One More Trigger (Worm AU)

[Ack]

And they also happen to have Bonesaw's soon to be big sister (and if things go well Big sisters PLURAL)

Click to shrink...

... something like that.

Remember, the Nine likes to break people and heroes.

 

[Navrin]

Go Team Samaritan/Villains/Dockworkers teamup. I rather doubt the "Dad Brigade" would put up with them going after the nine without every ally that can be remotely trusted. Also, I suspect that the Dad Brigade will be getting everyone involved the best weapons they can, screw legality.

And, of course, the team will stack the deck in their favour as much as possible in every other way, too. Ambushes, assassinations, traps, anything that they could possibly do to increase their odds of surviving while still being heroes.

Ah, right; thanks for the chapter, Ack, and looking forward to this story being updated again. Though not as much as some of the other stories, of course.

 

[Chojomeka]

However, what's changed? A bright new optimistic team of young heroes, making a name for themselves, helping people ...

Click to shrink...

*Winces* this is not going to end well for anyone at all And wait! Dinah hasn't made her vision about Jack ending the world yet! So there might be a chance that the S9 won't go into hiding and become the S9000...oh and Riley might or might not be saved....please?

EDIT: Quick someone get Danny his tire iron he's going to need it to crack open Jack's skull!

 

[Silver W. King]

You wanna know what was the very first thought in my head about the last chapter?

"Finally, Madison's Father gets to have a name."

 

[Ack]

You wanna know what was the very first thought in my head about the last chapter?

"Finally, Madison's Father gets to have a name."

Click to shrink...

I nearly gave him a name back when Madison first joined the group, but for some reason, I never put it in there.

 

[Ack]

One More Trigger

Chapter Twenty-One: Being Proactive


There was a moment of stunned silence, then everyone started talking at once. Everyone save Missy, who was staring at the floor, and Lisa, who was staring at the ceiling.

"Quiet!" shouted Danny; wonder of wonders, they listened. As he stood up. the room fell silent.

"Now, we're all aware of the Nine, and the danger they pose," he went on. He began to pace across the living room, his hands clasped behind his back. "We can approach this in one of two ways. One, we can go defensive. Don't go out in costume if you can help it, and avoid any possible confrontation. Two, we can be proactive."

Voices arose again at this statement, mostly from Alan Barnes and Rod Clements. Danny held up his hand. "I wasn't finished," he stated firmly. Everyone fell quiet again, watching him.

"By 'proactive', I didn't mean that the girls would go out looking for them," he explained. "I did mean, however, that we would assume that there would be a clash of some sort, sooner or later, and that the more preparation and planning we did now, the more chance we have of coming out on top then."

People looked at one another; after a moment, Taylor spoke up. "Okay, Dad, it looks like you've got the floor."

Danny nodded to her. "Okay. We've had you girls reading up on villain capes. Let's see what you've learned. Emma, current membership."

Emma started at being called upon, but collected herself. "As of two months ago," she recited crisply, "they were down to eight members. Jack Slash, Siberian, Bonesaw, Mannequin, Hatchet Face, Shatterbird, Burnscar and Crawler. That was after they lost Winter."

"Good," Danny told her. "Taylor, most dangerous member."

"Trick question," his daughter retorted. "They're all dangerous."

"Very good," he replied approvingly. "Madison, recorded powersets."

The petite brunette took a deep breath. "Jack Slash can make a knife edge extend a long way." She paused, frowning. "There has to be more to it than that."

"I think there is," Lisa put in unexpectedly. "He's run the Nine since the late eighties, right? They've cycled through a lot of members since then, but he's the only original member, or even close to it. To stay in charge of that many stone killers over that long a time, to survive everything the Protectorate could throw at him ..."

Madison nodded. "To survive the Nine as well," she added. "To keep them in line, to either survive any assassination attempts, or to arrange matters so they didn't even try ..."

Danny was nodding slowly. "We're looking at either a low-level Master effect, or some sort of Shaker ability, to adjust probability in his favour."

Lisa showed her teeth momentarily. "Coil had probability manipulation, or at least that's what he told me," she stated. "Didn't save him."

"That's because we were able to put together a plan that wrong-footed him. Made him use it in one direction, when we hit him from another," pointed out Emma. "We can't depend on that working with Jack Slash. Totally different circumstances."

"Very true," Alan Barnes noted. "But we're fairly sure he does have some sort of subtle power that keeps him safe from both the Protectorate and his own band of homicidal misfits. But we don't have any real data, so we'll just note that aspect, and leave it for the moment. Next?"

"The Siberian," Madison told them. "First seen in two thousand, when she killed Hero. She's weathered rocket grenade attacks, and torn out of containment foam like it was tissue paper. Brute twelve, easily. If she gets her hands on you, you're dead. And she's very fast."

"Only observe from a distance," Rod Clements agreed. "Do not go anywhere that she can get within arms' reach of you. Don't even let her see you, if you can help it. I doubt any of you has got anything that can touch her."

"My vacuum trick?" asked Madison quietly. Lisa and Amy looked at her curiously; Lisa's eyebrows hitched up rather quickly.

"They tried gas on her," Danny pointed out. "That didn't work, either."

Emma rubbed her chin. "She doesn't wear a mask. Or a costume. Or anything, really. Surely the unwritten rules don't apply to her. Missy, has the Protectorate gotten an ID on her yet, anything they can use?"

Vista roused herself enough to answer the question. "Not that I know of," she replied. "What you know is what I know."

Lisa got up and moved across to lean on the back of Missy's chair; the Wards liaison glanced up at her as the ex-villain draped an arm loosely across her shoulders. Although she looked a little surprised, Missy did not object to Lisa's presence, and indeed seemed to draw a little comfort from it.

"There's some pretty bizarre theories floating around the PHO boards," Taylor mused. "One's that she doesn't really look like that, that she's got a sort of force field around her that changes her appearance and gives her the Brute rating. That's how she can make something else immune via her power when she's touching it."

Danny nodded. "Sounds as reasonable as anything else. Okay, the main strategy for the Siberian will be to stay the hell away."

Amy raised her hand. "Uh, if I can get in contact with someone's biology, I can freeze them solid."

Alan shook his head. "Way too risky. She spots you sneaking up on her, she takes your head off. Or cripples you, and uses you as a hostage." He bent a smile her way. "I like the way you think. But if the theory about the force field is true, you wouldn't even be able to get in contact with her skin."

"Or Mannequin's, for that matter," Taylor pointed out. "He's one we do have some information on. He used to be a heroic cape called Sphere, real name Alan Gramme. He was – is – a Tinker, specialising in self-contained regenerative biosystems. The word is, he was working on the moonbase when he heard that his wife and daughters had been caught in a Simurgh attack, and killed in the subsequent violence. He came back down, attended their funerals, then dropped off the grid. The next time anyone saw him, he was Mannequin."

Madison nodded. "He either built himself, or had someone rebuild him, into that robot body. Brain, vital organs, and that's it. All self-sustaining. Arms, legs and head are detachable, with chains to pull them back into place. The arms and legs can mount weapons like blades which can spin or shoot out. For all we know, he can put guns in there too, or other weapons in his head. His brain's almost certainly in his torso."

"There's a worrying aspect to this, too," Alan Barnes noted. "The Nine, and Mannequin especially, has a history of going after capes who are trying to make things better."

"Like he was," Emma supplied.

"And like we are now," Taylor replied quietly.

"Ooh boy," Lisa murmured. "Did I say before that I thought I might have picked a bad time to join the team? Because I think I did."

The comment raised a few chuckles, then Madison cleared her throat. "Next up is Bonesaw. She's … just a kid. Younger than you and me and Emma, Taylor. Maybe even younger than Missy."

All eyes turned to the Wards liaison. "I wouldn't be surprised," she observed. "She's been active for a few years, so she must have triggered when she was really young. She's kind of like me in that regard; the youngest there, but one of the more experienced capes on the team. I wonder if that's why her crimes are so horrific, because she's trying harder?"

"Scary thought," Danny acknowledged. "So, capabilities?"

"They think she's a Tinker," Madison recounted. "But she does things like mutilate and maim people in creative ways. She's got these weird robot spiders that follow her around and do what she wants, so she probably built them."

"Armsmaster thinks she uses biotechnology," Missy commented. "That she uses bits of people or animals as parts for the spider bots, to make them work right."

"There's a rumour that after the Nine killed Mouse Protector, Bonesaw mashed her body together with another cape, but I don't know which one," Madison went on.

Taylor shuddered. "Okay, that's officially horrifying."

"So, biological weapons. Maybe diseases and poisons as well. Don't get close enough for her to throw or even spit anything on you," Danny noted.

"Spit?" Madison repeated, looking revolted.

Danny nodded. "Spit," he confirmed. "Okay, maybe Amy won't have to worry about it, but there's every chance that she's built delivery systems into herself. So if we take her down, we do it without touching her or getting too close. Just in case."

"And you don't let her take any of you as prisoners," added Alan. "Because … yeah."

After a long moment of silence, during which time no-one looked comfortable, Danny cleared his throat. "That's four, Madison. How about the other four?"

Madison nodded her head jerkily. "Right, right. Okay. Hatchet Face is a Brute who nullifies powers in an area around him. He's big, strong, carries axes. So we hit him hard, from range."

"With our luck," Taylor commented dryly, "he probably throws them, too. So we stay out of that range as well."

"Good point," Alan acknowledged. "Madison?"

"Uh, Burnscar," Madison replied. "She's a pyrokinetic, and she can teleport through flames that she sets."

Taylor rolled her eyes. "Damn, another cape who can no-sell my bugs," she pretended to complain. "Just once I'd like a bad guy I can point at and shout 'Beeeeeees!', and have him quake in fear."

"Bonesaw isn't immune to bugs," Amy protested. "In fact, if you can distract her with bugs, I could probably get close enough to put her lights out."

"And I could maybe shut down Burnscar's fire long enough for you to do the same to her," Madison pointed out. "I mean, I could shut off her air supply altogether, but asphyxiation is really hard to gauge."

"They've all got kill orders on them," Danny pointed out quietly. "If they die at your hands, the PRT will not be pressing any sort of charges."

Madison shook her head. "I'm just not comfortable with killing people in cold blood, even monsters like the Nine."

Taylor got up and pulled her chair closer to Madison's, then put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Madison leaned into her, accepting the comfort.

"We don't have to try to kill them," Taylor assured her gently. "We just don't have to go out of our way to make sure they live."

Madison nodded, and put her head on Taylor's shoulder. "Can someone else do this?" she asked.

Emma got up, and moved Lisa's vacated chair next to Madison. She sat down and took Madison's hand in hers, and squeezed gently. Looking up, she cleared her throat.

"Next up," she noted. "Shatterbird. She flies, she controls glass, and she can make it explode by screaming. She's a tough one; if we can take her by surprise, we can take her down. But if she's prepared, it'll go really bad, really fast."

"Assume she's prepared," Danny observed. "In fact, assume they're all prepared, unless you see with your own eyes that they aren't. And even then, assume they're prepared anyway."

"Yeah," Emma noted. "And the last one. Crawler. He spits acid, he's a tank, and he's basically immune to anything we can throw at him. They say he's unkillable."

"Nothing's unkillable," Amy stated quietly, but firmly. "If it's got biology, it can die. Crawler might have very tough biology, and his powers might make it really, really hard for him to stay hurt, but at base, it's just biology. And if I can lay a hand on him, I can shut his body down, make him unconscious, without harming a hair on his head. If he had any."

Taylor frowned. "Hypothetically speaking … could you use your power to kill him? If there was no other way?"

Amy shook her head convulsively. "Uh, no, I don't think I want to do that. I don't want to get into the habit of harming people with my powers. Shutting them down is edging close to the line as it is."

"Besides," Rod Clements pointed out, "if he gets better from that, it's one more thing he's immune to. And we really don't want to go there."

Danny clapped his hands. "Right, okay," he ordered. "That's the facts on the Nine. Let's break for the moment, but tonight and tomorrow, we need to start preparing. You each know everyone else's powers pretty well by now; I want you to start brainstorming, figuring out power combinations and strategies you can use to take them down, if and when it becomes necessary."

The group broke up, people standing up to stretch their legs. Lisa exchanged a few quiet words with Vista, then moved over to where Amy was still sitting down.

"You okay?" she asked, dragging a spare chair over to sit next to her.

Amy shook her head slightly. "Not really," she murmured, her hands clenched tight on her knees as she stared at the floor.

"A bit intense, isn't it?" asked Lisa soothingly. "All of a sudden, you're one of the offensive hitters of the team, and you're being asked if you can kill, when all you've done before is save lives."

Amy looked up, a little startled. "How did you … right. You read the shape of my thoughts."

Lisa nodded, her usual grin just a little restrained. "Yeah. And let me tell you, the idea of killing someone doesn't float my boat either. I'd get to read every last little twitch and grimace, and I'd know what his last thoughts, his last regrets were. Not something I want to be haunting me when I wake up in the middle of the night, you know?"

Amy smiled wanly. "You do understand."

Lisa shrugged slightly. "It's kind of what I do. Listen, want to go for a stroll in the back yard? Breath of fresh air?"

Amy nodded, stood up. "Yeah, I think I'd like that."

<><>​

Amy stood a little way away from the steps, facing away from the house, her head back, breathing in lungfuls of the crisp, cool night air. Lisa leaned against the porch railing, watching her. Several bugs swooped through the glare of the porch light; she nodded slightly. Yeah, I know you're keeping an eye on us. On me.

She wasn't really surprised at the surveillance; what did surprise her slightly was that she wasn't even really annoyed about it. She knew that Taylor was just keeping a general eye on the team, now that a real menace had arisen, and that it was a good policy to keep an eye on one another.

Amy turned and came back to her, and sat down on the steps. Lisa waited until she was comfortable, then sat next to her.

"I've been thinking," Amy told her quietly. "Being in this team's the best thing that ever happened to me."

Lisa nodded. "I get a fresh start myself," she agreed. "Not many people get to jump from villain straight to hero." Not outside the Protectorate, anyway, she reminded herself with a slight grin.

Amy took a deep breath. "But I've been doing it all wrong. I've been doing it like I was doing it with New Wave. I did what they asked me, never what I could really do. And all they asked me to do was healing."

"But you were starting to get sick of healing people," Lisa noted, then snorted at her accidental play on words.

Amy rolled her eyes and chuckled slightly. "Yeah, something like that. They only asked me to heal for them, but my god, how many people need healing every day in the city, just to make a dent. And every case is new, every case is special. Every case needs the hand of Panacea, because I'm a guarantee of perfect healing, every time."

Lisa heard the bitterness in her voice, deciphered it without much trouble. "'The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more'," she quoted.

Amy nodded. "Jonas Salk. He was a huge inspiration to me when I first took on the name and costume. I read all about him; he actually died just before my first birthday. When I had my first case of polio – a kid from somewhere in Africa – I felt like he and I were connecting on a spiritual level, like I was accepting the torch from him."

"That was before you found out what a burden having powers really was, wasn't it?" Lisa's tone was sympathetic.

"Yeah." Amy's voice was quiet. "I thought it might make me more accepted in the family. So I used my powers to help people, to do the right thing. And I helped people, and helped them, and helped them … and it didn't do a damned thing. Vicky treated me just the same, which was nice, but Carol did too, which wasn't."

"And now you've moved to the Samaritans, how does it feel?" Lisa asked.

"They like me, and they accept me," Amy mused. As if as an afterthought, she turned her head to look at Lisa. "You accept me … right?"

Lisa nodded seriously. "Of course I do. And I want to help you. When I said I wanted to be your friend? I meant it. And not because you're a healer. Because you're someone who's been under too much pressure for too long, and I've been there, and I've seen others in that situation, and I've seen them crack under it." She put her arm across Amy's shoulders, a friendly weight. "So if you ever want to talk about anything, or just vent … I'm here. And you know I'll understand."

Tentatively, Amy leaned against Lisa, just a little. A symbolic support. Testing the waters. She knows that I know exactly what she's doing. But she has to do it. To learn to trust.

Lisa counted down in her head, and when she reached one, Amy spoke.

"There was something I wanted to do. To help the team, more than I'm doing now. Maybe help against the Nine, and other enemies."

"You mentioned that, yes," Lisa replied. You want to use your abilities in wider ways. Taylor's bugs. You want to create different bugs for Taylor to use.

"I … Taylor controls bugs," Amy began. "What if I modified bugs for her to use? Bugs with different abilities?"

Lisa drew away with well-simulated surprise. "You can do that?" she asked.

Amy snorted, amused. "I might not be able to see the shape of your thoughts," she advised Lisa, "but while your skin is touching mine, I can read deception like a book." She paused, reconsidered. "Which you knew."

Lisa nodded. "Yup," she admitted cheerfully. "Just wanted to see if you'd use that in a situation like this."

"Uh … is it a bad thing that I did?" asked Amy, looking a little unsure.

"No, it is not," Lisa assured her. "So long as you don't abuse it, the ability to tell if people you think you can trust are really telling the truth is invaluable." Me, I'd abuse it in a heartbeat. I do, every day. But you don't need to be like me.

Amy blinked. "... oh. Okay."

Lisa grinned her fox-like grin and tousled her hair. "Come on, let's go talk to Taylor about bugs."

<><>​

"So wait," Danny observed, leaning back on the sofa, "Amy, you're saying that you can modify bugs for Taylor to use? I thought you just healed people and fiddled your own bacteria?"

"Actually, I didn't even know about the bacteria thing until today," Taylor confessed. She kicked her shoes off and put her feet up on the sofa, leaning against her father.

Amy nodded. "Sorry for keeping it from you," she mumbled. "I … don't really like advertising the full spread of my power. I've seen it on the PHO boards, when they're discussing someone's powers, and the uses they could be put to. I don't even want to think about the suggestions they'd give if they knew the full extent of my power." And I haven't even told you everything yet.

Lisa, sitting on the chair next to Amy's, squeezed her hand supportively. "Maybe if you gave Amy a bug, she could sort of feel around, see what she can do with it?" she suggested.

Taylor shrugged and grinned. "Sure. Let's see what happens." A large beetle whirred in from another part of the house, and landed on Amy's outstretched hand.

Madison, Emma, Missy and the other two dads leaned in to watch; Amy was vaguely aware of Danny waving them back, but after that she was concentrating entirely on the biology of the creature in the palm of her hand.

"Make it do something," she murmured. Taylor must have heard her, for the beetle opened its wing-cases and fluttered its wings. "Okay, got it." She could feel the signals going into and out of its tiny brain – hardly even large enough to be called one, to be honest. And she could tell how the bug was sending feedback to Taylor, telling her what it was, where it was, what it could see and hear … hm.

"I want to try something," she stated. "Taylor, tell me how this feels." She adjusted the brain very slightly, so that the feedback was skewed.

"Weird," complained Taylor. "I'm getting a headache." The bug's movements slowed, became confused. Amy could see how the control signal was being corrupted.

"Ah, got it," she noted. "That works, then." She adjusted the brain back the way it had been. "Better?"

Taylor nodded. "Better. What did you do?"

Amy grinned slightly. "Not even sure there's words for it. But I basically played with the part of its brain that you interact with."

"Wow," commented Emma. "So you could make it so she couldn't control the bug at all?"

"Well, I could," agreed Amy, "but that would be almost exactly opposite to what I want to do here. So, let's see … hm."

She fell silent, contemplating the bug. If I do this, instead of that …

Carefully, she enlarged that section, enhanced it, fed more of the bug's sensorium into it. "How about now?"

There was not a sound in the room, as all eyes turned to Taylor. Her eyes opened wide. "Wow. Holy crap. That's sharp."

"Good sharp or bad sharp?" asked Amy.

"It's like it's … drowning out some of the other bugs around. I can sense all of them, but I can sense this one more. And its sight … its hearing … I'm getting more of it."

"Can you make sense of it?" pressed Amy. "Is this a good thing, or should I dial it back down?"

"I'm getting a little more sense," Taylor admitted, "but not a whole lot. Beetle senses are crap, anyway."

"Just one second," Amy noted, and enlarged the part of the beetle's brain that dealt with sensory input, enhancing it. "How's that?"

Taylor blinked. "Damn. That was a huge jump in clarity. I can hear a lot better, and I can see shapes now, instead of just blurs."

"Good." Amy nodded. "Okay, I'm gonna need another bug. Something that can fly pretty fast. I just had an idea for something." She paused. "Scratch the 'fly fast' bit. I'll make it fly fast."

Taylor nodded, and a large moth fluttered into the room. "This one good enough?"

Amy grinned. "Sure." She took the moth, and compared the brains. That was the spot she wanted to work on, and if she was correct …

It only took a few seconds to make the adjustments she was planning, then she spent a moment rebuilding the wings so that they were much more efficient.

"Okay," she told Taylor, "send the moth away."

Taylor frowned. "Why?" she asked, but she already had the repurposed bug in the air. Danny turned around and cracked the window behind him, and the moth fluttered out.

"You'll know in a few moments, if that works," Amy told her. "Now, let's see. Mannequin's a problem for all of us; he's effectively immune to bugs, I suspect he'll be insulated against electrical shock, and he's too heavy to blow down. And by definition, he's sealed against air pressure changes." She smiled. "So we take his strength and make it into a weakness."

Danny's look became intent. "How, exactly, do you mean?"

"Glue," Amy told him cheerfully. "What's the strongest organic glue possible?"

Madison frowned. "You're going to glue him to the ground?"

"Hah!" Everyone looked at Lisa, who grinned unrepentantly back at them. "Moving parts. Amy, you're a freaking genius."

"Wow," Emma commented. "That is pretty damn ballsy. Well done, Amy." Amy grinned, and ducked her head to hide the flush of pleasure.

Taylor roused herself, and got up from the sofa. "My computer's upstairs, I'll check on that glue thing."

"Can you give me another bug to work with, while you're at it? I'm gonna need biomass, here."

"Sure." Taylor headed out into the front hall and Amy heard her trotting up the stairs. Another beetle buzzed over, and landed on her hand. Amy closed her hand, pushing them together. Under her direction, they both temporarily became semi-amoebic creatures, able to merge forms. Once they were one creature, she reformatted it as a bug, and began to work on the synthesis and delivery system. With the extra mass, she improved the visual capability, so that the bug would be able to find narrow crevices in which to deposit its glue.

She was still tinkering with the overall design when Taylor came walking back downstairs, moving more slowly than before. She had a sheet of paper in her hand.

"Amy?" she asked. "What did you do to the moth?"

Amy looked up. "Oh, I fiddled with the part that you control, and adjusted it so that it could also send out a signal like you do, and to be able to pass the feedback from other bugs back to you. It lets you use the bug as a remote signal booster. Or at least, that was the idea. Did it work?"

Taylor nodded. "Oh yeah. Definitely, yeah."

Danny's eyes got very wide, behind his glasses. "Wait, you can give Taylor boosters? She can cover a wider area?"

"Sure," Amy noted. "I can basically make any bug into a booster, as well as anything else I do with it. Theoretically, if I make enough of them, she'll be able to cover the whole city."

Danny's eyes met those of Alan and Rod. "Which means that we'd be able to keep track of the Nine, wherever they went."

"Unless they get wind of what we're doing," Alan noted. "They're not stupid."

"Well, no," agreed Lisa. "But none of them's a true Thinker, that we know of anyway. Amy's never let it be known that she can specifically fiddle biology, so the synergy between her and Taylor should come as a surprise to them."

"Talking about Thinkers," Rod noted, looking at the blonde ex-villain, "if they've come to Brockton Bay to deal with the Samaritans, they're likely to have a plan to do that. Am I right?"

Lisa nodded. "That makes sense, yes."

Rod nodded. "In which case -"

"- could I figure out ahead of time what it's likely to be, so we can work out a countermeasure?" Lisa pursed her lips consideringly. "I could certainly try."

Taylor put a hand on her shoulder. "It would be nice if we knew something of what to expect," she noted. "Amy, here's the information you wanted. The strongest glue I could find reference to is produced by a bacterium called Caulobacter crescentus. Here's a printout of all the information I could get, including the layout of the molecule. I don't know if that'll help -"

"Definitely," Amy replied, letting go Lisa's hand to take the sheet of paper. She scanned it, and nodded. "All I have to do now is figure out how to make this little guy synthesise this molecule in bulk."

"Will that take long?" asked Danny.

Amy shrugged. "Give me thirty seconds, and we'll see. And after that, I'll need more bugs." She grinned at Taylor. "I've got ideas."


End of Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

 

[Chojomeka]

So how long until Amy gives Taylor bug armor?

 

[Navrin]

Piggot stared stoically at the youngest girl in the room. "New liaison?"

Taylor ruffled Riley's hair affectionately. "New liaison."


Anyway, good first steps, team. Now keep stacking the deck as much as possible in your favour. Don't give the S9 any chance to be clever or lucky, to quote a rage-dragon.


Thanks for the chapter, Ack. Looking forward to the next one whenever it comes around.

 

[roninnomis]

And another fic has joined the inevitable, glorious Taylia synergy.

 

[Ack]

Piggot stared stoically at the youngest girl in the room. "New liaison?"

Taylor ruffled Riley's hair affectionately. "New liaison."


Anyway, good first steps, team. Now keep stacking the deck as much as possible in your favour. Don't give the S9 any chance to be clever or lucky, to quote a rage-dragon.


Thanks for the chapter, Ack. Looking forward to the next one whenever it comes around.

Click to shrink...

Non canon omake:

Jack Slash glared at Sparx, but he very carefully kept his hands in plain view. He'd learned why doing anything else was a very bad idea.

"Okay, you've won for now," he snarled, "but you won't be able to keep us until the Protectorate gets here. And anyway, how are you going to contain Crawler, once he wakes up?"

Sparx lifted her chin slightly. "I guess we're going to have to let you go," she admitted. "But there will be conditions."

The leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine continued to glare in impotent rage. "What conditions?" he gritted.

"One, you never come back to Brockton Bay, on pain of ... us. Two, you don't commit any atrocities within two states of us, or we will come looking. And we will find you."

He drew in air sharply through his nostrils. "And the third condition?" he forced out.

"We keep Bonesaw. As ... let's call it, a liaison."

"No!" he snapped reflexively.

Sparx shrugged. "Fine. We can do this the hard way."

He blinked. "Uh ... can I do a take back, there?"

She smiled, very slightly. It irritated him no end; he did not know, could not know, that she had practiced for hours, copying Tattletale - now Psych - at her most smug.

"So ... you agree to our conditions?" she asked sweetly.

Very reluctantly, he nodded.

"Good." Sparx nodded once in return, sharply. "When she wakes up, we'll explain to her. We'll also show her the footage of you agreeing to leave her behind."

He grimaced. "You'll -"

"Oh, I do hope the next word wasn't going to be 'pay'," she observed brightly. "Because I would have to take that as a threat. And I do so dislike threats."

He shut his mouth, unwilling to say another word.

"Good," Sparx told him. "It appears that you can learn, after all. Now get out of my city."

Battered and defeated, the remnants of the Slaughterhouse Nine retreated from Brockton Bay.

 

[TanaNari]

And another fic has joined the inevitable, glorious Taylia synergy.

Click to shrink...

I wasn't the first. I won't be the last. But I was the one to take it the furthest, and the one to name it.

I also named the tranqsquitoes. But I'm less proud of that.

 

[Ack]

I wasn't the first. I won't be the last. But I was the one to take it the furthest, and the one to name it.

I also named the tranqsquitoes. But I'm less proud of that.

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They won't be as close in this fic as Taylor and Amelia in your fic, or even in Security!. In this one, it'll be more like LisAmy.

 

[TanaNari]

Yeah, I figured as much. It's not like there aren't plenty of other ways to interpret the characters.

... Although if they adopt a Riley, I'm gonna have to call you out on it.

 

[Snake/Eater]

What about bugs altered to give people instant illness like gastro or mono.

 

[TanaNari]

Botulinum. A single mosquito bite full of that stuff in concentrated form will instantly kill any animal on earth. Assuming the mosquito can get through its skin.

 

[Navrin]

If you want quick incapacitation, venoms are probably more effective than diseases. If you want to avoid collateral damage, don't use diseases. If you want to avoid fatalities but want quick incapacitation, DEFINITELY avoid disease.

Unless collateral damage is the point, diseases are generally a rather poor attack vector to make use of.

 

[doomlord9]

Botulinum. A single mosquito bite full of that stuff in concentrated form will instantly kill any animal on earth. Assuming the mosquito can get through its skin.

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I've always found that funny, I've been warned about the signs and dangers of botulism since I was a kid since we did alot of canning only to later find out people pay huge amount to have that shit injected into themselves. Botox treatments stands for Botulinium Toxin, which is a major paralytic that they inject into your face to force the muscles to relax to reduces lines.

The shit people pay for, but that's right in line with the fact that Coca-Cola is named that because one if it's key ingredients used to be cocaine.

 

[Mogget]

I see that without a Taylor to save Lisa gets her save-people thing focused on Amy.

 

[SamPardi]

Honestly I think Lisa would have taken more interest in Amy in canon if not for the pressing need to keep Glory Girl from going excessive force on their asses.

 

[Ack]

I've been looking up toxins. Batrachotoxin, for instance.

Thus, the lethal dose for a 68 kg (150 pound) person would be approximately 100 micrograms, or equivalent to the weight of two grains of ordinary (fine) table salt

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And some bugs even generate it.

Scary, scary stuff.

 

[Jack of Olives]

I've been looking up toxins. Batrachotoxin, for instance.



And some bugs even generate it.

Scary, scary stuff.

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Are you trying to keep me from sleeping tonight?

 

[Ack]

Are you trying to keep me from sleeping tonight?

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Mwahahahaha.

That is all.

 

[tEN]

I've always found that funny, I've been warned about the signs and dangers of botulism since I was a kid since we did alot of canning only to later find out people pay huge amount to have that shit injected into themselves. Botox treatments stands for Botulinium Toxin, which is a major paralytic that they inject into your face to force the muscles to relax to reduces lines.

The shit people pay for, but that's right in line with the fact that Coca-Cola is named that because one if it's key ingredients used to be cocaine.

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Coca leaves can be processed into cocain. The way you put it, it's along the same lines as being confused and horrified that people cook with hemp seed oil.

 

[SamPardi]

Coca leaves can be processed into cocain. The way you put it, it's along the same lines as being confused and horrified that people cook with hemp seed oil.

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Except they stopped processing into cocaine to then be used in the drink in 1929, some forty odd years after they started making the drink. So it's more like being confused and horrified that people used to put actual cocaine into soft drinks. Because, you know, they did.

 

[tEN]

Except they stopped processing into cocaine to then be used in the drink in 1929, some forty odd years after they started making the drink. So it's more like being confused and horrified that people used to put actual cocaine into soft drinks. Because, you know, they did.

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The recipe Pemberton stole from the Spanish company that made coca-kola before him called for coca leaves and kola nuts, but did not involve specifically processing the coca leaves into cocaine. The leaves by themselves with no further processing had a kick to them, and in fact people still make tea with or chew coca leaves for that same kick today, in certain parts of the world.

It's also worth noting that when he started out, he was making a medicine to treat morphine addiction, as had been discovered as a potential use for coca leaves less than ten years prior. I can see where you might be confused, as at that time, people thought coca leaves and cocaine were the same thing, and documentation used the words interchangeably. The actual truth is made clear by the pure food and drink act.

In 1906, when they stopped being a medicine, they started removing the active chemicals from the coca leaves before using them in the drink. That's right, they were definitely using the whole leaves, because we know they changed how they used them. For flavor.

So basically, no part of what you just said is true, which is confusing to me, as if you just wanted to be mad at Coca Cola there's much better, actually true, reasons to be mad at them.

 

[doomlord9]

Oh no, not mad it's just an interesting/amusing history fact I knew of. Like how doctors used to prescribe smoking for lung ailments as well tapeworms eggs as a weight-loss aid.

I do think that it's one of the reasons they became popular at all though. Both them and Pepsi are nasty as shit, not to mention how bad both are for your teeth. Give me some Mt. Dew or even better Surge any day.

 

[Aleh]

I do think that it's one of the reasons they became popular at all though. Both them and Pepsi are nasty as shit, not to mention how bad both are for your teeth. Give me some Mt. Dew or even better Surge any day.

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Neither of those is any better.

 

[Ack]

Neither of those is any better.

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I used to be a Coca Cola addict. I needed one every morning or I'd have headaches by lunchtime. Took me about three years to gradually quit. I feel so much better now (and I've lost about 10 kg).

 

[Aleh]

I used to be a Coca Cola addict. I needed one every morning or I'd have headaches by lunchtime. Took me about three years to gradually quit. I feel so much better now (and I've lost about 10 kg).

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That's generally the caffeine. I'm more a tea drinker myself anyway, but really, really hate pseudoscience even when used in relatively harmless implicit comparisons like that one.

 

[doomlord9]

Neither of those is any better.

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Huh, I just looked it up and you're actually right on that.

It really should have been obvious to me though, orange juice is the same in that regard and I know that because there was an issue when I was younger with our teeth being eaten away because my mom always gave us orange juice instead of soda because it was healthier. It's the citric acid in Mt. Dew, Sprite, and Surge that does it while Pepsi and Coca-Cola use phosphoric acid. Probably why I like Mt. Dew and other citrusy drinks more, I grew up on oranges and juices at my snacks.