion. One of the local capes. What was his name? Velocity?
"Impressive." said the man. "You did this?"
"Yes! It's a transmutation effect that mimics exposure to ultrasharp nanomechanical blades. Tears apart matter, molecules, everything. Just the basic effect took me a month of secret readings of Armsmaster's tech. Now, normally that would have a limited area effect, just a few inches wide, but I found a way to use the dust expansion from each transmutation as a power source for the next, set them up in a daisy chain. Pretty cool, eh?"
"Very cool." said the man with a smile. "I have a question, though."
"Of course! Go ahead, shoot, ask me anything."
"MurdererWhoGotArrestedAndBirdcagedBecauseSheStayedToGloatSaysWhat?"
"What?" she said.
And then she was encased in a ball of containment foam.
Well, fuck.
----------
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. DO I EVEN NEED TO SAY ANYTHING? NO, I DON'T. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...IDIOT.
Bakuda crushed the tickertape in her hand.
She had failed again. Failed again. Caught up in her moment of greatest triumph, she had failed in the most stupid, idiotic, pathetic possible way. Her future self was right. She was an idiot, such an idiot-
Bakuda's mind snapped.
No. No. That hadn't been her. That was her past self who failed. Idiot, gloating like a moron and getting foamed like a fool. A disgrace to the name Bakuda. She deserved everything she got.
Her current self? She was better. Stronger. Smarter. Smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others. She was sure as hell not going to make that idiotic mistake ever again.
That did it. She swore on her pride as a tinker. She was going to kill Lung, and travel the world stealing tech from all the best tinkers, and make her own Device, and transplant herself into her future self's world, and knock that stuck-up bitch flat on her ass.
And then she was going to use her Device to troll the shit out of her idiotic past selves, for being such pathetic disgraces to the name Bakuda.
Bakuda grinned. Her path would be long and hard, but her victory was inevitable. She was a fucking genius, and she had infinite tries.
How hard could it be?
Chapter 1: Bakuda vs. Lung!
Bakuda stared at Lung in disbelief. He wanted to kill her, his only ally in the Birdcage, just to make the other villains see what a scary nutjob he was.
Crazy bastard. But she'd make him pay for underestimating her.
Bakuda flicked her arm, and an arrangement of bedsprings and twisted scrap metal dropped from her sleeve into her open hand. "I'll punch a hole in the outside of the cell if you come any closer. Air flows out of the room, door seals shut, we both suffocate."
"You are not fast enough."
"Wanna bet?"
He did.
----------
Bakuda felt the brush of cool air on her skin. A cacophany of sound swelled around her. Footsteps, voices, rustling of papers. The sounds of a college classroom going out of session.
She was alive?
She opened her eyes. In front of her was a corkboard with a single sheet of paper pinned in the center. The score listings for her quantum physics course at Cornell. The final exam.
That final exam.
Oh fucking hell no.
She wasn't alive. She was dead. And this was hell.
"Oooh, look at this. 'Grace the Ace' got fifth place on the final. That gives her, what, a B minus for the semester?"
"Heh. Guess ten hours of studying a day isn't a substitute for talent."
"I know! Seriously! I told miss high school valedictorian, it takes more than hard work to make it in the big leagues. You need at least a glimmer of actual intelligence-."
Bakuda spun a hundred and eighty degrees and decked 'Ginny the Genuis' in the face. The pudgy pissant squawked and tumbled to the ground, a trickle of blood leaking from one nostril.
The bustle of students gave way to a deathly silence.
Bakuda glared at the other students, daring them to make a move. She didn't understand how she was alive, how she was back at Cornell during her trigger event, or how she had apparently, improbably, gone back in time. But she did understand one thing.
She was Bakuda. The greatest bomb expert in the world. And if this was hell, she was going to show the devil the true meaning of fucking hellfire.
Bakuda turned to her old rival, still sprawled on the floor in shock.
"Run, little girl." she hissed. "You have no idea how lucky you are that I have bigger fish to fry."
She licked her lips. "And incinerate. And disintegrate. And implode. And warp into twisted parodies of nature. And overload their nervous systems with ultimate agony and lock them that way forever, preserved in an endless, frozen moment of time. Ahahahahahaha!"
Bakuda turned on her heel and stalked out of the physics department, making her way to engineering. Had to whip up a few HE and stun grenades, so she could hold off security while she turned the high energy synchrotron into something useful.
As she walked, she noticed that she had a thin strip of white tickertape paper clutched in her left hand. She untangled the paper from her fingers and smoothed out the wrinkles. There was a message, printed in plain black and white lettering.
PATHETIC. GANKED BY LUNG LIKE A CHUMP. TRY HARDER THIS TIME.
A message from her future self?
The epiphany set her mind on fire, and sent her thoughts into overdrive. That was the only explanation. Her very existence, here and now, was proof of Lipschitz's multiple-worlds theory. One of her alternate future selves must have made a device that triggered on her past self's death and transplanted her mind into a new body in the endless sea of nearly identical alternate worlds.
Truly amazing. A supreme masterwork of a device. And what did her supergenius future self do with her real ultimate power?
Send her condescending motivational messages filled with snarky bullshit.
PATHETIC. GANKED BY LUNG LIKE A CHUMP. TRY HARDER THIS TIME.
Bakuda gritted her teeth. Well you know what? Fuck that, and fuck her. No one mocked her and got away with it. Not even herself. She'd show that bitch who was boss.
...
Lung inspected the small metal capsule. "These will allow my soldiers to defeat the Empire brutes? Hookwolf, Fenja, and Menja?"
Bakuda grinned behind her gas mask. "Yeah, like this!"
She leaped out the window and jammed her thumb on the detonator. The building turned into a pillar of flame, molten fragments of brick and mortar pouring into the street, a miniature flow of lava.
She backed off a safe distance and lay on the sidewalk, watching the fireworks, laughing and laughing and laughing.
"Take that you traitor motherfucker! Not so tough after all! You made Leviathan your bitch and I made you mine. Guess what? That makes me the queen bitch of Brockton Bay from now on!"
Wait. There was movement in the blast zone. A massive metal clad monster rose from the lava, wreathed in living flame. It caught sight of Bakuda and roared in triumph.
Well, fuck.
-----------
AMAZING. GANKED BY LUNG IN THREE HOURS INSTEAD OF THREE MONTHS. YOUR STUNNING IMPROVEMENT IN EFFICIENCY IS TRULY THE HALLMARK OF A GENIUS.
Bakuda crushed the tickertape in her hand.
...
Lung inspected the small metal capsule. "My soldiers can use these to-"
Bakuda grinned behind her gas mask. "Yeah, like this!"
She leaped out the window and jammed her thumb on the detonator. The building pulsed, its shape warping and squirming and expanding. Within seconds the transformation was complete. The building was now a twisted nest of millions of inch-wide, tube-like tunnels, interlinking in elaborate, sanity-defying violations of geometry that would make MC Escher weep.
Bakuda jumped up and down and clapped her hands with glee.
"Take that you brainless brute! Do you even comprehend what I've done to you? Reshaped you into a five hundred foot long tapeworm, paralyzed and trapped in an infinite maze till you starve to death! Ahahahahaha!"
Bakuda laughed and laughed and laughed. She was a genius, and Vista's power was awesome. The month she spent taking readings of the girl's power were well worth it. She'd have to buy her a beer. Oh, wait, shit, Vista was underage. What did the tyke drink for fun, anyway? Orange juice? Kool aid? She hadn't really paid attention during her stakeouts-
There was movement in the blast zone. Segments of the tubes melted and a sinuous, flame-wreathed shape rose into view. The five hundred foot long, inch wide dragon caught sight of Bakuda and gave a squeaky, high-pitched roar of triumph.
Well, fuck.
----------
OH MY FUCKING GOD. SELF-INFLICTED DEATH BY TAPEWORM LUNG. YOU'RE SO INCOMPETENT IT'S ACTUALLY KIND OF AWESOME.
Bakuda crushed the tickertape in her hand. This meant war.
...
Lung inspected the small metal capsule. "My soldiers can-"
Bakuda scowled. "Die, motherfucker, die!"
The air around her shimmered. A protective effect, a shield bubble just large enough to cover her body.
Then the world turned gray.
Five minutes later, the dust began to settle. The dust. Three full city blocks around her had been transmuted into a mass of fine, gray dust. The buildings, the cars, the people. Everything.
Bakuda disengaged her shield bubble and surveyed the results of her handiwork. Then she grinned. She whooped, she cried, and laughed and laughed and laughed.
"Yes! Hell yes!" shouted Bakuda. "That's what you get, you son of a bitch! I fucking killed you! You're dead! You're gone! You're dust! Ahahahahahahahaha!"
A man in a blue bodysuit appeared at her side in a blur of motion. One of the local capes. What was his name? Velocity?
"Impressive." said the man. "You did this?"
"Yes! It's a transmutation effect that mimics exposure to ultrasharp nanomechanical blades. Tears apart matter, molecules, everything. Just the basic effect took me a month of secret readings of Armsmaster's tech. Now, normally that would have a limited area effect, just a few inches wide, but I found a way to use the dust expansion from each transmutation as a power source for the next, set them up in a daisy chain. Pretty cool, eh?"
"Very cool." said the man with a smile. "I have a question, though."
"Of course! Go ahead, shoot, ask me anything."
"MurdererWhoGotArrestedAndBirdcagedBecauseSheStayedToGloatSaysWhat?"
"What?" she said.
And then she was encased in a ball of containment foam.
Well, fuck.
----------
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. DO I EVEN NEED TO SAY ANYTHING? NO, I DON'T. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...IDIOT.
Bakuda crushed the tickertape in her hand.
She had failed again. Failed again. Caught up in her moment of greatest triumph, she had failed in the most stupid, idiotic, pathetic possible way. Her future self was right. She was an idiot, such an idiot-
Bakuda's mind snapped.
No. No. That hadn't been her. That was her past self who failed. Idiot, gloating like a moron and getting foamed like a fool. A disgrace to the name Bakuda. She deserved everything she got.
Her current self? She was better. Stronger. Smarter. Smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others. She was sure as hell not going to make that idiotic mistake ever again.
That did it. She swore on her pride as a tinker. She was going to kill Lung, and travel the world stealing tech from all the best tinkers, and make her own Device, and transplant herself into her future self's world, and knock that stuck-up bitch flat on her ass.
And then she was going to use her Device to troll the shit out of her idiotic past selves, for being such pathetic disgraces to the name Bakuda.
Bakuda grinned. Her path would be long and hard, but her victory was inevitable. She was a fucking genius, and she had infinite tries.
How hard could it be?
Timelooping Tinker
Chapter 2: Bakuda's new plan!
--- Time loop #135 ---
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT??? YOU SERIOUSLY THOUGHT YOU COULD OUT-PLAN AN ARMY OF EVIL ACCORD CLONES? I'M SPEECHLESS. I'M THE GREATEST TINKER IN THE WORLD AND EVEN I CAN'T THINK OF A PHRASE TO DESCRIBE YOUR INCREDIBLE STUPIDITY. ... ... ...OH WAIT, THAT'S A GOOD ONE. INCREDIBLE STUPIDITY. TRY HARDER NEXT TIME.
Bakuda crumpled the tickertape message in her hand. Her future self could shut the hell up.
She swore that one day she'd make her future self pay. Ohhh yes she'd make her pay. She'd build her own Device, and break the time loop, and teleport into that arrogant bitch's reality, and shove an Infinite Agony Cocktail Bomb into her nasal cavity, and set it off with a smile on her face, and see the beautiful look of understanding dawn in her eyes as the effect took hold...
Bakuda licked her lips. Her vengeance would be sweet, but that would all come in good time. Couldn't let herself get distracted. Had to focus on the plan.
Setting off Echidna in Boston had been one of her better ideas. Echidna distracted the heroes long enough that she could take over Brockton Bay without a fight and set up a nice base of operations to do her tinkering. As a nice bonus, she didn't have to deal with pesky Eidolon clones throwing a wrench in her plans.
The problem was dealing with Echidna's leftover army of Accord and Citrine clones. Nasty motherfuckers. They were a bitch to take down, especially the ones with the Breaker/Stranger version of Accord's power.
But she wasn't worried. The clone army had superpowered plans, but she was a motherfucking genius, and her time loops gave her infinite tries. She'd kill the fuckers dead this time, for sure.
--- Time loop #136 ---
AGAIN? DO YOU LIKE BEING KILLED BY A HUNDRED ELEGANTLY ARRANGED SPRING-LOADED GUILLOTINE BLADES? OR ARE YOU JUST THAT STUPID?
Bakuda crumpled the tickertape in her hand. She wasn't going to give up now. She'd show that bitch who was boss.
--- Time loop #137 ---
HA HA HA HA HA. THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE AS YOU WERE ARTISTICALLY SLICED INTO SIXTY FOUR EQUAL PIECES WAS FUCKING PRICELESS. TRY AGAIN.
Bakuda crumpled the tickertape in her hand.
--- Time loop #138 ---
AGAIN? ... ...WAIT, SHIT. ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE FREAKY MASOCHISTS WHO GETS OFF ON BEING KILLED IN NEW AND INTERESTING WAYS? OH MY GOD. IT EXPLAINS SO MUCH. YOU SICKEN ME.
Bakuda crumpled the tickertape in her hand. She was going to strangle that bitch if it was the last thing she did.
Fine. She'd take a mental health break from her risky experiments and spend a loop taking a safer path. She had a new strategy she wanted to try. A genius plan to take down Coil and nip the Echidna mess in the bud in one fell swoop.
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - March 25
I have big news today! I think I made a friend. Her name is Grace. She's a cape like me, and she's kind of amazing.
I left school early today. Sophia is still in intensive care after her unfortunate toaster accident (ouch!), but Emma and Madison tried to steal my backpack and almost got away with it. I was too upset to stay in school after that, so I decided to go to the park and practice my bug control.
And get this: after a few minutes, a woman came up to me out of the blue and said, "So Taylor, can you hear through your bugs yet?"
I should have denied everything, but I was so surprised I couldn't help myself. I stuttered out "H-how did you know I'm a cape?" She said she deduced that I was a cape because the bugs were acting strangely and I was at the center of the disturbances. Amazing. She's a genius.
(She said that straight away. "I'm Grace Phillips, aka Bakuda, aka the smartest motherfucking genius you'll ever see. Don't forget that and we'll get along fine." Between you and me, I wonder if she might be a little insane.)
I was embarrassed because she'd spotted me so easily. She picked up on it and pointed out that I was blushing like mad. I thought she was going to mock me like the bullies, but she just grinned and said that I was adorable when I wasn't cutting off people's body parts.
(Yeah, I know, creepy. I think that was her way of giving me a compliment? Like I said, she might be a little insane.)
The amazing thing is that we've only known each other for a day and Grace wants to make a team with me! She's asian but she's not in the ABB, she's vigilante who wants to take down all the villain gangs in the city (in her words, "all the brainless brutes who think they're hot stuff"). She's already figured out roughly where there bases are, and she wants my help to do the surveillance to help her plant her bombs.
Oh, that's right. I didn't mention it yet, but she's a tinker whose specialty is making super tech bombs. At first I was afraid of working with a cape whose main way of fighting is, well, blowing people up.
Turns out that won't be an issue - Grace is a pacifist! She said she's morally opposed to hurting people in any way, and her bombs are harmless, non-lethal munitions that knock people out. What a cool power! I wish my bugs were that convenient!
Grace also promised that her bombs definitely don't have any hidden debilitating side effects that would reveal themselves months later to the horror of everyone involved. Come to think of it, she was oddly specific about that point. She must be really conscientious about her pacifism, to test her bombs for long-term effects. I never did any tests like that with my insect stings!
This evening we went on our first mission as a team. We spied on an ABB base. Lung was there - my first time seeing a supervillain! We didn't attack him, though. Grace said we should wait until Oni Lee was there, too, and take them both out in one fell swoop. That way we don't leave an angry assassin on the loose gunning for revenge. Good thinking. If I was on my own, I probably would have tried to beat Lung by myself and gotten in big trouble!
Grace is really smart, and we make a good team. I can't believe I made a friend today and I got to be the co-founder of a superhero team! I can't wait to take down our first villain. Then I'll be a real hero!
Chapter 2: Bakuda's new plan!
--- Time loop #135 ---
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT??? YOU SERIOUSLY THOUGHT YOU COULD OUT-PLAN AN ARMY OF EVIL ACCORD CLONES? I'M SPEECHLESS. I'M THE GREATEST TINKER IN THE WORLD AND EVEN I CAN'T THINK OF A PHRASE TO DESCRIBE YOUR INCREDIBLE STUPIDITY. ... ... ...OH WAIT, THAT'S A GOOD ONE. INCREDIBLE STUPIDITY. TRY HARDER NEXT TIME.
Bakuda crumpled the tickertape message in her hand. Her future self could shut the hell up.
She swore that one day she'd make her future self pay. Ohhh yes she'd make her pay. She'd build her own Device, and break the time loop, and teleport into that arrogant bitch's reality, and shove an Infinite Agony Cocktail Bomb into her nasal cavity, and set it off with a smile on her face, and see the beautiful look of understanding dawn in her eyes as the effect took hold...
Bakuda licked her lips. Her vengeance would be sweet, but that would all come in good time. Couldn't let herself get distracted. Had to focus on the plan.
Setting off Echidna in Boston had been one of her better ideas. Echidna distracted the heroes long enough that she could take over Brockton Bay without a fight and set up a nice base of operations to do her tinkering. As a nice bonus, she didn't have to deal with pesky Eidolon clones throwing a wrench in her plans.
The problem was dealing with Echidna's leftover army of Accord and Citrine clones. Nasty motherfuckers. They were a bitch to take down, especially the ones with the Breaker/Stranger version of Accord's power.
But she wasn't worried. The clone army had superpowered plans, but she was a motherfucking genius, and her time loops gave her infinite tries. She'd kill the fuckers dead this time, for sure.
--- Time loop #136 ---
AGAIN? DO YOU LIKE BEING KILLED BY A HUNDRED ELEGANTLY ARRANGED SPRING-LOADED GUILLOTINE BLADES? OR ARE YOU JUST THAT STUPID?
Bakuda crumpled the tickertape in her hand. She wasn't going to give up now. She'd show that bitch who was boss.
--- Time loop #137 ---
HA HA HA HA HA. THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE AS YOU WERE ARTISTICALLY SLICED INTO SIXTY FOUR EQUAL PIECES WAS FUCKING PRICELESS. TRY AGAIN.
Bakuda crumpled the tickertape in her hand.
--- Time loop #138 ---
AGAIN? ... ...WAIT, SHIT. ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE FREAKY MASOCHISTS WHO GETS OFF ON BEING KILLED IN NEW AND INTERESTING WAYS? OH MY GOD. IT EXPLAINS SO MUCH. YOU SICKEN ME.
Bakuda crumpled the tickertape in her hand. She was going to strangle that bitch if it was the last thing she did.
Fine. She'd take a mental health break from her risky experiments and spend a loop taking a safer path. She had a new strategy she wanted to try. A genius plan to take down Coil and nip the Echidna mess in the bud in one fell swoop.
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - March 25
I have big news today! I think I made a friend. Her name is Grace. She's a cape like me, and she's kind of amazing.
I left school early today. Sophia is still in intensive care after her unfortunate toaster accident (ouch!), but Emma and Madison tried to steal my backpack and almost got away with it. I was too upset to stay in school after that, so I decided to go to the park and practice my bug control.
And get this: after a few minutes, a woman came up to me out of the blue and said, "So Taylor, can you hear through your bugs yet?"
I should have denied everything, but I was so surprised I couldn't help myself. I stuttered out "H-how did you know I'm a cape?" She said she deduced that I was a cape because the bugs were acting strangely and I was at the center of the disturbances. Amazing. She's a genius.
(She said that straight away. "I'm Grace Phillips, aka Bakuda, aka the smartest motherfucking genius you'll ever see. Don't forget that and we'll get along fine." Between you and me, I wonder if she might be a little insane.)
I was embarrassed because she'd spotted me so easily. She picked up on it and pointed out that I was blushing like mad. I thought she was going to mock me like the bullies, but she just grinned and said that I was adorable when I wasn't cutting off people's body parts.
(Yeah, I know, creepy. I think that was her way of giving me a compliment? Like I said, she might be a little insane.)
The amazing thing is that we've only known each other for a day and Grace wants to make a team with me! She's asian but she's not in the ABB, she's vigilante who wants to take down all the villain gangs in the city (in her words, "all the brainless brutes who think they're hot stuff"). She's already figured out roughly where there bases are, and she wants my help to do the surveillance to help her plant her bombs.
Oh, that's right. I didn't mention it yet, but she's a tinker whose specialty is making super tech bombs. At first I was afraid of working with a cape whose main way of fighting is, well, blowing people up.
Turns out that won't be an issue - Grace is a pacifist! She said she's morally opposed to hurting people in any way, and her bombs are harmless, non-lethal munitions that knock people out. What a cool power! I wish my bugs were that convenient!
Grace also promised that her bombs definitely don't have any hidden debilitating side effects that would reveal themselves months later to the horror of everyone involved. Come to think of it, she was oddly specific about that point. She must be really conscientious about her pacifism, to test her bombs for long-term effects. I never did any tests like that with my insect stings!
This evening we went on our first mission as a team. We spied on an ABB base. Lung was there - my first time seeing a supervillain! We didn't attack him, though. Grace said we should wait until Oni Lee was there, too, and take them both out in one fell swoop. That way we don't leave an angry assassin on the loose gunning for revenge. Good thinking. If I was on my own, I probably would have tried to beat Lung by myself and gotten in big trouble!
Grace is really smart, and we make a good team. I can't believe I made a friend today and I got to be the co-founder of a superhero team! I can't wait to take down our first villain. Then I'll be a real hero!
Timelooping Tinker
Chapter 3: Bakuda and Weaver vs. Brockton Bay!
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - March 30
Today Grace and I took down our first supervillains!
We were doing our usual bug-stakeout of the ABB hideout, and we finally caught Lung and Oni Lee together at the same time.
After that, everything went like clockwork. I picked out a weakness in their defenses where we could toss in Grace's bombs through a window. Ten minutes later, the ABB capes and eighteen of their hoodlums were knocked out cold. Ten minutes after that, the Protectorate answered our anonymous call and took them into custody. Success!
Bakuda and Weaver: 1, Villains: 0.
Grace was a lot more ruthless than I expected for a pacifist. Lung was out cold, but she said his regeneration would clear the knockout gas from his bloodstream in seconds. So she started dropping more of her short-range 'knockout' bombs directly on top of him. His body started twitching like he was having a seizure, and then patches of his skin started to turn black and peel off.
I told Grace to stop, but she said it was necessary. I was conflicted for a few minutes but then I decided that she was right. We were doing it because we were heroes. It wasn't as if we were hurting Lung because we enjoyed it, taking sadistic glee in his pain.
Besides, Grace is a pacifist. She was only okay with hurting Lung because he'd regenerate his wounds. She wouldn't hurt anyone for real, right?
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - April 26
Today was the big day - Grace and I finally pulled off our coup de grace on the Empire!
We took down Krieg, Fenja, Menja and Hookwolf all in one strike. With Kaiser and Purity out of commission after their unfortunate tea cosy accident (ouch!), the Empire is now officially leaderless. Another blow struck for heroism and justice!
Being a hero is a lot more fun than I expected. I was afraid my cape life would be...intense. Life or death fights, blood feuds, relationship drama between teammates. I'd have to question my morals at every turn, become a hard woman making hard decisions, doing wrong things for the right reasons.
Thankfully being a cape isn't hard at all! My bugs and Grace's bombs make heroing a snap. I spy on the bad guys, then I send in her bug-toteable microbombs to knock them out, and bam! Easy as pie.
It makes me wonder why the official 'heroes' have so much trouble. After we called in the authorities this time, Grace assured me that we won't have to worry about the remnants of the Empire coming after us for vengeance. After all, I had given all my surveillance info to the PRT, and they'd surely call in their elite troopers and heroes and quickly mop up the rest of the Empire thugs. ... ... ...Ha ha ha! Grace actually said that with a straight face. We had a good laugh.
Seriously, fuck Armsmaster and the PRT, and their cops and robbers bullshit. They're a pack of incompetent fools and their 'high security' lockup is a fucking sieve. Yeah, they handled the ABB and Merchant capes okay, but if Faultline's Crew and the Undersiders break out of custody one more fucking time, I swear we're going to knock them out again, drive them cross-country, and hand-deliver them to Alexandria. A competent hero with something approaching a fucking clue.
(Huh. I think Grace's rant-language might be rubbing off on me. Then again, the PRT kind of are incompetent fools, so....meh.)
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 2
The good news: I finally found Coil's secret base with my bugs.
The bad news: he's got himself set up like a Bond villain. Way better security than I thought. Tons of mercenaries, motion sensors, laser guns, the works. Worst of all, I overheard him talking with a little girl named Dinah. She was scared and he kept pressuring her to tell him 'numbers'. I think he kidnapped her and he's holding her prisoner!
I told Grace we had to save Dinah, but she said we can't move on Coil until we have more info about his gang. She absolutely refused to go against him for the next two weeks. Two weeks! That poor girl!
I...well, I'm not proud to say it, but I got mad at Grace. I said some things I regret. Then Grace got madder than I'd ever seen her before, and she grabbed me by the collar and hissed at me like a demon, babbling nonsense about apocalypses.
"Don't you dare lecture me on the greater good you idealistic little brat. You know nothing. Do you want an army of evil clones to take over the northeast? An army that doesn't show itself for months, that grows in the shadows until it has hundreds of cloned capes and infiltrators in all the major cities? Do you want to go down fighting against an impossible enemy, using the last of your strength to save the world by detonating a superbomb and taking out the Northeastern seaboard? Well do ya, punk?"
I didn't push the issue.
Come to think of it, that was an oddly specific scenario. At the time I passed it off as Grace's general obsessive weirdness from being a tinker, but there's definitely something...odd about her. I can't quite put my finger on it.
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 8
Grace wasn't kidding about her 'superbomb'. She spent last week cooped up in our warehouse, working twenty hours a day on a gigantic contraption. She insists that the superbomb is Very Important to our crime-fighting careers. She won't tell me what it does, exactly, but if I extrapolate from the size of her smaller bombs, this one is big enough to hit the entire city, maybe even the tri-state area.
I'm worried about her mental health. I confronted her and told her that I didn't see how a city-blasting bomb serves a legitimate purpose for heroing.
She just grinned at me and said, "Two words: Endbringer repellent". When I asked her what she meant, she pointed to the side of her bomb. There was a big red button with a white painted label: "Push in case of Endbringers"
I wasn't sure exactly how a city-blasting bomb would help against city-blasting monsters, but she had a crazy glint in her eye so I didn't push the issue.
I've decided to keep a close eye on Grace to make sure she doesn't do something we all regret. It's the least I can do, as her best (and only) friend.
I hope you're okay, Grace.
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 13
Good news! The superbomb situation has been resolved. Grace apologized for the trouble and says she's feeling much better now.
Grace went on one of her usual beachside patrols today, muttering under her breath and fiddling with her scanners. I joined her to keep her company. She forgets to eat if I don't remind her, sometimes.
Then we heard an announcement on the radio that Leviathan was attacking Cuba. It hit me like a punch to the gut. Here I was, a hero, and I couldn't do anything to help them. My heart went out to those poor people.
But Grace...she got a huge grin on her face and started laughing like a maniac. "Not eager for round two, are you lizard breath? That's right! You can fuck right the hell off in the face of my brilliance! Ahahahhahahaha!"
Then she turned to me and said "Told you so! Lizard boy and magma man don't show up in the Bay if they know I can give them a black eye and steal all their kills with the push of a button."
I was shocked at that. "But you're a pacifist Grace! Aren't your bombs nonlethal?"
She got a weird look on her face for a minute, like she was embarrassed. Then she laughed it off and said that she'd been joking. She said she hadn't really made a weapon of mass destruction. Her superbomb is actually a super shielding bomb that would protect the Bay by surrounding it in an unbreakable bubble.
Phew! That was a relief. Grace really had me going there. What a joker!
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 16
I'm starting to suspect that Grace isn't telling the whole truth about being a pacifist.
I know she's a good person, and a great hero, and she'd never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it. She has a good heart.
The way she talks, though...she sounds really comfortable with violence. Almost as if she likes it, as if she's itching for a chance to...
...nah. I'm probably just imagining it.
Next week we're going to take on Coil, plus the new villains he brought in from out of town, the Travelers. (he tried to be sneaky and pretend that he didn't hire them, but my bugs see all and hear all. heh heh heh). Coil's security looks really tough, though, with some kind of super bug zappers installed in the entrances. He must have noticed our success and gotten paranoid about bugs. No good openings to sneak in a bomb.
Grace says she has an awesome plan to take him out. I asked her what it was, but she said it's a secret and she can't tell me for 'operational security' reasons. All she would tell me was her bombs will be nonlethal.
Very, very, very nonlethal.
I wonder what that means?
Chapter 3: Bakuda and Weaver vs. Brockton Bay!
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - March 30
Today Grace and I took down our first supervillains!
We were doing our usual bug-stakeout of the ABB hideout, and we finally caught Lung and Oni Lee together at the same time.
After that, everything went like clockwork. I picked out a weakness in their defenses where we could toss in Grace's bombs through a window. Ten minutes later, the ABB capes and eighteen of their hoodlums were knocked out cold. Ten minutes after that, the Protectorate answered our anonymous call and took them into custody. Success!
Bakuda and Weaver: 1, Villains: 0.
Grace was a lot more ruthless than I expected for a pacifist. Lung was out cold, but she said his regeneration would clear the knockout gas from his bloodstream in seconds. So she started dropping more of her short-range 'knockout' bombs directly on top of him. His body started twitching like he was having a seizure, and then patches of his skin started to turn black and peel off.
I told Grace to stop, but she said it was necessary. I was conflicted for a few minutes but then I decided that she was right. We were doing it because we were heroes. It wasn't as if we were hurting Lung because we enjoyed it, taking sadistic glee in his pain.
Besides, Grace is a pacifist. She was only okay with hurting Lung because he'd regenerate his wounds. She wouldn't hurt anyone for real, right?
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - April 26
Today was the big day - Grace and I finally pulled off our coup de grace on the Empire!
We took down Krieg, Fenja, Menja and Hookwolf all in one strike. With Kaiser and Purity out of commission after their unfortunate tea cosy accident (ouch!), the Empire is now officially leaderless. Another blow struck for heroism and justice!
Being a hero is a lot more fun than I expected. I was afraid my cape life would be...intense. Life or death fights, blood feuds, relationship drama between teammates. I'd have to question my morals at every turn, become a hard woman making hard decisions, doing wrong things for the right reasons.
Thankfully being a cape isn't hard at all! My bugs and Grace's bombs make heroing a snap. I spy on the bad guys, then I send in her bug-toteable microbombs to knock them out, and bam! Easy as pie.
It makes me wonder why the official 'heroes' have so much trouble. After we called in the authorities this time, Grace assured me that we won't have to worry about the remnants of the Empire coming after us for vengeance. After all, I had given all my surveillance info to the PRT, and they'd surely call in their elite troopers and heroes and quickly mop up the rest of the Empire thugs. ... ... ...Ha ha ha! Grace actually said that with a straight face. We had a good laugh.
Seriously, fuck Armsmaster and the PRT, and their cops and robbers bullshit. They're a pack of incompetent fools and their 'high security' lockup is a fucking sieve. Yeah, they handled the ABB and Merchant capes okay, but if Faultline's Crew and the Undersiders break out of custody one more fucking time, I swear we're going to knock them out again, drive them cross-country, and hand-deliver them to Alexandria. A competent hero with something approaching a fucking clue.
(Huh. I think Grace's rant-language might be rubbing off on me. Then again, the PRT kind of are incompetent fools, so....meh.)
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 2
The good news: I finally found Coil's secret base with my bugs.
The bad news: he's got himself set up like a Bond villain. Way better security than I thought. Tons of mercenaries, motion sensors, laser guns, the works. Worst of all, I overheard him talking with a little girl named Dinah. She was scared and he kept pressuring her to tell him 'numbers'. I think he kidnapped her and he's holding her prisoner!
I told Grace we had to save Dinah, but she said we can't move on Coil until we have more info about his gang. She absolutely refused to go against him for the next two weeks. Two weeks! That poor girl!
I...well, I'm not proud to say it, but I got mad at Grace. I said some things I regret. Then Grace got madder than I'd ever seen her before, and she grabbed me by the collar and hissed at me like a demon, babbling nonsense about apocalypses.
"Don't you dare lecture me on the greater good you idealistic little brat. You know nothing. Do you want an army of evil clones to take over the northeast? An army that doesn't show itself for months, that grows in the shadows until it has hundreds of cloned capes and infiltrators in all the major cities? Do you want to go down fighting against an impossible enemy, using the last of your strength to save the world by detonating a superbomb and taking out the Northeastern seaboard? Well do ya, punk?"
I didn't push the issue.
Come to think of it, that was an oddly specific scenario. At the time I passed it off as Grace's general obsessive weirdness from being a tinker, but there's definitely something...odd about her. I can't quite put my finger on it.
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 8
Grace wasn't kidding about her 'superbomb'. She spent last week cooped up in our warehouse, working twenty hours a day on a gigantic contraption. She insists that the superbomb is Very Important to our crime-fighting careers. She won't tell me what it does, exactly, but if I extrapolate from the size of her smaller bombs, this one is big enough to hit the entire city, maybe even the tri-state area.
I'm worried about her mental health. I confronted her and told her that I didn't see how a city-blasting bomb serves a legitimate purpose for heroing.
She just grinned at me and said, "Two words: Endbringer repellent". When I asked her what she meant, she pointed to the side of her bomb. There was a big red button with a white painted label: "Push in case of Endbringers"
I wasn't sure exactly how a city-blasting bomb would help against city-blasting monsters, but she had a crazy glint in her eye so I didn't push the issue.
I've decided to keep a close eye on Grace to make sure she doesn't do something we all regret. It's the least I can do, as her best (and only) friend.
I hope you're okay, Grace.
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 13
Good news! The superbomb situation has been resolved. Grace apologized for the trouble and says she's feeling much better now.
Grace went on one of her usual beachside patrols today, muttering under her breath and fiddling with her scanners. I joined her to keep her company. She forgets to eat if I don't remind her, sometimes.
Then we heard an announcement on the radio that Leviathan was attacking Cuba. It hit me like a punch to the gut. Here I was, a hero, and I couldn't do anything to help them. My heart went out to those poor people.
But Grace...she got a huge grin on her face and started laughing like a maniac. "Not eager for round two, are you lizard breath? That's right! You can fuck right the hell off in the face of my brilliance! Ahahahhahahaha!"
Then she turned to me and said "Told you so! Lizard boy and magma man don't show up in the Bay if they know I can give them a black eye and steal all their kills with the push of a button."
I was shocked at that. "But you're a pacifist Grace! Aren't your bombs nonlethal?"
She got a weird look on her face for a minute, like she was embarrassed. Then she laughed it off and said that she'd been joking. She said she hadn't really made a weapon of mass destruction. Her superbomb is actually a super shielding bomb that would protect the Bay by surrounding it in an unbreakable bubble.
Phew! That was a relief. Grace really had me going there. What a joker!
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 16
I'm starting to suspect that Grace isn't telling the whole truth about being a pacifist.
I know she's a good person, and a great hero, and she'd never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it. She has a good heart.
The way she talks, though...she sounds really comfortable with violence. Almost as if she likes it, as if she's itching for a chance to...
...nah. I'm probably just imagining it.
Next week we're going to take on Coil, plus the new villains he brought in from out of town, the Travelers. (he tried to be sneaky and pretend that he didn't hire them, but my bugs see all and hear all. heh heh heh). Coil's security looks really tough, though, with some kind of super bug zappers installed in the entrances. He must have noticed our success and gotten paranoid about bugs. No good openings to sneak in a bomb.
Grace says she has an awesome plan to take him out. I asked her what it was, but she said it's a secret and she can't tell me for 'operational security' reasons. All she would tell me was her bombs will be nonlethal.
Very, very, very nonlethal.
I wonder what that means?
Timelooping Tinker
Chapter 4: Bakuda and Weaver vs. Coil!
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 23
Oh God. Today was a rollercoaster. My hands are shaking as I write this. I don't know whether to be overjoyed or appalled.
We finally did our mission to take down Coil. Grace came up with an infiltration plan. She'd contact Coil and tell him that she had a 'solution' for the Travelers, one that would help his secret plans too. I'd use my bugs to make sure he wasn't setting up an ambush for us. Then when Coil let us into his base, we'd set off a bomb and knock them all out.
That should have been my first clue something was up. There was no way Coil would fall for a simple trick like that, not with Dinah's precog power and his own secret power to back him up. But Grace was completely confident it would work. She refused to tell me the intricacies of her plan for 'operational security' reasons, but she told me "just play along and get ready to grab Dinah."
I hate it when Grace tries her crazy plans without telling me. Grace is smart, and her plans work, but she gets a little...overambitious, sometimes.
Anyway, we got to Coil's base. My bugs gave us the all clear. The Travelers were in a big open room, with their monstrous teammate Noelle sitting in the middle. Coil was on a metal walkway above us, with Dinah at his side.
Then came the first surprise. Coil said "A pleasure to meet you at last, Miss Phillips. I trust my supply shipments were satisfactory for your bomb-making ventures?"
I couldn't believe it! Grace had gotten the supplies to build her superbomb from Coil?? She never told me!
Then Coil asked Dinah to tell him the numbers for Grace's plan. Dinah said "93.749284% chance the Travelers will be transported to a time and place where Noelle's power is inactive and they're within fifty miles of a portal to Earth Aleph. 91.478482% chance Coil will become the unopposed Dictator for Life of Brockton Bay."
I was shocked! Was Grace really helping Coil? Had she been on his side all along?
Then it happened. Grace winked at me, threw a bomb at the Travelers, and set off a second bomb in her hands.
Nothing seemed to happen at first, but then I realized what her bomb was doing. Everything around us was slowing down. Grace and I were protected by a shield effect, but the Travelers and Coil were being trapped in a bubble of frozen time!
At the last second, Dinah broke away from Coil and jumped off the metal walkway. She fell through the air in slow motion, like an angel descending from heaven, and I ran and caught her in my arms! It was amazing!
(Coil tried to jump too, but he was too slow and got frozen in mid-air. When he unfreezes he'll get a pair of broken ankles. Serves him right, the creep!)
Dinah was so glad to be safe. I swear it was a hundred and fifty baby kittens worth of heartwarming. She was hugging us and babbling about how happy she was that she'd get to go home again! Then Dinah and Grace high-fived to celebrate pulling off their secret plan to stop Coil and his pet S-class threat.
I asked Dinah how she'd lied to Coil about the numbers, but Dinah said she'd been telling the truth.
Grace explained everything. She said the source of parahuman powers will run out of energy in 3600 years and rip random holes between dimensions as it dies (how the hell does Grace know this stuff??). So Grace froze Noelle for 3666 years, so that she'd wake up cured of her power and next to a portal to Aleph.
Wow. Frozen in time for thousands of years. I wasn't sure the villains deserved that, but Grace insists that her bomb was a masterful ingenious nonviolent pacifist solution. I have to admit she's technically right...
I asked Dinah why her numbers said Coil would become the ruler of Brockton Bay. Dinah pointed to a hand-written placard she'd left on the metal walkway before she jumped, frozen in time with Coil. It said:
CITY OF BROCKTON BAY
DICTATOR FOR LIFE: COIL THE CANDY KING
FOUNDED IN THE YEAR 5677
POPULATION: 112
Grace read the placard and bust a gut. I seriously thought she was going to die, rolling around on the floor and cackling like a maniac. Then she high-fived Dinah and hugged her. She said "I'll have to remember that one, squirt."
I was smiling, too. Grace and I had taken down the last villains in Brockton Bay. My city was now a city of heroes! The ultimate triumph of heroism over evil! It was my greatest dream come true. And...
That was when I noticed the problem.
"Dinah." I said. "Why did you write 'population: 112'?"
"Oh, the bomb froze the whole base. There are 112 people frozen in there, Coil's guys."
My blood went cold. "Grace, did you just freeze a hundred people in time?"
Grace cursed. "Fuck! I screwed up the blast radius. I only wanted to get the capes."
"We...we have to tell someone. You can get them out, right? All those people...they're not trapped in there forever, are they?"
Grace looked guilty for a second, and then she grabbed me by the shoulders. "Taylor, I'm your friend, right?"
"Yes, but-"
"You trust me, right?"
I nodded.
"And I'm a fucking genius, right?"
I nodded.
"Then believe me, Taylor. I promise I'll find a way to unfreeze them and bring them to justice properly. Someday. Okay? Now let's get the hell out of here and take the squirt home."
I nodded, a little uncertainly. I took Dinah's hand and started for the exit.
That was when I noticed the other problem.
"Grace." I said. "Let me get this straight. You trapped Coil's entire base in a bubble of frozen time."
"Yeah."
"Except for us. We're safe inside this smaller bubble of normal time."
"Yeah."
"So how do we get out?"
Grace got real quiet for a minute. Then she screamed at the top of her lungs. "FUUUUUUCK!"
That was two hours ago.
We're still trapped in the time bubble. I will continue to make diary entries to document our attempts to escape. If we fail, then Coil and the Travelers will find my diary in the year 5677 and have a good laugh at our expense. Bastards.
Grace says that she is very very very sorry. She says that she won't use secret plans anymore. She says that she'll run all her plans by me from now on. Not that it'll do us much good, now.
FUUUUUUCK, indeed.
Grace. You're my best friend. You're a hero. You're super smart, and you're an inspiration to me. But sometimes...you're kind of a DUMBASS!
Chapter 4: Bakuda and Weaver vs. Coil!
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 23
Oh God. Today was a rollercoaster. My hands are shaking as I write this. I don't know whether to be overjoyed or appalled.
We finally did our mission to take down Coil. Grace came up with an infiltration plan. She'd contact Coil and tell him that she had a 'solution' for the Travelers, one that would help his secret plans too. I'd use my bugs to make sure he wasn't setting up an ambush for us. Then when Coil let us into his base, we'd set off a bomb and knock them all out.
That should have been my first clue something was up. There was no way Coil would fall for a simple trick like that, not with Dinah's precog power and his own secret power to back him up. But Grace was completely confident it would work. She refused to tell me the intricacies of her plan for 'operational security' reasons, but she told me "just play along and get ready to grab Dinah."
I hate it when Grace tries her crazy plans without telling me. Grace is smart, and her plans work, but she gets a little...overambitious, sometimes.
Anyway, we got to Coil's base. My bugs gave us the all clear. The Travelers were in a big open room, with their monstrous teammate Noelle sitting in the middle. Coil was on a metal walkway above us, with Dinah at his side.
Then came the first surprise. Coil said "A pleasure to meet you at last, Miss Phillips. I trust my supply shipments were satisfactory for your bomb-making ventures?"
I couldn't believe it! Grace had gotten the supplies to build her superbomb from Coil?? She never told me!
Then Coil asked Dinah to tell him the numbers for Grace's plan. Dinah said "93.749284% chance the Travelers will be transported to a time and place where Noelle's power is inactive and they're within fifty miles of a portal to Earth Aleph. 91.478482% chance Coil will become the unopposed Dictator for Life of Brockton Bay."
I was shocked! Was Grace really helping Coil? Had she been on his side all along?
Then it happened. Grace winked at me, threw a bomb at the Travelers, and set off a second bomb in her hands.
Nothing seemed to happen at first, but then I realized what her bomb was doing. Everything around us was slowing down. Grace and I were protected by a shield effect, but the Travelers and Coil were being trapped in a bubble of frozen time!
At the last second, Dinah broke away from Coil and jumped off the metal walkway. She fell through the air in slow motion, like an angel descending from heaven, and I ran and caught her in my arms! It was amazing!
(Coil tried to jump too, but he was too slow and got frozen in mid-air. When he unfreezes he'll get a pair of broken ankles. Serves him right, the creep!)
Dinah was so glad to be safe. I swear it was a hundred and fifty baby kittens worth of heartwarming. She was hugging us and babbling about how happy she was that she'd get to go home again! Then Dinah and Grace high-fived to celebrate pulling off their secret plan to stop Coil and his pet S-class threat.
I asked Dinah how she'd lied to Coil about the numbers, but Dinah said she'd been telling the truth.
Grace explained everything. She said the source of parahuman powers will run out of energy in 3600 years and rip random holes between dimensions as it dies (how the hell does Grace know this stuff??). So Grace froze Noelle for 3666 years, so that she'd wake up cured of her power and next to a portal to Aleph.
Wow. Frozen in time for thousands of years. I wasn't sure the villains deserved that, but Grace insists that her bomb was a masterful ingenious nonviolent pacifist solution. I have to admit she's technically right...
I asked Dinah why her numbers said Coil would become the ruler of Brockton Bay. Dinah pointed to a hand-written placard she'd left on the metal walkway before she jumped, frozen in time with Coil. It said:
CITY OF BROCKTON BAY
DICTATOR FOR LIFE: COIL THE CANDY KING
FOUNDED IN THE YEAR 5677
POPULATION: 112
Grace read the placard and bust a gut. I seriously thought she was going to die, rolling around on the floor and cackling like a maniac. Then she high-fived Dinah and hugged her. She said "I'll have to remember that one, squirt."
I was smiling, too. Grace and I had taken down the last villains in Brockton Bay. My city was now a city of heroes! The ultimate triumph of heroism over evil! It was my greatest dream come true. And...
That was when I noticed the problem.
"Dinah." I said. "Why did you write 'population: 112'?"
"Oh, the bomb froze the whole base. There are 112 people frozen in there, Coil's guys."
My blood went cold. "Grace, did you just freeze a hundred people in time?"
Grace cursed. "Fuck! I screwed up the blast radius. I only wanted to get the capes."
"We...we have to tell someone. You can get them out, right? All those people...they're not trapped in there forever, are they?"
Grace looked guilty for a second, and then she grabbed me by the shoulders. "Taylor, I'm your friend, right?"
"Yes, but-"
"You trust me, right?"
I nodded.
"And I'm a fucking genius, right?"
I nodded.
"Then believe me, Taylor. I promise I'll find a way to unfreeze them and bring them to justice properly. Someday. Okay? Now let's get the hell out of here and take the squirt home."
I nodded, a little uncertainly. I took Dinah's hand and started for the exit.
That was when I noticed the other problem.
"Grace." I said. "Let me get this straight. You trapped Coil's entire base in a bubble of frozen time."
"Yeah."
"Except for us. We're safe inside this smaller bubble of normal time."
"Yeah."
"So how do we get out?"
Grace got real quiet for a minute. Then she screamed at the top of her lungs. "FUUUUUUCK!"
That was two hours ago.
We're still trapped in the time bubble. I will continue to make diary entries to document our attempts to escape. If we fail, then Coil and the Travelers will find my diary in the year 5677 and have a good laugh at our expense. Bastards.
Grace says that she is very very very sorry. She says that she won't use secret plans anymore. She says that she'll run all her plans by me from now on. Not that it'll do us much good, now.
FUUUUUUCK, indeed.
Grace. You're my best friend. You're a hero. You're super smart, and you're an inspiration to me. But sometimes...you're kind of a DUMBASS!
- Location
- West Michigan
Four chapters and I only just noticed who was writing this. Grace, you're not alone.
/still hoping for more 'Tear Apart, Stitch Together' and 'A Song of Fire and Fire'
/still hoping for more 'Tear Apart, Stitch Together' and 'A Song of Fire and Fire'
Farmerbob1
Rest in Peace
- Location
- Atlanta-ish
Well, we know that Bakuda, at least, manages to get out.
Or, at least, one of the two Bakudas Coil was tracking gets out of the way.
Or, at least, one of the two Bakudas Coil was tracking gets out of the way.
Olivebirdy
mook.
Is it my imagination, or is Taylor thinking and speaking like Jade?
Dermonster
The Shittiest Wizard
No, no I got a Jade Harley vibe from it too.
It's not a bad thing...
It's not a bad thing...
She needs the materials to do that, which she may not have.
- Location
- Ireland
make it from bugs and piece of floor metal
Flukes
Typer of Words
- Location
- On a white background
But now we know who's been catching up on Homestuck. ^.^
This interpretation of Bakuda is the best. It perfectly encompasses her insanely huge ego but simultaneously low self esteem. And her occasional dumbass moments, like joining the ABB to start with.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
I see the "Taylor is oblivious" meme is still popular.
OverReactionGuy
Verified Sanity
Oblivious? No. This Taylor is in denial about her only friend. Thats right. The only friend this Taylor has is Bakuda. So she gets viewed with rose tinted lenses and things that shouldn't be ignored will be ignored.
Dermonster
The Shittiest Wizard
Couldn't Taylor use bugs from outside to communicate and ask for help?
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
I assume her power doesn't go that far out when she's in the time bubble..
Even if she could, does she know the bug speak trick at this point? And even if she does, I doubt anyone can get through that bubble.
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Zion certainly can, but Zion has no reason to. Eidolon or Doormaker might be able to, but same problem. Sleeper... No. Just no.
Correction: is there no one that is willing or available to get her own that might do so.
Farmerbob1
Rest in Peace
- Location
- Atlanta-ish
Well, Taylor had to have been a significant part of Contessa's PtV, so there might be a Doormaker rescue, provided that this is close enough to canon. Which seems highly unlikely
Timelooping Tinker
Chapter 5: Bakuda vs. the Secret of the Time Loops!
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 25
We've been trapped in the time bubble for two days now. Grace's jury-rigged water recirculator is keeping us hydrated but our air is running out. I estimate that we have one day of air left before we suffocate.
Dinah says we have a 94% chance of rescue. I used my bugs outside the bubble to tell the Protectorate what happened, and they're trying to find a cape who can teleport us out.
I've been worrying a lot about Grace.
Grace is an amazing hero. She led our two-woman team to beat all the villains in the city and claim it for the cause of goodness and justice. We must have saved hundreds of lives, saved thousands of people from drugs and violence. That should be worth a lot of credit, right?
But Grace froze a hundred people in time. That's seriously evil, a major crime.
What if the PRT tries to send her to the Birdcage?
I mean, what Grace did was bad, but...but it was an honest mistake!
And it's not like they were innocents. They were bloodthirsty killer mercenaries who worked for a child-kidnapping supervillain! They would have hurt a lot more than a hundred people if they were free.
And her time bomb didn't even hurt them! Not even a hair on their heads. She just...put them on pause, for a little while.
And, and it's not like the incompetent fools at the PRT have any standing to judge us! Grace and I did more 'heroing' than all their official heroes combined. We took down all the villains, while they sat on their hands and watched.
No, wait, that's giving them too much credit! The 'heroes' undermined us at every turn, letting the villains break out of prison like it was a fucking revolving door. We had to catch Faultline's Crew and the Undersiders four fucking times before they stayed in jail for good. Unbelievable!
And the oh-so-high-and-mighty PRT isn't worthy of judging us, anyway! They're riddled with corruption! We couldn't even ask for their help dealing with Coil, because I'd used my bugs to find out his identity and he turned out to be a fucking PRT commander in his day job, with spies in place in every branch of the government!
That's it. I've decided. If they throw the book at Grace, I'm going to throw the book at them. I'll tear down the corrupt institution of the PRT. I'm going to make Brockton Bay into a city of true heroes, a shining example for the rest of the world to follow.
Even if I have to drag it kicking and screaming.
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 27
Starting a new diary because Strider stole my old one as 'evidence' for the court case. Grace says I should be grateful because it will prove that I wasn't responsible for the crime. And then they carted her away in leg irons and containment foam!
Poor Grace! She's done more to protect the city than anyone else, and they're treating her like a criminal because of one little mistake!
At least Mayor Christner is on our side. He was so grateful to us for saving his niece Dinah that he's going to pay for Grace's defense fund. He already hired Carol Dallon (aka Brandish the superhero!) for the defense team. I met the New Wave today (in my costumed identity). They were super nice, they said they were our biggest fans! They even offered us spots on their team!
With the Mayor and the New Wave on our side, things are looking up. If anyone can save Grace from her unjust treatment at the hands of the incompetent and vindictive justice system, it's them!
I asked Dinah about our odds of winning the case, but she refuses to talk to me anymore. Mumbling something about 'saving the world' and 'don't want the numbers to change'. She gave me two slips of paper that she said I'm not allowed to read until after the trial. Weird. I wonder why?
...
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - August 15
The judge was fucking biased. Prejudicial testimony my ass. That's it. They'll pay for this. They'll all pay.
I looked at the notes that Dinah left me. Four and a half words.
WRECK SHIT.
I'M SORRY.
Can do, little girl. Can fucking do!
...
...
...
Bakuda glared at the two women in gray prison uniforms who were escorting her to her new home. Cell block H of the Birdcage.
As they led her past the main living area, she caught a glimpse of a news program on the TV.
In other news, the Brockton Bay PRT scandals just keep rolling in.
First came the resignation of the disgraced Director Piggot, after a wave of arrests for PRT employees who were taking bribes from villains - including a villain who was a highly placed PRT official. Then came the resignation of Armsmaster as Protectorate branch leader, in the wake of the Shadow Stalker and Assault scandals and the New Wave imbroglio.
The PRT is trying to salvage the situation by bringing in the hard-nosed and charismatic Director Tagg. But he faces a scandal off the bat, as local capes secretly recorded his ill-considered remarks to his heroes:
"The damned vigilantes have stolen our reputation. The man on the street doesn't have faith in the real heroes anymore. I sincerely hope that some big name villains come into town, like the Teeth or the Fallen. Some truly fucked-up bastards who'll make our citizens quake in their boots and give kids nightmares. Then we can take 'em down for a nice clean boost to PR. Not that I'd ever admit it to the press, naturally-"
Credit for the recording goes to the New Wave, the independent superhero movement sweeping the nation. The capes who did the deed were Weaver, the beloved local vigilante, and her new tinker sidekick calling himself Chariot-
Bakuda smirked. Taylor was fun to watch when she kicked into high gear. The girl's righteous fury knew no bounds. It was too bad she'd had to leave the party early by getting herself Birdcaged.
Not that Bakuda had needed to let the feds put her in the Birdcage. It would have been easy to bust out of their pathetic prison transports at any time. If nothing else, her superbomb gave her tens of millions of hostages.
But the problem was, taking millions of people hostage would have put her in Taylor's bad books. Then Taylor would have tried to arrest her, and she'd have had to detonate the bomb she'd secretly implanted in the girl's gut, and there would have been a big mess, and it would have felt...somehow...wrong.
Damn. She was such a softie. She knew she shouldn't get too attached to anyone in the loops, but she couldn't help feeling honest affection for the girl who'd been her earnest best friend and confidante for months. (Even if the girl did have a disturbing habit of cutting off her body parts in loops when they were enemies. It's always the ones you least suspect.)
The same had happened with Masamune, too, in that one magical loop when they'd mass produced her All-In-One bombs and fought Dragon to a standstill. He'd turned on her in the end, when he saw through her web of lies, but she hadn't quite been able to bring herself to dissolve him into a puddle of amino acids.
The cell block's TV changed channels and the inmates took notice of Bakuda. Giving her the customary sneering once-over. Bakuda ignored them, her attention caught by a detail about the TVs. One TV was intact, but the other two had been disassembled for spare parts.
Yes. This was the tinker-led block, the one co-led by String Theory and Lab Rat. She'd never met them in her previous loops, but she was looking forward to it.
The pair apparently had some sort of twisted romantic-but-not-romantic tinker rivalry. She'd never seen the appeal of that sort of thing herself. She had no need for a rivalry, after all. She was the greatest tinker in the world. Bakuda, the tinker without compare, the one who (in some alternate reality future) had created the godlike Device that allowed her to control the time loops.
Still, she wanted to meet the cell block leaders and learn from their work. The Birdcage was a tinker's nightmare, barely any raw materials to be had. You had to be something special to survive with a tinker power, and something very special to rule a cell block with one.
The pair of elite tinkers were watching her, now. Standing at the back of the room, studying her with skeptical eyes. Bakuda returned their gaze with a grin.
Lab Rat she could understand. He was a bio-tinker, he worked wet. Warm bodies were the one resource easy to come by in the Birdcage.
String Theory, though...she was intriguing. Bakuda remembered seeing the diminuitive, bespectacled woman's superweapons in action in one of the past loops when the villains were let out of the Birdcage. Bakuda had a hunch that if she and String Theory worked together they'd have amazing synergy, exponentially boosting the power of their creations.
As Bakuda met String Theory's gaze, she felt a jolt of something pass between them, like a spark of electricity...
...a spark stretching between them like a band, or a coil, or a string...
...stretching and stretching and stretching....
...until it SNAPPED-
...
...
...
Bakuda opened her eyes. She was still in the Birdcage, but the world around her was dull and faded. No sound, no movement, on pause. Not truly real.
The proof was right in front of her. In front of her stood a very familiar woman. Herself. Bakuda, in the flesh, being scrutinized by the other inmates of the cell block. A scene frozen in time.
An out of body experience?
With a start, she noticed that she wasn't alone. One other cape had a duplicate floating beside herself, a duplicate who was vivid and real like her.
"About time you showed up." said String Theory. "I was beginning to think you were purposefully avoiding me."
"What the hell is this?" said Bakuda.
"This is the meta world. The realm that governs the time loops."
"Huh." Bakuda looked around the meta world. It wasn't terribly impressive. It looked pretty much the same as the normal world, but dull and motionless and boring. "What are you doing here, then?"
String Theory gave her an incredulous look. "Isn't it obvious?"
Bakuda instantly hated her for that. She suppressed an urge to strangle the woman and made a pretense of civility. "Heh, guess you're in a time loop too. I thought I was the only-"
"I am the one who is creating the time loops." said String Theory. "Dear God. I knew you were dim, Bakuda, but I thought you had enough of a brain to put two and two together."
Bakuda's jaw dropped open.
String Theory gestured to a massive machine behind her, vivid and real like the two of them. A label etched on the side said "META-WORLD TIME LOOP DEVICE VER 2.0".
"I can choose to loop any one tinker at a time," String Theory continued, "but my device activated after they'd locked me in the Birdcage, so looping my real-world self was an exercise in frustration. Dragon never lets me out until Gold Morning no matter what I say, and then there's no time left to build anything useful.
"I switched to looping you, Bakuda. You may be a maniacal, suicidally incompetent idiot with an ego the size of an asteroid belt, but I admit that your trigger mechanisms have excellent synergy with mine. I've been waiting for you to level up enough to break me out of the Birdcage early, so we can spend a few years working together to build a doomsday device to beat Scion."
String Theory gave her a withering glare. "But apparently you were clueless the entire time, and spent one hundred and thirty eight loops flailing like a retarded seal with no idea what you were supposed to be doing. Idiot."
Bakuda stared at the Device, wide-eyed. Her tinker power fed her information about the Device's structure, its purpose, the way it was enmeshed in the fabric of the meta-world itself. It was true. It was all true.
"But...but the tickertape notes!" stuttered Bakuda.
"That was me, obviously. I've been watching you. I told you I was writing them, I spelled it out in black in white. 'Greatest Tinker in the World'. Who the hell did you think I was, Santa Claus?"
Bakuda's eye twitched.
String Theory gasped. "Wait, wait, don't tell me. Let me guess. You thought I was you."
Bakuda's eye twitched.
"Pffffhahahahahaha! I'm right! You thought I was you! I give you one hundred and thirty eight extra chances at life, and you get yourself killed like a incompetent buffon every single fucking one of them, and you still think the greatest tinker in the world is you! Ahahahahaha! Isn't that just precious!"
Bakuda's eye twitched.
"Oh wait, wait, no, I take it all back Bakuda! You are the world's most powerful tinker. I mean, all I invented was this miraculous time looping technology that makes the fabric of causality my bitch. But you've accomplished something I never dreamed of. An absolutely perfect track record. One hundred and thirty eight gruesome deaths, zero fucking survivals! That proves it! It all makes sense! Your tinker specialty isn't trigger mechanisms...it's fucking suicide! Ahahahahahahehehehehehehah!"
String Theory collapsed to the floor, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
Bakuda's eye twitched.
Then Bakuda moved mechanically, carrying out a sequence of steps she had mentally rehearsed a thousand times. She pressed her left hand to her right wrist and felt the miniscule bump under her skin.
Good. Her meta-Bakuda body had a meta-version of the Infinite Agony Cocktail Bomb she'd implanted under her skin and smuggled past Dragon's screening.
Bakuda advanced on the fallen tinker, her hands shaking with eagerness, her lips curling into a wicked grin-
--
Author's note: Surprise! The Timelooping Tinker isn't Bakuda, it's meta-String Theory! ...for the moment, at least...
Chapter 5: Bakuda vs. the Secret of the Time Loops!
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 25
We've been trapped in the time bubble for two days now. Grace's jury-rigged water recirculator is keeping us hydrated but our air is running out. I estimate that we have one day of air left before we suffocate.
Dinah says we have a 94% chance of rescue. I used my bugs outside the bubble to tell the Protectorate what happened, and they're trying to find a cape who can teleport us out.
I've been worrying a lot about Grace.
Grace is an amazing hero. She led our two-woman team to beat all the villains in the city and claim it for the cause of goodness and justice. We must have saved hundreds of lives, saved thousands of people from drugs and violence. That should be worth a lot of credit, right?
But Grace froze a hundred people in time. That's seriously evil, a major crime.
What if the PRT tries to send her to the Birdcage?
I mean, what Grace did was bad, but...but it was an honest mistake!
And it's not like they were innocents. They were bloodthirsty killer mercenaries who worked for a child-kidnapping supervillain! They would have hurt a lot more than a hundred people if they were free.
And her time bomb didn't even hurt them! Not even a hair on their heads. She just...put them on pause, for a little while.
And, and it's not like the incompetent fools at the PRT have any standing to judge us! Grace and I did more 'heroing' than all their official heroes combined. We took down all the villains, while they sat on their hands and watched.
No, wait, that's giving them too much credit! The 'heroes' undermined us at every turn, letting the villains break out of prison like it was a fucking revolving door. We had to catch Faultline's Crew and the Undersiders four fucking times before they stayed in jail for good. Unbelievable!
And the oh-so-high-and-mighty PRT isn't worthy of judging us, anyway! They're riddled with corruption! We couldn't even ask for their help dealing with Coil, because I'd used my bugs to find out his identity and he turned out to be a fucking PRT commander in his day job, with spies in place in every branch of the government!
That's it. I've decided. If they throw the book at Grace, I'm going to throw the book at them. I'll tear down the corrupt institution of the PRT. I'm going to make Brockton Bay into a city of true heroes, a shining example for the rest of the world to follow.
Even if I have to drag it kicking and screaming.
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 27
Starting a new diary because Strider stole my old one as 'evidence' for the court case. Grace says I should be grateful because it will prove that I wasn't responsible for the crime. And then they carted her away in leg irons and containment foam!
Poor Grace! She's done more to protect the city than anyone else, and they're treating her like a criminal because of one little mistake!
At least Mayor Christner is on our side. He was so grateful to us for saving his niece Dinah that he's going to pay for Grace's defense fund. He already hired Carol Dallon (aka Brandish the superhero!) for the defense team. I met the New Wave today (in my costumed identity). They were super nice, they said they were our biggest fans! They even offered us spots on their team!
With the Mayor and the New Wave on our side, things are looking up. If anyone can save Grace from her unjust treatment at the hands of the incompetent and vindictive justice system, it's them!
I asked Dinah about our odds of winning the case, but she refuses to talk to me anymore. Mumbling something about 'saving the world' and 'don't want the numbers to change'. She gave me two slips of paper that she said I'm not allowed to read until after the trial. Weird. I wonder why?
...
...
The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - August 15
The judge was fucking biased. Prejudicial testimony my ass. That's it. They'll pay for this. They'll all pay.
I looked at the notes that Dinah left me. Four and a half words.
WRECK SHIT.
I'M SORRY.
Can do, little girl. Can fucking do!
...
...
...
Bakuda glared at the two women in gray prison uniforms who were escorting her to her new home. Cell block H of the Birdcage.
As they led her past the main living area, she caught a glimpse of a news program on the TV.
In other news, the Brockton Bay PRT scandals just keep rolling in.
First came the resignation of the disgraced Director Piggot, after a wave of arrests for PRT employees who were taking bribes from villains - including a villain who was a highly placed PRT official. Then came the resignation of Armsmaster as Protectorate branch leader, in the wake of the Shadow Stalker and Assault scandals and the New Wave imbroglio.
The PRT is trying to salvage the situation by bringing in the hard-nosed and charismatic Director Tagg. But he faces a scandal off the bat, as local capes secretly recorded his ill-considered remarks to his heroes:
"The damned vigilantes have stolen our reputation. The man on the street doesn't have faith in the real heroes anymore. I sincerely hope that some big name villains come into town, like the Teeth or the Fallen. Some truly fucked-up bastards who'll make our citizens quake in their boots and give kids nightmares. Then we can take 'em down for a nice clean boost to PR. Not that I'd ever admit it to the press, naturally-"
Credit for the recording goes to the New Wave, the independent superhero movement sweeping the nation. The capes who did the deed were Weaver, the beloved local vigilante, and her new tinker sidekick calling himself Chariot-
Bakuda smirked. Taylor was fun to watch when she kicked into high gear. The girl's righteous fury knew no bounds. It was too bad she'd had to leave the party early by getting herself Birdcaged.
Not that Bakuda had needed to let the feds put her in the Birdcage. It would have been easy to bust out of their pathetic prison transports at any time. If nothing else, her superbomb gave her tens of millions of hostages.
But the problem was, taking millions of people hostage would have put her in Taylor's bad books. Then Taylor would have tried to arrest her, and she'd have had to detonate the bomb she'd secretly implanted in the girl's gut, and there would have been a big mess, and it would have felt...somehow...wrong.
Damn. She was such a softie. She knew she shouldn't get too attached to anyone in the loops, but she couldn't help feeling honest affection for the girl who'd been her earnest best friend and confidante for months. (Even if the girl did have a disturbing habit of cutting off her body parts in loops when they were enemies. It's always the ones you least suspect.)
The same had happened with Masamune, too, in that one magical loop when they'd mass produced her All-In-One bombs and fought Dragon to a standstill. He'd turned on her in the end, when he saw through her web of lies, but she hadn't quite been able to bring herself to dissolve him into a puddle of amino acids.
The cell block's TV changed channels and the inmates took notice of Bakuda. Giving her the customary sneering once-over. Bakuda ignored them, her attention caught by a detail about the TVs. One TV was intact, but the other two had been disassembled for spare parts.
Yes. This was the tinker-led block, the one co-led by String Theory and Lab Rat. She'd never met them in her previous loops, but she was looking forward to it.
The pair apparently had some sort of twisted romantic-but-not-romantic tinker rivalry. She'd never seen the appeal of that sort of thing herself. She had no need for a rivalry, after all. She was the greatest tinker in the world. Bakuda, the tinker without compare, the one who (in some alternate reality future) had created the godlike Device that allowed her to control the time loops.
Still, she wanted to meet the cell block leaders and learn from their work. The Birdcage was a tinker's nightmare, barely any raw materials to be had. You had to be something special to survive with a tinker power, and something very special to rule a cell block with one.
The pair of elite tinkers were watching her, now. Standing at the back of the room, studying her with skeptical eyes. Bakuda returned their gaze with a grin.
Lab Rat she could understand. He was a bio-tinker, he worked wet. Warm bodies were the one resource easy to come by in the Birdcage.
String Theory, though...she was intriguing. Bakuda remembered seeing the diminuitive, bespectacled woman's superweapons in action in one of the past loops when the villains were let out of the Birdcage. Bakuda had a hunch that if she and String Theory worked together they'd have amazing synergy, exponentially boosting the power of their creations.
As Bakuda met String Theory's gaze, she felt a jolt of something pass between them, like a spark of electricity...
...a spark stretching between them like a band, or a coil, or a string...
...stretching and stretching and stretching....
...until it SNAPPED-
...
...
...
Bakuda opened her eyes. She was still in the Birdcage, but the world around her was dull and faded. No sound, no movement, on pause. Not truly real.
The proof was right in front of her. In front of her stood a very familiar woman. Herself. Bakuda, in the flesh, being scrutinized by the other inmates of the cell block. A scene frozen in time.
An out of body experience?
With a start, she noticed that she wasn't alone. One other cape had a duplicate floating beside herself, a duplicate who was vivid and real like her.
"About time you showed up." said String Theory. "I was beginning to think you were purposefully avoiding me."
"What the hell is this?" said Bakuda.
"This is the meta world. The realm that governs the time loops."
"Huh." Bakuda looked around the meta world. It wasn't terribly impressive. It looked pretty much the same as the normal world, but dull and motionless and boring. "What are you doing here, then?"
String Theory gave her an incredulous look. "Isn't it obvious?"
Bakuda instantly hated her for that. She suppressed an urge to strangle the woman and made a pretense of civility. "Heh, guess you're in a time loop too. I thought I was the only-"
"I am the one who is creating the time loops." said String Theory. "Dear God. I knew you were dim, Bakuda, but I thought you had enough of a brain to put two and two together."
Bakuda's jaw dropped open.
String Theory gestured to a massive machine behind her, vivid and real like the two of them. A label etched on the side said "META-WORLD TIME LOOP DEVICE VER 2.0".
"I can choose to loop any one tinker at a time," String Theory continued, "but my device activated after they'd locked me in the Birdcage, so looping my real-world self was an exercise in frustration. Dragon never lets me out until Gold Morning no matter what I say, and then there's no time left to build anything useful.
"I switched to looping you, Bakuda. You may be a maniacal, suicidally incompetent idiot with an ego the size of an asteroid belt, but I admit that your trigger mechanisms have excellent synergy with mine. I've been waiting for you to level up enough to break me out of the Birdcage early, so we can spend a few years working together to build a doomsday device to beat Scion."
String Theory gave her a withering glare. "But apparently you were clueless the entire time, and spent one hundred and thirty eight loops flailing like a retarded seal with no idea what you were supposed to be doing. Idiot."
Bakuda stared at the Device, wide-eyed. Her tinker power fed her information about the Device's structure, its purpose, the way it was enmeshed in the fabric of the meta-world itself. It was true. It was all true.
"But...but the tickertape notes!" stuttered Bakuda.
"That was me, obviously. I've been watching you. I told you I was writing them, I spelled it out in black in white. 'Greatest Tinker in the World'. Who the hell did you think I was, Santa Claus?"
Bakuda's eye twitched.
String Theory gasped. "Wait, wait, don't tell me. Let me guess. You thought I was you."
Bakuda's eye twitched.
"Pffffhahahahahaha! I'm right! You thought I was you! I give you one hundred and thirty eight extra chances at life, and you get yourself killed like a incompetent buffon every single fucking one of them, and you still think the greatest tinker in the world is you! Ahahahahaha! Isn't that just precious!"
Bakuda's eye twitched.
"Oh wait, wait, no, I take it all back Bakuda! You are the world's most powerful tinker. I mean, all I invented was this miraculous time looping technology that makes the fabric of causality my bitch. But you've accomplished something I never dreamed of. An absolutely perfect track record. One hundred and thirty eight gruesome deaths, zero fucking survivals! That proves it! It all makes sense! Your tinker specialty isn't trigger mechanisms...it's fucking suicide! Ahahahahahahehehehehehehah!"
String Theory collapsed to the floor, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
Bakuda's eye twitched.
Then Bakuda moved mechanically, carrying out a sequence of steps she had mentally rehearsed a thousand times. She pressed her left hand to her right wrist and felt the miniscule bump under her skin.
Good. Her meta-Bakuda body had a meta-version of the Infinite Agony Cocktail Bomb she'd implanted under her skin and smuggled past Dragon's screening.
Bakuda advanced on the fallen tinker, her hands shaking with eagerness, her lips curling into a wicked grin-
--
Author's note: Surprise! The Timelooping Tinker isn't Bakuda, it's meta-String Theory! ...for the moment, at least...
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