Worm: Blanket aka The Diaper Changer (Com-pleated)
- Thread starter ScottotheUnwise
- Start date
...I have no idea what I just read. 
Jonn Wolfe
(Verified Sarcastic) (Not a Wolf)
- Location
- Beyond Sanity Since 1971
Heh. Nice Spaceballs reference at the end there. So another Taylor went God Queen. This should be interesting. Bit confused, but that's standard for me these days.
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
My first fic Nine Lives of the Calico had the HGMS Hero (first one) as an Aircraft Carrier mounted on two Russian subs. With mecha. Taylor there was able to copy powers and create clones of herself en masses. (Made Naruto look weak level, 8800 at once counted)...I have no idea what I just read.
This is a sort of cross with that instance of Earth Bet where Taylor herself has been absent for some time, but the "Taylor" (multiple) still show up in their lack of belly button unseeing eye goodness and wreck the day of rapists and bullies when the authorities get lax.
Kind of an Inception cross if you get me. Fic within a fic.
Edit: Also of note, this fic started a bit over two years ago. Damn. Time flying.
Edit II: I forgot. The ship was HGMS : Her Glorious Majesty's Ship.
Last edited:
- Location
- Georgia
They've gone plaid!
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
The irony was that she made clones of herself and was basically the only person on a particular planet Gotoh (the Go To Hell option) and while the original was occupied they had a congressional vote of all 'residents' and named her Queen for life. As a joke. It stuck. And it was a joke 'she' played on herself.
So she went Queen first. It was only later she went God mode --by unmasking the shard source of her powers, an entity eating entity.
I need a Hero! Sutures Inbound.
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
************ School 6 --Remote learning
At the house, Daniel Hebert is sitting there on the couch on the giant-sized coffee table with a stunned expression on his face.
Annette, flying over on one of the first generation 'printed' hoverboards Kid Win had gifted them just a few days ago was out of the loop until she followed his hand pointing to the screen.
A clearly older version of Danny himself was just shaking out some bits of tech from his hair and neck after Taylor gave him a hug. The volume had been low enough for easy conversation, but they both reached for the remote to turn it up.
His own voice sounded out. "Another Taylor to take the crown up seems like just the thing..."
He missed the next few seconds as Annette shouted "YES!", holding her hand with one finger up. "Score! And now we have our choice of retirement amenities with no need for explanations or big payouts."
Rubbing a fingertip in his ear, Danny glanced around. "I thought you liked it here in Blanket Space?"
Annette raised her eyebrows a bit. "After the addition of the golden family jewels?" She shook her head, then nodded to Simmie on her oversized rocking chair. "Present company excluded, this place is starting to reek of testosterone."
Simmie smirked and made a gesture starting with hands a foot apart, then closing them together slowly, pretending to pinch something with one in the palm of the other and toss it away.
"I don't grok the pantomime routine but I bet she is saying that Scion isn't going to be a long term feature." Danny spoke up.
Simmie smiled and did finger guns to him. It was odd how she looked small in the immense chair, only around nine feet tall. A doll to the chair, but still almost twice a regular person --according to Annette.
The screen on the TV seemed to brighten as streaks of many colors flowed from the center outward. It was eye watering stuff. They turned away to check the laptop feeds. Oorja Toophaan was already making landfall across multiple locations. It was that big.
While it was not sending tidal waves ahead of it, the storm surge was already endangering the locals and the Endbringer inside was still toying with them.
************************
Captain Gloval listened with one ear as he tried to hold down his gorge. His stomach felt like it was hundreds of miles behind, towed on a bumpy ocean surface like those damn skiers.
I reached out and touched him, clearing the sickness without a thought. "Have a hanky. Skin contact is enough to start fixing things. Better yet, let me distribute a load of them."
I feel around in a pocket, making it big enough to pull out the shipping container that had been anchored in place below the 'house' back the way we came.
Bringing that out in the ward room was out, but I was able to open the doors and send a stream of the hankies out to those in the ward room itself. Then I began sending them out to the hall through the open door in stacks, putting them in hands to distribute further. With all the fighter jocks peering in for the last minute briefing we were giving --who am I kidding, most of them were just there to bow a moment and kiss their T shaped icons before moving on-- the hankies were snatched and dispersed.
These people were a lot healthier on average, something to do with the 'Medicos' a large group of healing focused capes. There were a few things they didn't seem to care much about, blemishes or minor scars. Hope that one guy didn't care that the tattoo he'd gotten to hide a scar now covered only clear skin. I was proud of myself that I even could distinguish the tattoo and not remove it.
And then there were the cyber implants. Had to quickly learn what wasn't supposed to be fixed out of the way.
It was a few minutes longer than I'd expected because I kept having to correct our course at this speed. It wasn't because of horizon effects or the shape of Earth. What it felt like was that the Hero II was trying to break through and return to its home zone if I wasn't around to keep it here.
"Your Majesty, you look like you are tiring." The bluette spoke up.
"The ship is like a shopping cart with a bad wheel, it keeps trying to correct back to your home … plane? Have we decided what to call the alternates yet?"
Remotely Armsmaster hemmed a bit. "We have been saying dimensions, but there appear to be other factors involved if they cross apparent time divergences."
Gloval chuckled at that. "You really do sound alike… Our theorists say that they can also differ in the constant of material decay, effecting time compared across the dimensions. It sounds like ours runs just a smidgeon faster."
I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just nodded. Apparently that was the right answer because I saw camera phones raised.
I brought the speed of the battle group back down to something less like a blur of reality, keeping the other ships lined up for an easier transition.
"Coming up on the gate point for the Chessie and the support ships. Galaga fighters hold near the Chessie, all but your top three. Those come with the Surftank …"
I paused as Captain Gloval pleaded with his eyes, "and an honor guard of the mecha from the Hero II. We will exit a lot closer to Oorja Toophaan, as near the the center as Alexandria and Eidolon can get."
His frown said it all. "That one…" He harrumphed. "She was the devil herself, black hearted wench…" His voice ground to a stop at my raised eyebrow --matched by the bear eyebrow as well.
"THIS Alexandria is … reformed. She is wearing a costume I made, and you have already seen what my stuff does to sicknesses, including those of the head." I note calmly.
I was not ready for the echo of the room saying, "As she will it, so shall it be."
Kid Win leaned in to whisper in my ear. "Don't let them inflate your head, missy." He said in a bad accent.
**************
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Waiting in the old metal building at the port with the others sent over for SAR, he mused over his chances with the other capes here. Some villain, some hero, a smattering of corporates and one lonely K-Pop girl.
"Fran, you know you don't have to do this right?" His coworkers in the Protectorate were always so nice to him once they realized he wasn't trying to hit on every guy in sight. He was a Mover though, and even though he wasn't all that strong a Brute he was exactly what they asked for for this Endbringer fight.
The fact that he already had a costume that fit the requisite needs was icing. He still couldn't believe that girl whipped it up without some kind of Thinker power to match his size and ah proclivities. He was extra hammy, emulating the old Bugs Bunny in a crossdressing attitude in what was essentially an open purple Ninja style jacket over a light pink tank top. The pants were close to the Ninja style but had suspenders in eye gouging purple. Black fingerless gloves and toed shoes gave it a slight tinge of camouflage effect in shadows if he pulled the jacket shut, but his style of movement often flung it open to show the bedazzled additions he'd added to the pink top.
And the pink bunny ears added to the hood trailed behind him as he ran like streamers.
Heaven.
"It's Bunbun while we have the gear on, dear heart." He moued at her behind a peace sign, mostly hidden by the purple veil. "So what are these extra gear bags for?"
The heavy girl in ALL-THE-BOWS and ballerina tutu chuckled deeply. She was a Brute with a …ah... hefty side of Mover herself. Three hundred pounds despite only looking like two at five foot even, her powers let her start a conga dance line and pull another eleven or so along in her wake as light as a feather as long as they met the prerequisite shadowing two or three dance steps. The dancing schtick with all the bows had her being called BowDan no matter what PR tried so they rolled with it.
She passed over a bag full of terry cloth towels.
"Seriously?" Bunbun pulled one out by a corner like it would bite him. "What is this, the Hitchhiker's Guide?"
The PRT Troop bringing another box of towels barked a short laugh. "Too right!" He pointed at the white material. "That there is gen-u-ine Blanket material. See blood, slap it on. One per customer unless a past customer is no longer bleeding. You know when it is ready when it turns white again."
BowDan's brow furrowed. "Blanket... Why is that name familiar?"
The Troop laughed. "Your costumes were made by her, it's one of the reasons you got sent this far forward. Otherwise you'd be told to put the first towel out of your bag down the front of your costume and keep it in skin contact."
Bunbun touched his ninja-esque suit. "They just told me that it was from some costume maker from near Boston. I just sort of assumed it was Parian."
"Same kid who --ah-- removed the first three Endbringers?" BowDan asked, looking a little wide eyed now.
That, he'd heard of. Getting them off the board counted as beating in his eyes, along with a significant portion of the population. Gulp.
"The very same."
*******************************
"Has there been contact?" Gloval asked his subordinates.
The bluette answered. "Nothing direct. Reports of ships damaged indirectly, storms and hail mostly but some energy weapons. The few resorts or towns we can see from drone footage are ghost towns."
Dragon spoke up. "We have found a local broadcaster who set up a camera uplink to do an on scene interview. He got two minutes into it before the connection dropped. It … is disturbing."
A screen to the side begins showing a standard weather report in the teeth of the storm. As the man speaks in a local dialect a shadow behind him darkens and drops out of the sky. He appears to notice it, turns, but is immediately engulfed by a cloud of flying ...things. BB sized or smaller. The video could be compared to video of piranha flensing meat from bone but the bone is also reduced. The cloud clears and a pair of glasses, a watch and a microphone drop from where they'd been held. The camera is destroyed by a barrage of small beams, cutting the video.
Dragon rewound a bit and advanced frame by frame.
"The attackers are spherical, no visible means of flight. The ones taking in mass appear to grow in size." A section of the scene is zoomed in from the top. "There is a single fist sized unit controlling these smaller ones. By extrapolation, there is a hierarchy of size."
Gloval hums. "This is different from Inkblot. Those were artificial macro cells with a crystalline core. Does that mean the clouds are full of these things?"
"Hazard gear." I manage to say above a whisper.
"What was that, your majesty?" Gloval asked, alert.
I give him a bit of glare over the title, but forge on. "We need to advise all groups to fully cover, with hazard gear." I point at the screen. "The spheres went for the eyes and soft tissue first. It didn't eat his glasses or electronics, so maybe plastic is enough to protect but it seems clear that no protection is a death sentence."
I consider a moment. "Dragon, advise all forward units to wrap a towel over their face and head if they don't have full coverage. I can harden them as helmets with lenses if I feel the towels on any face. Have them prioritize putting a towel on the face of survivors as well."
"As you say, your majesty." Dragon replies.
Groaning. "Not you too!"
Next to me, Chris pats my shoulder. "Better get used to it."
Several of Gloval's troops stiffen at the familiarity of his touch, hands on sidearms.
Gloval chuckles. "Better get used to that, young man."
*************************
I was busy the next ten minutes or so turning towels into helmets with clear material woven as tight nets over the eyes for a large number of the Chessie crew, a couple of hundred face shaped towels in Blanket Space ahead of us in the forward deployed capes.
"If I am busy healing or managing defense like this I may not be doing much in the fight itself." I state.
Admirals Gloval and Chang both let out a held breath of relief, though the latter was displayed on the hologram projection from the Chessie.
Chang scratched an ear. "She is the single point of failure for our best weapon system to date not involving capes."
Gloval shook his head a little. "Our princess was much more of a front line combatant, but she had options to spare."
I grimaced as I went back to work, just enough consciousness left to listen to the two exchanging history. Luckily Gloval's history was not focused on his Earth Bet's last thirty years but on the other dimension or else there might be problems with stock predictions and tech trends that would wreck our recovering economy.
He did commiserate on the recent China issue, noting that the Chinese elite party members were mostly dicks, which got a chuckle.
Mention of the plagues got a doctor involved, and I was aware enough to pass over one of many spare tubes of Panacea's cure all in a frozen roll of cloth in a test tube.
That same doctor took a swab of my saliva and a little piece of skin with the gold thread showing. I healed the spot back before she even had the sample in a tube.
Shooing him off with a hand wave got a snicker from the bridge crew.
Kid Win had set up his remote terminal to control his Surf Tank like it was a turret here on the Hero II. He laughed that it made the ship armed beyond just having mecha playing at being anti aircraft.
"Young man, I will take pleasure in making you eat that remark when we deploy the main gun." Gloval paused. "And do not traverse below 5 degrees, I will not allow blue on blue on my ship!"
"Yessir." Kid Win answered without rancor.
I was lost in thought as other pieces of me came into range. There was Alexandria and Eidolon maybe ten miles ahead in real space. And then other familiar pieces came into view in Blanket Space.
"You have got to be kidding me!"
Gloval was adjusting his view ahead, now seeing the hundreds of towels shaped as heads in Blanket Space well below the level his ship would pass. And the costumes, several now also sporting towel helmets.
"What is God's name is that?" He asked.
Raising a hand up. "Any of my material not in Blanket Space and separate from me has an echo in Blanket Space of where it is. We have forward observers and SAR teams deployed and once we realized they needed hazard gear --well, terry cloth Endbringer material helmets." I shrug.
He rubbed his chin, muttering. "The resemblance is truly uncanny."
************************
Hebert House, Blanket Space.
"Collin, the first wave is starting to make landfall in areas with human habitation. We can't just let those people be devoured!" Dragon turned to him fully. Emotions with a body to express them could be a problem now.
He in turn pointed to the rows of Dragon suits prepped for deployment. "How many can you handle once things get too busy for Blanket to deploy?"
"With the advanced cores we made with Leet's printer tech, I can handle hundreds for most situations. For this fight, probably a quarter of that."
"Then it is a good thing I did a run of AR controllers to pass out to our volunteer troopers." He waved to the crowd of regular troopers who were sitting on folding chairs brought into Blanket Space and set up on the porch --coincidentally the furthest point of the house away from the Endbringers.
"You take manual control of twenty-four. I will take one and the troops will guide twenty-six to one hundred. If you lose one, just override and take one from the slowest reacting suits pool."
She paused. "What about EMP?"
"Each of your suits has a towel wrapped around the processor cage set to Endbringer material. That all but blocks radio waves, and the signals for these are coming through the same material from Blanket Space."
Dragon got a far off look in her eyes. "Blanket, give me the portal from the house to your location, suits coming through."
********************
Well, this part was a bit distracting. Holding portals open in Blanket Space to other parts of Blanket Space was new, but it worked. It only made it feel like I pushed one hand into my right ear canal to exit my left, reach around and touch my nose.
Once there they dropped into normal space --well, Earth Bet anyway-- and shot off with weapons hot. Admiral Gloval must be thinking similarly as he deployed mecha to follow Dragon's suits.
These suits were equipped for SAR as well so they also had missiles of my material in some of their leg missile pods. Between that and the towels issued to the pilots of the Mecha balls, I could feel where a lot of the combatants were moving. A number of the capes present were also sporting towels now being draped around their head as word got around.
Those got changed to helmets as I noticed them. Some were already hurt in minor ways, from debris or hail being carried in the strong winds.
"Ice and hail warning. And this is without contact on the Happy Fun Balls." Someone announced on the general line.
"Are those still a thing?" The bluette of the bridge crew asked in a stage whisper.
The pinkette was rolling a huge trackball around, tongue just showing. "Don't know, don't care. Bring the point protection on the starboard closer to the front, I have the port and will keep it back a ways."
I glanced to the side and saw the Chief slide a fresh coffee cup under a nozzle, filling it half way. He nodded a salute with the cup.
Huh, no one in here had a towel or anything of mine. I did the magicians scarf routine, pulling multiple colored scarves out. Bundling them in my hand I had them untie and held them out for the honor guard to take hold of.
"Pass these out to those on the bridge. Tuck them into skin contact and I can heal remotely as well as track you."
"Ma'am, we have hardsuits on. The bridge crew have belt force fields. I hardly think."
I smirk. "Then don't hurt yourself starting now. Those balls operate just fine at grape size and they could get into the air system from a breach. Do you want to be the only one missing an eye because you are standing closer to the vents?"
The chief nods again, this time waving the guard to do as I ask.
"Were the towels passed out to all the other crew?"
He nodded. "All the mecha pilots."
"All the CREW?" I repeat, stronger.
He grimaced slightly. "Med bay and Bridge crew are the only ones NOT mecha pilots."
"Then have the remainder sent to Med bay." I note.
Admiral Gloval accepts his and ties it around his left wrist, tucked into his sleeve. This seems to make everyone else far more at ease accepting theirs. Oh right, I gave him a hankie before and he'd stuffed that into a pocket. At least this one was in skin contact.
******************
In the blowing winds above the hail level, Alexandria pauses. Eidolon is floating on his own now holding onto her belt, his first slot taken with a forcefield, second with a lesser flight. His third slot was another kind of shield that slowed the wind further out and blocked fast moving objects such as the smaller balls and ground them together to dust.
Hand to her ear to hear herself. "Dragon, Blanket, this is Alexandria. I have a central ball shape in sight. Visor cam should show it ahead of me."
Dragon caused the video relay to come up on the screen in front of me.
"I'm not seeing it Alexandria, is it in the cloud on screen." I asked.
"That is the ball!" She shouted back, just to make herself audible. "It's over a mile wide! It has a spiral of lesser balls in every size between itself and grapes in formation around it!"
Gloval cut in. "Can you give us coordinates for a firing solution?"
"Who is this?" She called. "What range, you are too far out!"
"Admiral Gloval of the HGMS Hero II, our main gun is line of sight OVER the horizon." He slapped a fist into his palm, a two finger gesture following. We all felt it as the Hero II transitioned to Bet proper using the ship's portal. I guess they were able to get the readings when I dropped off the Chessie and supports.
Dragon spoke up. "They are allies from another dimension."
I could hear over her comm Eidolon commenting. "Want to bet they came from Blanket Space?"
The image shook for a moment, like she laughed.
"Admiral, Dragon has our coords and can extrapolate your firing solution. Give me a ranging shot!" Alexandria added.
They were as bad as teenagers. I ignored my own blush starting when I felt Kid put his hand in mine for a squeeze.
Klaxons sounded on the Hero II as the main deck of the Aircraft carrier seemed to split down the middle along lines of bright yellow flashers.
Kid, back at his station, drew in his breath sharply. The lightning playing across the sky was suddenly less bright than the crack down the middle of the ship.
"Gehenna round away." The chief spoke up.
"What are we expecting to see?" Alexandria asks.
The Admiral stood from his chair. I saw the icon on the chart displayed moving from the ship icon toward the two capes and the designated target.
"From hell's heart, I stab at thee." He intoned.
"Break left, break left! Danger close!" Dragon's voice called over the comms.
Something on the video sped by the two capes, already the size of a semi trailer and expanding as it moved. In front of it, a portal similar to what Baity makes was projected, plasma and liquid iron spilling across the edge as it moved.
It was moving very fast already. I could see that Dragon slowed down the final second flickering images on the screen.
"You holed it, that's for sure. But it didn't seem to react much!" Alexandria noted. The mile wide sphere had shown a gaping wound of orange fire for a moment, but it seemed to 'heal' over.
"How many rounds like that do you carry?" She asked.
I was more concerned with the sudden activity heading our way. "Not enough for that." I speak up.
"Your majesty, you wound my pride. Let's show our liege what the Hero is made of, shall we? Detonate the first shell."
I wasn't the only one to refocus on the sphere as the blast reopened the first wound, then blasted several other holes the same size in other directions.
"Prepare to receive boarding action. Down five hundred and free fire on any movement. Mr. Win, you as well." He smiled.
The chief intoned. "Second round downrange. Switching to Neptune. Random seed initiated."
As the first wave of smaller spheres headed our way, the mecha acting as turrets opened up with red blue and green pulses.
"What are the weapon types?" Kid asked.
The chief answered, balancing his coffee and codes into a ten key pad. "Same effects really, just colored to make targeting easier. Kinetic with a touch of plasma. You may be familiar with the design, your analog had a lot to do with them."
"No shit. Did he do an alternator cannon?"
The chief blanched. "THAT monstrosity?! You brought an unstable nuclear accelerated rail gun onto this ship?!"
Gloval chuckled. "Now chief, Mr. Win here has had some time to perfect this device, with assets like their Leet and Armsmaster for input. Correct?"
"Never had them look at it." Kid replied. "But it isn't an unstable nuclear reaction. I do modules, and this one is gravity shear mixed with antiphoton particles." He smiled deeply as he depressed the thumb triggers. "I call them Clumper beams."
There was a pause as his quad weapons shot blasts forward not really seeming to change things.
"Why is that?"
Kid gestured downrange as the smaller spheres were dragged toward one another, with pairs beginning to annihilate as they touched. Groups made bigger explosions as they came together at once. "Clumps."
Beams of yellow speared out of the wave of balls toward the ship and turrets. They detonated on the individual shields mostly. The pinpoint barriers drew in the energy, growing stronger as they blocked shots.
"Alexandria, you may want to back away to the side this time." Gloval advised.
I leaned in to the chief. "Does … he have a …problem… with Alexandria?"
The chief rolled his eyes. "She was part of a secret cabal that…" he paused. "You know about that?"
"Broke it up, made it my own. Reformed, like I said."
He winced. "Right, you did say. Our Alexandria was a key actor in the death --or ascension-- of our Princess."
"What is the difference?" I asked.
"Don't know. Not hugely religious myself. She hasn't appeared as anything more than puppets for thirty years to us. Our Alexandria was rooting for her capture if not death."
"Your majesty, do you have something to add?" Admiral Gloval could still turn on the formal military when he wanted to.
"This isn't your Alexandria, Admiral." I raise an eyebrow at him, "Or were you planning to break the truce over an old grudge?"
His blush said it all. "Ah, no your majesty. It was not my intent…" He pulled the cloth free to wipe his brow and I healed him.
There was a minor flash of memory, he'd been in the PRT and worked with his Alexandria when she was Ward aged. Her betrayal was personal I suppose. But my power helped remind him that there was a difference between then and NOW.
"Thank you, your majesty." he spoke quietly, then turned back to the fight.
I'd missed the Neptune round hitting. The darkness swept in and a large amount of the spheres were just not there when the screen cleared.
And then the spheres were pelting the shields protecting the ship, a vast umbrella.
Flying mecha were streaming out of doorways along the side of the ship. The forcefield flickered as they passed, the disruption allowing grapeshot sized spheres inside the fields.
"Prepare for boarding action." Chief intoned.
The bridge crew activated their personal fields. Kid glanced my way as his helmet deployed to cover his face as well.
I was left unprotected, but in my Blanket state made of Endbringer material I should be safe enough.
The bluette made me worry more when she spoke up. "Admiral, several mecha lost to enemy action. They were holed and overwhelmed from the inside. Pilots report they are unable to move and are being crushed even with personal fields."
"Where are these mecha?" The chief asked suddenly more intense.
"Coming back aboard now. Wait! They aren't being piloted. Oh.my.Goddess!" She cried out, tears clear.
The internal screens showed the trojan horses expelling tiny spheres into the interior of the ship. Marines with rifles like the guard were deploying, mecha pilots without their mecha trying to help. Hand weapons and rifles did little against the tide.
Kid Win set his SurfTank to autofire, now including spheres INSIDE mecha as valid targets and stepped in front of me, behind the three guards.
"Towels!" I spoke. My mind was racing to save as many of the pilots as I could, my healing drawn to the pressure injuries. Any I couldn't protect for long I popped into Blanket Space forcibly removing them from the battle.
Even there they weren't totally protected as handfuls of the spheres crossed over with them, still attacking.
The guards threw themselves at the door and at the vent, trying to block passage of the spheres onto the bridge.
"Deploy countermeasures." Chief noted. Apparently they had sweeper bots that had weaponry on them. Huh, they swept the ceiling too from the fact the shallow cylinders deployed from there like little mobile turrets.
A few grape sized spheres got through and I found them aiming for me explicitly.
The dark coloring, some with red from blood found on the way in, gave way to a small number of white ones.
Oh shit, those are made of the same material I am. And they open like little Pac Man with eyeballs showing inside the mouth as they come at me.
At the house, Daniel Hebert is sitting there on the couch on the giant-sized coffee table with a stunned expression on his face.
Annette, flying over on one of the first generation 'printed' hoverboards Kid Win had gifted them just a few days ago was out of the loop until she followed his hand pointing to the screen.
A clearly older version of Danny himself was just shaking out some bits of tech from his hair and neck after Taylor gave him a hug. The volume had been low enough for easy conversation, but they both reached for the remote to turn it up.
His own voice sounded out. "Another Taylor to take the crown up seems like just the thing..."
He missed the next few seconds as Annette shouted "YES!", holding her hand with one finger up. "Score! And now we have our choice of retirement amenities with no need for explanations or big payouts."
Rubbing a fingertip in his ear, Danny glanced around. "I thought you liked it here in Blanket Space?"
Annette raised her eyebrows a bit. "After the addition of the golden family jewels?" She shook her head, then nodded to Simmie on her oversized rocking chair. "Present company excluded, this place is starting to reek of testosterone."
Simmie smirked and made a gesture starting with hands a foot apart, then closing them together slowly, pretending to pinch something with one in the palm of the other and toss it away.
"I don't grok the pantomime routine but I bet she is saying that Scion isn't going to be a long term feature." Danny spoke up.
Simmie smiled and did finger guns to him. It was odd how she looked small in the immense chair, only around nine feet tall. A doll to the chair, but still almost twice a regular person --according to Annette.
The screen on the TV seemed to brighten as streaks of many colors flowed from the center outward. It was eye watering stuff. They turned away to check the laptop feeds. Oorja Toophaan was already making landfall across multiple locations. It was that big.
While it was not sending tidal waves ahead of it, the storm surge was already endangering the locals and the Endbringer inside was still toying with them.
************************
Captain Gloval listened with one ear as he tried to hold down his gorge. His stomach felt like it was hundreds of miles behind, towed on a bumpy ocean surface like those damn skiers.
I reached out and touched him, clearing the sickness without a thought. "Have a hanky. Skin contact is enough to start fixing things. Better yet, let me distribute a load of them."
I feel around in a pocket, making it big enough to pull out the shipping container that had been anchored in place below the 'house' back the way we came.
Bringing that out in the ward room was out, but I was able to open the doors and send a stream of the hankies out to those in the ward room itself. Then I began sending them out to the hall through the open door in stacks, putting them in hands to distribute further. With all the fighter jocks peering in for the last minute briefing we were giving --who am I kidding, most of them were just there to bow a moment and kiss their T shaped icons before moving on-- the hankies were snatched and dispersed.
These people were a lot healthier on average, something to do with the 'Medicos' a large group of healing focused capes. There were a few things they didn't seem to care much about, blemishes or minor scars. Hope that one guy didn't care that the tattoo he'd gotten to hide a scar now covered only clear skin. I was proud of myself that I even could distinguish the tattoo and not remove it.
And then there were the cyber implants. Had to quickly learn what wasn't supposed to be fixed out of the way.
It was a few minutes longer than I'd expected because I kept having to correct our course at this speed. It wasn't because of horizon effects or the shape of Earth. What it felt like was that the Hero II was trying to break through and return to its home zone if I wasn't around to keep it here.
"Your Majesty, you look like you are tiring." The bluette spoke up.
"The ship is like a shopping cart with a bad wheel, it keeps trying to correct back to your home … plane? Have we decided what to call the alternates yet?"
Remotely Armsmaster hemmed a bit. "We have been saying dimensions, but there appear to be other factors involved if they cross apparent time divergences."
Gloval chuckled at that. "You really do sound alike… Our theorists say that they can also differ in the constant of material decay, effecting time compared across the dimensions. It sounds like ours runs just a smidgeon faster."
I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just nodded. Apparently that was the right answer because I saw camera phones raised.
I brought the speed of the battle group back down to something less like a blur of reality, keeping the other ships lined up for an easier transition.
"Coming up on the gate point for the Chessie and the support ships. Galaga fighters hold near the Chessie, all but your top three. Those come with the Surftank …"
I paused as Captain Gloval pleaded with his eyes, "and an honor guard of the mecha from the Hero II. We will exit a lot closer to Oorja Toophaan, as near the the center as Alexandria and Eidolon can get."
His frown said it all. "That one…" He harrumphed. "She was the devil herself, black hearted wench…" His voice ground to a stop at my raised eyebrow --matched by the bear eyebrow as well.
"THIS Alexandria is … reformed. She is wearing a costume I made, and you have already seen what my stuff does to sicknesses, including those of the head." I note calmly.
I was not ready for the echo of the room saying, "As she will it, so shall it be."
Kid Win leaned in to whisper in my ear. "Don't let them inflate your head, missy." He said in a bad accent.
**************
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Waiting in the old metal building at the port with the others sent over for SAR, he mused over his chances with the other capes here. Some villain, some hero, a smattering of corporates and one lonely K-Pop girl.
"Fran, you know you don't have to do this right?" His coworkers in the Protectorate were always so nice to him once they realized he wasn't trying to hit on every guy in sight. He was a Mover though, and even though he wasn't all that strong a Brute he was exactly what they asked for for this Endbringer fight.
The fact that he already had a costume that fit the requisite needs was icing. He still couldn't believe that girl whipped it up without some kind of Thinker power to match his size and ah proclivities. He was extra hammy, emulating the old Bugs Bunny in a crossdressing attitude in what was essentially an open purple Ninja style jacket over a light pink tank top. The pants were close to the Ninja style but had suspenders in eye gouging purple. Black fingerless gloves and toed shoes gave it a slight tinge of camouflage effect in shadows if he pulled the jacket shut, but his style of movement often flung it open to show the bedazzled additions he'd added to the pink top.
And the pink bunny ears added to the hood trailed behind him as he ran like streamers.
Heaven.
"It's Bunbun while we have the gear on, dear heart." He moued at her behind a peace sign, mostly hidden by the purple veil. "So what are these extra gear bags for?"
The heavy girl in ALL-THE-BOWS and ballerina tutu chuckled deeply. She was a Brute with a …ah... hefty side of Mover herself. Three hundred pounds despite only looking like two at five foot even, her powers let her start a conga dance line and pull another eleven or so along in her wake as light as a feather as long as they met the prerequisite shadowing two or three dance steps. The dancing schtick with all the bows had her being called BowDan no matter what PR tried so they rolled with it.
She passed over a bag full of terry cloth towels.
"Seriously?" Bunbun pulled one out by a corner like it would bite him. "What is this, the Hitchhiker's Guide?"
The PRT Troop bringing another box of towels barked a short laugh. "Too right!" He pointed at the white material. "That there is gen-u-ine Blanket material. See blood, slap it on. One per customer unless a past customer is no longer bleeding. You know when it is ready when it turns white again."
BowDan's brow furrowed. "Blanket... Why is that name familiar?"
The Troop laughed. "Your costumes were made by her, it's one of the reasons you got sent this far forward. Otherwise you'd be told to put the first towel out of your bag down the front of your costume and keep it in skin contact."
Bunbun touched his ninja-esque suit. "They just told me that it was from some costume maker from near Boston. I just sort of assumed it was Parian."
"Same kid who --ah-- removed the first three Endbringers?" BowDan asked, looking a little wide eyed now.
That, he'd heard of. Getting them off the board counted as beating in his eyes, along with a significant portion of the population. Gulp.
"The very same."
*******************************
"Has there been contact?" Gloval asked his subordinates.
The bluette answered. "Nothing direct. Reports of ships damaged indirectly, storms and hail mostly but some energy weapons. The few resorts or towns we can see from drone footage are ghost towns."
Dragon spoke up. "We have found a local broadcaster who set up a camera uplink to do an on scene interview. He got two minutes into it before the connection dropped. It … is disturbing."
A screen to the side begins showing a standard weather report in the teeth of the storm. As the man speaks in a local dialect a shadow behind him darkens and drops out of the sky. He appears to notice it, turns, but is immediately engulfed by a cloud of flying ...things. BB sized or smaller. The video could be compared to video of piranha flensing meat from bone but the bone is also reduced. The cloud clears and a pair of glasses, a watch and a microphone drop from where they'd been held. The camera is destroyed by a barrage of small beams, cutting the video.
Dragon rewound a bit and advanced frame by frame.
"The attackers are spherical, no visible means of flight. The ones taking in mass appear to grow in size." A section of the scene is zoomed in from the top. "There is a single fist sized unit controlling these smaller ones. By extrapolation, there is a hierarchy of size."
Gloval hums. "This is different from Inkblot. Those were artificial macro cells with a crystalline core. Does that mean the clouds are full of these things?"
"Hazard gear." I manage to say above a whisper.
"What was that, your majesty?" Gloval asked, alert.
I give him a bit of glare over the title, but forge on. "We need to advise all groups to fully cover, with hazard gear." I point at the screen. "The spheres went for the eyes and soft tissue first. It didn't eat his glasses or electronics, so maybe plastic is enough to protect but it seems clear that no protection is a death sentence."
I consider a moment. "Dragon, advise all forward units to wrap a towel over their face and head if they don't have full coverage. I can harden them as helmets with lenses if I feel the towels on any face. Have them prioritize putting a towel on the face of survivors as well."
"As you say, your majesty." Dragon replies.
Groaning. "Not you too!"
Next to me, Chris pats my shoulder. "Better get used to it."
Several of Gloval's troops stiffen at the familiarity of his touch, hands on sidearms.
Gloval chuckles. "Better get used to that, young man."
*************************
I was busy the next ten minutes or so turning towels into helmets with clear material woven as tight nets over the eyes for a large number of the Chessie crew, a couple of hundred face shaped towels in Blanket Space ahead of us in the forward deployed capes.
"If I am busy healing or managing defense like this I may not be doing much in the fight itself." I state.
Admirals Gloval and Chang both let out a held breath of relief, though the latter was displayed on the hologram projection from the Chessie.
Chang scratched an ear. "She is the single point of failure for our best weapon system to date not involving capes."
Gloval shook his head a little. "Our princess was much more of a front line combatant, but she had options to spare."
I grimaced as I went back to work, just enough consciousness left to listen to the two exchanging history. Luckily Gloval's history was not focused on his Earth Bet's last thirty years but on the other dimension or else there might be problems with stock predictions and tech trends that would wreck our recovering economy.
He did commiserate on the recent China issue, noting that the Chinese elite party members were mostly dicks, which got a chuckle.
Mention of the plagues got a doctor involved, and I was aware enough to pass over one of many spare tubes of Panacea's cure all in a frozen roll of cloth in a test tube.
That same doctor took a swab of my saliva and a little piece of skin with the gold thread showing. I healed the spot back before she even had the sample in a tube.
Shooing him off with a hand wave got a snicker from the bridge crew.
Kid Win had set up his remote terminal to control his Surf Tank like it was a turret here on the Hero II. He laughed that it made the ship armed beyond just having mecha playing at being anti aircraft.
"Young man, I will take pleasure in making you eat that remark when we deploy the main gun." Gloval paused. "And do not traverse below 5 degrees, I will not allow blue on blue on my ship!"
"Yessir." Kid Win answered without rancor.
I was lost in thought as other pieces of me came into range. There was Alexandria and Eidolon maybe ten miles ahead in real space. And then other familiar pieces came into view in Blanket Space.
"You have got to be kidding me!"
Gloval was adjusting his view ahead, now seeing the hundreds of towels shaped as heads in Blanket Space well below the level his ship would pass. And the costumes, several now also sporting towel helmets.
"What is God's name is that?" He asked.
Raising a hand up. "Any of my material not in Blanket Space and separate from me has an echo in Blanket Space of where it is. We have forward observers and SAR teams deployed and once we realized they needed hazard gear --well, terry cloth Endbringer material helmets." I shrug.
He rubbed his chin, muttering. "The resemblance is truly uncanny."
************************
Hebert House, Blanket Space.
"Collin, the first wave is starting to make landfall in areas with human habitation. We can't just let those people be devoured!" Dragon turned to him fully. Emotions with a body to express them could be a problem now.
He in turn pointed to the rows of Dragon suits prepped for deployment. "How many can you handle once things get too busy for Blanket to deploy?"
"With the advanced cores we made with Leet's printer tech, I can handle hundreds for most situations. For this fight, probably a quarter of that."
"Then it is a good thing I did a run of AR controllers to pass out to our volunteer troopers." He waved to the crowd of regular troopers who were sitting on folding chairs brought into Blanket Space and set up on the porch --coincidentally the furthest point of the house away from the Endbringers.
"You take manual control of twenty-four. I will take one and the troops will guide twenty-six to one hundred. If you lose one, just override and take one from the slowest reacting suits pool."
She paused. "What about EMP?"
"Each of your suits has a towel wrapped around the processor cage set to Endbringer material. That all but blocks radio waves, and the signals for these are coming through the same material from Blanket Space."
Dragon got a far off look in her eyes. "Blanket, give me the portal from the house to your location, suits coming through."
********************
Well, this part was a bit distracting. Holding portals open in Blanket Space to other parts of Blanket Space was new, but it worked. It only made it feel like I pushed one hand into my right ear canal to exit my left, reach around and touch my nose.
Once there they dropped into normal space --well, Earth Bet anyway-- and shot off with weapons hot. Admiral Gloval must be thinking similarly as he deployed mecha to follow Dragon's suits.
These suits were equipped for SAR as well so they also had missiles of my material in some of their leg missile pods. Between that and the towels issued to the pilots of the Mecha balls, I could feel where a lot of the combatants were moving. A number of the capes present were also sporting towels now being draped around their head as word got around.
Those got changed to helmets as I noticed them. Some were already hurt in minor ways, from debris or hail being carried in the strong winds.
"Ice and hail warning. And this is without contact on the Happy Fun Balls." Someone announced on the general line.
"Are those still a thing?" The bluette of the bridge crew asked in a stage whisper.
The pinkette was rolling a huge trackball around, tongue just showing. "Don't know, don't care. Bring the point protection on the starboard closer to the front, I have the port and will keep it back a ways."
I glanced to the side and saw the Chief slide a fresh coffee cup under a nozzle, filling it half way. He nodded a salute with the cup.
Huh, no one in here had a towel or anything of mine. I did the magicians scarf routine, pulling multiple colored scarves out. Bundling them in my hand I had them untie and held them out for the honor guard to take hold of.
"Pass these out to those on the bridge. Tuck them into skin contact and I can heal remotely as well as track you."
"Ma'am, we have hardsuits on. The bridge crew have belt force fields. I hardly think."
I smirk. "Then don't hurt yourself starting now. Those balls operate just fine at grape size and they could get into the air system from a breach. Do you want to be the only one missing an eye because you are standing closer to the vents?"
The chief nods again, this time waving the guard to do as I ask.
"Were the towels passed out to all the other crew?"
He nodded. "All the mecha pilots."
"All the CREW?" I repeat, stronger.
He grimaced slightly. "Med bay and Bridge crew are the only ones NOT mecha pilots."
"Then have the remainder sent to Med bay." I note.
Admiral Gloval accepts his and ties it around his left wrist, tucked into his sleeve. This seems to make everyone else far more at ease accepting theirs. Oh right, I gave him a hankie before and he'd stuffed that into a pocket. At least this one was in skin contact.
******************
In the blowing winds above the hail level, Alexandria pauses. Eidolon is floating on his own now holding onto her belt, his first slot taken with a forcefield, second with a lesser flight. His third slot was another kind of shield that slowed the wind further out and blocked fast moving objects such as the smaller balls and ground them together to dust.
Hand to her ear to hear herself. "Dragon, Blanket, this is Alexandria. I have a central ball shape in sight. Visor cam should show it ahead of me."
Dragon caused the video relay to come up on the screen in front of me.
"I'm not seeing it Alexandria, is it in the cloud on screen." I asked.
"That is the ball!" She shouted back, just to make herself audible. "It's over a mile wide! It has a spiral of lesser balls in every size between itself and grapes in formation around it!"
Gloval cut in. "Can you give us coordinates for a firing solution?"
"Who is this?" She called. "What range, you are too far out!"
"Admiral Gloval of the HGMS Hero II, our main gun is line of sight OVER the horizon." He slapped a fist into his palm, a two finger gesture following. We all felt it as the Hero II transitioned to Bet proper using the ship's portal. I guess they were able to get the readings when I dropped off the Chessie and supports.
Dragon spoke up. "They are allies from another dimension."
I could hear over her comm Eidolon commenting. "Want to bet they came from Blanket Space?"
The image shook for a moment, like she laughed.
"Admiral, Dragon has our coords and can extrapolate your firing solution. Give me a ranging shot!" Alexandria added.
They were as bad as teenagers. I ignored my own blush starting when I felt Kid put his hand in mine for a squeeze.
Klaxons sounded on the Hero II as the main deck of the Aircraft carrier seemed to split down the middle along lines of bright yellow flashers.
Kid, back at his station, drew in his breath sharply. The lightning playing across the sky was suddenly less bright than the crack down the middle of the ship.
"Gehenna round away." The chief spoke up.
"What are we expecting to see?" Alexandria asks.
The Admiral stood from his chair. I saw the icon on the chart displayed moving from the ship icon toward the two capes and the designated target.
"From hell's heart, I stab at thee." He intoned.
"Break left, break left! Danger close!" Dragon's voice called over the comms.
Something on the video sped by the two capes, already the size of a semi trailer and expanding as it moved. In front of it, a portal similar to what Baity makes was projected, plasma and liquid iron spilling across the edge as it moved.
It was moving very fast already. I could see that Dragon slowed down the final second flickering images on the screen.
"You holed it, that's for sure. But it didn't seem to react much!" Alexandria noted. The mile wide sphere had shown a gaping wound of orange fire for a moment, but it seemed to 'heal' over.
"How many rounds like that do you carry?" She asked.
I was more concerned with the sudden activity heading our way. "Not enough for that." I speak up.
"Your majesty, you wound my pride. Let's show our liege what the Hero is made of, shall we? Detonate the first shell."
I wasn't the only one to refocus on the sphere as the blast reopened the first wound, then blasted several other holes the same size in other directions.
"Prepare to receive boarding action. Down five hundred and free fire on any movement. Mr. Win, you as well." He smiled.
The chief intoned. "Second round downrange. Switching to Neptune. Random seed initiated."
As the first wave of smaller spheres headed our way, the mecha acting as turrets opened up with red blue and green pulses.
"What are the weapon types?" Kid asked.
The chief answered, balancing his coffee and codes into a ten key pad. "Same effects really, just colored to make targeting easier. Kinetic with a touch of plasma. You may be familiar with the design, your analog had a lot to do with them."
"No shit. Did he do an alternator cannon?"
The chief blanched. "THAT monstrosity?! You brought an unstable nuclear accelerated rail gun onto this ship?!"
Gloval chuckled. "Now chief, Mr. Win here has had some time to perfect this device, with assets like their Leet and Armsmaster for input. Correct?"
"Never had them look at it." Kid replied. "But it isn't an unstable nuclear reaction. I do modules, and this one is gravity shear mixed with antiphoton particles." He smiled deeply as he depressed the thumb triggers. "I call them Clumper beams."
There was a pause as his quad weapons shot blasts forward not really seeming to change things.
"Why is that?"
Kid gestured downrange as the smaller spheres were dragged toward one another, with pairs beginning to annihilate as they touched. Groups made bigger explosions as they came together at once. "Clumps."
Beams of yellow speared out of the wave of balls toward the ship and turrets. They detonated on the individual shields mostly. The pinpoint barriers drew in the energy, growing stronger as they blocked shots.
"Alexandria, you may want to back away to the side this time." Gloval advised.
I leaned in to the chief. "Does … he have a …problem… with Alexandria?"
The chief rolled his eyes. "She was part of a secret cabal that…" he paused. "You know about that?"
"Broke it up, made it my own. Reformed, like I said."
He winced. "Right, you did say. Our Alexandria was a key actor in the death --or ascension-- of our Princess."
"What is the difference?" I asked.
"Don't know. Not hugely religious myself. She hasn't appeared as anything more than puppets for thirty years to us. Our Alexandria was rooting for her capture if not death."
"Your majesty, do you have something to add?" Admiral Gloval could still turn on the formal military when he wanted to.
"This isn't your Alexandria, Admiral." I raise an eyebrow at him, "Or were you planning to break the truce over an old grudge?"
His blush said it all. "Ah, no your majesty. It was not my intent…" He pulled the cloth free to wipe his brow and I healed him.
There was a minor flash of memory, he'd been in the PRT and worked with his Alexandria when she was Ward aged. Her betrayal was personal I suppose. But my power helped remind him that there was a difference between then and NOW.
"Thank you, your majesty." he spoke quietly, then turned back to the fight.
I'd missed the Neptune round hitting. The darkness swept in and a large amount of the spheres were just not there when the screen cleared.
And then the spheres were pelting the shields protecting the ship, a vast umbrella.
Flying mecha were streaming out of doorways along the side of the ship. The forcefield flickered as they passed, the disruption allowing grapeshot sized spheres inside the fields.
"Prepare for boarding action." Chief intoned.
The bridge crew activated their personal fields. Kid glanced my way as his helmet deployed to cover his face as well.
I was left unprotected, but in my Blanket state made of Endbringer material I should be safe enough.
The bluette made me worry more when she spoke up. "Admiral, several mecha lost to enemy action. They were holed and overwhelmed from the inside. Pilots report they are unable to move and are being crushed even with personal fields."
"Where are these mecha?" The chief asked suddenly more intense.
"Coming back aboard now. Wait! They aren't being piloted. Oh.my.Goddess!" She cried out, tears clear.
The internal screens showed the trojan horses expelling tiny spheres into the interior of the ship. Marines with rifles like the guard were deploying, mecha pilots without their mecha trying to help. Hand weapons and rifles did little against the tide.
Kid Win set his SurfTank to autofire, now including spheres INSIDE mecha as valid targets and stepped in front of me, behind the three guards.
"Towels!" I spoke. My mind was racing to save as many of the pilots as I could, my healing drawn to the pressure injuries. Any I couldn't protect for long I popped into Blanket Space forcibly removing them from the battle.
Even there they weren't totally protected as handfuls of the spheres crossed over with them, still attacking.
The guards threw themselves at the door and at the vent, trying to block passage of the spheres onto the bridge.
"Deploy countermeasures." Chief noted. Apparently they had sweeper bots that had weaponry on them. Huh, they swept the ceiling too from the fact the shallow cylinders deployed from there like little mobile turrets.
A few grape sized spheres got through and I found them aiming for me explicitly.
The dark coloring, some with red from blood found on the way in, gave way to a small number of white ones.
Oh shit, those are made of the same material I am. And they open like little Pac Man with eyeballs showing inside the mouth as they come at me.
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... You watched that one episode of Doctor Who with the people from the end of time's heads in metal balls, before writing this, didn't you?
missing"
Nice update!
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
Have seen it several times. There is a bit of that as a reference. But also the Rularuu (sp?) from City of Heroes --and Mot from there as well.
Take three nightmares, add ice, blend and serve.
edit: @goku90504 Think I got your edits and a few other minor rewordings (and Global -> Gloval, Google Docs just would not admit I wanted to spell it that way).
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ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
Let's recap.
Blanket and co are heading off to fight Endbringer #4 in Malaysia of Earth Bet. Along the way in Blanket Space they run into explorers hailing from "Nine Lives of the Calico" --another of my fics where Alt Taylor was --depending on who you ask-- a teenage S-Class, a Queen, an Empress (Mostly an inside joke, that, among thousands of Taylor clones). Nine Lives ended with Taylor ascending/dying, again viewpoint, her colonized worlds cutting themselves off from their Earth Bet because of treachery. They continue to explore the universe with gate technology and found traces of a Blanket gate to their known world of "Jurassic" and followed it to Blanket Space. The ship showed up on video waaay back when Weld was helping Blanket test her 'space'.
The folks from Nine Lives have their own 'Danny' along who is the de facto ruler as the only relation to their lost Queen (since he is now the King, they refer to her as Princess to avoid confusion of who is in charge). Their Danny essentially recognizes Taylor on the spot, making her his heir and steps down in one motion. Hot potato. While the worlds involved will have to ratify the change, the crew onboard tend to be the religious sort and she represents thirty years worth of reverence.
They return to Blanket's Earth Bet to engage the Endbringer, who is a multitasking nasty --can you say QA-bringer?
Next week, on Taylor Ball Z. "Kamehameha WEAVE!"
Edit: Fixed link issues
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- Location
- Море песка, солнце огня и множество злых сарацин
Sadness. Sadness is happening. It's going to get sadder before it gets even sadder.
I guess I should probably wait for another dozen or two chapters. I probably won't be able to make my way through this otherwise.
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
Woah there man. I'm not dead yet nor contemplating a looming anything. I see no great 'sad's inbound, nor am I about to off any (named anyway) characters soonish.
I AM in the middle of a favorite time of year in City of Heroes, lasts thru 1st week of November. Homecoming Excelsior, onPumpConLeaf and FaceMask mostly. I may slip off for s chappie in between no promises... No grimderp.
Seriously, one of my biggest drives to write is lack of good fics going strong and a lot of authors be churning out quality right now.
Be seeing you round space cowboy.
- Location
- Somewhere
it'll get worse, but then it'll get better and keep climbing higher than before
like when Taylor was suspected of being a ziz bomb
like when Taylor was suspected of being a ziz bomb
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
************ School 7 --Pop Quiz
Kid's armor shows some extra features I hadn't noticed before now as he tries to shield me. The bulges on his back, pectorals, shoulders and thighs that I assumed were more storage or armor expanded outward a bit, unfolding into --well-- turrets is about the best word for them.
As the bulges unfold, several of them totally disconnect and hover using miniature versions of his hoverboard lift. The barrels of gunports show that each has a number of his original handgun in --miniature-- built into the oblong unit, able to adjust to fire in one direction or many. They must be computer controlled because he isn't just firing wild.
Shots ring out, each picking off an eyeball. He was prioritizing the ones getting past the guards, but also targeting the ones likely to harm them from behind.
My mind is locked into healing anyone wearing my material, stretching my power thin and making me react slowly.
The first of the eyeballs reached my position, aiming for my throat as the Chief twisted his hand weapon from a gun position to something closer to a fan made of energy, using it as both a shield and a weapon to stop the attacks.
He gets the next three before he is overwhelmed and I am once again stretched further as I am healing him, Goval and the girls who have all had suit breaches as the jaws that act as eyelids to these things bite through.
My vision dims as one of them gets to me, the bite unfelt compared to the pain the feedback on my powers is pushing my way.
I have been actively pushing the wounded or endangered into Blanket Space, the strain of so many portals at once like a million paper cuts doused in iodine at once.
"All fire control on automatic! Full reverse! Take us on a parade!" Goval's voice called out. His own eye patch was gone now, a golden piece of Tinkertech whirling as his power absorbed information on the ship and its crew.
Their voices were slowed down as I felt us begin to move through one of their portals, backwards this time…
***************
Chris saw the little things like hornets getting around the guards, evading defense meant for larger attackers. "Exec Flower."
His suit VI was nothing on Dragon, it was barely an intelligence at this point. But he'd been studying her origins since she shared her original coding to Armsmaster and hence the PRT. This was more of a macro, that set all his weapons firing on anything meeting the current target parameters, to continue doing so until ordered to stop.
His menu system let him target waypoints for his tech, all of his tech. So he put his pipper on the next round being loaded into the Hero II railgun and set the Surf Tank to dock with it.
Captain Gloval's hand clicked on 'Munitions change authorization' which hadn't fully displayed on his chair's control screen. His attention was then caught fully in the next thirty second of his ship's life --and a tear caught in his eye as the timeline fractured in his power's eye. Strong Thinker's could do that --or Endbringers. He lived the death of the ship and crew in three of four. His only prayer that he picked the right set of actions to avoid those fates.
The flurry of laser fire became a frenzy as Mr. Win's weapons unfolded. The Captain's chair turning to bring his own hand weapon to play seemed to be stuck in molasses.
Ducking to his right saved him from a throat rending. Putting his hand up with weapon hot saved the pinkette duty officer from a shattered face shield but he couldn't block the following two, nor did he stop the one brushing his temple --the teeth severing the cord holding his eyepatch in place as well as taking a portion of his right ear. His face shield was … just gone. Cold air hit his neck where it had entered and he shivered with how close it had come to killing him in one pass.
"All fire control on automatic! Full reverse! Take us on a parade!" He ground out in a full command voice.
"Execute!" Alice called, blue hair draping down as she used the left hand to trigger the right hand controls. Her right was injured, her suit there holed with a limp look that suggested there was a lot less arm than there should be in the sleeve.
Gwen was gamely rolling her trackball while stomping at a damaged eyeball trying for her leg. From the look, she'd shot it with her weapon as it took a bite of her hip. The pinkette cheered as a sudden brightness lit part of the bridge. "Point defense on interior…"
Her voice was just gone. A limp, empty suit dropped to her chair.
Alice was gone moments later.
Captain Gloval could not be sure with how his power worked if he saw it happen once, or four times, the difference here was that the point defense field --a white disc of energy conforming to the surface it was projected on-- was inside the bridge, blocking the exit as well as the vents.
That was … not possible. It would have had to traverse the open entrance and halls to this block. Shaking his head, he saw the wave of eyeballs, some grown to the size of oranges now heading his way or more accurately, toward his new liege lady.
The point defense circle incinerated all it touched, but there were plenty already inside, some of them streaming out of the now empty bridge guard suits.
His own suit was a mess. The one that took the chunk of his ear had removed much of the front, cutting through the material like it wasn't there. It had impacted the clear shield like a ram only because it's mouth had been shut as it hit.
Gloval felt the healing coming through the Blanket material his liege has given him. He felt the feedback, a silent scream of anguish, of loss.
As his ship shot backward on his new course, he saw and felt as the more injured or in danger were shunted to Blanket Space like fighter pilots ejecting from downed mecha. He had time to wonder if his command would be a ghost ship before it finished transitioning through the current portal his orders set up, or would it after the next portal.
A "Parade" would take the last transition back, then cycle through the worlds known as 'Hell Worlds'. Gehenna. Jurassik, Green, Jupiter, Beetlejuice, Forge.
There had been more at one point. Some of them were closed off when it turned out they were not as unoccupied as one could hope. Others were contaminated by the things the Empire had left there and been ruled worse than hell.
His last view of his ship's bridge showed a veritable statue of his lady, with Chief wielding a Lazefan like a circus performer, slapping the things aside or slicing through them.
Mr. Win was just a little to the side, his suit showing chunks taken out of far too many places. Less than half the turrets were shooting now, his arm reaching for Blanket almost frozen in place.
The light playing across the suit from the inside was his first clue the young man had been forcibly ported out.
His own transition came as a surprise.
Nearly empty Blanket Space.
Lit by a tiny sun and a … pair of feet larger than his ship.
With his suit gone, there was a moment of panic as he held his breath, fumbling for his belt, his … anything.
*It's okay* Mr. Win's … voice? But inside his head.
A hand tapped his shoulder. *Just relax. If you say anything in Blanket Space without an atmosphere around you it is 'heard' by who you wanted to hear it in here. And you don't need to breathe…* A dry chuckle echoes across his mind. *I really should have led with that.*
*All you flyboys relax!* The young man's voice had an echoing quality. *You don't need to breathe here. Rescue is notified. Blanket is healing you if you need it.*
A flash and the Chief was there a few dozen yards ahead of them. He was covered in blood but healed. Spinning in the emptiness from his last kick he heard the message being passed around.
And he gave a sardonic look at them. *So who is healing her?*
********************
From inside Blanket Space, his flight of Galaga fighters were tasked to enter combat only after they'd tested the Endbringer with a few rounds from the Hero II's main guns.
Leet really wished he was there to watch. Jenny was at the controls. The checks had been made. Dragon was relaying live video caught by Alexandria and Eidolon doing a forward scout run.
It was horrible to see.
Worse, they had stills from the Bet deployed forces showing empty clothing, pieces left behind like wedding rings or pacemakers or artificial hip joints.
They were already marking down SARS coordinates for those forward deployed who were yanked into Blanket Space too injured to heal and return to the fight or being actively damaged beyond a mere healing.
Anger was making his Jenny less pretty, something he'd just about managed to believe would be impossible.
"Sourpuss." He noted absently.
Her huff in reply turned into a half chuckle. "Nerd."
"Say that with PRIDE!" Leet spoke up, but her attention was on her screens, bringing the ship up to speed. "Got something?"
Her eyebrow raise made him check HIS screens.
"Hero is transitioning backwards through a portal." She sighed. "Bad sign that." She squinted. "Worse is some of those things came through with her. IN her."
Leet nodded, his sensors playing from further out where he'd deployed probes ahead of them in passive mode. "I have IFF transponders on UN frequencies popping all over up there. Blanket material flashing as people are brought over." Leet gulped. "Hero is still firing, blind defenses. We CAN'T close without taking fire."
Jenny shrugged as she listened to the chatter on her comm. She flicked a switch, putting the TAC net to the speaker.
Leet grimaced as he realized he'd been piped into Uber's ship the whole time.
Uber's voice addressed the flight. "That folks is why we get the big bucks. We are going in. Leet, can you target probes to act like life rafts to gather the marooned?"
An order, thank god. "On it."
"Oh, and try not to let those tiny fucking terror balls eat your ships. The paint isn't even dry on half of these." Uber's voice dripped Charisma.
"Bards." Leet sniggered.
"I heard that." Instead of singing, Uber hit play on a sound track, the first few strains of "Diva Dance" from "Fifth Element" playing as they rolled into position.
The Navy and Air Force Pilots, some of them volunteers from the group who'd been in the Leviathan/Nilbog fight, were already launching their Puppet fighters.
The sleek mini ships launched and took up station around the Galaga ships like smaller echoes. These people learned the lessons Leviathan had taught well. Force multipliers. And Leet's design allowed for cut down remote piloted versions to be reverse engineered into that role.
The rupture that Hero II had come through appeared to rip, less of a portal and more of a tear into Blanket Space.
"It looks like a rip in the fabric…" Leet began, to get a sock in the arm from Jenny.
"Less talkie, more shooty." Her wink took the sting out. Mostly.
**************************************
On Earth Bet, the PHO feed for the video being passed by Ziz in Blanket Space got the highest feed ever. Normally, Endbringer fights were blocked, but nothing could stop this feed. Every system trying to take it down found themselves stymied, with a gif showing a fat man in an Elvis costume wagging a finger at them. 'Ah, ah, ah…'
As the light through the camera on Blanket herself dimmed from the overwhelming numbers of balls covering her, the view changed to a snitch on the Galaga fighters. Music played as they began engaging the mass clinging to the ship --captioned onscreen for them. A callout showed where the bridge was, a seething mass of the balls chewing through from the outside.
The rent in reality showed the effects of shells fired through as the Hero II's main gun managed to fire once more. Riding along piggyback to the shell a bright light showed. Where it passed the smaller balls clumped together --not to form bigger ones but as masses almost like cubes. Matrixes of material formed and grew, dragging even larger balls together into solid shapes with cube facets, joining into others. The mass passing through the rip slowed to a crawl when the shell hit, becoming more solid.
A pause.
A breath of hope.
The Galaga fighters shot the loose masses missed by the light, clearing groups by the looking Hero II. The front part of the ship became squared, looking less like a ship and more like salt crystals in brown.
When the light dimmed, the squares began shaking.
"Oh yeah, we can just clean up the loose'ens." One of the pilot's drawl came over the line.
The music stopped. Uber blinked as the next bit played. Shuffle engaged, it randomized to a techno mix that started with a very apt bit of music sampled from Galaga itself.
"Challenge mode." His whisper hit the lull in sound. He hit his all call and barked out. "All ships, full reverse to the printers, now. That thing is preparing to go to level two!"
***********************************
Chris was frozen in disbelief. He'd cheered when his clumper seemed to block the movement, maybe even broke the Endbringer like Clock's power could. But then he looked at the feed from Blanket's cam. It was showing the fighters, not Blanket's view. Rewinding it found the transition thirty seconds back and she was overwhelmed.
She couldn't be…
NO!
In his anger he touched the one thing he had left of her inside his suit. The inner suit material, everything but his boxers, it felt like fabric.
Not the embrace he had felt before, like loosely holding hands. Not the feel of shoulder to shoulder presence.
Nothing.
The rent on Blanket Space was pulling in the Indian Ocean weather, water turning to ice as the pressure dropped well below 14 psi. The golden form so far above whirled with movement, disrupting the cloud version of the humanoid form that had been Scion.
A tiny feeling of fear --not his as he was already shaking with it-- and Chris lunged in his mind to make the connection.
*Help me*
***************************************
Danny and Annette clung to one another.
The coffee table in the huge house made of the remains of their home and of Blanket stuff was cold and lonely. The Simurgh was in her rocking chair, the motion stopped as she watched --or perhaps directed the scenes being played out from the various camera feeds from Galaga fighters, pod fighters and hacked feeds from the Hero II itself.
Annette clutched at the direct piece of Patchy sewn into her jacket. "Hang in there."
Her whispered hope crossed with Danny's coarser Dock oath. "Fuck that fucking fucker."
Ziz raised an overlarge finger to swipe along her other pointer finger. *♭♪♭♪*
*Help me*
The Heberts looked at each other in shock. "T-Taylor?"
Simmie's face was more animated than it was usually, the serene face shifting from surprise to anger to fear.
*THINK♯IT* she sent loudly. *THINK♯HARD♯TO♯HER!*
Even as they formed the words another sound splayed across the room. One of Baity's portals. Baity himself moved through it, followed by Oracle and the rest of the ex-Undersiders. A wave of squirrels armed with back mounted blasters --Leet was a fan and printers a thing-- came through and moved toward the front door.
Baity didn't pause, waving at Caterwaul's larger animals he motioned them to open the door, leaning against it himself. Had they been dogs, it would have been simple, but it wasn't until Regent sent Monkey Joe and company to help that the door swung open.
On the porch, Baity's portal maker fired again and again. Navy men came through with hand held weapons printed on the Chesapeake. Army crews coming through another brought tank-like vehicles with turrets looking like the pods from the Galaga fighters.
From the other openings, capes filtered through. Protectorate capes and Rogues alike, responders to the Endbringer crisis and those who stayed home. Most of them had one thing in common, they held onto or had been healed by one of Blanket's creations.
Abu came through with Hookwolf in fully humanoid metal form. Misplaced stepped in, with Purity by her side, the rest of the Bay Wards, with Patches holding hands with Ryu. New Wave, with Gauntlet and Fina-Flor matching them tossing hands full of shining crystals into the space around to act as mines in the firmament. Amy stayed with them as they took position, rather than stand aside. She sat down and felt the grass while looking at the sky. Wonder lit her face as she 'felt' the part of Taylor through it.
Dragon, in one of the biggest mecha she'd produced to date, eased through a portal with arms retracted, then spread as if inhaling to twice the girth her form had shown.
They moved around the small island, keeping a bit of space between themselves and the moat that Leviathan occupied, or going underneath where Behemoth lurked.
Those that could fly up took position on or around the roof of the house.
*****************************
From Cauldron's cave, Wyvern watched with keen interest the feeds from within the prison she controlled. She was in charge of all the items shipped into the Bird Cage after all. Lustrum's gum, assorted homey items that used to be hoarded for their scarcity. Plastic recorders for music inclined. Towels and sheets that smelled fresh and were nigh indestructible. Shirts and other items that were not all institutional orange, that had a measure of comfort to them.
Watching the various feeds, she saw heads snap and look to the side. A calling. As individuals stood and moved to one TV room, filtering from the men's section into the women's without so much as a question from gate guards --who also were there abandoning their posts.
Lustrum at the front, turned toward the TV that inexplicably showed ranks of heroes and military forming up in a place that defied physics.
Fist smacking palm, Lustrum smiled. "My niece needs some backup. Did anyone actually learn to play those recorders she sent?"
Three hands raised the offending musical instruments.
"Bastards, all of ye. Let's go and see how many we can make die." Lustrum's growl showed her dislike of recorders, but she ignored it when they caught up the tune she'd hinted at.
Impromptu drums were found to match it.
"How do we get there?" Marquis posed the question many were thinking, even as they formed ranks, wearing the white sheets like togas over the prison garb.
"Her mind is on bigger things, like not dying and such." Lustrum noted, handing an edge of sheet to two of her girls to hold up. "But she's like an earthworm in one simple respect. Any piece of her can do anything the whole thing can. And my power is to boost the power of anyone I care for. She wants us ALL there. So THERE . WE . GO!"
Sweat beading Lustrum's hand found a place in the sheet that echoed her desire to help. The portal opened into Blanket Space.
The Bird Cage goes to war.
************************
Armsmaster was assigning positions, checking off names and grouping up those who could make a difference. It was looking like a last stand. The Hero II was heading their way, visibly growing in the telescope view they were monitoring. The blocks of material from the Endbringer were growing, but so was the rip in space.
His mind blanked a moment when the next portal opening showed Lustrum and Marquis stepping onto the island, with known faces behind --all smiles, but not the villainous kind. Except for those with eyes for the skies, the people getting into place --the Endbringer swimming in the moat around the island.
*I did not expect you here.* He said, offering a handshake.
*Neither, in fact, did we.* Marquis quipped. Then he saw a brown haired girl sitting in the grass and slipped away to greet his daughter. *Excuse me…*
Lustrum turned with Armsmaster to face the oncoming threat. *The thing about it is that there is nothing left of Bet that I really care about except my family. Blanket is family.*
Her hands opened to swing outward encompassing the island, the space and all the people readying themselves.
*I CARE about Blanket.*
The glow around her hands spread to the ground at her feet and outward, tingeing it with gold.
*I CARE about the people who came to help her, and those she cares for.* Her hand on his shoulder spread the glow to Armsmaster, to Dragon. The glow spread across the breadth of Blanket space, to each of the evacuees, the crew of the Hero II.
In the House, the Heberts were shocked to find the house had shrunk a little around them --or had they grown?
*I know that voice. It's Lucy, I can tell!*
*And anything I CARE about grows in strength, grows in resolve.* Lustrum's voice came clear to all of Blanket Space.
Annette's voice cut over her sister's, louder yet for something that had no sound to it,
*EVERYONE. HEAR ME AND LEND YOUR STRENGTH TO BLANKET!*
Kid's armor shows some extra features I hadn't noticed before now as he tries to shield me. The bulges on his back, pectorals, shoulders and thighs that I assumed were more storage or armor expanded outward a bit, unfolding into --well-- turrets is about the best word for them.
As the bulges unfold, several of them totally disconnect and hover using miniature versions of his hoverboard lift. The barrels of gunports show that each has a number of his original handgun in --miniature-- built into the oblong unit, able to adjust to fire in one direction or many. They must be computer controlled because he isn't just firing wild.
Shots ring out, each picking off an eyeball. He was prioritizing the ones getting past the guards, but also targeting the ones likely to harm them from behind.
My mind is locked into healing anyone wearing my material, stretching my power thin and making me react slowly.
The first of the eyeballs reached my position, aiming for my throat as the Chief twisted his hand weapon from a gun position to something closer to a fan made of energy, using it as both a shield and a weapon to stop the attacks.
He gets the next three before he is overwhelmed and I am once again stretched further as I am healing him, Goval and the girls who have all had suit breaches as the jaws that act as eyelids to these things bite through.
My vision dims as one of them gets to me, the bite unfelt compared to the pain the feedback on my powers is pushing my way.
I have been actively pushing the wounded or endangered into Blanket Space, the strain of so many portals at once like a million paper cuts doused in iodine at once.
"All fire control on automatic! Full reverse! Take us on a parade!" Goval's voice called out. His own eye patch was gone now, a golden piece of Tinkertech whirling as his power absorbed information on the ship and its crew.
Their voices were slowed down as I felt us begin to move through one of their portals, backwards this time…
***************
Chris saw the little things like hornets getting around the guards, evading defense meant for larger attackers. "Exec Flower."
His suit VI was nothing on Dragon, it was barely an intelligence at this point. But he'd been studying her origins since she shared her original coding to Armsmaster and hence the PRT. This was more of a macro, that set all his weapons firing on anything meeting the current target parameters, to continue doing so until ordered to stop.
His menu system let him target waypoints for his tech, all of his tech. So he put his pipper on the next round being loaded into the Hero II railgun and set the Surf Tank to dock with it.
Captain Gloval's hand clicked on 'Munitions change authorization' which hadn't fully displayed on his chair's control screen. His attention was then caught fully in the next thirty second of his ship's life --and a tear caught in his eye as the timeline fractured in his power's eye. Strong Thinker's could do that --or Endbringers. He lived the death of the ship and crew in three of four. His only prayer that he picked the right set of actions to avoid those fates.
The flurry of laser fire became a frenzy as Mr. Win's weapons unfolded. The Captain's chair turning to bring his own hand weapon to play seemed to be stuck in molasses.
Ducking to his right saved him from a throat rending. Putting his hand up with weapon hot saved the pinkette duty officer from a shattered face shield but he couldn't block the following two, nor did he stop the one brushing his temple --the teeth severing the cord holding his eyepatch in place as well as taking a portion of his right ear. His face shield was … just gone. Cold air hit his neck where it had entered and he shivered with how close it had come to killing him in one pass.
"All fire control on automatic! Full reverse! Take us on a parade!" He ground out in a full command voice.
"Execute!" Alice called, blue hair draping down as she used the left hand to trigger the right hand controls. Her right was injured, her suit there holed with a limp look that suggested there was a lot less arm than there should be in the sleeve.
Gwen was gamely rolling her trackball while stomping at a damaged eyeball trying for her leg. From the look, she'd shot it with her weapon as it took a bite of her hip. The pinkette cheered as a sudden brightness lit part of the bridge. "Point defense on interior…"
Her voice was just gone. A limp, empty suit dropped to her chair.
Alice was gone moments later.
Captain Gloval could not be sure with how his power worked if he saw it happen once, or four times, the difference here was that the point defense field --a white disc of energy conforming to the surface it was projected on-- was inside the bridge, blocking the exit as well as the vents.
That was … not possible. It would have had to traverse the open entrance and halls to this block. Shaking his head, he saw the wave of eyeballs, some grown to the size of oranges now heading his way or more accurately, toward his new liege lady.
The point defense circle incinerated all it touched, but there were plenty already inside, some of them streaming out of the now empty bridge guard suits.
His own suit was a mess. The one that took the chunk of his ear had removed much of the front, cutting through the material like it wasn't there. It had impacted the clear shield like a ram only because it's mouth had been shut as it hit.
Gloval felt the healing coming through the Blanket material his liege has given him. He felt the feedback, a silent scream of anguish, of loss.
As his ship shot backward on his new course, he saw and felt as the more injured or in danger were shunted to Blanket Space like fighter pilots ejecting from downed mecha. He had time to wonder if his command would be a ghost ship before it finished transitioning through the current portal his orders set up, or would it after the next portal.
A "Parade" would take the last transition back, then cycle through the worlds known as 'Hell Worlds'. Gehenna. Jurassik, Green, Jupiter, Beetlejuice, Forge.
There had been more at one point. Some of them were closed off when it turned out they were not as unoccupied as one could hope. Others were contaminated by the things the Empire had left there and been ruled worse than hell.
His last view of his ship's bridge showed a veritable statue of his lady, with Chief wielding a Lazefan like a circus performer, slapping the things aside or slicing through them.
Mr. Win was just a little to the side, his suit showing chunks taken out of far too many places. Less than half the turrets were shooting now, his arm reaching for Blanket almost frozen in place.
The light playing across the suit from the inside was his first clue the young man had been forcibly ported out.
His own transition came as a surprise.
Nearly empty Blanket Space.
Lit by a tiny sun and a … pair of feet larger than his ship.
With his suit gone, there was a moment of panic as he held his breath, fumbling for his belt, his … anything.
*It's okay* Mr. Win's … voice? But inside his head.
A hand tapped his shoulder. *Just relax. If you say anything in Blanket Space without an atmosphere around you it is 'heard' by who you wanted to hear it in here. And you don't need to breathe…* A dry chuckle echoes across his mind. *I really should have led with that.*
*All you flyboys relax!* The young man's voice had an echoing quality. *You don't need to breathe here. Rescue is notified. Blanket is healing you if you need it.*
A flash and the Chief was there a few dozen yards ahead of them. He was covered in blood but healed. Spinning in the emptiness from his last kick he heard the message being passed around.
And he gave a sardonic look at them. *So who is healing her?*
********************
From inside Blanket Space, his flight of Galaga fighters were tasked to enter combat only after they'd tested the Endbringer with a few rounds from the Hero II's main guns.
Leet really wished he was there to watch. Jenny was at the controls. The checks had been made. Dragon was relaying live video caught by Alexandria and Eidolon doing a forward scout run.
It was horrible to see.
Worse, they had stills from the Bet deployed forces showing empty clothing, pieces left behind like wedding rings or pacemakers or artificial hip joints.
They were already marking down SARS coordinates for those forward deployed who were yanked into Blanket Space too injured to heal and return to the fight or being actively damaged beyond a mere healing.
Anger was making his Jenny less pretty, something he'd just about managed to believe would be impossible.
"Sourpuss." He noted absently.
Her huff in reply turned into a half chuckle. "Nerd."
"Say that with PRIDE!" Leet spoke up, but her attention was on her screens, bringing the ship up to speed. "Got something?"
Her eyebrow raise made him check HIS screens.
"Hero is transitioning backwards through a portal." She sighed. "Bad sign that." She squinted. "Worse is some of those things came through with her. IN her."
Leet nodded, his sensors playing from further out where he'd deployed probes ahead of them in passive mode. "I have IFF transponders on UN frequencies popping all over up there. Blanket material flashing as people are brought over." Leet gulped. "Hero is still firing, blind defenses. We CAN'T close without taking fire."
Jenny shrugged as she listened to the chatter on her comm. She flicked a switch, putting the TAC net to the speaker.
Leet grimaced as he realized he'd been piped into Uber's ship the whole time.
Uber's voice addressed the flight. "That folks is why we get the big bucks. We are going in. Leet, can you target probes to act like life rafts to gather the marooned?"
An order, thank god. "On it."
"Oh, and try not to let those tiny fucking terror balls eat your ships. The paint isn't even dry on half of these." Uber's voice dripped Charisma.
"Bards." Leet sniggered.
"I heard that." Instead of singing, Uber hit play on a sound track, the first few strains of "Diva Dance" from "Fifth Element" playing as they rolled into position.
The Navy and Air Force Pilots, some of them volunteers from the group who'd been in the Leviathan/Nilbog fight, were already launching their Puppet fighters.
The sleek mini ships launched and took up station around the Galaga ships like smaller echoes. These people learned the lessons Leviathan had taught well. Force multipliers. And Leet's design allowed for cut down remote piloted versions to be reverse engineered into that role.
The rupture that Hero II had come through appeared to rip, less of a portal and more of a tear into Blanket Space.
"It looks like a rip in the fabric…" Leet began, to get a sock in the arm from Jenny.
"Less talkie, more shooty." Her wink took the sting out. Mostly.
**************************************
On Earth Bet, the PHO feed for the video being passed by Ziz in Blanket Space got the highest feed ever. Normally, Endbringer fights were blocked, but nothing could stop this feed. Every system trying to take it down found themselves stymied, with a gif showing a fat man in an Elvis costume wagging a finger at them. 'Ah, ah, ah…'
As the light through the camera on Blanket herself dimmed from the overwhelming numbers of balls covering her, the view changed to a snitch on the Galaga fighters. Music played as they began engaging the mass clinging to the ship --captioned onscreen for them. A callout showed where the bridge was, a seething mass of the balls chewing through from the outside.
The rent in reality showed the effects of shells fired through as the Hero II's main gun managed to fire once more. Riding along piggyback to the shell a bright light showed. Where it passed the smaller balls clumped together --not to form bigger ones but as masses almost like cubes. Matrixes of material formed and grew, dragging even larger balls together into solid shapes with cube facets, joining into others. The mass passing through the rip slowed to a crawl when the shell hit, becoming more solid.
A pause.
A breath of hope.
The Galaga fighters shot the loose masses missed by the light, clearing groups by the looking Hero II. The front part of the ship became squared, looking less like a ship and more like salt crystals in brown.
When the light dimmed, the squares began shaking.
"Oh yeah, we can just clean up the loose'ens." One of the pilot's drawl came over the line.
The music stopped. Uber blinked as the next bit played. Shuffle engaged, it randomized to a techno mix that started with a very apt bit of music sampled from Galaga itself.
"Challenge mode." His whisper hit the lull in sound. He hit his all call and barked out. "All ships, full reverse to the printers, now. That thing is preparing to go to level two!"
***********************************
Chris was frozen in disbelief. He'd cheered when his clumper seemed to block the movement, maybe even broke the Endbringer like Clock's power could. But then he looked at the feed from Blanket's cam. It was showing the fighters, not Blanket's view. Rewinding it found the transition thirty seconds back and she was overwhelmed.
She couldn't be…
NO!
In his anger he touched the one thing he had left of her inside his suit. The inner suit material, everything but his boxers, it felt like fabric.
Not the embrace he had felt before, like loosely holding hands. Not the feel of shoulder to shoulder presence.
Nothing.
The rent on Blanket Space was pulling in the Indian Ocean weather, water turning to ice as the pressure dropped well below 14 psi. The golden form so far above whirled with movement, disrupting the cloud version of the humanoid form that had been Scion.
A tiny feeling of fear --not his as he was already shaking with it-- and Chris lunged in his mind to make the connection.
*Help me*
***************************************
Danny and Annette clung to one another.
The coffee table in the huge house made of the remains of their home and of Blanket stuff was cold and lonely. The Simurgh was in her rocking chair, the motion stopped as she watched --or perhaps directed the scenes being played out from the various camera feeds from Galaga fighters, pod fighters and hacked feeds from the Hero II itself.
Annette clutched at the direct piece of Patchy sewn into her jacket. "Hang in there."
Her whispered hope crossed with Danny's coarser Dock oath. "Fuck that fucking fucker."
Ziz raised an overlarge finger to swipe along her other pointer finger. *♭♪♭♪*
*Help me*
The Heberts looked at each other in shock. "T-Taylor?"
Simmie's face was more animated than it was usually, the serene face shifting from surprise to anger to fear.
*THINK♯IT* she sent loudly. *THINK♯HARD♯TO♯HER!*
Even as they formed the words another sound splayed across the room. One of Baity's portals. Baity himself moved through it, followed by Oracle and the rest of the ex-Undersiders. A wave of squirrels armed with back mounted blasters --Leet was a fan and printers a thing-- came through and moved toward the front door.
Baity didn't pause, waving at Caterwaul's larger animals he motioned them to open the door, leaning against it himself. Had they been dogs, it would have been simple, but it wasn't until Regent sent Monkey Joe and company to help that the door swung open.
On the porch, Baity's portal maker fired again and again. Navy men came through with hand held weapons printed on the Chesapeake. Army crews coming through another brought tank-like vehicles with turrets looking like the pods from the Galaga fighters.
From the other openings, capes filtered through. Protectorate capes and Rogues alike, responders to the Endbringer crisis and those who stayed home. Most of them had one thing in common, they held onto or had been healed by one of Blanket's creations.
Abu came through with Hookwolf in fully humanoid metal form. Misplaced stepped in, with Purity by her side, the rest of the Bay Wards, with Patches holding hands with Ryu. New Wave, with Gauntlet and Fina-Flor matching them tossing hands full of shining crystals into the space around to act as mines in the firmament. Amy stayed with them as they took position, rather than stand aside. She sat down and felt the grass while looking at the sky. Wonder lit her face as she 'felt' the part of Taylor through it.
Dragon, in one of the biggest mecha she'd produced to date, eased through a portal with arms retracted, then spread as if inhaling to twice the girth her form had shown.
They moved around the small island, keeping a bit of space between themselves and the moat that Leviathan occupied, or going underneath where Behemoth lurked.
Those that could fly up took position on or around the roof of the house.
*****************************
From Cauldron's cave, Wyvern watched with keen interest the feeds from within the prison she controlled. She was in charge of all the items shipped into the Bird Cage after all. Lustrum's gum, assorted homey items that used to be hoarded for their scarcity. Plastic recorders for music inclined. Towels and sheets that smelled fresh and were nigh indestructible. Shirts and other items that were not all institutional orange, that had a measure of comfort to them.
Watching the various feeds, she saw heads snap and look to the side. A calling. As individuals stood and moved to one TV room, filtering from the men's section into the women's without so much as a question from gate guards --who also were there abandoning their posts.
Lustrum at the front, turned toward the TV that inexplicably showed ranks of heroes and military forming up in a place that defied physics.
Fist smacking palm, Lustrum smiled. "My niece needs some backup. Did anyone actually learn to play those recorders she sent?"
Three hands raised the offending musical instruments.
"Bastards, all of ye. Let's go and see how many we can make die." Lustrum's growl showed her dislike of recorders, but she ignored it when they caught up the tune she'd hinted at.
Impromptu drums were found to match it.
"How do we get there?" Marquis posed the question many were thinking, even as they formed ranks, wearing the white sheets like togas over the prison garb.
"Her mind is on bigger things, like not dying and such." Lustrum noted, handing an edge of sheet to two of her girls to hold up. "But she's like an earthworm in one simple respect. Any piece of her can do anything the whole thing can. And my power is to boost the power of anyone I care for. She wants us ALL there. So THERE . WE . GO!"
Sweat beading Lustrum's hand found a place in the sheet that echoed her desire to help. The portal opened into Blanket Space.
The Bird Cage goes to war.
************************
Armsmaster was assigning positions, checking off names and grouping up those who could make a difference. It was looking like a last stand. The Hero II was heading their way, visibly growing in the telescope view they were monitoring. The blocks of material from the Endbringer were growing, but so was the rip in space.
His mind blanked a moment when the next portal opening showed Lustrum and Marquis stepping onto the island, with known faces behind --all smiles, but not the villainous kind. Except for those with eyes for the skies, the people getting into place --the Endbringer swimming in the moat around the island.
*I did not expect you here.* He said, offering a handshake.
*Neither, in fact, did we.* Marquis quipped. Then he saw a brown haired girl sitting in the grass and slipped away to greet his daughter. *Excuse me…*
Lustrum turned with Armsmaster to face the oncoming threat. *The thing about it is that there is nothing left of Bet that I really care about except my family. Blanket is family.*
Her hands opened to swing outward encompassing the island, the space and all the people readying themselves.
*I CARE about Blanket.*
The glow around her hands spread to the ground at her feet and outward, tingeing it with gold.
*I CARE about the people who came to help her, and those she cares for.* Her hand on his shoulder spread the glow to Armsmaster, to Dragon. The glow spread across the breadth of Blanket space, to each of the evacuees, the crew of the Hero II.
In the House, the Heberts were shocked to find the house had shrunk a little around them --or had they grown?
*I know that voice. It's Lucy, I can tell!*
*And anything I CARE about grows in strength, grows in resolve.* Lustrum's voice came clear to all of Blanket Space.
Annette's voice cut over her sister's, louder yet for something that had no sound to it,
*EVERYONE. HEAR ME AND LEND YOUR STRENGTH TO BLANKET!*
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Actually, it's the last chapter plus the new chapter. Search for "School 7" to find the actual new chapter.
I totally forgot to comment on this story, duh.
0. You need to separate the NEW chapter from the OLD one, lol.
1. It's getting really DARK here. Unless there's some time-restore power coming, a lot of people already died.
This really contrasts with how "kid friendly" this story was for most of its part.
2. I know it's pointless complaining, but it'd be an even bigger impact if it was LESS of an AU.
As in, many AU elements here twist it away from a fixfic to a "different story altogether".
It's just my opinion, but I'd probably enjoy a Blanket-in-canonverse story more.
At least it feels that way.
3. The action just got ramped up AGAIN, lol.
Can't wait for more!
4. Blanket Dama no Jutsu!!!
MWAHAHAHA!!!
0. You need to separate the NEW chapter from the OLD one, lol.
1. It's getting really DARK here. Unless there's some time-restore power coming, a lot of people already died.
This really contrasts with how "kid friendly" this story was for most of its part.
2. I know it's pointless complaining, but it'd be an even bigger impact if it was LESS of an AU.
As in, many AU elements here twist it away from a fixfic to a "different story altogether".
It's just my opinion, but I'd probably enjoy a Blanket-in-canonverse story more.
At least it feels that way.
3. The action just got ramped up AGAIN, lol.
Can't wait for more!
4. Blanket Dama no Jutsu!!!
MWAHAHAHA!!!
- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He
"By your powers combined, I am Cape Planet!" ROFLOL
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
For the first item... You saw nothing. handwaving la-la-la-lu-la
For the second, do I have to get a switch (branch type not the handheld) to take to you kids to stay out from behind my DM screen? Of course there are time shenanigans preparing to happen, Blanket Space is
the result of the time oriented entity Abaddon. Oops, did I type that into the post?
Not exactly surprising with the amount of non-plot-induced AU stuff already there.
Again, I definitely don't dislike it, merely saying that (to me) it'd be more satisfying to see Blanket stuff happen to the actual canonverse instead.
Those un-plot-ed AU tidbits simply make it less, well, "immersive", so to speak - in the fix-fic sense, that is.
To make a comparison with Varga:
While the EBs behavior is clearly plot-induced, the AU demise of the S9 and the strange inactivity of Golduck McAssmon - is NOT plot-induced.
Which is why Varga is a slice-of-life beat-a-mugger city-scale show, as opposed to (same contextual setting, different reality) Demons and Angels being an all-out Khepri-scale fight against pretty much everyone who matters.
In other words, it took a side-story omake to turn Varga into something of the same "spirit" as the canonverse - since the original fic is anything BUT that.
OK, end of rant already, sorry.
I still like your story a lot.
Balrog
not Durin's Bane
- Location
- The Mines of Moria
*snicker*
Needles flash, Spindles swing
Shining Thimble's piercing ring
Plushies run with polished shield
Fight Those Bastards till They Yield
Midnight Skirt and blood red shirt
Fight to Keep this Land Your Own
Sound the horn and call the cry
How Many of Them Can We Make Die!