Breakout (Worm)

[Questingdragon]

A brief sojourn to give me a change of pace. Worm AU.

You have seven couple-of-thousand-word updates to escape the Birdcage.

This is mostly a thought experiment, to see just how inescapable the Birdcage really is.

 

[Questingdragon]

Contessa stepped out of the door, patting away a few small tongues of flame on her suit. She should have phrased it better, Path to delivering information to Lung without being inconvenienced, instead of how to deliver it without being harmed.

"An interesting morning I assume." Doctor Mother said, crossing to the rack of neatly pressed suits on the wall and selecting one.

"Somewhat. A little adjustment to the Birdcage's second purpose." Contessa said, taking the suit.

"Oh? Was there going to be a breakout?"

"No. Containment of powerful Parahumans is the primary purpose. The secondary purpose is second triggers."

"Ah yes. Did we get the data we needed?"

"In part. The system works well. Put enough crazed and violent individuals together in an inescapable prison and you get a fair number of second triggers. An average of zero point nine a year. Dragons monitoring equipment hasn't really told us anything we didn't already know, but making already dangerous Parahumans stronger is only going to help when we need to fight Scion. Dragon has been social engineering, stabilizing the prison by carefully regulating where new arrivals arrive. It's good, kept some of the more powerful inmates alive, but it has now reached the point where I needed to destabilize things a little, to insure the rate of second triggers does not start to drop."

"Very well. What now?"

"There's a Tinker in New Delli who's about to cause a worldwide EMP. I need to recruit her before that happens. Door."

***​

[Several Months later... ]

There is always a nervous tension as the elevator descends. Always a small group waiting to meet the newcomer. Is it a monster? Will they need to fight? What will their power be?

Cinderhands should have it well under control. He would greet the newcomer, explain something of the basics for survival here in the Birdcage. Then the new arrival would be escorted here, to you. That was important, it set the tone, let you stay in control. If the new arrival was a rabid animal that needed to be put down, you would deal with it.

The elevator opened, and the sticky liquid left over from the containment foam holding the prisoner washed out onto the floor before finding a grate to roll through. The elevator door closed as a large, tattooed Asian man stepped out, but it did not go back up, instead dropping into the incineration matrix that lay under the floor.

Dragon made a new elevator every time she sent a Parahuman down here.

You had long since stopped hoping to escape this place. There was a contentment to be found here, if one looked. A certain thrill to living on the knifes edge, ruling the monsters who were caged with you. That didn't mean you couldn't watch, analyze, study.

You turned your attention to the new arrival. Being physically impressive was easy, down here, nothing that could truly impress.

Comparing what you saw now to what you had seen on the news... that impressed. There had never been a picture of Lung's face on the television, but it wasn't hard to put together. There had been a trial, and you had seen parts of that. You'd known he might be arriving soon.

So... pyrokinesis, the ability to grow to scale with a threat... but he'd need time. You'd have to make sure not to give it to him, if it came to that.

Lung is still bleary, shaking of the sedatives. He is listening to Cinderhands, so that's a step in the right direction. He snorts when the introduction is over, but he follows as Cinderhands leads the man to your cell.

Lung eyes the bone littering the floor with annoyance more than anything. Unless he knows your power he will assume it comes from your victims, so that says something about his confidence. Stepping into the lions den.

Whimper moves to flank him, and you wave Spruce back towards the televisions. Whimper and Cinderhands should be enough to ensure to make him feel outnumbered without being threatened.

It would do until you had more of a measure of the man in front of you.

"Lung." You say calmly.

"Marquis." He responds, only the slightest slur from the drugs in his speech.

"I understand you are from the same city as I am? Perhaps Dragon thought we would have common ground?"

"Perhaps. I doubt it."

He's taking an aggressive posture, but it feels slightly forced. Perhaps he would prefer defensive, but feels that would be like blood in the water. Perhaps it is simple the drugs. He is growing, just slightly, bloodshot eyes locked on you. It would be a shame if things came to a fight, it took some time to get your cell neatly decorated.

"I suppose we will see then." You respond easily. It would be a severe pity to kill this man now. You want information, on your daughter specifically. You may even be able to send her a message... perhaps a unknown threat to her life. You'll have to think on it.

You change your mind when Lung pushes Cinderhands out of the way to leave the cell. Aggressive, reckless, annoying. Yes a pyrokinetic is unlikely to be able to hurt Lung, you vaguely recall some sort of heat immunity to go along with Lung's own pyrokinesis. The fact that he is willing to anger an unknown like that means only one thing. Whatever information you want, you will need to get it now, before the man kills himself.

"One more moment, if you would." You say.

Lung pauses, and turns back to face you.

"I would very much like to be brought up to date on my home city, perhaps an interchange of information is possible?"

"Perhaps." Lung says slowly.

***​

You note the tentacles feeding on the flesh before you absently. They are not important.

A master effect. These heroes had used a master effect to keep your daughter in line. Unacceptable. You needed to find them, needed to tell someone. Perhaps Dragon could... no. If Dragon was going to do anything about it, it would be done. She would have heard everything that Lung had told you, before you killed him.

A simple tale. A woman in a suit and fedora had given him information on Amelia, and asked him to recruit her for his little war. Information that not even dear Amy had known. Lung had a preexisting hatred for the woman, and responded by ignoring her information and trying to kill her.

Later Lung had read the sheet, which told how Amelia had been brainwashed, both by her sisters Aura, and her mothers hatred and fear. Lung had even sent Oni-Lee to confirm what information he could circumspectly. Then he had simply not acted on anything.

That, more than anything, was why the man was now dead.

You notice several of your men getting off the floor, and consider it absently. A tiny part of your brain realizes that several of them have enhanced agility, and it was almost impossible an earthquake could shake the Birdcage. That left only powers over vertigo, or a trigger event. A second trigger wasn't unheard of in the Birdcage, though it rarely helped save the person who triggered. It could also be a form of attack...

Did it matter? Perhaps you should just let them kill you? You needed out you had heroes to punish and a daughter to save. There was no way out, you'd looked, everyone had looked. There were attempts, there were losses. Dragon won.

You look at the few blood stains on the floor, and realize they are all that remain of Lung.

Absently you lift your hand and create a ball of flame in it. Feeling the fires inside you writhe and coil in response to your stark horror. Not at what you had done, but at the memories.

Amelia had come in to heal Lung, when Skitter had cut out his eyes. He had seen her, seen her downcast, controlled, exhausted. Pushed to do nothing but heal.

You snuff the flame as you grow. Then you snuff your growth as well.

You feel caged. A beast chained with a collar of fire. You throw your head back and howl. Above you, the ceiling melts, and a turret lowers to drown you in containment foam.

***​

It's a few hours before Spruce feels safe enough to approach and slowly dissolve away the containment foam. You don't mind. You did need to cool down. You hadn't realized that the second trigger had been yours.

You experiment a little, back in your cell. You lack the fine control over distance that you used to have, instead seemingly having gained control over your own body at a cellular level. Range is a problem, you cannot maintain control of your bones at a distance like you could. You partially solve this problem by experimenting with your arm. You have certain pre-made patterns, instincts. A sort of tinker-pattern that lets you create super efficient biological structures.

You throw your arm clean across the room, let the bladed end sink into the opposite wall, then retract it.

A few of your men look at you, then look away.

No one talks about Trigger events. Second Triggers are worse. They respected you before, and a second Trigger isn't going to have decreased your power. You have time before they think your silence is weakness. Plenty of time really.

You roll back onto your bed and think of your daughter, comparing the bright, happy child in your memories to the drawn and haggard teen in Lung's.

You need to get out.

The defenses of the Birdcage are formidable. Breaching the walls themselves is easy. Foam turrets. Vacuum. Drones. More foam. A mountain of dirt, and those were only the defenses you knew about.

It isn't impossible though. There are Tinkers in here. Thinkers. Hundreds of Parahumans. There had to be a way, and you would find it.

Time to prepare then.

"Whimper, attend." You sit up, and Whimper stops reading his book and joins you.

"I um, need to worry boss? I know it must have been harsh, hearing that..."

"No more discussion. Have we given Roach to Glastig Uaine yet?"

"No sir. He's still locked up in P block."

"Very well."

You leave, walking briskly. One man, Swashbuckler if memory serves, almost falls over trying to get out of your way quickly.

Unsurprising. Your new powers were frightening. The feeding tendrils in particular, and none here had been spared the sight of you feeding Lung. The whole prison probably knew by now. It was a minor issue, the other cell block leaders would not move against you without more information, and you had time to persuade them that you either weren't a threat or to much of a threat to handle.

You reach P block, note the bar that had been welded over the door by Cinderhands, and try to use a bone shard to break the bar off.

You fail. Old instincts, you would have to re-learn quickly.

Instead you reach out and snatch away the bar with brute strength. It takes very little effort, and you are aware you could make yourself stronger should ordinary enhanced musculature fail to be up to the task.

As you walk in you note that Roach still hadn't finished his last meal. The body of Doorstop is only partially eaten. You swing the door shut behind you.

Roach was a Changer/Brute. His secondary form was armored, with a mouth that split four ways and dripped a digestive venom. The armor was fairly weak, and not truly an issue when fighting him. The main problem lay in that he could swap between forms at will, and healed fully whenever he changed.

Your fight is brief and bloody. He swaps forms at will? Destroy his brain before he can think to change. His execution was inevitable, his kind did not survive long down here. Not without far more power than he possessed.

This time you focused on using his power while you killed him. You get images, ideas. You already had an armored form, but now you have another one. You know where to bite to spread your digestive juices quickly and...

Annoying. He really had nothing you did not already have. He could only change with mass he stored... elsewhere, and he ate to replenish that. You are very similar, actually. Perhaps your trigger pinged of him.

Your armored form is better, the single bite Roach inflicted showed that you heal, rather than needing a new body on taking damage, and you can feed more quickly with your tendrils than with his mouth. In short you really didn't need his abilities. Nevermind, you still had information, you could take memories from others when you killed them. You could take powers from others when you killed them.

Useful. Dangerous, but useful. If you could grow to match the Faerie Queen herself...

Uaine had never seemed bothered by being in a prison, and you had long suspected this was because she could leave should she chose. If you could do the same...

You notice the fire is gone as soon as your mind turns from fever dreams of escaping to see your daughter again.

You try to summon flame, and fail. A little experimentation gets the fire back, but leaves you stripped of your new armor, and your mouth normalizing.

So... you could use your personal biokinesis to copy one power at a time. Annoying, and it slightly dashes your hopes of matching the Faerie Queen, who could copy three.

The obvious next test would be to see if you needed to kill someone. You bend, and touch Doorstops arm.

The tendrils appear, devouring the dead boy, but you get nothing. You cannot turn to immobile stone, even if you shove aside Lung's power to make room.

Annoying. Perhaps it didn't work on the dead.

The thought occurs to you that Uaine may take offense. Your trump ability is very similar to hers. A mistake not to consider that first. Still, the fact that you are not yet dead means that there is a fair chance you can salvage the situation. Somehow.

You ignore the bloodstains on the floor and fall back into a simple boxing stance.

Power. You had it before, you have more of it now. Between them all, hundreds of parahumans should be able to find a way to beat a single Tinker, only infighting, posturing and power-plays had stopped that from happening.

If you could get enough people working on things... you had a chance. There were things that had nearly worked before.

You look at the deep grooves that your new organic blade has cut into the ground, and smile grimly. You'd been focusing on not breathing during the exercise, and you had managed to avoid doing so, but your body did still need oxygen. You could store a little extra inside yourself, if you concentrated, but probably only enough for five or ten minutes. Fortunately one of the men in your cell could control oxygen, none of the other gasses, just oxygen. He had used it to leave his victims gasping for useless breath as they died.

It would happen. A few days to get used to the changes to your powers, a few more of careful reconnaissance. If you had to eat every Parahuman in this prison and kill Uaine herself it would happen. Despite your rules, despite your promises. Or perhaps because of them. You would see little Amy again, and this time, you will see her protected.

 

[Questingdragon]

For a full list of your powers see here. You can manipulate your biology on a cellular level, but only the powers of an endgame Alex Mercer come to you instinctively. If you want to create viruses/split bodies you will need a complete understanding of the required biology.

In place of a health bar you can store up to ten times your volume in extra-dimensional mass, and you need two cubic feet of mass to maintain sentience, and one additional foot to maintain sapience. You cannot consume with less than a foot of mass. This is a Game Over.

While you can maintain non-human shapes, it requires intense concentration, and you will not be able to use any additional powers.

See here for information on other birdcage residents. (Birdcage tab.) There will obviously be OC's as the Birdcage is not touched on frequently in canon. If Marquis knows someone or something useful, you can safely expect him to mention it.

You may use the power of any Parahuman you consume. But you can only use one power, other than your personal biokinesis, (the Alex Mercer powerset), at once. Your bone manipulation is now limited to devastator attacks and creating, blades, groundspikes, claws etc. You cannot generate mass without consumption.

The Rules.

1. Family first. Always.
2. No women. No children.
3. Respect where it is deserved.
4. Self control.
5. Protect your own.
6. There are no rules. Only pawns and hunger.

 

[Questingdragon]

Now, we need a lot of OC's. You're going to need a variety of powers to successfully escape, and these are the people who might be able to help you. I'm going to ask for your help making up these capes. If you're interested, please fill in the data, and follow the rules.

If you're looking for inspiration, Weaver Dice is designed to help you create Wormverse powers.

I'm going to be working on Overlord Ascendant over the next week, and in that time you can create as many OC's as you want, provided they fit the rules. There are still many defenses available to the Birdcage that are not revealed in canon, and you will not begin to learn of them till later. If you do not have potential allies who can circumvent these, then you are stuck.

Rules

1. If they could escape the Birdcage, they wouldn't be in there. No powers that can escape on their own, or by simply combining with another Birdcage resident.
2. No one over powered. The cell block leaders rule primarily though strength. If they could beat Gavel or Acidbath, they probably would have.

Here is an example.

Name: MudCrack

Power: Control over all liquids within a one foot range of his body. Manton limited.

Cell Block Leader: Acidbath (Marquis, Acidbath, Galvanate, Teacher, Lab Rat and Gavel were leaders of the cell blocks on the men's side of the prison. Lustrum, Black Kaze, Glaistig Uaine, String Theory, Crane and Ingenue were the female leaders)

Crimes: Used high viscosity liquids at high speeds as the equivalent of sandpaper, eroding his victims skin and leaving them to bleed out.

Personality: Violent, Aggressive, Stubborn.

The idea is that in canon no one powerful enough to unite the Birdcage behind a single cause actually wanted to leave. You may be powerful enough to do that now.

 

[BFldyq]

Name: Psi

Power: Can manipulate the effective atmopsheric pressure. Does not actually manipulate the air, just the pressure applied. How much he can increase or decrease the pressure is determined by the atmosphere. Inside the Birdcage, it's rather weak. Can however change effective pressure rapidly, causing mild to moderate barotrauma, however. Effects centred on him, but is unaffected personally.

Cell Block Leader: Gavel

Crimes: Mass Murder. Used his power to squash someone he hated inside a skyscraper, did not considering the ramifications of doing so. Entire building collapsed, and took down two neighbouring buildings. Survived, and when they attempted to bring him in, he flattened an entire city block in a panic.

Personality: Depressed, Vindictive.

 

[Z000]

Cape Name: Zero
Gender: Female

Power:
- Changer: Optimize Regen ( think Crawler but with out the crazy mutation, she can make herself human looking at will)

Cell Block Leader: Lustrum

Crime: Mercenary for hire, took a job of killing a PRT director, fail, got capture, since her power make her extremely hard to kill, they decide to Birdcage her
Personality: Friendly, Paranoid

 

[macdjord]

Eh. I never really got into Worm. Interitio, I'd have rather seen you resume The Earth Burned if you weren't going to continue Overlord Ascendant full-time.

 

[BFldyq]

Eh. I never really got into Worm. Interitio, I'd have rather seen you resume The Earth Burned if you weren't going to continue Overlord Ascendant full-time.

Click to shrink...

From what Interitio said in the Overlord thread, and in the OP, I'd say this is supposed to be a short Quest.

 

[macdjord]

From what Interitio said in the Overlord thread, and in the OP, I'd say this is supposed to be a short Quest.

Click to shrink...

That would be a first.

 

[evildice]

Name: Halter
Female, 20s.

Power: freeze matter (except herself) in a 2-ft sphere around one or more of her extremities. Matter outside the freeze-zone continues to move normally, meaning that if she freezes part of a person in motion, that person is likely to face injury. Even if you're not harmed by your own motion, her freeze zones can cause severe circulatory problems if she keeps a limb (or more) frozen for longer than a second.

Cellblock: Crane. She's been learning martial arts, and she's able to use a foe's momentarily frozen limb as a point of leverage to deliver her own less-lethal attacks.

 

[tomio]

they could beat Gravel or Acidbath, they probably would have.

Click to shrink...

That'd be Gavel, I believe. Like the judge's hammer.

 

[john doe]

Name: Prime
Power: Danger sense, brute rating due to a Lab rat potion, short range teleports within line of sight(thanks to Lab rat he has 360 degree vision).
Cell Block Leader: Lab Rat
Crimes: Broke the unwritten rules by raping a vigilante after she tried and failed to stop him from robbing a jewelry store, he also crippled 2 PRT agents during the fight where he was captured.
Personality: Violent, Aggressive, paranoid.

 

[Hexed999]

Shatter
Power: can turn anyone or anything she touches into a substance approximately twice as durable as glass for roughly 20 minutes. A person who reverts is fully healed unless more then 35% of their body is destroyed, in which case any and all damages are carried over, almost always fatal.
Cell Block Leader: GU
Crime: acquired a tinker tech device that allowed her to quickly and easily destroy her statues, used it.
Personality: Violent, reckless, sociopath

Wavelength
Power: Tinker, specialty is wavelengths and vibrations
Cell Block Leader: String theory
Crime: Created the device that Shatter used to kill her victims, including two Protectorate heroes and a Ward. Was publicly associated with Shatter and her trial was shortly after her home city had suffered a major devastation at the hands of another Valefor. Someone in the media suggested that she might be able to replicate Valefor's power and it all went downhill from there.
Personality: Mercenary, opportunistic, hates Masters, hates Shatter

 

[Xilph]

you need two cubic feet of mass to maintain sentience, and one to maintain sapience

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure you got those mixed up, sapience is the complex reasoning stuff.

That said for some minor characters that could be quite useful I'd say a high level regenerator that's a Deadpool expy or something, the high degree of biomass regen would be wonderfully useful to us but wouldn't warrant more than a mid tier brute ranking normally. Even if their regen is enough we can't kill them fully it's still a great source of biomass. That's my first thought for a basic cape that could be rather useful to us.

 

[abyssmal_kismet]

Name: Jerry (no cape name)

Power: Complete transfer of mind and personality; former inhabitant of body is fully aware and completely capable of communicating with Jerry, to his immense enjoyment. When Jerry transfers to another body, he chooses whether his current body lives on, fully remembering his actions during his stay, or dies. Requires about a half-hour of prolonged physical contact to transfer. Any powers held by the former tenant are kept during his stay. Either in the non-powered body he arrived in, or in whatever body his cell block leader has him stuck in at the time.

Crime: A serial murderer and rapist, Jerry would transfer to a new body during sex, leaving his former body dead on the bed. He would then wait quite a while, living out the life he stole before feeling it safe enough to transfer again. (not sure how he would have gotten caught. some kind of socially-inclined thinker? perhaps a trip to Las Vegas, home of the thinkers and secrets?)

 

[macdjord]

I'm pretty sure you got those mixed up, sapience is the complex reasoning stuff.

Click to shrink...

I think he means one additional cubic foot.

 

[OmniTracker]

Name: Epicentre

Power: Dynakinetic. Can redirect incoming kinetic and electromagnetic energy over a certain amount into himself and store it. He can then emit the stored energy as a shock-wave through any surface he touches, Manton Limited. The greater the charge the shorter the time he can maintain it. His power has a lower threshold; anything with lower kinetic energy than a bullet will pass straight through his field and injure him directly. Has a thinker power that enables either superhuman reflexes or very short precognition, allowing him to dodge or absorb attack he would normally be unable to see coming. This thinker power will also not activate on things lower than his field's threshold.

Crime: Originally a hero whose entire team was wiped out by the local villains shortly before Behemoth's attack at Lyon, France. Despite the truce, he used the energy he had absorbed from one of Behemoth's lightning strikes to emit a shock-wave while next to the villains responsible, pulverising them. He was sent to the Birdcage to maintain the truce, and went willingly.

Cell block leader: Gavel. Whilst he doesn't agree with his methods he still thinks that Gavel at least tried to make the world a better place. Gavel occasionally beats on him so that he has a shock-wave charged up for self-defence/mutual destruction.

Personality: Remorseful, Vindictive, Impulsive.

_ _ _

Name: Control

Power: Ferrokinetic. She has total control over any material that can hold a magnetic charge. The objects cannot be larger than a centimetre (mass doesn't matter), but have no known maximum velocity since they normally degrade from friction before a maximum can be reached. Her range is normally within arms' reach or line-of-sight but objects retain momentum if vision is lost. She can manipulate through telescopic lenses or cameras but her control suffers. Most often used her powers to make a cyclonic barrier of iron sand and other small metals, as well as a cutting edge.

Crime: Robbed one too many banks, maimed one too many heroes/civilians.

Cell block leader: String Theory. Thinks if anyone can get her out of the Birdcage it's the one who builds doomsday devices.

Personality: Greedy, Claustrophobic

_ _ _

Name: Curse

Power: Microelectrokinetic. Once he has touched the target he can use his power to rob a target of one of their senses (normally sight or hearing) or cause extreme pain by interfering with the nervous system. He can't override someone's muscular structure, just interfere with the brain signals. Requires skin contact initially but can be triggered at any time at a later date. Can't effect non-living things.

Crime: A hitman who specialised in killing his targets in his civilian guise, not using any obvious cape abilities. Was never caught on the job, so no one knew that parahuman hitman 'Curse' and accountant Charles Crawford were one and the same until he blinded everyone he'd ever touched in a panic whilst escaping from the police on charges of embezzlement and fraud.

Cell block leader: Marquis. Keeps a safe an civil, cell block. What more could you want?

Personality: Quiet, Cautious.

 

[Sheaman3773]

Hm, interesting. Let's see...
I might want to use some of mine in my own work...


Name: Tweak

Power: (Shaker) Able to form an invisible field around herself that adjusts the direction of vectors within it, energy or matter. The degree is under her control, but is relatively minimal at best, only achieving 45 degrees on a good day. Can reshape the field fairly easily, but must remain in contact with it. Able to handle less than half a dozen different vectors at once, but nearby items with similar vectors may all be affected simultaneously--shooting her with buckshot is equivalent to shooting her with a bullet.

Cell Block Leader: Black Kaze

Crimes: Desperation murder, to fuel her habit. She used her powers to adjust her own aim with weapons and defend herself. Used up all three strikes.

Personality: Suffers from Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome from meth; Tired, Hungry, fits of hallucinations or delusions.

---

Name: Unreal

Power: (Striker) Ability to make items he's in contact with temporarily "unreal," or intangible, though he handles them as if they were unchanged. Any material intersections at the time of the effect fading (when he's not in contact with them or turns the ability off) are made permanent.
Manton-limit on the material he phases and on himself. Phased items cannot be left in most power-enhanced materials/people when intangibility fades.

Cell Block Leader: Galvanate

Crimes: Rape, torture, and murder. He would stalk his victims, then use his power to stake them to the wall or floor, often with something phased into their mouth to muffle screams, and start his fun, killing them once he was finished.

Personality: Sociopathic, (superficially) Charming, Sadistic.

---

Name: Brambles

Power: (Blaster/Shaker) Shoots a bolt of energy that takes root in the target and rapidly grows in guided directions, growing through whatever obstacles are in its way. Once it reaches the end of its growth (multiple "branches," roughly a foot from the "root," taking between 1-2 seconds) it transforms into whatever solid materials it's eaten through or is rooted in, generally but not perfectly corresponding to the ratio of such.
The bolts will not root in living things but will eat through them. She is immune to her own attack until it has finished transforming.

Cell Block Leader: Ingenue

Crimes: Murder. Some were hits or in battle--used to seal doors/windows shut or suddenly have the floor or wall eat through her victims--but most were executions done by her on behalf of her gang.

Personality: Cold, Passionless, Calculating

---

Name: Genoscyth the Eye Raper
(technically not mine, but rather [iirc] Psycho Gecko's, which was confirmed as canon by Wildbow stating that he died in the Gold Morning.)

Power: (Trump/Shaker/Tinker?) His power is to change people in line of sight into various forms of tinker-tech-like equipment, which maintains their consciousness and places them in constant agony. The equipment he gets seems to be at least half randomized in purpose, though there is a predilection for weapons or to otherwise fill an empty space in his load-out (e.g., if his helmet is destroyed/lost, he's likely to get a helmet in the next couple transformations).

Cell Block Leader: Gavel

Crimes: Serial killing. He would transform his victims, then use them to kill the rest of their family.

Personality: Petty, Vindictive, Grandiose.

Spoiler: centralized source

Source
That's actually a common mistake. Genoscythe the Eye Raper's power is to twist/warp people into weapons and other equipment for use by sight, while they remain living and in continuous agony. Which he then uses to kill all members of their family with (though that's strictly a behavior of his rather then a power). Sort of like a more evil and specialized (but ranged!) version of Panacea!

In short he doesn't rape your eyes, he rapes you with his eyes, in the most body horror inducing way!

---

And just in case this was a clue/gift that we had to actually grasp to get:

Name: MudCrack
Power: Control over all liquids within a one foot range of his body. Manton limited.
Cell Block Leader: Acidbath (Marquis, Acidbath, Galvanate, Teacher, Lab Rat and Gavel were leaders of the cell blocks on the men's side of the prison. Lustrum, Black Kaze, Glaistig Uaine, String Theory, Crane and Ingenue were the female leaders)
Crimes: Used high viscosity liquids at high speeds as the equivalent of sandpaper, eroding his victims skin and leaving them to bleed out.
Personality: Violent, Aggressive, Stubborn.

Source

---

edit: Wave 2
It all comes down to what we can put together here, right? So let's add some more to the pot.
pseudo-edit: Bugger, but I'm bad at naming.

---

Name: Blowhard


Power: (Shaker/Blaster/Striker) Has two discrete powers, a small acid splash he can throw and the creation of what he calls "fans." The acid splash in created in his hands (apparently) ex nihilo, but follows other physical laws rigorously. He can fling this on people nearby. While unpleasant, it is not a serious concern in combat with facial gear. He can create his "fans" anywhere within roughly 10 meters of himself, one at a time. Each "fan" is a barely-visible disc that projects persistent but not impassable amounts of force from its face or top. While either can be troublesome, the true danger comes from when Blowhard's acid is applied to a "fan," or any part of its flow, at which point its volume and potency are both massively increased, creating billowing streams of acid in the air, following the flow of the "fan."
He is immune to the lesser acid he holds, but not the more potent version created when it hits a "fan."


Cell Block Leader: Acidbath


Crimes: Innumerable murders and maimings, as he discarding caring about such trifles.


Personality: Arrogant, Domineering, Pushy

---

Name: Solitary


Power: (Tinker) Can make anything (in the tinker libraries, repeats fine) but is restricted to just one device, that she must mod over and over again if she wants to change functionality, always losing one function to create a new one.
Recreated her sole device in the BirdCage. Is restricted heavily by the dearth of adequate equipment.


Cell Block Leader: Crane


Crimes: Typical villainous acts, except that Solitary is extremely possessive of her one device--anyone targeting it would find that she no longer cared for rules or restraints. And since "target the tinkertech" is a valid tactic, this repeated until eventually the locals banded up against her, her original device was destroyed, and she was cast into the Birdcage.


Personality: Mercurial, Petulant, Possessive.
Source

---

Name: Flyby
An OC I created for my AU, willingly altered for this concept.


Power: (Mover/Breaker) Can fly, high agility and very high speed (often breaking the sound barrier, though with some buildup). Includes a breaker effect to preserve his body, scales up with flight/movement speed (mostly his own, but some relative to the Earth), can hit things in flight without injury (rare exception apply), though the same cannot always be said of what he hits.
Breaker effect applies to a limited amount of what he's carrying/is on his body. Applies (with much poorer results) on anything beyond his limit (fluctuates, but is between more than a baby at worst and less than a small child at best).


Cell Block Leader: Gavel (unless they cannot switch cell block leaders, though I think then can, in which case Marquis)


Crimes: Was a Protectorate hero, but had a far too binary view of the world. Criminals lose some degree of personhood for him. He was careless with their lives, and almost worse, didn't care when it went wrong. Eventually, he went too far, ignoring their restrictions, and landed up in the Birdcage. All hushed up, of course.
Survives by being more than willing to bust through the Birdcage's walls to trigger the auto-detachment features, using his Breaker power to survive long enough to get back to safety. Considering how this shrinks the size of the Birdcage and can easily have collateral (i.e., being in the same room that he busts into and through is fatal if you can't leave before it seals itself off), Flyby is generally left alone.


Personality: Isolated, Paranoid, Bitter.

---

Name: Backstab


Power: (Mover) Teleportation, instantaneous in line of sight or with a small delay to any place she has been that she remembers well enough.
She has attempted teleporting to a place outside of the BirdCage numerous times, to no avail.


Cell Block Leader: String Theory


Crimes: Murder. Backstab would use her powers to track anyone she felt insulted her sufficiently, in either her civilian ID or her cape one. This included other capes.
Contrary to her name, she does not actually attempt to backstab people in combat. If she teleports behind someone, it would be to break line of sight or as a feint.


Personality: Cunning, Patient, Grudge-Holding

 

[macdjord]

Name: Fallgirl

Power: Ability to change the force of gravity on falling objects. Cannot affect anything which has a solid connection to the earth (planes are valid targets, someone holding dangling from a precipice are not, a bungee jumper is a valid target until the rope gets taut, etc.). Can create accelerations between about 1/2 g to 8 g. Maximum range 1 km. Requires line-of-sight to use her power on an object, or to change its acceleration, but not to maintain it: objects affected will continue to experiance the altered gravity until she deliberately releases them, they cease to be in free-fall, or they leave her range.

Crime: 4 counts Manslaughter. She is a cruel and malicious prankster. In the incident in question, she decided to terrify a group of skydivers by making them fall at 8x speed for a while, then releasing them before they hit. However, their parachutes, subjected to 8 times their designed load, deformed and folded up, and thus were unable to slow them to safe speeds after she released them.
Normally, a single incident of accidental death would not be sufficient to be incarcerated in the Birdcage, but the prosecutor successfully argued that her actions showed callous disregard for human life: she had committed several other potentially lethal 'pranks', including one in the week between the fatal accident and her capture; she had not bothered, after the parachutes failed, to user her power to reduce the victims' accelerations; and she showed no remorse or concern over the unexpected outcome, reportedly having simply giggled and said "Oops" on seeing the impact. The judge decided that allowing her to remain free would almost certainly result in further deaths, and committed her.

Cell Block Leader: Crane

Personality: Callous, Irreverent, Easily Amused

 

[Questingdragon]

A second trigger always caused a spike in violence in the birdcage. They either killed their assailant and calmed down, went on a rampage until they were put down, or were killed themselves. The cell block leaders were wary when you approached. All eleven of them already gathered and talking quietly. You are not late, they obviously arranged to meet earlier, and this change.

With the exception of Uaine, they fall silent when you approach.

"Faerie Prince. It is rare that one rises as high in the courts as you have. I trust that your new station will not go to your head?"

"Of course not my queen." You say with a bow. You need allies, and while some of the cell block leaders may be able to get a hint at your new abilities from the name, having the backing, or even the unspoken approval of the Faerie queen herself should go a long way towards securing your position. That's also not a fight you're ready for. Not yet, perhaps never.

"You are stable then?" Gavel asks tactlessly.

"Indeed. I assure you I am as capable as ever. Perhaps more so."

"Good. Down to business. How are the new arrivals fairing... "

You sit for a while, holding your display of polite interest in place with sheer force of will. You shouldn't be sitting, you should be acting, moving, fighting your way out. Amelia needed you, and every second you spent trapped here...

You notice that your arms are... writhing, the flesh rippling and buckling, trying to find a shape to suit your needs. Crane has already noticed, the rest will soon. You pretend it is deliberate, moving the writhing mass up your body, to your shoulders, wearing your power like a cloak.

"Is there something you wish to add Marquis?" Crane inquires.

"Not on this subject. You are far better versed in training the mentally unstable than I am. I simply felt the need to experiment a little with my new abilities."

You shrug, and let the writhing mass collapse back into your skin. Clothing didn't seem to be a problem for it. In fact you're fairly sure that your clothing was eaten, and is now a part of your flesh, just as your skin is.

Crane seems to accept that, and although Acidbath gives you a glare, that is well within his normal behavior. He only smiled when he was about to hurt someone.

The meeting continues, you give a rundown of the changes and issues in your cell block. Your week was a fairly quiet one, aside from the altercation with Lung. You apologize to Uaine for the death of Roach, and she accepts your apology gracefully. You hadn't exactly promised him to her, you'd simply planned to give him to her as a bargaining chip when needed, but it paid to be polite.

"Then I believe we are done." Gavel said sharply, when the last report had been given.

"Actually there is a subject I would like to broach." You say.

This will be difficult, but necessary. Merely admitting to the desire to escape would be seen as weakness. Being seen as weak was less of a problem when you are strong however.

"I feel that I have spent enough time trapped here. There is some pressing business awaiting me in the outside world. I would like to turn our thoughts to escape."

Acidbath, Black Kaze and Lab Rat laughed. The others stayed silent, though you noticed a few small smiles. It was obvious that they thought you another fool who would either fail, and be consumed by your own men while you wasted your energy on a doomed task, or you'd simply be killed by one of the Birdcages lines of defense.

"How many years has this prison held hundreds of the most powerful and dangerous parahumans alive? Even the most powerful Tinker alive cannot be this powerful? Why are we still here?"

"I can tell you," Teacher said, "but the answer will cost you."

"I am willing to make certain concessions. A few traded supplies from the cell blocks under my control."

Teacher nods.

"You should know about the basic defenses already. There are the foam turrets, the vacuum outside, and the drones in the vacuum. The turrets are programmed to melt themselves if a Tinker so much as looks at them for to long, so they're not hard to bypass. The walls are even easier, most of the brutes here could punch their way out. The vacuum it a problem, but we have capes who can bypass that. The drones... some of their payloads are nuclear, or other, even more exotic forms of attack, but even that... a determined group might be able to bypass."

Teacher leaned forwards.

"What really stops us from escaping is our size. We have been shrunk. Measuring tools are difficult to come by, and we really have nothing to use as a benchmark to see just how small we have been made, but if we try and break through the mountain of rock around us... it will be a centimeter at a time."

You keep your expression bland, force down the annoyance at the obstacles in your path. Thin tendrils are writhing over your skin again. You let them.

"And we have no way to resume our old size."

"No way I know of." Teacher replies.

You look at the other cell block leaders, some of them looking interested despite themselves. You single out String Theory, and lock gazes with her.

"I could build something maybe, with the right tools and resources. Which I don't have." She says after a while.

You nod, and the meeting is adjourned. Gavel gives you a look on the way out. He... he might be a problem. You doubt he is going to just allow you to walk out of the Birdcage, he will try to kill you if he thinks you have an actual chance at success.

Teacher walks part of the way back with you, which is unusual.

"So, you have business outside the Birdcage? What sort of business still matters nearly twelve years after you've left it behind?"

"It is none of your concern."

"Is it? And if I told you have a... method of communication with the outside world?"

You pause, and turn.

"It's difficult to maintain, and rather... sporadic, but it is in place."

"And the cost to use this, method?" You ask.

"You let me use my power on you. Not long, not deeply, just a single pulse that will let me be sure you won't disrupt my own plans for escape."

"And you are unwilling to tell me of these plans?"

"Not now. No."

You pause, and look around.

You're alone. And you are hungry.

[ ] ?

 

[Questingdragon]

Well, it's started. Six updates left to escape a definitely-not-cardboard prison.

Can you rise to the challenge?

 

[evildice]

If we eat Teacher, do we get Teacher's memories?

 

[Questingdragon]

You get what you're focusing on when you eat him, you haven't tried focusing on multiple things yet.

 

[evildice]

You get what you're focusing on when you eat him, you haven't tried focusing on multiple things yet.

Click to shrink...

The thing I'd want is his memory of his communication method with the outside.

Also, IIRC Teacher is hated by the other block-leaders, so he's one of the few very powerful people we could gank without kicking off a war.

We would have to be careful to align ourselves politically -- basically get permission to kill Teacher if we promise to use his power for the benefit of all. Promise to maintain our own position, while reducing the competition. Teacher's resources would be divvied up amongst all the male cellblock leaders.

Also, as an experiment: we'd kill Teacher while GU stood nearby, to see if both of us could harvest from a single death. If we can, that might make GU a valuable ally. If we can't, then we know to be extra-careful about harvesting people who she might want.

 

[Questingdragon]

You can do this, but you'll need a plan to get him in the same room as GU.

 

[Sheaman3773]

Hm...

We can't let him use his powers on us. We know from canon that he can lie about how much his power affects you, but he does seem to need consent--or is it a Striker manifestation? I'm not sure what else would explain him not using it on Khepri--maybe fear it wouldn't be effective enough quickly enough to keep her from lashing out? That probably means that he's safe to eat, if we don't give it to him before we attack...maybe brain him first?

Six updates is rough. I'll think on this a little.

Also, please note the second batch of capes I added to my post last week. You probably did, but I wanted to make sure

 

[john doe]

We need to ally with or eat string theory or another tinker. The shrinking thing is a problem we need to solve. String theory seemed ok with allying with us.

Can we shape yourself into raw materials for tinker parts or is there a power we could do that with? We can do metals in small amounts probably cause humans have small amounts of most metals

Edit: reading through powers again Solitary seems like someone we should target as her tinker power should be able to unshrink us
Also anyone want to ally with glaistag? She can escape easy right now she just doesn't want to right? No idea how we could make her care about escaping since She didn't care about anything until scion was dead and she realised cycle had stoped

 

[evildice]

You can do this, but you'll need a plan to get him in the same room as GU.

Click to shrink...

We're in such a room right now, and will be for all future Block Leader meetings, but presumably you'd prefer us to do more work to earn the victory rather than just saying:

"Hi Teacher, I approve of using your power on me, but I'm afraid that I'll need to be the one steering."
*splorch*

... so the question becomes who do we approach first. GU would be an interesting ally, for scary and dangerous values of interesting... plus having her on our side could be a big incentive for others to join up, or at least stay out of our way.

In terms of framing the killing, perhaps we could do something like...
- Meet up with other block leaders to discuss escape. Talk openly, share whatever info we have.
- Mention that Teacher seems to have some information which he's hiding.
- Imply that keeping such information from us is dangerous.
- Thank them politely for their time, and give them resources / aid / etc. as best we can, in accordance with whatever info they provided.
- Honor our contracts. Maintain order and civility.

Then, when we kill Teacher, we've got a coherent narrative: we just want info, he was hiding info which everyone knew we want, his price was unreasonable, and by the way it turns out his powers are addictive, and enslave those he uses them on. (Which everyone guessed already, of course.)

 

[Sheaman3773]

Edit: reading through powers again Solitary seems like someone we should target as her tinker power should be able to unshrink us

Click to shrink...

Like String Theory, Solitary has access to all of the tinker devices, but she's limited to the one device.

However, also like String Theory, do note she's currently quite limited by the lack of good materials in the BC. She has to be, to meet the reqs for cape creation in this quest.

We're in such a room right now

Click to shrink...

No we're not, we're alone with him.

You're alone.

Click to shrink...

See?

by the way it turns out his powers are addictive

Click to shrink...

This was known in canon. I remember reading it from Taylor's POV just today, about how his business rather faltered when people discovered that fact. I was jumping around so much that I have no idea what chapter that was, though.


As for the rest of your plan, evildice, I mostly like it, but I'm uncertain if you meant that we should kill him now and then enact the proper framing, or if that's setting it up so nobody's distressed when we kill him. It seems like the latter, but that seems really non-conducive to actually getting him alone again. Can you clarify?

Regarding GU and seeing if we both can benefit, I sincerely suggest we try with someone a lot less protected. Someone we would sacrifice regardless, that doesn't have the power to make us regret this.

 

[Questingdragon]

Marquis is willing to kill his own lieutenants in canon. You can just select the most troublesome member of your cell block and drag him to GU's cell block, though there might be some mild unrest if you kill to many of your own people.