Remove ads

[Worm] Breaking the System Again [Complete!]

Reader mode
Remove ads
Interlude 1 Reference Roundup
  • Threadmarks
    • You are ignoring content by this member.
    2.1 is underway. In the meantime, have a reference roundup.

    Ones People Got
    WinterAngel - was @Azrael Winter
    Sir Lemon - was @Sour Knight
    FireTechnician - was @PyroTechno

    OldH - @NorthSouthGorem got this as referencing Old Man Henderson (this is a 1d4chan link. The page itself is SFW, but be fucking careful if you go on a Wiki Walk)

    Ones People Didn't Get (and there's a lot - I'm disappointed in you, guys :sad:)
    TheIrritatingTangerine - Annoying Orange
    SowiloDestiny - Harry Potter (Sowilo being the lightning rune from Norse, and Destiny referencing the prophecy)
    GingerNut - Ron Weasley
    Ferret Boy - Draco Malfoy - these two were being played off each other as a hint.
    JPark - foreshadowing!
    SpecificProtagonist - possibly fanon, possibly not, but well-known enough that I was expecting a comment.

    HumorousGathering - was @Lalzparty
    TelescopicMagnification - was @Scope
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • 2.1
  • Threadmarks
    • You are ignoring content by this member.
    Breaking the System 2.1
    ​
    I spend most of the next day just dicking around. I'd been (somewhat) serious for six days, so I kind of felt like I'd earned it. In the morning, I make a ton of clones, alter their appearance and distribute them throughout the city. Some of them sing a capella arrangements in the street, others dance, some start doing street art and then run away from the cops, and still others get together and put on a Shakespeare play in a square.

    Then I have a flash-mob at lunchtime outside the PRT building.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, I get a visit from the Protectorate. Armsmaster's there again - did the guy have some sort of hate-boner for me now? At least he had Miss Militia with him. I'd been meaning to talk to her.

    "Shaper."

    "Halbeard."

    He twitches slightly, and I grin. "And Miss Militia. Nice to meet you."

    She accepts my offered hand, and we shake briefly.

    "I've heard you have quite the impressive memory?"

    I don't think that was a question she expected, but she rolls with it remarkably well.

    "Yes, why?"

    "Then... do you remember?"

    She gives me a look, about to speak, and of course Armsmaster chooses now to interject. "Remember what, exactly?"

    I grin at him again. There's this little tic, you can just see it under his visor... it provides me with no end of amusement. "Oh, nothing much."

    He clearly doesn't believe me. He is also well aware that he's not going to get anything else.

    "Moving back on to why we're here, what exactly is... this?"

    "It's a flash mob. You know, dancing, singing, all that feelgood stuff?"

    Miss Militia's scarf fails to conceal her grin. Armsmaster twitches again.

    "You know what I mean."

    "Alright. Why, and why here? Because all you people with your serious faces behind your serious visors with your serious foam guns and serious patrols could do with lightening up a little. Also, because of the look on your face right now. Fucking priceless."

    That tic, again. He's doing an incredible job of remaining stoic, especially in the face of the grin I'm wearing that clearly broadcasts the fact that reason #2 is the real motive behind this. Miss Militia appears to be torn between disapproving and amused. The number of people filming this on mobiles is quite impressive. I think PHO is going to have a new video upload or two before the day is out.

    At this point, my secondary brains bring something to my attention. The ABB are on the move. Why... Bakuda. Fuck. I'd forgotten about her. Curse you, past-me, for not reading Worm properly!

    "Hold on a sec."

    I teleport away, appear behind Bakuda, knock her out, disable those toe-ring detonators with TK and then jump to each one of her victims in turn, using Shaper to detect the little blank spot in their heads where the bombs reside. Then I teleport all of them out into space where their contingent triggers can set them off harmlessly. All of us then arrive back outside PRT HQ. I dump Bakuda in front of Armsmaster just like I did Coil.

    "Here you go. Sorry, she was about to make a big grab for territory and also cause a distraction to bust Lung out of his convoy... wait, I forgot the larger bombs she planted, hang on..."

    Hypersenses come in handy here - a quick visual scan of the city is enough to find the bombs. Massive invasion of privacy, quite possibly, but also no worse than what I get with Shaper every minute of the day. I carefully erase the memories of the other stuff I saw from my brain, teleport all of the bombs up into orbit and crush them with TK. There are quite a lot of explosions, all of which are then frozen. It looks fucking awesome hanging there in... wait.

    If it's frozen in time, it should be an point of absolute stillness. The motion of the galaxy, the solar system, the Earth around the sun and the Earth's rotation should have whipped it thousands of miles away by now. How... fucking Space Whales. I mean, I know there's bullshit, but this is bullshit.

    Ugh.

    Anyway, that's Bakuda neutralised. Check on Lung, knock out the gangers waiting on Bakuda's go, bring them back to Armsmaster who's started why are you cuffing the conscripts what the fuck?!

    "Halbeard. The fuck are you doing?"

    He bristles.

    "I'm arresting criminals who -"

    "No, you're cuffing innocent people who were coerced with bombs in their skulls!"

    He blinks. The people filming on their mobiles variably wince, gasp or make other assorted expressions.

    ...I think I accidentally Armsmaster's PR. Oops.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Rokoran said:
    "No, you're cuffing innocent people who were coerced with bombs in their skulls!"

    He blinks. The people filming on their mobiles variably wince, gasp or make other assorted expressions.

    ...I think I accidentally Armsmaster's PR. Oops.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Kind've a dick move. I mean sure, the SI is sorta bias to Armsmaster = douche, but he should still have thought what he was saying through, since AM doesn't have the full picture, and was just working with what he knew.
     
    Shit. I just read that update and forgot everything that previously happened. I can't actually remember what character this is, and at first thought it was the Captain Kaleidoscope guy.

    Ugh.

    This happens when there's over 12 CYOA self-inserts of WORM.
     
    You are ignoring content by this member.
    Silver W. King said:
    Kind've a dick move. I mean sure, the SI is sorta bias to Armsmaster = douche, but he should still have thought what he was saying through, since AM doesn't have the full picture, and was just working with what he knew.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Me... thinking through what I say... nope, you've lost me :p

    But in all seriousness, I am scatterbrained as fuck. I hadn't even intended to have this snip be about what it was, but then I remembered Bakuda was a thing. The whole 'whoops, hold on' is literally my thought process as I was writing it.

    I'm not saying it was a good idea to say what SI did, but it's what SI would say.

    Valor said:
    Shit. I just read that update and forgot everything that previously happened. I can't actually remember what character this is, and at first thought it was the Captain Kaleidoscope guy.

    Ugh.

    This happens when there's over 12 CYOA self-inserts of WORM.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Have you seen Spacebattles lately? There's more than twenty now, all told - something like ten have been posted over the last couple of days Some of them are kinda crap, I'll admit, but there's a few that look really promising.

    Azrael Winter said:
    Great stuff, really hoping for a PHO interlude, but you probably won't do one, doesn't matter that much, it was great :D
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Next one's at a total of 750 likes/funnies.
     
    Rokoran said:
    But in all seriousness, I am scatterbrained as fuck. I hadn't even intended to have this snip be about what it was, but then I remembered Bakuda was a thing. The whole 'whoops, hold on' is literally my thought process as I was writing it.

    I'm not saying it was a good idea to say what SI did, but it's what SI would say.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I know, I got that. I just felt sorry for Armsmaster...not something that happens often.
     
    Valor said:
    Shit. I just read that update and forgot everything that previously happened. I can't actually remember what character this is, and at first thought it was the Captain Kaleidoscope guy.

    Ugh.

    This happens when there's over 12 CYOA self-inserts of WORM.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    The exact same thing happened to me.
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top