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Unlimited Potential (Worm/Megaman)

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Monitor 7:4
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    • AN: So, it turns out that writing a Paralogue about Alpha is the perfect cure to writer's block. Who knew?



    "Name's Trainwreck. You hirin'?"

    X looked Trainwreck up and down for a moment before waving Achmed down, the gate guard visibly relaxing in his booth.

    Dismounting the Ride Chaser, X approached the other tinker. Slowly, she began to circle the man's power armor, carefully taking in every detail she could of her fellow tinker's suit.

    At a quick glance, on the surface, the suit looked crude and haphazard, mismatched parts and rust dominating its visage. The great gouts of steam blasting seemingly at random from various places on the suit simply served to enforce that idea. However, a more in depth look belayed that misconception.

    Trainwreck's suit was a work of passion, and it showed to someone who knew what to look for. Though rusty, it was clear that effort had been made to remove it; most of the rust was in corners and other places hard to reach or apply proper leverage to. Many pieces had distinct dimpling patterns, signs of dents and bends beaten out by hand. The suit's construction was tough and hardy; great care had been taken in selecting parts and pieces uncompromised by corrosion, and the welds were clean and even.

    For all its rough appearance, it was evident that a substantial amount of time, effort, and care had been spent on it. Indeed, quite a lot of thought must have been put into the suit, for it looked for all the world like an abandoned train engine that had sprouted gorilla-like arms and legs and walked away.

    'Trainwreck' indeed.

    Finally, X came full circle and stopped, looking up to meet Trainwreck's gaze. "Yeah. I might be."

    The man himself, with his head exposed and uncovered by his armor, looked for all the world like an old-timey boxer with his shiny bald head and the absolutely magnificent handlebar mustache gracing his upper lip. And though his eyes were obscured by a pair of steampunk-y goggles, his delight was evident by the craggy smile that split his acne-scarred face. "Great, when do I start?"

    X pursed her lips under her mask and propped her hands on her hips. "Well, it's not quite that simple. You'll have to fill out some paperwork stuff first, do an interview with the hiring people, and then have an evaluation for your tinker skills."

    Trainwreck scratched at his head with a metal finger the size of a banana. "Really? Why we gotta do that? I've never don' this before, but that sounds more complicated than it needs ta be."

    Sighing, X scratched at her chin through her mask. "Well, there's the legal things; tax forms, contract, the whole shebang. Then there's the interview, so that the hiring manager can judge you himself and see if you lied on your paperwork. Once that's done, we'll have you do a skill evaluation, see what you can do."

    Nodding slowly, Trainwreck wet his lips. "Yeah, okay. That makes sense. But, why you gotta do that last one?"

    "Well," X shrugged. "It'd be silly to have you do plumbing when you're better at carpentry, wouldn't it?" Checking her HUD, X 'tsk'ed at the time. "Oh, I am late for a meeting."

    A simple command on the HUD had a single kneeling Pantheon materialize in a beam of light. X mounted her Ride Chaser and gestured at the drone as it stood. "Here, follow him, he'll escort you to HR. I'll see you after my meeting for the skill evaluation." With that, X gunned the throttle and drove into the dockyards.

    Blowing air between his lips, Trainwreck made to follow the Pantheon. "A'ight, let's get this over with."

    ---​

    X was only five minutes late as she walked into the conference room where she was meeting Uber and Leet. The two part-time villains/rogues were already there at the table in simple boiler suits and domino masks, Leet scrolling through something on a tablet computer while Uber was taking a deep drink from a glass of water.

    "Hey, sorry I'm late, hope I didn't keep you two waiting too long."

    Uber glanced over, still drinking from the glass of water. His eyes went wide and water spewed from his mouth in a sudden spit take. "PHBBT!"

    X paused, staring at Uber in concern as he choked on the water he hadn't managed to spit out. "You okay?"

    Slamming a fist against his chest several times, Uber finally took a deep breath and slammed his glass down on the conference table. "You're a girl!?"

    Leet looked up from his tablet. "Wait, who's a girl? I wasn't paying attention, what?"

    "X!" Uber exclaimed, gesturing at X wildly. "She's a girl!"

    "Seriously?" Leet blinked at Uber's emphatic nodding then turned to look at X. "Well, that's nice. Good thing we never aired the Metroid episode then." He returned to his tablet. A moment later, he frowned in confusion and looked up. "…Wait."

    X sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "And we're doing this again, great." Seriously, why did everyone think she was a guy? Was it the boobs (or rather, the lack thereof)? It was totally the boobs, wasn't it?

    Sighing, X looked up. "For some reason, everyone else thinks I'm a guy, so how'd you figure it out?"

    "Ah, well," Uber started, rubbing the back of his head. "You know my power is to be a master of any single skill? Well, I decided to come to this meeting as a master of cold reading. When you walked in, the sway in your hips gave it away. It's subtle though; with your stature and the mask muffling your voice, it's not surprising people assume you're a somewhat feminine guy," the thinker explained apologetically. "Well, that, and confirmation bias. The armor doesn't hurt, either."

    Groaning, X flopped down into a seat and buried her face in her hands. For a long moment, she just sat there, before sitting up and folding her hands together before her face. "Let's… agree to keep this to ourselves, and move on. I highly doubt you two asked for this meeting just to make the revelation of my gender."

    Uber nodded. "Right, ah, so… Leet and I, we had an idea."

    Leet, though still somewhat schmeckledorfed, collected himself. "Thanks to you, I figured out my specialty was prototype stuff," the tinker explained. "And so, we were hoping to, um, well, uh…" He trailed off with a frown, seemingly losing his train of thought.

    Clapping a reassuring hand on Leet's shoulder, Uber took over. "We were hoping we could come to a business agreement with you. One where we'd sell you a prototype, you'd reverse engineer it, and then market it and share the profits."

    "I see," X nodded. "That's certainly an appealing proposal, but why come to me? Why not, say, Dragon?"

    Uber shared a look with Leet. "Well, you're local, and you were able to fix the Ridley-bot with basically just a glance. Why wouldn't we ask you?"

    "Well, okay then." Lacing her fingers together on the table in front of her, X looked between Uber and Leet. "So, how did you want to do this?"

    Uber grinned. "We were thinking a fifty-fifty split."

    Behind her mask, Taylor grinned. Haggling was definitely something she could do. After all, she'd grown up at the feet of a master of the art; heck, she still lived in his house. "Seventy-thirty, my favor. And Leet gets unlimited access to my parts stores."

    Uber's eyes narrowed shrewdly. Leet's went wide in anticipation.

    In the end, it was decided that the profits from any reverse-engineered prototypes would be split sixty-forty in X's favor, and Leet was to be given a monthly parts budget for his tinkering. In addition, X would lend Uber and Leet Pantheons for any future episodes of their show (provided all the relevant permits were filed and no laws were broken). It was a deal that everyone walked away from mostly satisfied.

    Though, Leet would complain about losing out on unlimited access to another tinker's parts stash for several weeks.

    ---​

    Baryl sighed as he looked over another resumé. Business was booming. Unfortunately, said business was rapidly expanding past the capacity for the Heberts to manage by themselves, even with help. As such, a decision had been made, and the incorporation of Variable Heavy Industries LLC would be announced next week.

    Unfortunately, that meant someone had to hire the secretaries, office workers, and various administrative experts that a corporation needed to run smoothly.

    And, unfortunately, Baryl was the only one who could be trusted to do it. Taylor was too young, as were Iris and Lan, and Danny had his own responsibilities. Alpha was right out. They would, of course, be hiring a properly vetted HR department in time, but for now, Baryl had to make due.

    The phone on Baryl's desk rang, and the Reploid picked it up before it could ring more than twice. "Rose here, go ahead." Rose; his chosen surname, and his little way of honoring the grandmother he never had the opportunity to meet.

    <<Mr. Rose, it's Janice. Got a call from Achmed at Gate Three. There's a gentleman in power armor on his way to see you, wants a job apparently.>>

    Ah, Janice Goldstein. His secretary and first hire. So far; competent, and well worth her salary. "Thank you, Janice," Baryl replied. "I'll pull the required paperwork and await his arrival."

    <<Ah, you might need to go out to meet him, sir. Achmed said he's a bit big, might not fit through the front door.>>

    "Well, then I'll pull the paperwork and meet him out in the parking lot, then. Thank you, Janice, I'll let you go."

    Hanging up, Baryl stood and sidled over to the filing cabinet he kept forms and other sundry paperwork in. <<Iris?>> Baryl sent through his internal communicator as he began browsing the top drawer.

    <<Yes Brother?>>

    <<Do you know anything about a tinker looking for a job?>>     Baryl inquired as he found the required paperwork and pulled out a copy.

    <<Yes,>> Iris replied. <<As a matter of fact, I'm escorting him to you now via Pantheon.>>

    Baryl hummed as he returned to his desk and collected his mug of pens. <<I see. Why didn't you let me know sooner?>>

    <<Most people don't have radios in their heads, brother dearest. It might arouse suspicion for you to react to things that you should be unaware of,>>     came the slightly smug retort.

    <<Fair enough,>> Baryl admitted, leaving his office and locking the door behind him. <<In any case, could you send some Pantheons to set up a canopy in the office parking lot? I will also need a folding table, a chair, and a seat for our guest – preferably something rated for power armor.>>

    <<Of course, brother dearest. I'll make it ready for you.>>

    Iris was good to her word. Indeed, in the short time it took Baryl to make his way out to the parking lot, a squad of janitorial Pantheons was already setting things up across several empty parking spaces.

    Sitting down in the camp chair, Baryl arranged his paperwork and pen mug on the card table and watched the sanitation-green Pantheons finish setting things up; four Pantheons securing the corners of the canopy frame while the last two maneuvered a concrete bollard in place across the card table from the incognito Reploid.

    With a smile, Baryl leaned back to wait. <<Thank you, Sister Dearest. Impeccable work as always.>>

    <<I live to serve, Brother Dearest. Now, look to your left, your appointment's here.>>

    Turning his head to the left, Baryl beheld a Pantheon leading a man in a suit of power armor that rivaled a Ride Armor. <<So he is. Thank you, Iris.>>

    <<Of course. I'll leave you to it.>>

    Standing up, Baryl stepped out from under the canopy and strode forth to greet the armored cape. The Pantheon saluted, then vanished in a flash of teleportation. Baryl stepped closer to the baffled cape before him and offered his hand. "Hello. I'm Baryl Rose, head of hiring for VHI."

    The large cape looked woodenly away from the spot the Pantheon had disappeared and stared down at Baryl's proffered hand. Slowly, the armored man reached out and gingerly accepted the handshake, armored hand swallowing Reploid fingers like a baseball mitt holding a ball. "Trainwreck." The tinker blinked. "What's a 'Vee Aitch Ai'?"

    "VHI," Baryl clarified. "Variable Heavy Industries. It's the company we're helping X to found. Now come," he gestured at the canopy. "Have a seat, and we can begin."

    After a moment's pause, Trainwreck stepped forward. He had to squat, and perform an awkward shuffle to fit under the canopy, but he managed it. He sat gingerly on the bollard, and though it creaked alarmingly, the concrete cylinder held.

    Nodding in satisfaction, Baryl sat in his camp chair and spread out the paperwork into three piles. "Now, to start with, we have your cape name," Baryl stated, pulling the top page off the first pile. "Trainwreck, obviously. Unless you wish to change it, that is."

    Trainwreck shook his head. "Naw. I'm good."

    "Very good." Filling in the name at the top of the page, Baryl put it aside and gestured at the three piles. "Now, here is where things get complicated." The Reploid placed his hand atop the first pile. "First option is to fill out these forms. For this, you would have to provide your legal name, date of birth, social security number, and home address."

    Baryl took his hand and placed it on the second, much larger paperwork stack. "The second option; we set up a proxy cape identity with the IRS. This option will keep a separation between your private and cape lives, and you will not have to give the government your identity. The downside is, you will have to fill out this stack every time you file your yearly taxes."

    Trainwreck stared down at the stacks of paperwork, before gesturing at the table. "What's that third one?"

    "Tax forms," Baryl clarified. "Those will be filled out regardless of the option you chose."

    Trainwreck let out a huff. "It'll have ta be th' second one," he grumbled. "I don't got any of that other stuff. Don't remember any, 't least."

    Baryl paused. Something about that statement… "You wouldn't happen to have a tattoo or marking somewhere on your body that resembles a 'C', would you?"

    "Yeah," Trainwreck drawled, face twisted in mild suspicion as he tapped a metal finger on his right breast. "Right here. How'd ya know?"

    Letting out a breath, Baryl steepled his fingers. "Mr. Trainwreck, it seems you are what the government refers to as a 'Case 53.' Case 53s are individuals suffering from retrograde amnesia and oftentimes possessing extensive mutations. They also possess a singular tattoo of an ornate 'C', though some insist it's an Omega symbol."

    "And…what's that mean f'r me?"

    "Well," Baryl stated. "It does simplify things. And complicates others." With one arm, he swept the papers off the card table and then primly laced his hands together. "We are going to need more paperwork."

    AN: In case y'all are wondering why Uber sussed out Taylor's gender and not, say, Tattletale; most Thinkers are like Tattletale, with their powers doing most of the heavy lifting and passing the finished results onto their hosts. The problem with analyzing X/Taylor is that the Thinker shards are trying the shard equivalent of forcing the output of a firehose through a garden hose, resulting in information overload and debilitating headaches for the host Thinker. Meanwhile, when it comes to Uber, his power is just supplying the skills, with Uber doing all the hard work. Also, as Uber said, confirmation bias is a heck of a thing.
     
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    • Guardsman_Sparky said:
    most Thinkers are like Tattletale, with their powers doing most of the heavy lifting
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    Uhhhh... Isn't Tattletale usually considered one of the few that aren't like that? With her powers only providing raw data, albeit data inferred from the tiniest of hints, and then she has to actually make it useful, and it does it for literally everything she encounters so she's constantly bombarded with useless trivia? Like... it can tell her if somebody is cheating on their spouse, but it won't tell her why (which is something a human could infer with... poor accuracy. The power just does it faster, with higher accuracy). It will also tell her which hand they wipe with, what they had for lunch the last time they wore the shirt they're currently wearing, how they feel about their in-laws, their most disgusting sexual kinks and habits, and a whole host of other things, any of which could be wrong. She's the one who has to take all that useless trivia and make something useful out of it, in the end, she can't just ask it a question and get an answer, it just incessantly throws inferences based on observations at her.

    Whereas a lot of other thinker powers give their host a fully formed answer, just obfuscated, because reasons. Like "How dangerous is this parahuman to the PRT ENE" returning "purple monkey dishwasher." Consistently, to the point that eventually other people can sorta guess what "purple monkey dishwasher" is supposed to mean, based on past results that were similar.

    Like, if that's how it is for her in your story, that's perfectly fine, of course. I was just under the impression that it normally wasn't considered to be a "does everything for you" type of power, hence explaining why Tattletale absolutely loathes Faultline for her dismissive attitude and all.
     
    Don't think I've seen Trainwreck be a Case 53 before, although nor does he show up in Worm fanfic much. The merchants tend to consist solely of Squealer and Skidmark, in most folk's memories, rather than the people introduced post-Leviathan. Can't recall if Trainwreck falls into that category, though.
     
    Mizu said:
    Don't think I've seen Trainwreck be a Case 53 before, although nor does he show up in Worm fanfic much. The merchants tend to consist solely of Squealer and Skidmark, in most folk's memories, rather than the people introduced post-Leviathan. Can't recall if Trainwreck falls into that category, though.
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    Trainwreck is canonically a Case 53 though?
     
    Mizu said:
    Don't think I've seen Trainwreck be a Case 53 before, although nor does he show up in Worm fanfic much. The merchants tend to consist solely of Squealer and Skidmark, in most folk's memories, rather than the people introduced post-Leviathan. Can't recall if Trainwreck falls into that category, though.
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    it says he is in the wiki
     
    I was reading this and thinking why did I drop this fic. I had to double check the dates before realizing I dropped it due to thinking the fic was dead. Love the fic and hope your work situation is better.
     
    Guardsman_Sparky said:
    AN: So, I hit writer's block with the latest chapter. So, enjoy a paralogue while I work things out. Takes place sometime between the Conflict and Monitor arcs.

    "I have cracked cold fusion, my arm is a cannon, and I can build giant robots, but I'm foiled by a goddamn piece of PVC Pipe?"

    Taylor let out an explosive sigh as she sat back from the drainage system she was putting together for a prototype water purifier. "Short by that much. And I'm out of pipe."

    Grumbling, Taylor poked the plastic pipe stubbornly refusing to connect to the socket, the pipe just barely long enough to scrape against the edge of the socket. "Dammit. I need this thing for the new forge." Technically, she could run the new ceratanium forge without the water purifier she was working on… for about three minutes before the lack of purified water caused the liquid ceratanium to turn non-Newtonian and irretrievably clog the mixing chamber.

    "Well, nothing for it. Alpha!" Taylor called out.

    From outside the old pump shed Taylor was building the forge in came an elephant's stampede of pounding footsteps.

    Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump *WHAM!*

    Taylor jumped as the thick wooden door to the shed shuddered, something slamming into it from the other side with a muffled 'ow.'

    Sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose in fond exasperation, Taylor looked up at the ceiling. "It's not automatic, Alpha. You need to turn the handle and pull."

    A brief moment passed.

    "I knew that."

    The door opened, admitting Alpha, his blue armor unscathed (the door, on the other hand, now sported a brand new, sizable dent in the shape of a certain blue wrecking ball). "I am here! The door could not stop me!"

    Smiling fondly, Taylor pulled the piece of PVC pipe free and held it out to Alpha. "Here, I need you to go to Sal's Hardware Store on Mains and Ninth, get some PVC pipes this size, but longer. Now, Sal's is closed for renovations, but if you go around back and knock on the door, Sal will let you in. You get all that?"

    Alpha stared at Taylor for a long while before finally smiling. "Yes!"

    "Good." Taylor smiled wryly. "Now, what did I say?"

    "Go to Pal's-"

    "Sal's."

    "Sal's Hardware Store on Nains and Minth-"

    "Mains and Ninth."

    "Mains and Ninth, and knock on the back door, and get more pipes!" Alpha declared, triumphantly brandishing the short length of pipe like a sword.

    Chuckling, Taylor stood and rubbed Alpha's helmet fondly. "Good boy. Don't worry about payment, just tell Sal to bill it to my account, okay?"

    "Yes!"

    "Good lad," Taylor praised. "Off you go."

    "Yay!" With an ebullient cheer, Alpha spun about and charged out the door…though he did initially bounce off the doorframe before he corrected his aim and egressed.

    Skipping down the road, Alpha hummed a tune as he looked for Sal's Hardware. Sal's, Sal's, Sal's, Sal's…

    Alpha stopped and beamed at the hardware store in front of him. Sal's!

    "Yay!" Skipping forth, the armored Reploid grabbed the door handle and pulled.

    Nothing happened.

    Frowning, Alpha stared at the door and read out the word there. "Push… oh, push!"

    He pushed.

    Nothing happened.

    Perplexed, Alpha stared at the door before realization hit. "Oh! It's closed! Mom said… to… uh… Oh! Go around back!"

    Humming a silly tune, Alpha skipped around to the back of the store, around the stinky-smelly dumpster and the stinky-smelly man rooting around in it, all the way to the back door.

    Hopping to a stop in front of the door, Alpha hauled back his fist to knock. However, a muffled sound caught the Reploid's ear, and brought him pause.

    Lowering his hand, Alpha frowned at the door. Pressing both hands against the door, he pressed the side of his helmet (more specifically, the audio receptors that acted as sound protection and enhancement both) against the metal surface.

    *Thwump*

    "You gonna give us the money you owe?"

    "F-fuck you!"

    *Thwak!*

    Alpha bared his teeth at the sound of fist meeting flesh, of air being driven from the lungs. Someone was beating up Mr. Sal!

    Pushing off from the door, Alpha stood back and activated his visor. His vision blurred and flickered, turning a field of black marked by white. And there, through the door, Alpha saw the blurred skeletons of several men, and several guns as well. Most of the gun-toting skeletons were standing back, content to watch as two skeletons held a third skeleton against the blurry outline of a counter, a fourth skeleton driving a fist into the third skeleton's gut.

    Alpha gasped; lots of people were beating up Mr. Sal!

    This would not stand!

    Deactivating the X-ray function of his visor, Alpha unlimbered his knucklebusters and stepped back. The massive weapons unfolded, and the young Reploid chambered his fist.
    ---​

    Krieg, ever the visage of Teutonic calm and poise in his modified SS uniform and all-encompassing gas mask, sighed as Salvatore "Sal" Rosi cursed him and his men in Italian.

    "You can make this easy on yourself, Mr. Rosi," Krieg cajoled, a faint German burr to his voice. "All you have to do is apologize for your words against the Empire Eighty-Eight and give us the protection money you owe, and-"

    "Fuck you! Oof!" Spitting out a wad of blood, Sal glared at the thug who'd just punched him. "My Nonna hits harder than you! She's been dead twenty years!"

    Sighing again dramatically, Krieg surveyed the hardware store's supply room. Unfortunately, all the shelves were wrapped in thick plastic for the renovations, with nothing readily at hand. Pity. While it would be poetic to introduce Mr. Rosi to the business end of one of his own power tools, it wouldn't do to rummage around like a peasant. Appearances had to be maintained, after all.

    Oh well. There's always the old fallbacks.

    Turning to the skinhead next to him, Krieg gestured at assault rifle slung over his shoulder. "Break his knees."

    With a cruel grin, the skin head unslung his rifle and stepped forth, brandishing the butt menacingly. Sal stared him with wild eyes, spittle and curses flying from his lips as he struggled to break free from the two thugs holding him down.

    However, at that moment, a loud voice boomed.

    "Knock knock!"

    Slowly, everyone in the room turned to stare at the store's emergency exit. One of the thugs blinked stupidly at the door. "Who's there?"

    The door slammed off the hinges and into the thug, sending him across the room with a pained squawk.

    "THE DOOR!" Alpha crowed, bursting through the doorway with both Knucklebusters brandished.

    Immediately the thugs still standing drew down on Alpha, guns cocked and ready. Fingers squeezed on triggers.

    Alpha froze. "Wait!" Everyone paused, taken aback by the sudden shout. Krieg tilted his head in curiosity. "I can do better! I'll come back! Somebody say 'oh no!'"

    The neo-Nazis watched in confusion as the armored cape before them turned around and rushed back through the door. One of the thugs wrinkled up his face in bafflement and opened his mouth.

    "Oh no?"

    The wall exploded as Alpha smashed through the cinderblocks… three feet from the broken-down doorway.

    "OH YEAH!"

    Krieg had to refrain from groaning. He was surrounded by idiots, both his henchmen and the idiot before him. Especially his henchmen, considering the drooping firearms and the dumb looks of confusion on their faces (not to mention whatsisface there feeding the hero a straight line. He'd be having words with him later).

    In exasperation, Krieg pointed at Alpha. "Don't just stand there, shoot him!"

    Shaking themselves from their stupor, the gangers immediately brought up their guns.

    *POW!*

    Unfortunately for the skinheads, they were just a tad too slow on the uptake, as Alpha burst forward and clobbered the closest thug in the chest with a knucklebuster. The weapon pulsed, sending the man rocketing across the room (and out through the doors leading to the store proper), and just like that, the battle was joined.

    Unable to shoot for fear of hitting their allies, the E88 members were forced to go hand to hand, as Krieg watched from the sidelines. It did not go well.

    For them.

    Alpha was doing fine.

    "I'm gonna punch your face in the face!"

    *Whack!*

    "Augh!" A charging skinhead was clotheslined by a knucklebuster punch, flipping him head over heels to land face-first on the floor, body jackknifing from sheer momentum.

    *WHAM!*

    "Auh-wa!" A thug was drop-kicked in the chest, knocking him back into a pair of his friends. All three went down in a tangle of limbs.

    "Thank you, come again!"

    *SMACK!*

    A ganger roused himself from a punch, only to find himself stuck with his behind wedged in a shelf, his legs and upper body sticking out awkwardly. He could only shriek in helplessness as his attempts to get free caused the shelf to topple forward.

    *SMASH!*

    "YAHoO-hoo-wee!"

    "Hey, there's something on your face!"

    "Wha?"

    *Bop!* "It was pain!"

    Forgotten in the commotion, Sal took the opportunity to escape, ducking out the hole in the wall and fleeing into the street.

    Alpha grumbled as a single punch sent a pair of thugs bouncing across the floor, smashing into and collapsing a set of shelves atop them.

    "You guys are boring!"

    Sending another thug cartwheeling through the air, Alpha came to the conclusion that his knucklebusters were making things too easy. So…

    "Here, hold these."

    "OhGodwhy!?"

    The ganger rushing at Alpha with a crowbar yelped in surprise as the knucklebusters were thrust into his arms. He only had a moment to cry out in dismay before his knees gave out and he was borne to the ground under the weapons' prodigious mass.

    Cackling, Alpha dove back into the fray, and continued to mop the floor with the E88 gangers (in one case, quite literally so) bare handed. Even as previously beaten thugs got back up to replace their comrades who had fallen, the punch-happy Reploid continued to laugh uproariously as he faced all comers.

    And then it happened. Alpha had just punted a Nazi in the crotch hard enough that he landed in the rafters (though, in truth, it was closer to a violent throw than a kick, so as not to… 'rupture' the man), when he was coldcocked in the side of the head by a lead pipe. With a loud crack, Alpha was sent staggering, Kreig 'hmph'-ing with pleasure as he tossed aside the bent pipe.

    Alpha looked up at Krieg, the left side of his visor shattered, his green eye exposed.

    "You broke my visor. I LIKED that visor." Alpha's visible eye flared red. "By the power invested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife!"

    Bemused and amused, Krieg just smiled beneath his gas mask and siphoned away the kinetic energy of the fist heading towards his face. To his surprise, however, his mask – and his nose – gave way with a painful crack.

    "Aurk! VERDAMMDT! Mine – WUAGH!"

    Staggering back, clutching at his ruined face, Krieg was caught off guard as a fist took his ankle in an iron grip and yanked him off his feet.

    "YOU MAY KISS THE BRIDE!"

    With a roar, Alpha promptly began to bludgeon those members of the E-88 still standing with the shrieking and cursing body of their own boss.

    "YOUR TOAST IS BURNT! AND NO AMOUNT OF SCRAPING WILL REMOVE THE BLACK STUFF!"

    ---​

    An insistent ringing cut off as Taylor absently answered the in-built phone in her helmet. "X speaking, go ahead."

    …

    "Yes, I know Alpha."

    …

    "He did WHAT?!"
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    Is this canon? It isn't really clear from the text or replies.

    And wasn't Trainwreck a Coil mole in the canon, or was it fanon?
     
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    Monitor 7:y
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    • "GET OUTTA THE FUCKIN' TRUCK!!!"

    Cold sweat streamed down the back of the truck driver's neck. His palms clammy, white knuckles clenched in a death grip on the steering wheel. His mouth, suddenly drier than the Sahara. A rational reaction when met with a blockade of burnt-out police cars and a veritable wall of shotguns and pistols and assorted other weaponry wielded by a bunch of Mad Max rejects liberally festooned with various bones.

    Oh shit, that one was wearing a human skull as a hat. He never should have accepted a delivery run to Boston.

    A heavy, but gentle, hand squeezed the driver's shoulder. "Hey, Quan."

    The driver turned, taking in his shotgun seat passenger. In all the commotion, Quan had honestly forgotten the other man was there.

    Deep Freeze smiled under his helmet, warm green eyes shining reassuringly from its depths. "Chill out. I've got this."

    The truck's suspension let out a groan, the right side of the vehicle leveling out as Deep Freeze stepped down to the ground.

    "HA! Lookie here boys," crowed the man wearing a cracked human skull as a top-knot tie. "We got ourselves a gen-u-ine white knight!"

    A chorus of derisive laughter met the leader's declaration.

    Deep Freeze simply smiled, arms loose at his side. "Ah, you must be the Teeth, ja?" He asked, letting his Austrian accent come in thick. "How is your health insurance? You must have great dental."

    Skull-hat guffawed. "We got a joker here! Listen here, Johann," he sneered derisively. "You know who we are, so youse better give us what's in the truck if ya know what's good fer ya!"

    "Yeah, give us what's in the truck, and we'll gut ya!"

    A pregnant silence fell across all present as Skull-hat turned to the Tooth next to him. "It's 'give us the stuff or we'll gut ya,' ye fuckin' IDIOT!" In a smooth movement, Skull-hat drew a rusty pistol and shot the hapless Tooth in the knee.

    "SO!" Ignoring the screaming man rolling around on the ground next to him, Skull-hat leveled his pistol at Deep Freeze. "Give us the shit in the truck, or things get ugly!"

    Deep Freeze brought his hands up placatingly. "Well, things are already rather ugly, what with such a cold thing you did to your friend there. Why don't we all just… cool off!"

    And with a flick of the wrists and a blast of Arctic wind, Skull-hat was frozen solid in a layer of ice, a fired bullet suspended a foot from the barrel of his gun in clear, glittering crystal.

    As the Teeth shouted out in surprise and alarm, Deep Freeze slowly cracked his neck. "Now, you can put down your arms und surrender, or I can have you chattering from the cold."

    "Fuck you!" A bullet pinged off Deep Freeze's helmet.

    The Reploid sighed. "So be it. Winter is here, and the weather is frightful."

    Breath frosted and sweat froze as frost radiated along the ground from Deep Freeze's armored feet. A wall of ice shot up, shielding the truck from a volley of gunfire, even as hot lead bounced ineffectually off ceratanium armor.

    "The Ice Age cometh!" The Reploid bellowed. "So bundle up!"

    And Deep Freeze fell upon the Teeth with all the fury of a winter storm.

    ---​

    Cold sweat streamed down the back of the truck driver's neck. His palms clammy, white knuckles clenched in a death grip on the steering wheel. His mouth, suddenly drier than the Sahara. A rational reaction when a massive black and white mecha with flashing lights was towering several feet over the cab of his eighteen-wheeler.

    The machine bent forward, revealing the pilot. He gestured for the truck driver to lower the driver-side window.

    Reluctantly, the truck driver complied.

    The mecha's pilot opened his mouth. "Sir. Do you know why I pulled you over?"

    Whimpering, the truck driver sunk down into his seat. He never should have come to Brockton Bay.

    ---​

    Emily Piggot let out a breath as she considered the flash drive in her hand. Such an inconsequential looking thing. Such a heavy-

    The intercom on her desk buzzed. <<Director Piggot? Special Agent Blanton is here to pick up that paperwork.>>

    Closing her eyes, Emily closed her hand around the drive and squeezed. This was it. The point of no return. She pressed the call button on the intercom. "Send him in, Tiffany."

    Director Piggot slipped the flash drive into a manilla envelope, the drive nestling among the confidential paperwork within. She sealed the envelope, and signed the transfer paperwork attached to the front as the office door opened to admit Special Agent Blanton of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

    Slowly, Piggot laboriously rose to her feet to meet the FBI agent. She shook his hand over the desk, and handed over the envelope.

    Alea iacta est. The die was cast, the Rubicon crossed. No turning back now.

    ---​

    Several floors below, at the Wards dispatch console, Sophia Hess stared contemplatively at her alter ego's mask; a stern woman's sculpted visage in the same off-white of the hockey goalie mask she once used as an independent vigilante.

    Silently, she mulled over certain recent events. Hebert, the weak bitch, had finally gotten the hint and stopped showing up at Winslow back in January. All was right with the world; the strong ruled and the weak finally understood their place.

    Then, one Saturday afternoon four months later, Sophia got a text message from Emma: Taylor Hebert had a robotic arm.

    There had been a moment of panic, that perhaps Hebert had been even weaker than Sophia had possibly imagined, losing an arm because of a weak, fucking prank. Then rationality had quickly asserted itself: Hebert couldn't have lost an arm to the locker prank. After all, there hadn't even been a police investigation. Hell, Sophia (or rather, Shadow Stalker) hadn't even been confined to quarters or assigned punitive shifts on the Wards dispatch console.

    A quick internet search of the news from January had simply served to reinforce that conclusion. A headline about an ambulance getting caught up in a cape fight, and a front-page picture of a familiar head of hair on a stretcher being wheeled into a new ambulance.

    And just like that, all was right with the world again. The strong ruled, and the weak stayed out of the way or got what was coming to them.

    Still, there was something that bugged Sophia.

    Who cared enough about a worm like Hebert to give her a robotic prosthetic?

    ---​

    Deep below Brockton Bay, Coil looked up from his desk at the knock on his office door. Collecting the papers on his desk, he shuffled them together and set them aside. He spun his swivel chair (more of a throne, really, upholstered in black leather) around to face the gas fireplace behind the desk. A flick of a switch turned on the fireplace, and Coil proceeded to place his left ankle on his right knee and steeple his fingers. He was ready.

    "Enter."

    The office door opened, admitting a nervous looking teenage boy with dark-brown skin and close-cut hair. The boy shuffled forward, visibly jumping as the door slammed shut behind him, several heavy thunks echoing through the room as electronic locks engaged.

    Smirking as the boy visibly gulped, Coil watched the teenager's progress across the palatial, dimly-lit office, special lenses in his mask letting him see the reflection in the hidden tinkertech mirror set above the fireplace.

    Finally, just, as the boy got within three feet of his desk, Coil smoothly spun his chair a neat one-hundred-eighty degrees, coming to a rest facing the boy. He stared at the boy, the blank, silver lenses of his mask seeming to look right through the soul.

    The boy took a deep, shaky breath. "Y-you called for me, Mr. Coil?"

    Slowly, Coil dipped his head in a nod. "I did, Trevor." He lifted a hand and snapped his fingers: an alcove set in the wall behind and off to the side of Coil lit up, revealing the acquired head of a decapitated Pantheon.

    "I have a job for you."

    ---​

    Somewhere else, a glowing door in time and space opened. A woman stepped through, dressed in a uniform of blacks and greys, a white tower emblazoned on her chest. The glowing door vanished, leaving the woman in a sterile hospital room.

    Silently, the woman stepped forward, eventually coming to a stop next to an occupied gurney. A woman lay in the bed, supine, still. On the other side of the gurney, an African woman in a lab coat stood, silently reading the contents of a clipboard.

    "Alexandria," greeted the woman in the labcoat.

    "Doctor Mother," came the response in kind from the newcomer.

    The two stood in silence for a moment, the quiet broken by the beeps and hisses of medical equipment.

    Finally, Alexandria spoke. "Any change?"

    Doctor Mother shook her head, looking down at the woman in the hospital bed. "None. No changes since January."

    "Damn," Alexandria cursed softly. "We need her out of this coma. We need the Path to Victory. Among other things, we can't keep using body doubles to pawn off experimental vials to the likes of Coil forever."

    Silence greeted her. There wasn't really any way to answer that statement.

    "Christ. Hit by an ambulance. What the hell was she even doing in Brockton Bay?"

    Doctor Mother shook her head in response. "I cannot say. Something vital to whichever Path she was running at the time, I presume." She huffed, nostrils flaring as she stared at the woman in the hospital bed. "We are sure that this was just a freak accident?"

    Alexandria hummed. "As sure as we can be. The ambulance in question was fleeing from a cape fight. Someone must have triggered at just the wrong time." The costumed woman sighed. "Current theory is a minor stranger or trump power was manifested; some of our thinkers have been experiencing debilitating headaches when they look at Brockton Bay."

    "Hm," Doctor Mother hummed. She stood in silence, then sighed. "Perhaps it would be best to abandon or suspend the experiment there for the time being. We were lucky the Dragonslayer incident was solved so quickly and thoroughly. Without the Path to smooth things over, the next such event might not end so well for us."

    "That damned city," Alexandria groused. "We never should have chosen the place Lovecraft based Innsmouth on."


    AN: Contessa is Miss "Not Appearing in This Story," because she got hit by the first ambulance carrying Taylor to the hospital back in January and is now in a coma. As for getting run over, Alexandria and the good (snrk) Doctor are way off base; it wasn't a trigger that distracted Contessa, but rather PTV getting distracted at the wrong moment as it tried to path Taylor's ... shard and promptly went down the shard version of a Wiki dive. Whoops.
     
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    • Guardsman_Sparky said:
    AN: Contessa is Miss "Not Appearing in This Story," because she got hit by the first ambulance carrying Taylor to the hospital back in January and is now in a coma. As for getting run over, Alexandria and the good (snrk) Doctor are way off base; it wasn't a trigger that distracted Contessa, but rather PTV getting distracted at the wrong moment as it tried to path Taylor's ... shard and promptly went down the shard version of a Wiki dive. Whoops
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    I'd say that doesn't make sense, but Wden managed to crash into a planet while running PTV, so it makes way too much sense instead.
     
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