L.37
Daniel Snuts
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2022
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It's one thing to agree to work together on a problem, but another thing altogether to put it into practice. There may possibly be honor among thieves, but good luck getting the thieves to believe that. So when the Empire 88, Coil, the Undersiders, the Travelers, Faultline's Crew and Uber&Leet unite against a common foe, the immediate result is a giant organizational clusterfuck.
After much wrangling (that a grunt like you wasn't party to, but can infer) it was decided to split everyone up then mix them back together into new teams where no single affiliation would have a distinct power advantage. This way no one can shirk, no one gets unfair amounts of loot from a lucky strike, and there's this whole mutual hostage thing to keep people from settling old scores.
The lesser teams are no doubt arranging all sorts of passwords and fallback points and other contingencies anyway. Kaiser, on the other hand, probably didn't even have to say 'if you fuck with us in any way, I take Hookwolf off the leash' out loud. The atmosphere is fairly relaxed as the imperial troops are assigned to their units.
"Low Key, you're with Uber&Leet," Kaiser says.
"No she's not!" Rune objects. You look at her curiously. You thought you were the clingy one in your relationship.
"She is," Kaiser states with finality. "They requested her specifically, and stated that they would withdraw from the alliance if their demand was not met."
"I don't mind," you say, but no one hears you over Rune declaring "She gets double- no, triple pay!"
"Acceptable," Kaiser says, then turns to the next person as if nothing had happened. "Othala will be in the reserves, and not deploy unless another group needs backup or healing. Victor-"
"Thanks for standing up for me I guess," you tell Rune quietly. "Why, though?"
"They make everyone they team up with join in their stupid cosplay, and they record everything they do. You know what kind of outfits girls wear in video games, right?"
You are vaguely aware of the general trend, yes. "Oh." You do your best to sound... apprehensive? Appalled? Something like that, but on the inside you're dancing with joy. Uber&Leet came to you, and offered to make you their fake gamer girl and let you study their powers without you even having to make a new identity? Could you ask for anything better?
...Well, there's the 'Bakuda not killing dozens of innocent civilians' thing, you might have asked for that. Dem silver linings, tho.
---
"Welcome to our guest lair," Uber says as he heaves the loading bay door open. The space within is mostly empty, with a pile of computer equipment and monitors in one corner, some discarded props (whatever game they're from, you don't recognize it) in another, and a bunch of random junk and tools on shelves along the walls. Some of it is tinkertech, but most of it isn't. "It's not much, but we don't reveal our main base to outsiders. I'm sure you understand."
You hum in agreement as you enter, Fenrir padding along behind you. Uber has been doing most of the talking on the way over, Leet having come down with what you identify as 'oh my god a girl is talking to me what do I do?' syndrome. Not that Uber is entirely symptom free... But his power, which lets him instantly master any skill he wants, clearly includes 'talking to girls' in its library.
Uber wants a loving girlfriend.
Which is not to say that he's been trying to seduce you. No, his power is doing that entirely on its own. He's been nothing but professional, and hasn't even commented on the way you've been staring at him as you appraise every last twitch and fluctuation of his power with laser-like focus. Something about becoming superhumanly good at any skill speaks to you on a visceral level. The thought of acquiring such a power is like being offered a cool draught of water, when you didn't even realize you'd been lost in the desert for years.
Leet's power, on the other hand, is weird. It has the color of a Case 53, but the texture of a normal cape. You have no idea what to make of it. Nor do you really care, to be frank. Gregor might be interested, but that ship kinda sailed.
"Alright," Uber says, walking over to the computer equipment in the corner. "Going live in three, two, one..." At the touch of a button, a quartet of tinkertech drones spring into the air and take up positions around the room. One of them is larger than the others, and has a screen in addition to the camera. It's displaying text that's scrolling by too fast to read, though you manage to pick out repeated instances of 'hi', 'hello', waving hand emojis and other greetings. The stream chat, you cleverly deduce.
"Welcome, dear subscribers, to our premium backstage stream," Uber says, speaking into one of the cameras. "Tonight will be a bit different, as we briefly leave our life of crime behind to take on the brutally barbaric Brockton Bay Bomber, Bakuda!" He turns to face you with a flourish. "But first! Please give a warm welcome to our guest star: Low Key!"
You wave at the camera, and the chat experiences a renewed deluge of greetings, this time generously sprinkled with creative spellings of the word 'girl', and pictures of eggplants. That last part confuses you, until someone helpfully writes 'choke on a (eggplant) nazi bitch'. Ah. It's a compliment. The eggplant symbolizes their physiological reaction upon seeing you. How delightful.
"And Fenrir," you remind them, and chat explodes with 'doggy!'. At least what they lack in subtlety they make up for in being easily amused.
"Your costume," Uber says, retrieving a plastic bag from one of the shelves and handing it to you. A glance inside reveals a headpiece that looks like it's been carved from stone (but judging by the heft of the bag, is more likely to be made of foam) with a bright orange wig built in. "You can change in the other room."
You walk over to the indicated door and take a look inside. The room has a full-length mirror on one wall, but is otherwise almost completely bare. Almost. Thank god for sorcerer's sight, because you're having flashbacks to Casa de Dragon.
"Yeees," you say slowly. "I could do that. But first you're going to go in there and remove all the cameras."
"Haha, what cameras?" Leet exclaims, his tone strained and entirely unconvincing. "We wouldn't do something like that!"
"As an alternative, I could rip your dick off and make you eat it before you bleed to death," you suggest pleasantly. Leet freezes. "None of that was meant figuratively, by the way. Those are exactly the two options on the table right now." When Fenrir starts growling to emphasize your point he jumps away with a yelp, trips over an old costume piece on the floor and lands on his ass.
Uber chuckles as if he was in on the joke. "Sorry lads, I value the integrity of my dick higher than the stimulation of yours," he announces to the room. "Everyone who paid for the premium stream tonight will get a full refund." He then proceeds to take down the hidden cameras in the changing room.
To his credit, he does not try to leave one of them up. Rather less to his credit, he becomes a master of reading body language and checks whether you spotted them all before removing the last one. Can't imagine why he currently lacks a loving girlfriend.
"You know what to do if they try to peek," you tell Fenrir, who nods in response. You shut the door behind you and turn out the bag to see what they've saddled you with.
Well. On the one hand, it covers rather more skin than you had expected. On the other, it's a mottled black and white body stocking. It's highly debatable whether it's more or less revealing than a bikini would be. Well, such is the fate of fake gamer girls. You won't get invited back on if you disappoint the fans. You doff your padded cape outfit and start shapeshifting your curves to compensate. There's a reason you didn't want cameras in here.
When you start putting the stuff on, you discover that it clings far tighter than it has any right to. You've seen thicker body paint. Fucking Tinker materials. When you pull it up past your knee, an arcane-looking pattern lights up, glowing with a turquoise light. You pause there to make sure it's not radioactive or something, because you trust Leet's tinkering about as far as you can throw Gregor.
Thankfully it's just turning waste body heat into visible light, industry and forge wisdom informs you. You take a moment to marvel at the elegant design, you hadn't expected something like that given Leet's reputation. Then another moment to wonder how much the regular clothing industry would pay for such a material, if only the Powers That Be weren't insistent on limiting parahumans to hero and villain roles.
Then you frown as you realize that you cannot possibly wear underwear under this material without making it incredibly obvious. You'd pretend to be outraged or reluctant or something, but with the cameras gone there's no one to see your act. You're fully aware that you'd do considerably worse things to maintain access to Uber's power. Can't disappoint the fans, you repeat to yourself as you peel the offending garment off your leg and strip down completely.
At least it's just barely padded enough right at the critical points to maintain a smooth barbie doll outline, but you suspect that this was done more to remain true to the character (there's a picture included in the bag) than out of any concern for your modesty.
It ends at the neck, but the headgear has a mask built into it, displaying (what you assume to be) your character's trademark one-fanged smirk. It takes some work to bunch up your hair enough to slip it on properly, but you manage.
You take a look at yourself in the mirror. Wow, someone who couldn't shapeshift would be all kinds of insecure wearing this. You take a few extra minutes to make absolutely sure you look your best. Yes, a few. Definitely fewer than fifteen.
You return to the main room to discover Uber and Leet spray painting your wolf. You guess the character Fenrir will be playing has darker fur.
"Pretty brave, doing that without permission," you note.
Leet drops his his spray can when he sees you, and scrambles to pick it up.
"We did ask, actually," Uber says calmly. "He agreed."
You look at Fenrir, who tilts his head at you and shrugs. If you've decided that these people get to dress the two of you up, he seems to be saying, who is he to argue?
A glance at the chat shows a resurgent wave of eggplants, so you do a little twirl for the cameras, making sure your unsupported body parts sway appropriately. Leet drops his spray can again, but he might be playing it up for laughs.
"Do you have a video of my character?" you ask. "I want to get the mannerisms right."
"I'll find some!" Leet exclaims, rushing over to the computers. "Help me out, chat!"
"Not all guest stars are as enthusiastic to play along," Uber says.
You shrug in response, strategically jiggling for the cameras. "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well." If you don't get invited back, how would you steal their powers? Or, well, you're not quite sure about that plural - what if Leet's power infected your native Tinker ability with his famous shittiness? You're getting Uber's power for sure, tough.
Wait, hang on, you know the secret of men now, you could just try to date Uber instead (not that it'd get you his soul price, but as long as he doesn't notice that right away...). Old habits die hard, huh? But fucking up his show isn't how you accomplish that either.
"Actually, could you finish up here while we get changed?" Uber hands you his spray can, along with a reference picture and a stencil for a... wolf cutie mark? No, according to the picture it goes on his forehead.
"Sure."
Leet gets a video playing on the flying screen, and they both retreat to the changing room. You study your role. If you were to describe her in two words, they would be 'haughty' and 'naughty'. Trying to mimic her speech completely isn't going to work, because she speaks a made-up nonsense language with subtitles. But at least you can get the pitch and intonation right.
By the time they get back, you're lounging atop a fully painted Fenrir, inspecting your fingernails and trying to look impishly bored.
"Took you long enough," you say in the imp's singsong voice, and they stop to stare.
"You're a god damn genius, bro," Uber tells his partner.
Leet nods fervently. "This worked out even better than I had hoped."
Uber is dressed in a green tunic and hat that even you recognize, with a painted wooden mask of the famous elf boy's face covering his face from ear to ear - literally, as it's got pointy wooden ears covering his real ones.
Leet... is wearing a pale pink body stocking and a tinkertech harness of the same color, with human-sized fairy wings on the back. So they do know that their audience is laughing at them, not with them, and are milking it on purpose. You had wondered about that.
Leet fiddles with his harness, whereafter he floats into the air and starts glowing. Or not glowing exactly, it's more like a spherical area around him has turned pink. It's almost entirely opaque, even blocking sorcerer's sight somehow. All you can see is the fairy wings sticking out the back. But that's fine, you were perving on Uber anyway.
You scoot around into a more conventional riding pose and gesture towards the exit. "After you, gentlemen. And perhaps one of you could explain the plan?"
After much wrangling (that a grunt like you wasn't party to, but can infer) it was decided to split everyone up then mix them back together into new teams where no single affiliation would have a distinct power advantage. This way no one can shirk, no one gets unfair amounts of loot from a lucky strike, and there's this whole mutual hostage thing to keep people from settling old scores.
The lesser teams are no doubt arranging all sorts of passwords and fallback points and other contingencies anyway. Kaiser, on the other hand, probably didn't even have to say 'if you fuck with us in any way, I take Hookwolf off the leash' out loud. The atmosphere is fairly relaxed as the imperial troops are assigned to their units.
"Low Key, you're with Uber&Leet," Kaiser says.
"No she's not!" Rune objects. You look at her curiously. You thought you were the clingy one in your relationship.
"She is," Kaiser states with finality. "They requested her specifically, and stated that they would withdraw from the alliance if their demand was not met."
"I don't mind," you say, but no one hears you over Rune declaring "She gets double- no, triple pay!"
"Acceptable," Kaiser says, then turns to the next person as if nothing had happened. "Othala will be in the reserves, and not deploy unless another group needs backup or healing. Victor-"
"Thanks for standing up for me I guess," you tell Rune quietly. "Why, though?"
"They make everyone they team up with join in their stupid cosplay, and they record everything they do. You know what kind of outfits girls wear in video games, right?"
You are vaguely aware of the general trend, yes. "Oh." You do your best to sound... apprehensive? Appalled? Something like that, but on the inside you're dancing with joy. Uber&Leet came to you, and offered to make you their fake gamer girl and let you study their powers without you even having to make a new identity? Could you ask for anything better?
...Well, there's the 'Bakuda not killing dozens of innocent civilians' thing, you might have asked for that. Dem silver linings, tho.
---
"Welcome to our guest lair," Uber says as he heaves the loading bay door open. The space within is mostly empty, with a pile of computer equipment and monitors in one corner, some discarded props (whatever game they're from, you don't recognize it) in another, and a bunch of random junk and tools on shelves along the walls. Some of it is tinkertech, but most of it isn't. "It's not much, but we don't reveal our main base to outsiders. I'm sure you understand."
You hum in agreement as you enter, Fenrir padding along behind you. Uber has been doing most of the talking on the way over, Leet having come down with what you identify as 'oh my god a girl is talking to me what do I do?' syndrome. Not that Uber is entirely symptom free... But his power, which lets him instantly master any skill he wants, clearly includes 'talking to girls' in its library.
Uber wants a loving girlfriend.
Which is not to say that he's been trying to seduce you. No, his power is doing that entirely on its own. He's been nothing but professional, and hasn't even commented on the way you've been staring at him as you appraise every last twitch and fluctuation of his power with laser-like focus. Something about becoming superhumanly good at any skill speaks to you on a visceral level. The thought of acquiring such a power is like being offered a cool draught of water, when you didn't even realize you'd been lost in the desert for years.
Leet's power, on the other hand, is weird. It has the color of a Case 53, but the texture of a normal cape. You have no idea what to make of it. Nor do you really care, to be frank. Gregor might be interested, but that ship kinda sailed.
"Alright," Uber says, walking over to the computer equipment in the corner. "Going live in three, two, one..." At the touch of a button, a quartet of tinkertech drones spring into the air and take up positions around the room. One of them is larger than the others, and has a screen in addition to the camera. It's displaying text that's scrolling by too fast to read, though you manage to pick out repeated instances of 'hi', 'hello', waving hand emojis and other greetings. The stream chat, you cleverly deduce.
"Welcome, dear subscribers, to our premium backstage stream," Uber says, speaking into one of the cameras. "Tonight will be a bit different, as we briefly leave our life of crime behind to take on the brutally barbaric Brockton Bay Bomber, Bakuda!" He turns to face you with a flourish. "But first! Please give a warm welcome to our guest star: Low Key!"
You wave at the camera, and the chat experiences a renewed deluge of greetings, this time generously sprinkled with creative spellings of the word 'girl', and pictures of eggplants. That last part confuses you, until someone helpfully writes 'choke on a (eggplant) nazi bitch'. Ah. It's a compliment. The eggplant symbolizes their physiological reaction upon seeing you. How delightful.
"And Fenrir," you remind them, and chat explodes with 'doggy!'. At least what they lack in subtlety they make up for in being easily amused.
"Your costume," Uber says, retrieving a plastic bag from one of the shelves and handing it to you. A glance inside reveals a headpiece that looks like it's been carved from stone (but judging by the heft of the bag, is more likely to be made of foam) with a bright orange wig built in. "You can change in the other room."
You walk over to the indicated door and take a look inside. The room has a full-length mirror on one wall, but is otherwise almost completely bare. Almost. Thank god for sorcerer's sight, because you're having flashbacks to Casa de Dragon.
"Yeees," you say slowly. "I could do that. But first you're going to go in there and remove all the cameras."
"Haha, what cameras?" Leet exclaims, his tone strained and entirely unconvincing. "We wouldn't do something like that!"
"As an alternative, I could rip your dick off and make you eat it before you bleed to death," you suggest pleasantly. Leet freezes. "None of that was meant figuratively, by the way. Those are exactly the two options on the table right now." When Fenrir starts growling to emphasize your point he jumps away with a yelp, trips over an old costume piece on the floor and lands on his ass.
Uber chuckles as if he was in on the joke. "Sorry lads, I value the integrity of my dick higher than the stimulation of yours," he announces to the room. "Everyone who paid for the premium stream tonight will get a full refund." He then proceeds to take down the hidden cameras in the changing room.
To his credit, he does not try to leave one of them up. Rather less to his credit, he becomes a master of reading body language and checks whether you spotted them all before removing the last one. Can't imagine why he currently lacks a loving girlfriend.
"You know what to do if they try to peek," you tell Fenrir, who nods in response. You shut the door behind you and turn out the bag to see what they've saddled you with.
Well. On the one hand, it covers rather more skin than you had expected. On the other, it's a mottled black and white body stocking. It's highly debatable whether it's more or less revealing than a bikini would be. Well, such is the fate of fake gamer girls. You won't get invited back on if you disappoint the fans. You doff your padded cape outfit and start shapeshifting your curves to compensate. There's a reason you didn't want cameras in here.
When you start putting the stuff on, you discover that it clings far tighter than it has any right to. You've seen thicker body paint. Fucking Tinker materials. When you pull it up past your knee, an arcane-looking pattern lights up, glowing with a turquoise light. You pause there to make sure it's not radioactive or something, because you trust Leet's tinkering about as far as you can throw Gregor.
Thankfully it's just turning waste body heat into visible light, industry and forge wisdom informs you. You take a moment to marvel at the elegant design, you hadn't expected something like that given Leet's reputation. Then another moment to wonder how much the regular clothing industry would pay for such a material, if only the Powers That Be weren't insistent on limiting parahumans to hero and villain roles.
Then you frown as you realize that you cannot possibly wear underwear under this material without making it incredibly obvious. You'd pretend to be outraged or reluctant or something, but with the cameras gone there's no one to see your act. You're fully aware that you'd do considerably worse things to maintain access to Uber's power. Can't disappoint the fans, you repeat to yourself as you peel the offending garment off your leg and strip down completely.
At least it's just barely padded enough right at the critical points to maintain a smooth barbie doll outline, but you suspect that this was done more to remain true to the character (there's a picture included in the bag) than out of any concern for your modesty.
It ends at the neck, but the headgear has a mask built into it, displaying (what you assume to be) your character's trademark one-fanged smirk. It takes some work to bunch up your hair enough to slip it on properly, but you manage.
You take a look at yourself in the mirror. Wow, someone who couldn't shapeshift would be all kinds of insecure wearing this. You take a few extra minutes to make absolutely sure you look your best. Yes, a few. Definitely fewer than fifteen.
You return to the main room to discover Uber and Leet spray painting your wolf. You guess the character Fenrir will be playing has darker fur.
"Pretty brave, doing that without permission," you note.
Leet drops his his spray can when he sees you, and scrambles to pick it up.
"We did ask, actually," Uber says calmly. "He agreed."
You look at Fenrir, who tilts his head at you and shrugs. If you've decided that these people get to dress the two of you up, he seems to be saying, who is he to argue?
A glance at the chat shows a resurgent wave of eggplants, so you do a little twirl for the cameras, making sure your unsupported body parts sway appropriately. Leet drops his spray can again, but he might be playing it up for laughs.
"Do you have a video of my character?" you ask. "I want to get the mannerisms right."
"I'll find some!" Leet exclaims, rushing over to the computers. "Help me out, chat!"
"Not all guest stars are as enthusiastic to play along," Uber says.
You shrug in response, strategically jiggling for the cameras. "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well." If you don't get invited back, how would you steal their powers? Or, well, you're not quite sure about that plural - what if Leet's power infected your native Tinker ability with his famous shittiness? You're getting Uber's power for sure, tough.
Wait, hang on, you know the secret of men now, you could just try to date Uber instead (not that it'd get you his soul price, but as long as he doesn't notice that right away...). Old habits die hard, huh? But fucking up his show isn't how you accomplish that either.
"Actually, could you finish up here while we get changed?" Uber hands you his spray can, along with a reference picture and a stencil for a... wolf cutie mark? No, according to the picture it goes on his forehead.
"Sure."
Leet gets a video playing on the flying screen, and they both retreat to the changing room. You study your role. If you were to describe her in two words, they would be 'haughty' and 'naughty'. Trying to mimic her speech completely isn't going to work, because she speaks a made-up nonsense language with subtitles. But at least you can get the pitch and intonation right.
By the time they get back, you're lounging atop a fully painted Fenrir, inspecting your fingernails and trying to look impishly bored.
"Took you long enough," you say in the imp's singsong voice, and they stop to stare.
"You're a god damn genius, bro," Uber tells his partner.
Leet nods fervently. "This worked out even better than I had hoped."
Uber is dressed in a green tunic and hat that even you recognize, with a painted wooden mask of the famous elf boy's face covering his face from ear to ear - literally, as it's got pointy wooden ears covering his real ones.
Leet... is wearing a pale pink body stocking and a tinkertech harness of the same color, with human-sized fairy wings on the back. So they do know that their audience is laughing at them, not with them, and are milking it on purpose. You had wondered about that.
Leet fiddles with his harness, whereafter he floats into the air and starts glowing. Or not glowing exactly, it's more like a spherical area around him has turned pink. It's almost entirely opaque, even blocking sorcerer's sight somehow. All you can see is the fairy wings sticking out the back. But that's fine, you were perving on Uber anyway.
You scoot around into a more conventional riding pose and gesture towards the exit. "After you, gentlemen. And perhaps one of you could explain the plan?"
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