Chapter Text
~Chapter 20~
Mysterious Heroine X’s Apartment, Brockton Bay
January 31, 2011, 5:21 AM
Catherine / Card-carrying otaku, useless lesbian, and Isekai protagonist.
Yes yes, Catherine here. I believe I may have forgotten to mention it but yes, that is (or was) my name. Nice to meet you.
Anyway!
It's a bit of a mechanics thing, but having the ‘Mastery’ extra on [CLONE] means that each time I use the power, I can make 10 clones per success.
To see how many successes I get, I’m supposed to roll as many ten-sided dice as I have ranks in [CLONE] (1) and dots in Stamina (5). I don’t need a galaxy brain to know that’s six.
That means I can theoretically make as many as 60 clones right now, but I’m just not going to do that.
Having said that, I had been using [CLONE] everyday to refresh the duration of my other bodies, but getting the Mastery extra means I only need to do so once every ten days now.
Plus, you don’t really roll for power use outside of combat, unless you’re feeling awfully lucky, that is. After all, if you roll and get a 10, you get a double success, which in this case would mean up to 120 bodies.
As if that’d happen… you need to roll a 7 or higher for a dice roll to count as a success. That’s a 40% chance of success per dice. I’d much rather go with automated successes rolled during a peaceful meditation scene, than 40% chance, thank you very much.
Why am I bringing it up now? Because this is the first time since I got ‘Mastery’ on [CLONE] that I need to refresh their duration, and I’m taking the chance to add a few more bodies into the mix.
Well, having said that, I can make less than sixty bodies if I want to.
*shrug*
Honestly, sixty bodies would be gross overkill, and I doubt I could afford the upkeep cost, either. Having said all that, though?
I did make three more bodies. They’re all Chryssa-type bodies, by the way, because I’m sending one into the past, and still need two goofer bodies to do errands around town, including going out for food.
Isn’t it strange? For some reason, the restaurant owners around here are beginning to look at my Chryssa body like she’s a weird bug, you know?
I wonder why…
But moving on!
I’m sending one Chryssa into the past, and aiming for ten days before Annette Rose Hebert’s death. Wildbow never gave an exact date, but that’s not a real problem (it’s barely an inconvenience) because now that I’m here, I can just check the obituaries to confirm the date.
I’d rather not ask Taylor. What would be the point in upsetting her?
Let’s see… she died in 2008, one year before Taylor went into highschool, which means around September. Let’s check obituaries starting with August and… there we go.
August 26th, 2008.
We know she died while going home from work, so I need to maybe do this twice. Once to see the exact second she gets hit, so I can re-enact the accident on the second come around.
Of course, the best case would be if her death wasn’t instantaneous, as that means I can just rescue her from the car, heal her, blow up the car and bring us both back to the present in one go. Sadly, Taylor’s interlude in Worm mentions that the accident was so violent, the car was unrecognizable, and inferring from context, it appears she died instantaneously or near-instantaneous enough the difference is moot, so I’m in assuming I’ll need two trips.
Wait, was there a traffic camera at that intersection? Is there footage I can review to get the exact second of the crash?
Fifteen seconds of light hacking work says ‘no’. Apparently, the state of Massachusetts had a ban on traffic cameras at the time, and a ‘live officer’ policy on traffic violations, meaning a live officer needed to be present to witness the infraction. Inconvenient, as it looks like I really am going to need to do two trips.
It feels kind of creepy, just sitting around a corner looking at a watch and waiting for someone’s death… well, I guess it’s better to see it as ‘waiting for rescue time’ instead.
I wish it was as easy as checking if I sent myself a message from the past detailing the time, but that’d be one of those paradox-creating situations, so it’s a no-go.
Alright, here we go… and connection lost.
Well it was to be expected. The [HIVEMIND] connection to the clone doesn’t work across time, so I can only hope my clone will do its work instead of succumbing to the existential dread of knowing it is a clone with limited days to live.
Winslow Highschool. Brockton Bay
August 16, 2011, 5:31 PM
Taylor Hebert / Likely Saviour of the Multiverse
“You ready?” Chryssa asked as she entwined her foot with her bike’s kickstand.
“Yup,” I said, and my… sidekick? Partner? Since we’re going to join the Wards together, I guess that’ll make us colleagues.
Uuuh I really wanted to be the heroine and have a plucky sidekick, though. I mean, she’s shorter than me, and everyone knows the sidekick is the smaller one, so-
Ouch
“Why’d you poke me!?” I whined asked her.
“You looked like you were calling me short inside your mind,” she replied with a pout.
“Telepathy!?” Ah, I got poked again.
“Nyet, but you’re definitively the type to daydream… well, I guess its fine so long as you didn’t put me in a bright red leotard with green elfin shoes and a yellow cloak or something silly like that.”
Now I can’t help but picture her dressed up like that… perfect sidekick material.
Ah, I got poked again.
“Rude…” she whines cutely. “You got your swimsuit under that, right?” She asks me, looking me up and down.
“Yeah, but where are we swimming?”
“Cathleen built us a pool in a warehouse close to school. Since its priv-”
“Wait, what!?”
“Tactile telekinesis means we can stretch our grip and just scoop up the ground in chunks,” she explains like it's no big deal as I take a seat behind her with both a change of clothes and my schoolwork in my backpack. “So I could, for example, lift a bus by its sidewise mirror and it wouldn’t snap.”
“Hm… so it's not real super strength?”
“Kind of? I mean, at the end of the day, what’s the difference?”
She drives us to the northern edge of the docks district, and into what looks like a recently refurbished warehouse. At least in the sense that the walls are rust-free and have no holes except for long, thin horizontal windows some 30 ft up the wall.
She stops the bike and kills the engine, then pulls out a keychain and clicks a button, which causes the doors to open, so we dismount and pull the bike inside, finding ourselves in a little garage with Cathleen’s own bike and more tha enough room left for a couple of cars.
Stepping into the building proper, I have to pause and do a double take because how the hell do you build an olympic-sized pool over a weekend!? I mean sure, the changing boots are just folding screens to the side, and I can see the showers are out on the open in a row, little more than showerheads at the top of exposed, recently installed pipes, but the pool is, you know, an actual pool.
Did a single person really build all this in a weekend? Powers are bullsht.
The pool is covered in white and light blue ceramic tiles, with the light blue ones at the bottom, rising up all the way to the edge of the water, and the white ones covering the upper sides and the floor around the pool.
Ah, the white ones have a wave-y texture. I guess they’re anti slip, uh?
Cathleen by the poolside in her swimsuit, holding a few metal bars and casually having them reshape themselves into a side ladder, then pushing it into the water and having it sink into the tiles at the bottom and the edges of the pool.
I guess tactile telekinesis is really bullshit when it comes to building stuff.
“Ah… a part of me is happy you’re letting me see your powers,” I let our, feeling my shoulders sag as I bend a little bit. “But it kinda reminds me how lame bug control really is.”
Ouch, I got poked again.
“Entomokinesis is amazing. We had this conversation,” nags my best friend.
“Yes, yes.”
“Morning,” says Cathleen as she turns around and spots us. I guess we were kind of loud in the quiet of the empty building. I mean, the cracking and whining of the metal as she shaped it into a ladder sounded like heavy machinery, you know?
“Ah, its evening, though?” I straightened to wave at her.
“Hn. You can change into your swimsuit over there,” she points at the folding screens. “I made some woven wood shelves for you to leave your stuff. Did you remember to bring toiletries, or do you want to borrow mine once you’re done with your workout?”
“Toiletries?”
“Shampoo, soap, conditioner, skin cream, stuff like that.”
“Oh, I got my shampoo and hair conditioner,” I replied.
“Well, you can use the soap on the upper shelf to clean yourself once you’ve showered coming out of the pool, then. It's Ph neutral and anti-allergenic anyway, so it should be a one-size fits all kind of thing. I’ll get some Ph strips tomorrow to test your skin and find which soaps work best with it.”
“Alright… is skin cream really necessary?”
““Yes,”” oh, I got a deadpan look in stereo.
“EEP!” Chryssa happily grabs me by the hips and pulls my pants down.
“Swimsuit check!” She declares happily to the world.
“Chryssa! What if I was wearing panties instead!?”
“Ehehehe… Taylor panties are cute too~♪”
“You…” A bug crawls up through the shower grate and I have it chase her around while I strip down to my swimsuit.
“Do you need floaties?” Asks Cathleen, helpfully… I think.
“No, I don’t. I’m not a baby, thank you very much,” I deadpanned at her, then got ready to dip into the water.
“Hey, hey, run three laps around the pool first. Limber up, warm up, you know?” Cathleen stops me with a hand on my shoulder, and easily lifts me up and sets me aside.
Telekinesis feels weird. Not in a bad way, but it's like I’m being held from all directions at the same time.
Right, I stopped chasing Chryssa a minute ago, but she’s still doing laps around the pool. I join her when she passes by, and we start running together.
We’re in the water by the time Calynda arrives with Panacea.
…the best healer in the world looks like she’s fifteen minutes away from having a nervous breakdown, though she perks up right away when Cathleen climbs out of the pool to greet her.
I’m not even going to comment. I got a perfect view from behind, with emphasis on the perfect part, so…
*cough*
Looking back towards Chryssa, how the hell is she still doing underwater laps? She hasn’t come up for a while, just swimming back and forth along the length of the pool like some kind of super exotic goldfish, her platinum blonde hair just trailing after her.
Cathleen shoots me a look, and gestures for me to restart swimming.
At least the pool is tempered.
Norton Family apartment, Brockton Bay
August 16, 2011, 5:21 AM
Chryssa 2.0 Shard
I can’t believe I forgot to step out of the apartment before time traveling. Me, the one with [EIDETIC MEMORY], forgot to account for the very obvious fact we didn’t own the apartment back then.
Also, my [HIVEMIND] connection is gone. Guess even quantum tunneling doesn’t work across time, or maybe I’m still broadcasting back to my real body, but her answers can’t time-travel back to me? Whatever, I’ll re-connect once I’m Back To The Future.
Let’s just consider ourselves lucky the apartment existed to begin with. It would have been awkward as hell to pop in the middle of empty air.
It's fine, it's five and a half in the morning, nobody’s going to see me.
Having said that, I immediately look around because Murphy is an asshole and Lady Luck is a bitch, but Irony is a cruel mistress that loves to strike in the most poetic, mocking way possible.
Nope, no little kid with a glass of water on hand. No doggo. No old lady getting up at the crack of dawn.
It looks like we’re actually safe. Weird. This is Worm, things aren’t supposed to go right, and most specially not on the first go.
Well, let’s not look the gift horse in the mouth.
Turning on [ADVANCED CHROMATOPHORES] to turn invisible, pulling back the Eufiber from my feet so I’m walking on my toes and the balls of my feet instead of my boots, and heading for the door.
It's locked from the inside… there isn’t going to be an alarm if I just open the door, right? I can’t see or detect anything like that, so it should be alright… actually, let’s also turn on [ARCANE] to make sure any recording of me is self-deleting, too.
Alright, now that I have my full stealth suite on, let’s… wait, the elevator requires a card, and it’d be weird if I used mine… well it’s fine? I can always just use [CYBERKINESIS] to manipulate it anyway, but that’s spending Quantum for nothing when I can just open a window and go down the side of the building instead.
Yup, that’d be fine. I’ll just look out the window to make sure there’s no flying parahumans around first… all good. Nothing but empty skies as far as I can see.
It is five and a half in the fucking morning, after all.
There’s no alarm on the windows, which… fair, this is the fifteenth floor, after all. Still, in a world with parahumans, you’d think more people would bother locking their windows and/or setting alarms on them.
Anyway, let’s just open the window and walk down the side of the building. Got a lot to do, including hacking an ATM to get some cash, then acquiring temporary lodging, and tracking down Taylor’s mom so we can monitor her all the way to the crash.
“Here we go…” I open the window, step out onto the balcony, flip over to the side of the building and…
“Hello?” Says a three years younger Laserdream who just happened to come around from my blindspot at the exact time I flipped out of the balcony and therefore were kind of visible as the fast-moving outline of a person for half a second.
“Oh for fuck’s sake… Murphy, you cunt!” I whimper cry out.
Private Pool, Medusa Corp. Facilities in Brockton Bay
August 16, 2011, 6:31 PM
Amy Dallon / Panacea
I can’t believe I let Calynda talk me into ditching volunteer work for a day. Brandish is going to birth kittens if… who am I kidding, when she hears about this.
But, spending time with Calynda is by far the most interesting thing I’ve done in months. I am willing to believe the whole hell-earth refugee story because you’d have to be a tribal in the Amazon to not know the multiverse is real nowadays, and I’m way too cynical not to believe at least one version of Earth got started even earlier on the parahuman craze and things went to hell.
If I didn’t have hot flashes each time she lets me feel her body, I wouldn’t believe the whole Nova thing, though.
There really are more things in heaven and earth, Amy, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But having said that, I absolutely draw the line at time travel, though. No matter how much they insist on being the same person from alternate future timelines, I’m pretty sure they’re just sisters poking fun at the naive locals.
Uh… being from Brockton Bay makes me a Brocktonite, being from the U.S. means I’m an American, so does being from Earth Bet means I’m a Betican or does it make me a Betanite?
“What are you thinking about with such a thoughtful expression?” Asks my friend, eyes on the road as she drives us towards the docks, still wearing the same heels, miniskirt and glossy dark stockings she wore all day, sans her doctor robe and plus a mildly padded leather jacket with “Medusa Corp” on a shoulder patch atop her blouse.
“What would be the term for a person from Earth Bet on other earths? Like… what do you call your homeworld?”
“We didn’t really interact that much with other worlds, so we never got around naming ours anything special. I’m sure Divis Mal would call it Earth Prime or something equally pretentious, though.”
We stop at a red light, and she pulls out one of those snack bars all three sisters are so fond of. I swear, the one time I tried one, it was like biting into two full meals. Their metabolism is insane.
She chomps on the tip, then starts nibbling on it in refined little bites.
“Hmm… but if I have to name it, I guess I’d go with good riddance?” She asks in between nibbles.
“What?”
“I’d call it good riddance. One out of Ten, would nyet recommend.” she explains. “If it was just the Nova enslavement and persecution thing, it’d already be a Three out of Ten, but the whole citizen tier system brings it down to a One, no doubt about it.”
“Citizen Tier?”
“There’s three tiers of citizenship in the Federated States of America” she explains, then takes a minute to chew through the rest of her bar before the light goes green.
She resumes explaining as we restart moving through the traffic.
"The Federated States is a cold accounting of human greed. Sure, they don’t care about your ethnicity or sexual preference, but that doesn’t means they’re the good guys. All they care about is your tax bracket.”
We stop to let somebody in a wheelchair cross the street, holding back the traffic for them as Calynda keeps telling me about the USA in the world she came from.
“First you have the Third Class citizens. These are the legal ghosts, such as immigrants, refugees, and the 'unproductive', who have zero rights. They can't vote, they can't own property, and the law doesn't even recognize them unless they’re being arrested. Well, that’s normal people, of course. Novas just get shot in the head,” she explains. “Then you have Second Class Citizens. This is the majority—the 'Class 2s.' You get this just by being born to a citizen parent. You have 'limited' rights, meaning the government can seize your property or your body whenever an official feels like it. You can attend board meetings, Amy, but you aren't allowed to speak, and you definitely aren't allowed to vote.”
“When you say ‘body’...” I ask, dreading the answer.
“Don’t be an attractive tier Two in the FSA, Amy,” she says, and that’s the end of it. “Or biologically compatible with a tier One, because if you are, that makes you spare parts for transplants.”
“Oh God is worse than I expected,” I sigh, and feel like shrinking into my seat.
“Then you have Tier One Citizens. This is the only 'Tier' that actually ‘matters,’ because in the FSA, your taxes buy your vote. Every 10,000 yen you pay in annual taxes buys you one 'share' in the country. If you have three or more votes, you're a Class 1. You get full civil rights, the right to procedural justice, and the right to carry a gun,” she steers us towards the docks. “And the real horror, Amy? Corporations are Class 1 Citizens too. They pay the most taxes, so they have the most votes. The FSA isn't a country; it's a hostile takeover masquerading as a government. If you were there, they wouldn't want you to heal people for free; they'd want you to incorporate yourself so they could trade your medical talent on the stock market. Well, that’s if they decide Parahumans aren’t Novas, because otherwise they’d shoot you so… yeah, One out of Ten, would nyet recommend."
“Wait, why yen?”
“That’s because Japan is the world’s economic superpower,” she says. “I know, pretty much the opposite is true here. It's almost as if somebody looked at my Earth and decided to write a fanfic of it with Earth Bet as a setting, then went ‘I should probably change it a little bit’, isn’t it? Anyway, Japan is far ahead of the world's technological and economical curve, mostly thanks to their policy of open borders for Novas,” she steers us towards a large, recently refurbished warehouse. “In the 2070’s climate, the rest of the world is either trying to leash us or kill us. Japan is the only one willing to hide us as a formal state policy. They frame it as a rescue—a safe harbor for Novas who are being hunted by the Directive or squeezed by the FSA, while very politely replying with ‘we have no Novas here, you must be mistaken’ to anyone who asks.”
“That’s nice of them,” that must mean they have a lot of Novas, too. I guess it would be easy to lead the economy of the world if you were hogging all the Thinkers and Tinkers.
“But there’s a price for that,” she says, because of course there is. “They provide you with a hidden apartment and a clean identity, but in return, you become a permanent 'consultant' for their tech conglomerates. They don't want to regulate your soul like the PRT; they want to reverse-engineer your biology.
To the world, Japan is the brave humanitarian exception. To the people inside the labs, it's just a more comfortable cage. They aren't saving us because we're human, Amy; they're saving us because we are the only intellectual property that can keep their economy ahead of the curve. It’s not a sanctuary; it’s a talent-acquisition program with better PR."
“Of course it is,” I sigh. “So, do you speak Japanese?”
“Hai,” she replies with a playful tone.
“Wait, do you?”
“Hai,” she says again, and smiles as she remotely opens the doors of the garage section of the warehouse and we drive in to stop next to a couple of bikes.
I roll my eyes, and she smiles at me fondly, then kills the engine and we descend.
“When did you have the time to build all this?”
“Eh, it was mostly Cathleen. Anyway, we’re only staying for a couple of hours, then I’ll drive us back to the hospital and we can do a couple hours of volunteer work before I take you home,” she says as she opens the door leading into… an olympic pool.
Just in time for her twin to climb her way out of the water like some sort of unfathomably sexual golden goddess, wet skin and perfect curves glistening under the warm lights, her platinum blonde hair dragging water like the tail of some monstrous beast.
“Yeah… alright,” I comment, because yeah, alright. Two hours of playing in the water with these two. I can totally get behind that.
Oh hey, that’s Taylor I-got-legs Hebert waving at us from the water.
Atlantic View Apartments. Brockton Bay
August 16, 2011, 5:23 AM
Laserdream / Crystal Pelham
“If you’re a burglar, please give up now,” I say, rather reasonably, if I do say so myself.
“You are nyet going to believe me, so we’re gonna have a fight now, become friends and team up in the future, aren’t we?” Says a definitively female voice. I think she’s about my age, too. “That’s how these things go in every comic I ever read,” she says.
“That would imply you’re a hero and this is a crossover,” I comment, mildly amused. “But I wonder, does that mean you’re the guest star in a New Wave storyline, or am I the guest star instead?”
That’s when the figure on the wall de-cloaked to reveal the cutest girl I’ve ever seen. It was hard to tell how tall she was, considering that she was standing horizontally on the building’s outer wall, but she was definitely smaller than me. Especially considering those huge ass hells on her ankle-length boots.
More importantly, her hair was just the most amazing light pink, and easily longer than she was tall, cascading in a silky waterfall towards the ground as she turned around (over?) on her axis to look at me.
“Would you prefer we sat on the roof to talk, or would you rather use one of those benches down there, like civilized people?” She said in the cutest russian accent i’ve ever heard, and pointed at one of the benches in the little plaza in the middle of the residential complex.
I looked up at the nearby roof I just flew over to find her, and down at the little park.
Honestly, I probably should lead her to the roof. Apparently she can’t fly, so if she’s a villain, that’d make her escape harder.
“The roof is right there,” I shrugged.
She half turned her head to look up, shrugged, and oriented herself that way, then began to walk.
I just had to take my phone out to try and get a picture. Perfectly horizontal, in that cute skirt and jacket, with her hair floating on the breeze (we’re pretty far up) like that? Absolutely a picture-worthy sight.
“Hey!” She cried out, sounding indignant, and covered her face with both hands.
I froze, because I just realized I took a picture of an unmasked cape. What did that tell her about me? She probably thinks I want to unmask her to the PRT or worse yet, upload the picture, and…
Ah, we’re going to fight now, aren’t we? And it's absolutely my fault.
That’s when she jumped at me.
Yeah, we’re totally fighting now, and it’s absolutely my fault.
She’s on me in an instant, legs locked around my hips as she tries to reach the phone in my outstretched hand, and… she’s definitively of the petite persuasion.
I mean, her arms are too short, so she can’t reach my hand, let alone my phone.
“Delete that! Delete that right now!” She cries out, stretching on top of me to try and grab my phone.
…I shouldn’t tease her. I shouldn’t tease her. She has good reasons to be angry, so I shouldn’t tease her.
I want to tease her.
I mean, I am going to delete the picture either way, but…
“Problem?” I ask, feeling my smile grow as I stretch my arm to push the phone further away from her reach.
She climbs me like a tree as I straighten up, straddling my body and wrapping her (long and warm) legs around me so she can reach for my phone.
I let her have it.
“Unlock it right now!” She demands, cheeks puffed up adorably as she looks down at me, phone in hand.
Honestly, she could try throwing it down to the ground to get rid of the photo, I guess? I'm not sure if I’d get it back when I get a new phone, but I guess she’s not a villain if she’s considered enough of other people’s property to not do that.
I’d catch it with the invisible forcefield I made under us (in case she slips and falls), but she doesn’t know that.
“Yes yes, give me the phone,” I say.
She actually handed it back to me. I mean, she could have just asked for my keycode but eh, more evidence she’s not a bad girl.
Once I’ve unlocked the phone, she navigates it to the photo section and deletes the picture, then goes to the paper bin and deletes that too.
Kind of a shame. She’s really cute, so I’d have liked to keep her picture.
“Happy now?” I asked, still feeling rather smug.
“Hmph!” She pushes the phone back into my hands, and leaps off me towards the building, cloaking up mid-jump, all but disappearing.
“Oh c’mon, let’s have a talk! Hey!” I call out to her, ineffectively.
Fair enough, I guess.
Mysterious Clinic X, New York
January 31. 2011, 7:08 PM
Zenobia Shard
Alright, it was always the plan to fight the Adepts. So far, so good. We just didn’t expect them to be interested in stealing our healing pods.
I kinda still want to go with Bacta Tanks, by the way, but Disney threw a hissy fit so now they’re just Healing Pods. Not sure why we’re surprised about it, but the mouse hit-squad of lawyers were the first to flood us with Cease and Desist notifications.
The medical industrial complex? Yeah, we expected those guys. Disney, not so much. And how the fuck did they hire the Adepts to mess with us, or is it just a coincidence that they tried smashing our stuff the day after we got notified?
“Your machine is just mocking the noble arts,” cries out a guy I’m naming ‘Dumbass nº 5’ in my mind, because… is he serious?
“Hey, you serious, or is this a LARP thing?!” I cry out the window as I punch the lights out of Dumbass nº 2. “Cause if we’re going with classes and stuff, I wanna be a Muscle Wizard, alright?!”
Judging by the barrage of colorful glass shards and various other power-generated ranged attacks showering our window, we do believe they may have taken exception to our light jest.
‘Mouse is gonna be pissed she missed this,’ we think with something like a smile.
Can’t believe she took us out on an actually romantic, candle-lit date. Honestly, twenty seven years of living as a useless lesbian did not prepare us for a pushy girlfriend.
As for these guys outside? Of course we know they’re actually serious about their mambo jumbo. I mean, dumbasses nº 1, nº 2 and nº 3 had honest to goodness staves and swords.
By the way, the reason we haven’t pulled Zenobia’s guns out is because they only brought a handful of parahumans and no armed goons, which, come to think about it, makes sense if they’re going all in on the urban arcana ideology.
Guns aren’t exactly magical, are they? Uh, wonder how they feel about Miss Militia’s existence.
Shame we haven’t gotten around to reverse engineering Mannequin’s tranquilizer yet. Then these guys wouldn’t have to suffer through what comes next.
Atlantic View Apartments. Brockton Bay
August 16, 2011, 5:29 AM
Chryssa 2.0
Could I have used [CYBERKINESIS] to remotely access her phone and get rid of the picture? Yes, but then that’d make our little encounter extra memorable, same as letting our [ARCANE] enhancement delete all evidence of the picture, whereas right now it's just her botching first contact with someone exploring her powers for the first time. A fresh trigger out for a walk.
How do I know that’s what she thinks? Easy. I hypnotized her to think that way, which is why I had to get so close to her.
The effect will go away in a couple days, but by then she will have internalized the idea that it was her fault, and keep quiet about it.
She’s likely to look me up when I show up in a couple years, though. A half forgotten memory pulling on her subconscious.
Well, it should be fine? Yeah I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t be a problem. It’ll be fun to see her face light up with recognition when she sees us, once we’re Back To The Future… no DeLorean DMC-12 required.
*sigh*
What was the point of appearing at this hour if I’m still running into people? Maybe I should have gone the (literal) extra mile and gone to the mountains to do this?
Well, I’m here now, so let’s see… My phone, surprising absolutely nobody, has no signal, which means I can’t use it to hack my way into a legal ID, place of residence, etc etc.
Let’s head downtown and look for an automated teller machine. A little bit of bank fraud never hurt anybody, and I suspect I’m going to work on cash-only for however long this’ll take.
Mysterious Clinic X, New York
January 31, 2011, 7:11 PM
Zenobia Shard
You got the touch~♪
You got the powe~er~♫
“YEAH!~♪”
Music begins to play from every speaker in the fight area, including the Adept’s phones. There’s a distant HONK! HONK! as our body behind the steering wheel of a red and blue 1980’s Freightliner FL86 presses down on the truck’s horn.
Out of all the bullshit the ABERRANT system has given us, [PRECISION] and the automated successes that come from having Mega Attributes have to be nùmero uno.
“After all is said and done~♪”
Case in point. Driving a restored G1 Optimus Prime 6-wheeler down a New York street at full tilt thanks to our Mega Dexterity 3 making it downright impossible for us to crash into something or someone…
“You never walk, you never run~♪”
…before suddenly turning the steering wheel hard to the side and having the truck ‘jump’ into the air thanks to inertia, slo~owly spin in mid air (with excellent hang time, by the way) before landing back on its wheels and drifting in behind the adepts as they take cover behind two cars…
“You’re a winner~♪!”
…and squishing them against the cars hard enough to rattle the teeth of anyone who wasn’t smart enough to GTFO when a parahuman fight was going on.
Best of all? They aren’t actually hurt, just unconscious. [PRECISION] for the win!
+25 exp
We can already hear Stella whine about missing all the fun.