Wait a Minute... (Guy in Worm with Trouble in Terrorist Town powers)

Phili · Jul 24, 2026

I sure hope this is the correct box to type this part in. (It wasn't, I had to switch the first threadmark and the thread description)
Hi! This is my first story, and I'm not sure how long it will go on or how much time I will be able to dedicate to it. Please do not raise your expectations.

This is a story that takes place in Worm, about an Original Character who apparently has an identity and life on Earth Bet, but doesn't remember any of it. He has gotten powers from the Yogscast Modded Gary's Mod Trouble In Terrorist Town game (TTT), and gets more powers and items from it as time goes on, and he has a feeling it will move on to a similar theme after it grabs everything it can from TTT, and perhaps even more after that. Reading this requires no knowledge of the Yogscast or TTT, but they will likely make it funnier.

He has some limited memories of someone from an Earth similar to ours, most of which are useless and about a group of idiots (he means it affectionately) called the Yogscast; but other, more normal memories are just enough to make him double take and question many things on Earth Bet. He is apparently a Yognau(gh)t, so he decides to call himself Dave.

His power is Out of Context and does not originate from a shard, but something kind-of similar to a shard. This kind-of shard is not from any particular fandom, it just works on similar, less parasitic principles as Worm shards, and is more like a weird cross between a Worm shard, a ROB wanting to be entertained, a Ring Grandpa from a xianxia, and a hyper-friendly puppy trying very hard to be friendly but only speaks in barks and yips

I have read quite a bit of Worm fanfiction in my day, but I've never read the original story because I find it much too dark and depressing, so, correspondingly, I am nearly certain to get things wrong and ask for gentle clarification and understanding if I choose not to correct it since I intend for this story to be substantially lighter in tone than the original.

Nothing is (currently) written in advance and I (currently) have no plans for a schedule. This is (currently) a bit of fun for me while I rewatch the old Yogscast TTT playlists while stretching my creative juice (yes, I love stretching my juices, why do you ask?), and maybe entertaining a few people along the way... if I keep up with it.

The first chapter will be out sometime between today and next week... hopefully. Now, I just have to figure out how to copy all of this into an identical story in the NSFW section.

Phili · Jul 24, 2026

Chapter 1: The Bagel is the most important thing here

January 1, 2010. Brockton Bay.

He woke up on a bed. That was good, he supposed; the problem was just about everything else.

"What's my name, and why do I feel like I should care more about the answer than I actually do?" He asked while staring at the ceiling.

"For that matter, why am I so awake first thing in the morning? Don't I have narcolepsy?"

With no answers appearing, he did his best to let muscle memory take over, and it dragged him through a shower and finding clothes in a large plastic bin under his bed ("but why though?" he asked while digging through the bin to find socks), before pouring orange juice and putting a bagel in the toaster ("Mmm, berry flavored bagels, I have good taste").

Congratulations!

Hello my new friend! I understand you might have some questions, but we'll get to that in a moment! First of all, you now have superpowers! Yay! These powers will be based off of the Yogscast Trouble in Terrorist Town roles, items, and randomats... to start with. As time passes you will get more powers, and with eventually, those powers will expand to include other things from other "sources", like Blood on The Clocktower.

Now, to start with, you will be getting a new Role every day, since as much as I would love to give my favorite human (that's you!) all the things immediately, that would stuff you so full of random crap you would immediately explode in a way not even I could resurrect you. Your metaphysical self, or metaphysique, or soul or whatever you want to call it can't handle everything at once, but my new method of exercising your soul by grabbing your metaphysical limbs and waving them around like a wacky wavy inflatable arm thing will expand your metaphysical container. I call this newfound method "exercise", and it will let me stuff more power into your soul at a rate of about 1 role per day. However, if you exercise your soul yourself, I can stuff power into your soul more quickly, and since I will be stuffing power into you soul as soon as room becomes available, you don't have to worry about your soul shrinking back down like it normally does with humans and human-adjacent mortals.

Now, you might be wondering "Why did my new super-cute and fantastic Eldritch best friend pick Yogscast TTT to start expanding my powers with?". Well, simple. It's important enough to you that you will understand it well and quickly grasp the mechanics; even after I put you back together after I found you, you still remembered a lot about it. Also, I can give you the power of "respawning" right off the bat with it because it's so easy to stuff your soul with it because you already care about it. So yeah, you'll respawn every 10 minutes at full health if you die, unless you choose not to, in which case you will obviously stay in spectator mode. Or if you have other roles or randomats unlocked that take place after death, you can keep doing things with those instead of respawning.

You can expand your soul yourself the normal way, by doing things. The more interesting and stimulating (to you) the things you do are, the more you expand your soul, and then I will stick my "soul finger (tentacle)" in to your newly expanded space to keep it expanded until it is expanded enough to fit something new.

What role you get each day will be random, and so will any items and randomats you unlock. You can have as many roles active at once as you want, and can deactivate any at will. You can also carry any "game items" in your inventory, but not regular items. Every time a "new round" starts (which is every 10 minutes), in addition to respawning, you also get a new pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, and a credit if you have any roles active that can buy from a shop. You will be able to access your shop mentally at will, and more items will be available in the shops for each role as your "soul" expands.

Eventually, you will be less constrained to your role as the original game exists, and things like a Hypnotist can actually hypnotize people, a Good Boy lets you turn into a dog, a Possum will grant you a Possum changer form, and a Mad Scientist will grant you a Tinker specialty, all in addition to what they would normally do. That won't happen for a while yet of course.

Finally, your first role has come in and it is... *Drum Roll please... or Drum Role! Hah, I'm hilarious aren't I* Old Man! Yay! Oh... hmm... That is quite possibly the single worst possible thing you could have gotten isn't it? I'll tell you what, it's simple enough and the downside is significant enough I can squeeze the double jump into you from the start because you don't have another role that would counteract the Old Man's downsides.

Now, don't get spawn-camped until tomorrow, and I will see you... Next time. Goodbye!

Huh. I understood... none of that in real words.

Excuse me?

Yeah, it was like, I got the gist and the meaning, but with no actual words. It was kinda trippy really.

Oh fuck me. That's not good. You really were in terrible shape when I found you. Good thing I managed to find an Earth to plop you into so quickly so you stopped de-existifying. Granted, there are some slight context clues that make me suspect this wasn't your original Earth, but I'm sure it'll be fine. It's okay, you're still my favorite human, even if you are a little... damaged.

Oh, also, I set up things for you so you don't get lynched as a witch or whatever they do to outsiders on this Earth, it should give you a little bit, emphasis on little, of the local "common sense" as a bonus to your housing and possessions I Realitied into existence for you. I am declaring "Realitied" to be a word now, so write that down as well!

Thanks, I think. He grabbed a notepad and did what his instincts told him to do, and wrote down the word "that", before grabbing his sadly cold bagel from the toaster.

Who knew trying to decipher weird soul alien language took enough time to make a bagel fully toast and cool down to room temperature.

Then he used his newfound common sense, and put the bagel back in the toaster on the lowest setting so it could heat back up.

Exiting his apartment door, he saw a woman who was apparently his neighbor exiting her unit as well. Locking the door behind him, he decided to follow his instincts, which had definitely no points of failure.

"Hi, I am Dave! I am a Yognau(gh)t and I have the balls. Are you Dave! Yognau(gh)t with the balls?"

She stared.

Nailed it.

Phili · Jul 24, 2026

AN: If you aren't familiar with TTT and/or the Yogscast, you can still enjoy this, but will need to accept deep in your heart that you won't get every single reference in this chapter or the story.

Chapter 2: Who's that Pokemon?

January 1, 2010. Brockton Bay.

"So Bella, can you drive?"

It turned out that she was not in fact a Yognau(gh)t, her name was "Bella not Dave you imbecile!", and she did most certainly not have the balls and she resented me "risking her being attacked by Nazi morons hearing an idiot ask a woman if she has balls and assuming she is trans."

I naturally assured her I wasn't a dirty traitor, I was just an old man.

She stared at me and said "You are college age dude, are you trying to make actual old people angry at you?"

I did the only thing I could in response to that. I double jumped.

"Fine, where do you want me to drive you to?"

"The Beach please, Boat Graveyard area. My common sense is tingling and it's telling me that is where I should go. It also tells me that it's definitely Zylus, but he's not here, so I suspect my balls are defective."

She stared at me. She seems to be doing that a lot huh. "I am so going to regret this, but this is literally the only interesting thing that has happened to me this year." Huh, she was smiling a little.

Wait a minute…

"What day of the year is it today?" I asked ever so slightly suspiciously.

"Shut up and follow me to my car."

"Okay," I agreed happily. I won after all. Double jumping was truly the ultimate charisma. I didn't even need to T-Pose for dominance to intimidate her into doing my bidding… not that I would dominate someone without consent of course. Even with consent I might not do it really. Unless they deserved it of course, I think she mentioned Nazis earlier to, so I may need to practice my (T-Posing) skills a little before I dominate them. I might also do it if it was funny.

After observing Bella on the way to her car and the way she treated dogs (she stared at them because they were cute little good boys and girls, yes they were), I concluded, she could not possibly be a terrorist, therefore… she was a good person. In other words, a traitor!

Man, the TTT analogy really breaks down the instant you bring civilians into the picture doesn't it.

"So you're a parahuman right? I'm taking a parahumans studies class at Brockton University, so I think I'm academically required to ask: What's that like?" She asked after we got into her car.

"Well, if you are defining Parahuman as "an individual most likely of the species Homo Sapien Sapien in the possession of one or more "superpowers", then yes I am a parahuman". She seemed like she wanted to stare, but needed to keep her eyes on the road so she just sighed instead.

"And so far, it's been a bit of a mixed bag, on the one hand, I can double jump and it seems like my narcolepsy is gone. On the other hand, I'm about 95% sure that stubbing my toe will now kill me." She screeched to a stop. Good thing we were at a red light, I'm pretty sure she would have done that even on the highway. Maybe cars aren't the best place for this sort of discussion?

"What the fuck do you mean a stubbed toe will kill you?" Ow, woman, don't screech in my ear. At least my hearing damage seems to be cured as well, hopefully she won't bring it back with her dramatic antics.

"Well, my power—"

"Wait, should you even be telling me this?" She asked suddenly, and she already cares! I knew bringing civilians into terrorism was a good idea. Look at the results!

"Well, one of my powers is that I come back to life after I've died every ten minutes. Unless I want to stay dead of course, in which case I can obviously."

"Right, obviously," she agreed as the light turned green.

"Anyways, I knew you were Innocent when I saw how you treated the dogs, you looked upon them with proper deference for their adorableness and good boy-ness. Wait a minute… I decided you were a traitor earlier. Man, this analogy thing really breaks down with civilians."

"Right, you're just a weird idiot, that's why you decided I should be trusted. You're so obscenely lucky you picked a decent person to… latch on to or whatever it is you're doing," Bella concluded.

"Anyways, as a terrorist, I need to be a very good judge of character, and the tingle in my balls tells my you are a good person."

"Please, just go back to talking about your powers, I can't handle you being you that much while I'm trying to drive."

"Right right. Anyways, I get more powers as time goes on, and the ones I have get better, though both have an element of randomness." As he talked, she looked more and more like she wanted to interrupt, but was also determined to drive well. Perhaps she was concerned about him dying if she hit the breaks to fast based on his earlier comment? That was probably it.

After only a single sentence, she did end up interrupting, "Okay, this is genuinely fascinating-"

"Ahah! You said genuinely! I knew you were a traitor!"

"Shut up I'm trying to be serious! Anyways, this is really interesting, but also extremely unsafe to talk about all this while I'm driving and trying to concentrate, I'm having to take a longer route to the Boat Graveyard to avoid potholes so I don't somehow kill you because the roads are in terrible condition in this city for mysterious reasons I'm sure." She said the last bit sarcastically. Unfortunately, his common sense didn't tell him what the actual reasons for potholes were, so her sarcasm was undeserved as the answer was not common sense and therefore not worthy of sarcasm.

She finished off her thought with "So for now, just tell me what I need to know about for your safety --and my own I suppose though that doesn't seem to be a worry with your powers—then when we get to the boat graveyard we can finish the conversation. I assume you wanted to go there to test out your powers; which is fine as long as you don't do anything flashy, but if you do anything too large it will attract attention you probably don't want from either the gangs or the PRT. After we've had our conversation and you've done whatever testing you wanted to do, I can call a friend of mine, she's completely trustworthy and is something of an expert on Parahumans. She'll be able to give you advice and help going forward."

"Wow, you've already deduced things about why I wanted to go places and thought things through. That kind of thinking is just what you need to be a great Terrorist. You have a bright future in terrorism Bella. Anyways, right now, and only for today, I am in a condition that you can think of as like being a video game character on one health, but one health is also the maximum health, so a doctor wouldn't find anything wrong with me, but even a gentle tap with a crowbar would instantly kill me.

On the bright side, because my power is a fantastic good boy/girl/nonbinary, I also will respawn every 10 minutes if I do die."

"So, you're like a worse version of Alabaster? Also powers aren't sentient or gendered." She asked after ignoring my amazing compliment on how smart she was.

Well if she's going to ignore my compliments, I'm going to ignore her obviously incorrect statements regarding the sentience of powers, and since she doesn't even know about powers being sentient, obviously she can't be trusted to be correct with regards to their genders. Honestly, making broad-sweeping assumptions about an entire… species? I'm going to say species. Making broad-sweeping assumptions about an entire species like that is incredibly rude and insensitive. Racist even. Maybe sexist too.

"I don't actually know what alabaster is, but I don't think it respawns if destroyed. I thought it was either a plaster of some sort or a pottery material, but if it respawned after being destroyed I'm pretty sure we would make a lot more stuff out of it."

She almost tried to face palm before putting her hand back on the steering wheel. "No, Alabaster is the name of one of the local Nazi capes. He returns to his original condition every 5 seconds or so, which means even if he dies or is injured, he will be alive and in perfect health after only 5 seconds instead of needing an entire 10 minutes."

"Damn, my power was really proud of figuring out a way to get me to respawn. It's going to be so disappointed now, and look at me with those big metaphorical, metaphysical puppy dog eyes. Like this." He said, before transforming into a Pikachu and looking up at her.

"AHH!" she screamed and slammed the breaks. Because he was now a Pikachu, his seatbelt wasn't tall enough, and he went flying into the windshield and died instantly.

Author's note: Don't worry, he isn't a real Pikachu. He can just change his skin/character-model. Anything he could reasonably find as a player model in the Steam Workshop is fair game, but it is mostly aesthetic (for now, that won't change for a while, if ever though). He is genuinely bigger or smaller though, so he can fit more places and make himself taller to see things, but when he is bigger, he isn't any stronger and is mostly just a bigger target. Next time, we will see Dave using spectator mode, Bella being forced to make a decision on what to do with the dead Pikachu in her car, and a nice calm picnic on a scenic beach before Bella calls her mysterious friend. Not necessarily in that order.

Phili · Jul 24, 2026

Chapter 3: Who's That ~~Pokemon~~ Cape?!

January 1, 2010. Brockton Bay.

It turns out, when he dies, he goes into Spectator mode.

Continuity of consciousness baby! Dave thought triumphantly. Before realizing he now had a panicking Bella he couldn't communicate with fretting over his dead body.

His fucking adorable dead body. Seriously, it was the cutest dead body he had ever seen. Shame it was dead.

"Oh god, oh god, THIS IS WHY I WANTED TO DELAY THE CONVERSATION, you FUCKING MANIAC!" She screamed at his dead body, sobbing slightly. Wow, she got attached fast didn't she? Maybe she knew him before he lost his memories? Or maybe she just didn't have many friends and imprinted on him. Oh, she's doing something.

Bella took out her phone and called someone. "Hey, I know we were supposed to meet up later, but I got sidetracked with something really important, and I need your help with a dead body."

Wow, did she already forget that I told her I could respawn? Does she just have a memory of a goldfish? Is she stupid or something?

"No, I'm only sort of joking. I met a cape, I don't think he was a cape yet actually, but a parahuman, and he sort of started following me around like a baby duckling that imprinted on me and I had to help him before he hurt himself out of idiocy. He said one of his powers was that he could 'respawn' ten minutes after dying, but I don't know if he had tested that yet or was just going off of a feeling he had or something. He wasn't—isn't? –the brightest blub in the shed, and he might be a little insane, so he might have just misinterpreted a feeling he got from his power without actually testing it."

Oh wow, she's actually really smart. I didn't even think about the possibility I could be insane and not actually have all the powers I thought I had, or that I could have misinterpreted what my cute little soul alien was trying to communicate with me. Truly, I am a genius for grabbing onto a smart person and roping them into my shenanigans. Now she's invested in me, and the sunk cost fallacy will prevent her from leaving. It is completely unrelated to the fact she was literally the first person I ever saw after waking up with amnesia. Her claims of duckling imprinting are totally unfounded. Obviously. Oh, I missed some of the conversation.

"So, you can meet me at the boat graveyard to either help us test things, or bury a body? Uhh, either way, could you also help me clean my car, there is a little blood now, but it's all on the passenger side of the windshield, so it's not a worst-case scenario, I just don't know how to clean blood, from glass or from anything else."

"Yeah, I'm setting a timer for ten minutes now, it's been a couple minutes already, so if the timer goes off, I'll panic then, but I think I can drive to the boat graveyard without panicking now. And yes, I am assuming you know how to clean blood." Bella said into the phone, before the person on the other side of the phone talked a little more.

"No, he turned into some sort of yellow rodent, like a cartoonified mouse a couple feet tall that was then made real."

More indecipherable phone noises.

"No, it has black ear tips and brown stripes on its back, why? I know you aren't going for a zoology degree have you heard of an actual animal like this?"

"Why would I be familiar with Earth Aleph Japanese Cartoons and games? Of course I've never heard of a Pikachu. Yes, it is the cutest thing I've ever seen. He was trying to do puppy dog eyes but it startled me and I slammed the breaks. He slipped out of his seat belt and slammed against the windshield and fucking died. I felt so bad, I mean I would have felt terrible anyways, but him being in that form made my heart just about burst when he died."

"No, just because it's the cutest thing I've ever seen doesn't mean it's a Pikachu. It could be a completely random changer form totally unrelated to your weird cartoons."

"Fine, if—no, when—he wakes up, after you arrive, we'll ask him what it is, without asking leading questions, and if he says "Pikachu" I'll watch your weird Aleph Cartoons with you."

Bella sighed, "Thanks for helping me out, I was starting to panic a little. I'll see you at the boat graveyard in a couple minutes. Try and get there before the timer goes off will you? You need more practice going fast anyways girl, flying is one of your strongest features." She hung up, took a deep somewhat shaky breath, and started the car back up, with the dead Pikachu now surrounded in a towel, like a burrito. A bloody burrito, which is probably why the towels were there and the body was where it landed below the windshield instead of on the seat. As it was, it just looked like a weird pile of towels instead of a dead body.

Already thinking about hiding the body, as well as disguising the body. She truly did have the potential to be a great terrorist.

Hmm, the car seems to be leaving without me. Shit, the car is leaving without me!

After a little concentration and definitely-not-constipated-ghost-noises, Dave managed to anchor his perspective to the car, which was rather neat. Though he supposed it was only logical he would be able to do so given his perspective didn't go flying into the void of space after he died because the Earth doesn't exactly stay still, so his perspective must have originally been anchored to the Earth, and it was simply a logical extension of that ability that he could anchor his perspective to other moving objects.

Now that I have a few minutes though…

He felt around his soul and powers a little. It was easier without his body distracting him, and even more so now that he noticed something else. A feeling of slight growth every ten minutes had stopped.

I see, because I was the Old Man, in addition to only having one health, there was another aspect I forgot about. The Old Man's only win condition, is being alive at the end of the round. Since I'm not alive now, I'm not winning, but until now I had been "winning" every ten minutes as each "round" ended. That feeling was my Karma increasing from winning. Normally, extra karma doesn't do anything besides providing a safe buffer before you go into low Karma, where you will start doing less and less damage, until if your Karma gets low enough, you automatically get banned. Does that mean if I kill enough people "on my team" I would get "banned" from Earth Bet? Or from life?

Either way, I have a feeling higher Karma does something for me. Since low Karma decreases damage, maybe higher Karma will increase damage? My common sense tells me that would be a necessity for accomplishing anything on Earth bet. Normal guns just aren't enough against too many possible opponents, and even a Red Matter Bomb won't do much if it is as it is in the game. Though, maybe I could eventually "upgrade" a Red Matter Bomb to be closer to its inspiration, in which case it could probably either trap or kill one of those Endbringer things.

Now, how am I going to test if higher Karma means more damage? I can't exactly shoot someone and ask how much health they lost… can I?

…

No I don't think I can. Damn. I'll have to ask my new super amazing and smart friend Bella for ideas. Wait, I should save the flattery for when she can hear me, and do the insults when she can't hear me. Truly, I am a genius for thinking of this.

While Dave was pondering how he must be a good person because he has so much Karma, Bella was busy driving to the Boat Graveyard. It was completely deserted. It was actually a little creepy how deserted it was, but Bella brought the Pikachu corpse out from her car, still surrounded by towels, along with a large beach towel and a small toy beach shovel.

That would be the most humiliating thing to ever be buried with, Dave thought as he stared at the pink plastic toy shovel Bella brought out… for some reason. Why did she bring this actually?

Oh well. He floated around a little more, before deciding to make good use of his time in spectator mode while he can. He would feel really shitty if he didn't respawn at the first opportunity and she thought she had killed him permanently. Also, she might start burying his body by digging a hole with the little pink shovel, which would be humiliating. And he's pretty sure he can still suffocate considering he is certain he can still drown. So being buried alive would really kinda suck. Maybe he could eventually unlock the Detective Role and buy a teleporter, but he thinks he would need to set up a receiver port or something in advance to designate where to teleport to.

Wasn't there also a Teleport Attack item that teleported you to someone and then did damage to them? That might work, but I doubt it would be available right from the start, and I don't remember if it was a detective item or a traitor item, and I would need to figure out a way to determine if someone was an acceptable target in case they were already injured and using it on them killed them. Maybe I should just go with the plan of "Don't get buried before unlocking Detective and buying a teleporter and setting up a receiver port? I can make an exception if I get Parasite, Phantom, or Medium I suppose, as long as I get killed by a person… that isn't myself. Then I can deal with being buried since I can come back by either getting whoever killed me killed, or just waiting long enough that I burst out of their stomach if I am a Parasite role when they kill me. Okay, a plan has been formed: don't get buried, alive or otherwise. Maybe I should turn into something bigger if I think I am about to die so I would take longer to bury… I'll ask Bella for advice, I think.

After making his plans regarding being buried, Dave decided to stop wasting Spectator time, and kill two birds with one stone and start testing Spectator mode while making sure there was nobody nearby to spy on them. It wouldn't do to have an Informant find out he was an Old Man after all.

It turned out, while he was noclipping into a solid object, he could see through it. The ground counted as one object, so he was probably lucky Bella was wearing pants and not a skirt or else he may have gotten slapped. His common sense was telling him that the excuse of having seen Sailor Moon's panties plenty of times wouldn't have worked very well. Which was nonsense, that was a great excuse, so he started suspecting that maybe… just maybe… his common sense was slightly defective.

Regardless, he scouted around the area, found a surprising amount of sea life in the water, was promptly more than a little traumatized by how brutal ocean life is when you can actually see it, and found no humans nearby, Para or otherwise. Except that one flying woman he seems to be coming closer. He's pretty sure she isn't important though, that would be silly.

Oh shit, she's trying to strangle Bella! Around the chest! With her arms! Wait, I think that might be a hug. Nevermind.

Author's Note: I banged this out quickly to make sure nobody would think there was a risk of the story ending then and there at the previous chapter. This is not a troll story (as in a story where I the author am trolling the readers).

Phili · Jul 25, 2026

Next chapter is ready. Unfortunately, I am not qualified to describe a certain image, so I added a picture. However, I can't seem to figure out how to upload an image to QQ from my desktop instead of from online, and I can't find an online picture of what I want.

If anyone knows how to upload an image to QQ from a desktop, let me know and the chapter will go up right away. (Catbox was suggested to me, but it said "Uploads paused until I can resolve storage issues. Sorry!" when I tried to upload the image to it from my desktop, so that particular site won't work I'm afraid).

Alternatively, if anyone has a picture that works with QQ's Insert Image thing, put it in the thread and I'll add it to where it goes in the chapter and put the chapter up.

The picture I need is one of Kirsty's Tall Pikachu TTT player model. The one she switched to after complaints of her normal Pikachu model being too small and hard to hit, but before she switched to Mr. Tweedy from Chicken Run.

Phili · Jul 25, 2026

Chapter 4: It's Laserdream! "Laze-Laze? Dream!" (Inspiration for this chapter title is the first few seconds of this vid)

January 1, 2010. Brockton Bay, Boat Graveyard.

"Pika Pika!" Dave does his best Pikachu impression as he respawns, his body disappearing from under the towels covering it and reappearing a couple inches in the air above them, already standing upright.

"Oh thank god you were right," Bella sounded a little emotional there. Is this the legendary Stockholm Syndrome? Wait, no, I think that's something else. Regardless, it was good to be back, and that Bella's concerns-- that he definitely thought of before getting into one of humanity's deadliest inventions (the car), while being an Old Man—were unfounded.

Anyways, he waddled up to the unknown young woman, looked up at her and held up his arms at her, as if asking for uppies. Then, in his best Pikachu voice, he said "I'm a terrorist!"

"With that face, you sure are." The woman said without missing a beat, though her lips were curved up slightly and she was fighting to keep a straight face.

"NO! Do not team up, I forbid it." Bella interjected before they could continue.

"Fine, party pooper. Introductions?" The woman grumbled.

"Yes, Crystal, this is Dave. He's a weirdo. Dave, this is Crystal, you probably have heard of her as Laserdream. She's a weirdo, but she's a closet weirdo who watches cartoons from another country in another universe. Play nice." Bella introduced them.

"So, Dave, I have to ask—" Crystal broke off, seeing Dave hold up a hand to cut her off and with an adorably serious face.

Dave spoke, "First, before anything else, I must say… Hi, I am Dave! I am a Yognau(gh)t and I have the balls. Are you Dave! Yognau(gh)t with the balls?" He said it in his normal voice.

"Well, some people have called my girls balls before, though not to my face, but I've never been called Dave, to my knowledge at least. And I'm not even sure how to spell 'Yawgnot', let alone what it is, so I doubt I am one of those." Crystal answered with the practice of someone who has dealt with many idiots asking stupid questions.

Dave turned to Bella, looked deep into her eyes with his adorable little Pikachu face, and said "This one's a keeper. If you aren't gonna kidnap her, I call dibs on kidnapping her."

"Oh my, Bella, are you going to kidnap me?" Crystal immediately turned to her friend and piled on.

"I hate you both, maybe I should have just buried you before you resurrected and made her dig you out." Bella grumbled. It was probably her way of showing affection. Dave was at least 7% certain it was how Bellas showed affection in fact.

"Anyways, Dave I have a very important question for you… What would you call your current form?" Crystal had a small but smug triumphant smile as she asked her question.

"Kirsty," Dave immediately answered, watching as her smile fell. "Or Pikachu," he finished, making her smile brighten up again.

Man, I can see why they call her Laserdream, that smile is blinding. She better be a millionaire from toothpaste commercials or there is no justice in the world.

Crystal slowly turned to Bella with a supremely smug expression on her face.

"Oh what was it you said Bella? Something about how there is 'no way one of my weird Japanese alternate dimension cartoons had a Parahuman power at all related to it'? I recall something about a promise as well to watch every single episode of Pokemon to ever come out with me as well don't I?" Wow, that is a whole lot of smug. Like, I don't think I've ever seen that much smug before. I'm not sure I ever will see that much smug again in the future… Wait a minute, why did I get a shiver down my back when I thought that? Is Crystal just somehow even more smug than this in general or something?

"This form is fun and all, but I think I should turn back now that I don't need to demonstrate to Bella how easily my power manipulates me with metaphorical puppy dog eyes," He said as he changed to a more comfortable form.

"What do you --AHH!" Crystal screamed as she turned to his new more glorious form. Bella screamed too of course.

Unfortunately I couldn't get the planned image to work because I can't figure out how to upload an image to QQ from my desktop, and Catbox isn't working at the moment. Thanks to @Doru for this image. For the full experience, if you want to see exactly what he turned into, it is Kirsty's model in this video (It is showing at the time the video will start).

Hah, got her. I win. I knew she couldn't keep calm forever.

"Wait, wrong one," he said, before turning back to his original form of a Freshman at College aged stereotypical dark-haired white man terrorist.

"Oh thank god it's over," Bella fake-sobbed dramatically into Crystal's arms. Crystal meanwhile had a bemused look on her face at the realization she had been trolled.

Yes, I definitely did that on purpose.

"Anyways! I scouted around while I was dead and there is nobody here apart from us aside from some crabs and some clams. So, time for power testing!"

Crytsal clapped obligingly, while Bella was a little less celebratory. "I see a couple fish right over there, why are you counting the crabs and clams but not the fish? Did you hear about a Master than can only control things without a spine but can see through the senses of the things they control or something?" I got another shiver there, but it really isn't that cold, and my first shiver was while I was in Pikachu form and had fur… I don't actually know if Pikachu form's fur keeps me warm, I will need to test that I guess.

"No, it's just that clams and crabs are people. Duh." Dave told his silly friend, who usually seemed rather smart before she suddenly didn't seem to know random pieces of common sense. They were so common in fact, that they weren't even part of his power-given common sense package. They were that obvious.

"Right, of course, silly me." Well at least she knows how silly she gets. She even used the same word choice he was thinking of. Truly, she is a genius. Just like him really.

"So, you have an escalating Trump power?" Crystal asked after his him describe how he would be getting more powers over time. Without mentioning the soul alien, Bella didn't seem very receptive to the truth for some reason, so Dave logically reasoned (which he can do because he is very smort) that her friend would likely also not be receptive to the truth. Perhaps they will see in time, but for now…

"Yes, that sounds like an accurate description I suppose. According to my common sense anyways. Man, common sense is such a great superpower, I'm glad I have it."

"Sure you do buddy." Bella said from side.

"Anyways, testing!" Crystal clapped her hands together, before looking around for something, presumably things to use for testing, when she spotted the pink plastic shovel Bella had brought.

"Aww, you brought the shovel! That's so sweet, thanks Bella," Crystal hugged Bella again… Probably, she might have just been trying to strangle her through the chest instead of the neck. Bella seemed to think it was a strangling attempt at least based on how much she was struggling.

Dave raised his hand "Context please."

"Oh, when I first got my powers we came down here to do power testing as well because my parents were smothering me after I first got powers and wouldn't let me test them at first. Bella brought me here for the most depressing picnic scenery of all time and brought this little shovel to test if I could use my forcefield for things like grabbing objects from a distance and if my control over my lasers was good enough to shoot a laser through the handle hole without melting any of the plastic around it from the laser's heat." Crystal explained after letting her struggling prey go.

Hmm, maybe I should see if she wants a headcrab to keep as a pet? She can attack someone's chest to strangle them like she was doing with Bella and then the headcrab can jump on their face and attack them while she is pinning their arms down.

"So, what sort of abilities do you have so far other than respawning and turning into Pikachu?" Crystal asked.

"Well, I can also turn into quite a few other things, I have the ability to die from the slightest bit of damage, I have spectator mode while I am dead, and I have an inventory for weapons that gets refreshed with more weapons in addition to the olds ones getting refilled ammo. And I can double jump. I'm a pretty standard terrorist at the moment really."

Crystal paused in her enthusiasm slightly, mouthed a couple words to herself and then asked "How does that make you a terrorist?"

"How doesn't that make me a terrorist? That's like a standard terrorist package right there except for the instantly dying part. Unfortunately, I probably won't unlock the Jihad bomb for a few days, so—"

"NO JIHAD BOMBS!" Bella cut in.

"But… but…" Dave transformed into (normal) Pikachu and looked up at Bella with big teary eyes and said "But, what if they have it coming?"

"No."

"But, what if it's the best solution to the situation I have available?"

"No," Bella repeated.

Pikachu! I can't believe you failed me! Well, as long as I don't tell her about the Holy Hand Grenade, she can't forbid me from using it. After all, what if I need to kill a rabbit? Why do I keep shivering? I'm not even cold, what the heck is up with these full body shivers I get after thinking about things that have nothing in common?

Phili · Jul 26, 2026

Chapter 5: Power Testing! Finally!

January 1, 2010. Brockton Bay, Boat Graveyard.

Crystal cut in there "Hold on Bella, if it actually is the best solution to a situation that he has available, wouldn't it be wrong to do anything other than use the Jihad bomb?"

Bella gave Crystal a look of pure disgust "This isn't your philosophy class Crystal, you seem to be forgetting, Dave is an Idiot—" "Hey, I resemble that remark!" "—And will not be able to accurately judge if a Jihad Bomb is the best thing to use in a given situation."

Crystal grumbled a bit before she clapped once to get our attention, "We're getting distracted again. Let's just start with the testing. Dave, what sort of offensive capabilities do you have right now?"

"Guns. And grenades. I only have Smoke Grenades, Discombobulators, and Incendiary Grenades at the moment in the grenades section, and I don't know enough about guns to know what most of them are called, even if my power ensures I know the difference and which one is which, it doesn't tell me what each one is actually called."

"Well, we can't test guns out here, those things are absurdly loud and we don't want to draw attention to you before you are ready, and if anyone comes to investigate gunshots, they might see you doing other things and realize you are a cape because of my presence making them stay longer. If we don't draw attention with things like gunshots though, a casual onlooker probably won't recognize me from a distance and will just think we are having a secluded picnic in a weird spot. Thanks Bella by the way, for bringing the picnic stuff to give us plausible deniability if we are spotted."

I knew it, Bella truly is a genius, thinking of plausible deniability in advance. That makes me a genius for recruiting her to my terrorism cause… as soon as I think of a cause anyways.

"Actually, I think my guns are much quieter than normal guns, though not as quiet as the silenced ones I will be able to get in the future, which will even make the people they kill not make any noises as they die!" Dave said brightly.

"No killing, even if they deserve it." Crystal said it like an automated response. "You would get in huge trouble with the PRT and encourage villains to escalate if you start killing people without a kill order. You can probably get away with using guns because they are part of your power, but you will need to find nonlethal measures before you can start going out as a cape." Crystal explained.

"Does it count as nonlethal, as long as they are alive and fully healthy when I am done with them?" Dave asked innocently.

"Yes?" Perfect, Crystal isn't suspicious at all. That means it's fine if they die in the middle as long as they are alive and healthy when I am done! Not that I can actually do that yet. I also probably shouldn't resurrect my enemies as zombies. My common sense is telling me not to do that for some reason. Probably because zombies hit rather hard and get super-jumping and super-spitting, so I might be making a normal person stronger, and I shouldn't strengthen my enemies. Yes, that is almost certainly why my common sense is telling me not to resurrect my enemies as zombies. I wonder if it's fine to raise my allies as zombies though?

A little bit of testing later, and they found his guns were substantially quieter than normal guns, to the point nobody had actually come to investigate the sounds of gunshots. They also found his guns acted as normal guns when somebody else used them, instead of using game mechanics of dealing a certain amount of damage per bullet based on how far away he was from whoever or whatever he was shooting, but he dealt ever so slightly more "damage" with his guns when he used them. He was pretty sure that last bit meant his increasing Karma would perpetually increase his offensive capabilities. Unfortunately, math dictated his Karma increased his "damage" linearly and additively; in other words, he wouldn't be getting exponential offensive increases anytime soon.

It turned out, both grenades and ammo --and copies of guns he already had-- stocked up indefinitely in his inventory, giving him more grenades, ammo and guns, every ten minutes regardless of how much he already had. Although he only got ammo for guns he already had in his inventory. He did get a new copy of every gun in his inventory every ten minutes, but he didn't always get new guns every ten minutes. It seemed like some guns were substantially rarer than others, and had a lower chance to appear for the first time in his inventory. He got his first Flare Gun partway through the testing, and in Elmer Fudd style looked inside it before accidentally firing it, which immediately set him on fire and killed him. On the bright side it worked just like the game, so anyone he hit with the Flare Gun would immediately be set on fire.

The smoke grenades were actually shockingly good. They were absolute shit originally, needing at least 3 smoke grenades to actually make enough smoke that it was difficult to see through, but his were good enough they were likely good enough for a ninja from a Hollywood movie to use. They were also completely harmless as far as he could tell, since even biting onto the grenade while it exploded into smoke wasn't able to kill him, and inhaling the smoke didn't kill him either.

The discombobulators (discombobs for short) were about as expected. In the game they just were a large Area of Effect knockback on everyone in range, pushing them in the opposite direction of wherever the discombob was when it exploded, but did no damage. They were harmless to Crystal, who could fly, and all three of them weren't willing to test the discombobs on Bella. They didn't damage Dave either, but he did decide to set one off at his feet (despite Bella's protests, Crystal was unworried after being assured he had continuity of consciousness, she was less worried he might be just copying himself and actually dying each time. Apparently a local terrorist called Oni Lee was trying to steal his thunder by being a suicide bomber, but actually died each time he cloned himself and gave himself some sort of brain damage as a result… or so Crystal claimed, though she admitted it was just online speculation).

After the discombob went off, Dave went flying straight up, and when he started to fall, he shouted "I got this" when Crystal started flying to catch him, then double jumped before he hit the ground to kill his momentum. Unfortunately, he mistimed it and hit the ground harder than intended and died instantly.

It turned out, while he was holding his (extremely floppy) Crowbar, he could hit someone like normal, though not strongly enough to break Crystal's forcefield. But more interestingly, he could send out a sort of short-range telekinetic push in lieu of the game mechanic of "pushing" with the crowbar. He didn't actually need to touch them with the crowbar, they just had to be close enough he could theoretically touch them with the crowbar without moving his legs, then he had to make at least some movement with the crowbar, but even jerking it a couple inches forward worked. Then, his target (Crystal first, then Bella) would be harmlessly shoved a little while staying perfectly balanced and on their feet.

They tried again afterwards, and he could actually try to affect a specific part of their body as well to try and make them lose balance, though it required focusing on the specific body part. He found focusing on just their upper half in general was most effective at getting them to fall over.

For some reason, Bella and Crystal were reluctant to test the incendiary grenades upon finding out they exploded in a way that dealt damage, set fire in a large range, and had a decent chance the fires couldn't be put out by water.

When he demonstrated it anyways, they claimed he "had it coming" when he inhaled a bit of the smoke from a rusty pipe that had been in the range of the flames, doubled over coughing, and died. He was right though, water didn't work on it, but the fire did only last around 20 seconds. Unfortunately, he was stopped before he could test if throwing a discombob onto the fire would expand the fire like he suspected it would.

"That is absolute bullshit," Bella said staring at his magneto stick.

He waved it at a dead log about 6 feet long, and the log floated up in accordance of how he held his magneto stick.

"That is actual bullshit. My physics professor would go nuts over this. No extra weight, but all the extra mass as soon as you let go? And look at all that extra leverage! This is actually way stronger than a telekinetic of "equal" strength would be."

Dave supposed that made sense. It was kind of like Wii Sports, where the motion tracker just tracks how quickly the end of the Wii stick controller is moving, and using that to determine how "hard" one was swinging. That meant just flicking your wrist make the game think you were hitting much harder than you were, because it only tracked how fast the sensor was moving, not how hard it was being swung. Wait a minute, what's a Wii sport? Is it sports for really short people? Because that sounds kind of offensive even if I'm not totally sure why.

The extra length between the magneto stick and the object it was "holding" gave him a lot of extra leverage without increasing the weight at all. Bella waved her arm in that gap while he was thinking, and Dave figured he might as well make use of his resources.

"Hey Crystal, do you think you could ask your physics professor about the benefits of extra leverage without extra mass would be for throwing things? Maybe bring up the atlatl or something. You might even be able to get extra credit, or just use it for class credit if there is a final lab project where you can design your own experiment. I'll even lend you my magneto stick for it if you want."

"Really? That sounds so cool! And I'm nearly certain I could squeeze extra credit out of that. You sound like you're familiar with Physics classes though, are you taking classes at the college too?"

"Crystal! No distractions! That's how we keep delaying things. Well that and someone keeps killing themselves and we have to wait until they resurrect." Bella sternly interjected after getting bored of waving her arm in the space between the magneto stick and the log.

"Well, time to see if this works how I suspect. YEET!" Dave did his best to use his whole body for it. His legs were planted well, he twisted his hips, he swung his whole arm, and he made use of the magneto stick's length by gripping it from the bottom to make the stick squeeze out as much leverage as possible by making it act like an atlatl. It worked well. Too well in fact, like his power had done something to improve his technique. He got a feeling he would find out the exact details of what happened the next day along with his new role. For now though…

"Holy shit."

"Language Crystal!"

"That log went over the damn tanker. That's fucking absurd. That thing is at least half a mile out and the log still had enough height to clear it. Dad's into baseball and I'm damn sure a professional baseball player could barely reach a tenth of that distance before it landed, and that's with a baseball. Dave doesn't even have any Brute strength. I need you to understand how fucking broken that thing is Bella."

"I was thinking of using it to carry groceries though," Dave interjected before Bella could complete her transformation into a Bobblehead from how hard Crystal was shaking her. Crystal's head slowly turned to look at him.

"Oh my, that's a scary look. Bella help! I'm in danger!" Dave ~~cried pathetically~~ politely requested Bella for assistance.

"Nope this is Karma Dave, let it happen."

"No, my Karma is constantly increasing! I have amazing Karma! It's part of being an Old Man. Ooh my luck has turned." In the middle of running away from Crystal, Dave felt a ten minute marker pass and got something new in his inventory. It was a normal item he didn't need a special role to get, but it was like a flare gun in that it seemed to be quite rare. He immediately used it.

Crystal watched, baffled, as Dave pulled out some sort of handheld device, pressed a button on it, and shrank to about a fifth of his original size, and hid under a piece of metal debris.

"I got a Minifier!" Dave's muffled voice shouted out as she tried to process what just happened.

"What?" Crystal may have sounded slightly hysterical.

"Hah! Now you know how I feel dealing with your bullshit Crystal." Bella meanwhile just felt vindicated.

Author's Note: For reference, I looked up the furthest Baseball throw ever, and it was 135.89 meters, or 445 feet and 10 inches. Crystal is estimating because she doesn't actually care that much about Baseball and doesn't know that number, though her dad would. Let me know if you think I messed up on how far out the Tanker would be, I'm really not familiar with boats and how much space they need to be able to deduce how far out it likely would have been when it was sunk.

Phili · Jul 27, 2026

This is a small chapter in which not a ton happens, so you get an extra one right after this.

Chapter 6: In Which Nothing Really Happens. Promise.

January 1, 2010. Brockton Bay.

While he was attempting to escape from Crystal, Dave stubbed his toe on a pebble while being a Minified Old Man (being Minified made him even more fragile; in the game it made someone go from 100 health to 60 health, but it felt like it took him from 1 health to 0.6 health because he was an Old Man and started with "1 health"). He died instantly.

While in spectator mode, he went underground and looked up (Crystal was also wearing pants, not a skirt. Another bullet dodged). He noticed a fair distance away a couple of men walking towards the Boat Graveyard. He couldn't really tell what they looked like, and they didn't seem like they would arrive anytime soon, but they were heading in the right direction to encounter Dave and his new friends.

After he respawned, he found Bella and Crystal discussing what could have killed him, and whether he would come back to life minified or full size when considering his corpse stayed minified after he died. It turned out, he respawned at his full size.

"I stubbed my toe on a pebble. Also, there are a couple guys coming this way. They probably won't be here for another 15 minutes or so though. That is, if they are actually heading here and not just in this direction."

Bella looked at him like he was stupid. Which was completely unfair, everyone is stupid in their own special way and Dave will stand by that. "There is literally nothing else in this direction. They couldn't even be heading to the Ocean because everything is blocked off by the tanker. They probably spotted the log you threw and are investigating. They could be anything from overenthusiastic PHO cape-spotters to scouts for gangs keeping an eye on the area for new capes recklessly testing their powers."

"Yeah, we should probably leave. We've been here for a few hours anyways. Time really flies when you're waiting for ten-minute periods constantly." Crystal added on.

"Help me grab the towels and we can get to the car. Crystal, you get the backseat, Dave you're in shotgun."

Dave took out a shotgun and pondered how he would fit in it before Bella slapped him. He died instantly.

"Shit, I forgot about that. Crystal, help me roll him in towels and stuff him in the back seat. We're going to need to roll him up like a burrito. His corpse doesn't get wounds, but I've noticed it leaks blood whenever something impacts it. I don't think we have time to wait for him to respawn if we want to get out before the guys he saw see my car, so you'll have to sit in the front seat. You can tell me how to clean up the blood on the windshield while we're driving away anyways."

"Fine, there isn't any blood on the seat though, right? I don't want to explain to Mom why there is blood on my clothes on New Years Day. That isn't the impression I want Dave to give the person in charge of New Wave. He's disadvantaged enough when it comes to first impressions, he really doesn't need any more disadvantages."

"No, Crystal, there's no blood on the front seat. Now grab the shovel while I get the towels. We can come back and finish the testing at some point before winter break is over. Unless you have a better idea of where we could go for future testing? With his power, I suspect we will need to do power testing a lot."

"Not really, aside from the PRT, and I don't know if he wants to join them yet, if ever. I can think about it though, and ask my family for suggestions on where we could go to do more destructive things to test some of the more… violent things he said he could eventually get. As well as where we could go for experimenting with those fire grenades of his."

The discussion continued as they drove away.

Dave respawned standing up inside the car, his neck clipped through the roof of the car and he died instantly.

Dave respawned outside the car in a deserted alleyway, quietly got into the backseat, strapped himself in, and dramatically hung his head in apology. On the bright side, it seems that when he noclips things, his body treats reality more like a video game, and it didn't just separate his head from his body. Instead, his body fell to the floor of the car with his head slipping through the roof after he died, leaving the roof and the car itself undamaged. His body was also undamaged. Unfortunately, there was now blood in the backseat of Bella's car. A lot of blood in fact.

On the bright side, he thought of a new thing for their next power testing session. If his body contains infinite blood that just spurts out whenever it is impacted in place of the body itself being damaged. He suspected it did, but only while he was dead. Unfortunately, he didn't know what blood type he was, but if it was that one super-compatible one, he could probably donate loads of blood to hospitals by killing himself and having his friends beat his corpse with floppy crowbars. Truly, his high karma was absolutely justified.

"I need to be home soon, so for now Bella, you and I will trade numbers with Dave, and you can drop me off at home so Mom will get off my back about using my powers for everything, then you two can go back to your apartment for the rest of the day." Crystal said after a moment of awkward silence.

"Don't say it like that, it makes it sound like we live in the same unit." Bella immediately backstabbed him, and he clutched his heart and looked pathetically at her.

She saw him in the mirror "Don't whine Dave, I do already somehow consider you a friend, but we sure as heck aren't close enough yet to be roommates."

"Anyways," Crystal continued before they could get off track, "Tomorrow, we can dedicate some time to cleaning Bella's car and see if Dave's power has had any updates. If we think of any tests we can do without going out somewhere we might get spotted we can do those as well. Otherwise, Bella and I will probably need to dedicate a little time to chipping away at our winter homework."

"Which is bullshit by the way," Bella pouted. "We don't even have classes to assign us homework. They're just assuming we're taking two classes in a row that are connected in sequence. What if someone wants to take Physics 101, then not take Physics 102 until two semesters later? No, they just assume you will take Physics 102 immediately after."

"Yes, yes, Bella, we know. It's an injustice the likes of which have never been seen… that doesn't even apply to you silly girl. We have the same classes; you showed me your schedule. And a lot of it is prep work before the new class starts to make sure we are ready for the actual class."

"I gave you that argument Crystal! You were the one complaining about it first, you don't get to quote my own argument back at me, I just want to complain a little."

Their bickering continued. Meanwhile, in the back seat… Dave was arguably meditating.

Head empty, no thoughts.

AN: Next chapter title is: "Give Me a Toy Please." Where Dave ~~finds out just how much his soul has been corrupted by capitalism~~ and his personal soul alien tries to figure out if Dave is actually just illiterate. Get ready. (I was wrong, he doesn't find out how much his soul is corrupted by capitalism yet. Probably the chapter after that).

Phili · Jul 27, 2026

This isn't the first chapter today. If you haven't already, please make sure you go back and read the previous one.

Chapter 7: "Give Me a Toy Please."

January 2, 2010. Brockton Bay

Dave woke up to a… he already forgot if that saying or meme or whatever it was supposed to be was a "familiar ceiling" or an "unfamiliar ceiling". Maybe he should get a pet seal so he could say he woke up to a "familiar sealing" if he wakes up cuddling with it. He would love to give a seal a hug anyways.

He checked his clock, and if he fell asleep when he thought he did, he might have actually slept for exactly eight hours. He's pretty sure he normally ended up with ten hours of sleep if left to his own devices, and he forgot to set an alarm. Maybe his power made sure he only needed exactly eight hours of sleep? It could also be a coincidence though.

He got up, went through his morning routine, poured orange juice, slid a bagel into the toaster, and started a kettle of water to make tea with after he found a bunch of tea bags in a cupboard.

Hi Dave!

It's me your best alien friend, or BAF!

… I'm trying to workshop it, okay?

Anyways, there have been quite a few developments, because it turns out souls don't have lactic acid. Who knew? That means your soul doesn't need to rest and rebuild before growing back stronger like a lame physical body would after exercising, it just needs a dimensional soul alien sticking its metaphysical tentacle analog inside the human-adjacent soul before it snaps back into being its normal, boring form.

So, you might have noticed yesterday that your body started moving a little more smoothly than it normally would. That's because you exercised your soul quite a bit and I was able to squeeze some neat stuff in there. Normally, I would have added items to your "shop" or extended capabilities you already had, like letting you have more power over randomats to start deciding how many people you want one to affect instead of them just blanket affecting everyone. However, the Old Man doesn't have much, so I went with what let me squeeze the most out of what was available.

So, your soul likes things to be "on theme", and staying "on theme" lets me squeeze more "mileage" out of what soul room is available. So, since the only themes present were "Old Man" and "Terrorist", I was looking at some of the locals, and noticed this thing they called a "Combat Thinker".

Then, I thought "Hey, wait a minute" and worked my magic. And now, you have a "combat thinker" effect based on that saying that goes something like "Beware an Old Man in a profession where men die young". It makes you like those badass retired people in action stories. It will get a little stronger whenever your soul has a bit of room to spare that isn't better suited for other things, but it's not something with a ton of growth potential. Someone can only get so skilled at most things after all.

The "Combat Thinker" aspect is only active while you have the Old Man role active, but you are already able to have the Old Man role "active" while ignoring the health debuff, as long as you have another role active simultaneously. Pretty soon you will be able to mix and match what traits you want active from each role and have whatever traits you don't want disabled, while being able to switch which traits are disabled or enabled in an instant at will.

Oh yeah, your new role for today is the Beggar!

Good luck!

"Yup, can't understand a word of that. I got the meaning and all, but those words are nonsense. Ooh my bagel's done."

But, but… I fixed it! I spent all day fiddling with the parts of your soul that should affect our communication. I used like five bottles of soul glue. I even used the glitter versions.

Are you telling me I wasted my soul glitter glue? Do you know how much of a pain that is to get? Not that I really understand pain, I've never actually felt it. But if I could feel pain, getting five new bottles of soul glitter glue would definitely make me feel it!

Dave shrugged and grabbed his bagel and some cream cheese from the refrigerator. Then looked at the refrigerator suspiciously. It was on but it wasn't running. He dropped to the floor to make sure the feet weren't moving. Then realized that was dumb, refrigerators don't have feet so obviously they can't run. They aren't supposed to run with feet at all in fact. Also, his refrigerator was running normally the whole time, it was just quiet. Also, his bagel got into direct contact with the floor when he dropped to inspect the refrigerator.

"Fuck."

Hmm. Maybe it really was too much glitter glue? I would have thought glitter would be good for the soul though. It's so pretty! And between the two of us, I'm definitely the expert on the soul, so I'm pretty sure that makes me correct. I'm sure it'll be fine.
…
I'll get my soul cleaning implements just in case.

With a new bagel popped up from the toaster, Dave poured his tea and sat down to eat properly.

Maybe you're just actually illiterate? Like, do you know how to read?

"I know how to read."

But like, have you ever actually done it though? Like, in real life, after you woke up yesterday?

He sipped his tea and ignored the silly alien in his soul.

As he sipped his tea, he pondered his new role. The Beggar was a Jester role, or purple role; meaning it couldn't do any damage and had an unusual win condition. In the case of the Beggar, they had to get a shop item from either the Innocent team or the Traitor team. Depending on which shop the item was bought from, the Beggar would join the team of the item the shop originally came from, and then became a normal Innocent if they joined the innocent team, or a normal Traitor if they joined the traitor team.

So, assuming his theory held that Villains were considered terrorists, that meant a Villain would be an Innocent, and a Hero would be a Traitor. Given Traitors had access to buy menus, it was obviously better to be a Traitor, especially since the main disadvantage of being a Traitor was being outnumbered, and that obviously wasn't the case with Heroes and Villains. Everybody wanted to be a hero after all; any other scenario would be absurd.

"I wonder what Crystal would need to give me for it to be considered a 'shop item'. It would have to be something unusual, something I couldn't just find lying around like a gun or a grenade. Hmm… I'll ask Bella what she thinks."

After texting Bella, she and Dave agreed to meet outside her apartment in ten minutes before heading out to pick up cleaning supplies.

I can't believe you can read. Does that mean I can't read? Am I illiterate? Am I some kind of idiot and I just never knew? No, that's impossible, I'm really smart. Then why can't I read? Wait, why I am assuming I can't read?

Meanwhile, Dave's power was having a small mental breakdown.

"Don't worry soul-alien friend, it'll be okay," Dave offered consolingly, while patting his own head. He figured his own head was the closest thing he could reach in order to give his soul alien friend headpats. He really needed to figure out what to call his soul alien friend too. Soul alien friend was just too much of a mouthful. Maybe he should try and figure out gender and preferred pronouns? Well, gender might turn out to be a little silly as a concept for a soul-being, but preferred pronouns were just a linguistic issue, and nonbinary pronouns were always an option, as was "it/its".

He licked his plate clean, swirled his tongue along the inside of his orange juice glass to get every last drop, and put his dishes in the dishwasher, then headed out of his apartment unit. Then walked two feet to the right, turned ninety degrees, and stared at Bella's door. Menacingly. Menacingly!

Bella walked out, saw him standing there like an idiot and gave him a supremely unimpressed look, and locked the door to her apartment.

"Quick, how do you spell Innocent backwards?!" Dave asked to make sure it was really her.

"What?"

"I'm making sure you're an innocent."

"Didn't you say the traitors were the good guys though?"

"Oh yeah, quick, how do you spell traitor backwards?"

She still looked supremely unimpressed. "R-O-T-I-A-R-T". Damn, she was good. But wait, she could be a Glitch!

When he opened his mouth again, she just grabbed his arm and dragged him to the building's garage. Then he realized, he was a Beggar Old Man, he didn't care what team she was on. But just in case she was a traitor…

"Can I have a toy please?"

She sighed. Which wasn't an answer! Can he have a toy or not? Is he going to have to beg for a toy from everyone he sees or is she going to just give him one?

They went to a hardware store. It turned out, hardware stores don't carry any toys, though the cashier was very sympathetic when Dave told him his friend wouldn't give him a toy.

After the cleaning supplies were obtained, they picked up Crystal from her house and went to a deserted parking lot on the college campus. They couldn't think of a better place to do it and Bella claimed public spaces in Brockton had an "SEP field", or "Someone Else's Problem" Field, where nobody cared if it didn't directly and obviously affect them personally. Also, it was deserted because it was winter break and the day after New Years, so even an enthusiastic professor would still be either on vacation or staying at home enjoying time off.

Dave was stuck in the bloody back seat while Crystal got the passenger seat and got to stare at the interesting blood splatter patterns on the windshield where a Pikachu died.

Really, Bella should be thanking me. How many people can say that they not only hit a Pikachu with their car and killed it, but that the Pikachu died by hitting the car from the inside? That's like, top tier bragging rights.

It turned out, while Crystal had to bribe her brother into asking her parents how to clean blood from a car as a hypothetical, and Bella was forced to use a Wiki-How article to research the subject, Dave already knew how to clean blood from a car.

"Then what did we go through all that for?!" Bella had shouted at him before slapping a hand over his mouth before he could proclaim his innocence.

"Nevermind, just get to work. And stop licking my hand, I've dealt with Crystal for years, you can't get me with that trick, I just don't care anymore about having my hand licked." She did take her hand away though and wiped it on Dave's shirt.

Crystal turned to him and said "Was her hand as tasty as I remembered it?"

Dave nodded, before remembering, "Can I have a toy?"

Crystal didn't even pause while adding salt to the spray bottle full of cold water before saying "Nope, I don't have any toys on me. It may surprise you to learn that I don't normally bring toys with me when I'm helping a friend clean blood out of her car."

She was right, it did surprise him. If he had toys, he would bring them everywhere. After all, what if he needed to fake his death? How was he supposed to do that without a Dead Ringer? Maybe after he eventually got toys, he could give her some to carry around with her.

Also, crap, she didn't even pause, let alone double take when I asked for a toy. She's getting used to me! Clearly, the only reasonable solution is to escalate. Fuck, why am I shivering again? I thought that stopped yesterday? Oh, duh, I'm holding a bunch of cold water in the middle of winter. That's obviously it.

After they cleaned Bella's car as best they could, which was pretty darn good in Dave's opinion, Crystal made a call to her dad.

"Hey Dad, can I bring some friends over?"

"No, just two, I was going to order takeout for lunch and watch some stuff in my room with them."

"Fine, love you."

Then she hung up and called her mom.

"Hi Mom. I want to bring a couple friends over for lunch, and Dad said to ask you."

"It's Bella and someone else, we were going to get takeout and watch Pokemon."

Bella watched Crystal nonchalantly talk on the phone with her mother with mounting horror as she realized what was happening.

"Oh shit, she's actually going to make me do it. Dave, please, save me!" Bella turned to him and was immediately forsaken.

"Pika Pika!" Pikachu said, before using "Agility" (double jumping) to get up onto her shoulder, and staring deep into her eyes. Then licked her nose.

Bella melted from cuteness.

"Awww."

Author's Note: Okay, I promise that next time, Dave will find out how much his soul has been corrupted by capitalism. No, he won't be getting the Communist role next chapter, I do actually roll to find out which role he gets next, but the next chapter is still the same day as this one. He just has to contemplate exactly what counts as a "bought item" that Crystal might be able to give him. Listen… he really wants to get those Traitor and Innocent roles early to remove them from the pool of roles he has to unlock so he can get the shop items earlier and the more interesting roles earlier.

Phili · Jul 28, 2026

Chapter 8: The Dangers of the Reckless Pursuit of Power.

January 2, 2010. Brockton Bay, The Pelham House.

Eric Pelham

Eric watched from the front porch of his house, gobsmacked, as his older sister came out of her friend Bella's car.

"Is that a fucking Pikachu on your shoulder?"

The Pikachu looked at him. "Pika Pika!"

His sister looked at him with a confused expression, as if he was crazy, and said "No." Then she walked into the house. Bella said hi to him, which he reflexively returned, then she followed his sister inside.

"I think I need… something. I don't know what, but I need it."

Crystal giggled after the front door closed and her brother was left standing outside looking like he was trying to reboot his brain.

"That was mean Crystal," Bella said, as if she wasn't also smiling and hadn't been happy to go along with it.

"Little punk deserves it; he made me bribe him to ask our parents how to clean blood from a car for me. I told him to just treat it as a hypothetical; it's not like he even got in trouble for it. Mom even praised him for taking the initiative in learning how to deal with cleaning up things we might encounter in hero work! He refused to do it as a favor to his absolutely amazing older sis, so this is what he gets."

Dave was looking around the Pelham home for any toys. All he saw was a normal home with a disturbing lack of terrorist-friendly items.

He wrapped his little Pikachu arms around Crystal's neck as she lifted off the ground and literally flew up the stairs and into her room. His little hind legs were left dangling in the air as he nearly flew off from how fast she went up those stairs, and he held desperately on to her neck to avoid actually flying off.

Pikachu is too low level to learn Fly yet Crystal!

While Bella was stuck climbing the stairs like a peasant, Crystal opened the door to her room, and gently floated in, instead of zooming in like a maniac as Dave thought she was going to.

While Crystal booted up her computer and Bella walked in and closed the door with enough familiarity to anticipate the door needing a small shove to fully close, Dave popped off of Crystal's shoulder and dropped onto her floor, and decided to look around her room for any Toys.

He didn't find any, and got grabbed by Bella before he could crawl under the bed to look there. She plopped him in her lap and squeezed him like a stress ball, so he turned into a slightly chubbier Pikachu form to better accommodate her. He truly was an amazing friend.

After Crystal had set up her Earth Aleph Anime Streaming Site ™ and gotten the first episode ready, she turned around and squinted suspiciously at them.

"Did Dave behave, Bella? Wait… did you get fatter? How? Lunch hasn't even arrived yet?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, she's the same size she was before." Dave replied while making a confused Pikachu face.

"Not her you little—nevermind, I am calm, I am at peace," Crystal took a deep breath in before exhaling slowly.

It turned out, Bella fucking loved Pokemon. She cheered along, sang with the theme, got exasperated at Ash, and was fascinated by all the cool and cute creatures.

Before lunch arrived, Crystal had brought them each a bag of chips. Bella simply handed hers back to Crystal, and Crystal opened both hers and Bella's chip bags with her fucking lasers. It turned out, she didn't even own a single pair of scissors. When she offered to open Dave's chips, he waved her off.

"Nah, I got this." He said, then pulled out an assault rifle.

"The fuck you do!" Crystal shouted before stealing his bag of chips and opening it with her lasers. Then smacking him on the head. She tried to get Bella to smack him for her at first, but Bella wasn't willing to smack the chubby Pikachu giving her puppy eyes.

"But, it's basically what you were doing," Dave argued indignantly.

"I have total control over my lasers, I can ensure they are the perfect strength to tear open a bag without even making it to anything on the other side of the bag. My control over my lasers is better than how well a surgeon can control their tools. There is no similarity whatsoever between what I do and trying to open a bag of chips by shooting it with a gun. We literally tested this yesterday! You have no control over the bullets after they leave the gun, and you have no special control over the guns themselves aside from what is normal for someone with hands. You have no way of opening a chip bag with a gun without also shooting whatever is on the other side of the bag, in this case, that is my room." Crystal ranted.

Wow, she needs to chill out man.

Dave looked up at her.

"Pika Pika?"

She gave him a withering, exhausted look. "Fine, here's your chips, you fucking psychopath."

Bella watched the whole thing with mild interest before saying "Maybe now you can appreciate your mom's perspective a little more? She always says you shouldn't use your powers for everything and just open chip bags and walk up the stairs like a normal person."

"But they're completely different scenarios," Crystal complained.

"They look quite similar from the outside, and there's that saying you know."

Dave made an 'Ahah' Pikachu face. "Oh, if all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail! Bella's right Crystal, if you only ever use one thing to solve all your problems, you will start trying to solve problems with that same thing even if those problems will be better solved and/or more easily solved by using other means!" He said with an air of wisdom.

"I don't want to hear that from you Mr. 'I'm trying to open a bag of ships by shooting it with an assault rifle.'" Crystal really seemed to be having a hard time letting go of that. It was all in the past, wasn't it?

After finishing the episode with Digletts and Dugtrios (for some reason, Dave felt like the episode occurred earlier than it was supposed to), Dave had a question.

"What happens to a Dugtrio if one of the Digletts dies?"

"Shut the fuck up Dave, I'm trying to enjoy Pokemon, a world where no cute animals die or eat each other, and everything except for humans live in harmony." Bella said.

"Okay… You know Miltank?"

Bella shook her head, "Obviously not, this is the first time I've ever seen this show, and that hasn't shown up yet. I don't even remember it from that catchy rap bit actually." She frowned at that last bit, then squinted at the Pikachu in her lap. "Are you trying to trick me?"

"No, Miltank is a real Pokemon, it's just from the next generation. The rap doesn't include all the Pokemon from the first generation anyways." Crystal said, while bringing up the Aleph Pokemon wiki page for Miltank.

After Crystal had told Bella more than she ever thought she wanted to know about Miltank, Dave asked "What happens if you're a male Miltank though."

Crystal paused, "What?"

"What happens if you're a male Miltank?"

"Shut the fuck up Dave."

After they had gotten a decent way through Ash's journey, they decided to stop their Pokemon marathon to continue it at a later, currently undecided, date. In the meantime, Dave decided to fill his friends in on the updates to his power.

"So, my new role my power gave me today is called the Beggar. It's a jester role, which means it doesn't do damage, though I'll be able to disable the 'no doing damage' part at will within a few days most likely. Currently I need that enabled in order to not be stuck on one health from the Old Man role, but I need the Old Man role enabled for the new Combat Thinker bonus it gives me."

"What Combat Thinker bonus? We tested it yesterday and you didn't have anything like that." Bella interjected, slightly provoked by the idea that the tests she helped come up with weren't encompassing enough to miss something as obvious as a combat thinker power.

"Yes, that is new, it only fully manifested this morning but it needs the Old Man role active. I think it actually started manifesting yesterday a little bit though, and that it was how I had such good form when I threw that log with the magneto stick. Anyways, the Beggar becomes either an Innocent or a Traitor after getting something from either a Detective or Innocent role, or a Traitor Role, respectively."

At Crystal's confused look, Bella did her best to translate and remind Crystal of the details of Dave's mind. "Dave thinks in weird terms. To him, a 'terrorist' is an 'innocent' and someone that might fight 'terrorists' is a 'traitor'. I think it references some sort of game that his power manifested itself around, but trying to get clear answers out of him is like trying to get a magic 8 ball to write an essay for you."

"Concentrate and Ask Again." Dave added helpfully.

"Yes, like that," Bella pointed at Dave.

"So, I was wondering what would count as a 'bought item', and naturally, it occurred to me that the most likely possibilities would be Tinkertech, official merchandize of a cape, or rare items personal to a cape that are unique or nearly unique." Dave explained his issue.

"I see, so if I give you some of the official New Wave merch, you might get more power early."

Dave nodded eagerly, having stolen Crystal's computer chair for the discussion while the two girls were on Crystal's bed. He was still a Pikachu of course, the non-chubby version.

"Yes, so, Toy please."

"Fine, I think we have a box of merch downstairs, I'll go grab something from it and we can see what happens.

A couple minutes later, Crystal returned to her room where a Pikachu was being used as a stress ball again. Dave and Bella both looked suspiciously innocent, as if they couldn't have possibly been plotting against her while she was gone.

"Here, I found one of my action figures, you can keep it either way though, I bet you'd love to have a pretty girl like me on your nightstand."

"Indeed," Dave nodded. "I love having a strong female role model to look up to."

Then he grabbed the action figure. Nothing happened.

"Well, I assume that didn't work." Bella concluded after a few seconds of silence.

"Nope, still an Old Man and a Beggar."

"Wait," Crystal interrupted before they could make more assumptions. "Maybe we don't know what the conditions are for him to be considered to have officially 'received' the action figure. Let's try this: I hereby formally and officially give this limited edition Laserdream action figure to Dave to permanently keep as his personal property."

Crystal paused, "Did that do anything?"

"Nope."

"Fuck. I thought I was on to something."

"There there," Bella comforted Crystal in a deadpan voice.

"Well, there's only one option left before we go beg Armsmaster for a toy." Bella said, before nodding at Dave.

Dave stood up, transformed into his original form, and walked to the middle of the floor of her bedroom, then got down on one knee and looked at Crystal with a serious expression.

"Crystal, may I have some of your panties?"

A laser went through his face and he died instantly.

Author's Note: Dave felt like the Diglett episode of Pokemon occurred earlier than it was supposed to, because Earth Aleph's version of Pokemon is slightly different than ours in a few ways. One of those ways is that certain episodes where no long-lasting changes occur will sometimes happen in a different order (long-lasting changes are things like someone Ash is traveling with (or Team Rocket) catching a new Pokemon, or one of their Pokemon learning a new move). On our Earth, the Diglett and Dugtrio episode is episode 31, and would have needed over 10 hours of watching before they got to it. Here, it is much earlier. I'm mentioning this because it is unlikely Dave will ever realize this sort of subtle difference given Earth Aleph is even closer to our Earth than Earth Bet is.

Here is the video that inspired this chapter from the beginning, it is 18 minutes and 40 seconds long, and I will put exact times below this for people only interested in certain parts.

Here is the start of Pokemon chat in the video that inspired this chapter.

Here is the part where they talk about male Miltanks.

Here is the part where they talk about what happens if one of the Digletts in a Dugtrio dies.

Here is the part where they talk about Doduo and Dodrio.

Here is the part where Pikachu's dead body gets shot with an automatic pistol and Ravs asks why Pikachu won't get in the ball.

It turns out, if you recklessly pursue power, you might get a laser to the face. Who knew?

Phili · Jul 29, 2026

Author's Note: This is a short one, and so is the next one, so you get two today!

Chapter 9: How Far Would You Go in The Pursuit of Power?

January 2, 2010. Brockton Bay, the Pelham House, Crystal's Bedroom.

"Oh shit, I didn't mean to kill him. I thought he said he couldn't take damage?" Crystal said with considerably less panic than the situation probably looked like it warranted.

"No, he said he couldn't deal any damage. Congratulations Crystal, you just killed literally the most harmless thing alive."

"It was reflex! My brain didn't catch up to the fact that he was quoting Brook until it was too late."

"You might want to work on that before you kill someone it will stick to and people find out. Just a suggestion you know? And who or what is Brook?"

"Oh, he's a character in One Piece, he appeared in the show a couple years ago and one of the first things he does is ask a woman if he can have her panties!"

Bella lost interest immediately. "Oh, so it's another one of your silly Earth Aleph Japanese cartoons."

"No, bad Bella!" Crystal bopped Bella on the head. "You don't get to say that anymore, you fucking loved Pokemon, and that's an Earth Aleph anime too. It even started at around the same time as One Piece."

"Also, didn't you just say that you had perfect control of your lasers? Like, better than a surgeon could control their tools? Didn't you even use that as an excuse to your mom once for why it was actually good for you to open chip bags with your lasers? Because it gave you more practice and control with your powers?"

"Shut up Bella, sometimes surgeons accidentally kill people with their tools too." Crystal blushed a little at being caught out before frowning. "Actually, it was weird, I genuinely didn't intend to hit him that hard, and he should have had normal human levels of durability. I haven't used a laser stronger than I meant to use in years. You know I'm actually really proud of my control over my power." Crystal paused a little before frowning harder. "That was actually really weird. It felt like I was just using my power normally before at the last second the power just shot up, but it kept my control well enough that it only killed him without damaging anything in my room, like the floor that would have been hit if it had penetrated all the way through a normal person's head instead of his weird indestructible corpse thing he does."

Bella nodded thoughtfully, "Well, I guess we can add that to our power testing list for next time. We can see if his corpse is actually indestructible aside from letting out more blood when it gets harmed. That could potentially be useful, though, I'm not sure we should test it against an all-or-nothing power—even if we could find one to cooperate with us for the testing— in case damaging his corpse will make him not respawn or something. Your full-power lasers are really strong though, so if his corpse can take a full-powered hit from you undamaged then he probably won't have to worry about anything aside from all-or-nothing powers damaging his corpse, and risking him not 'respawning' as he calls it."

"Was this your idea though Bella? I saw you two looking suspiciously innocent when I came in with the action figure."

"Yes," Bella admitted. "We theorized something as rare and unique as an actual superheroine's panties might count as being equivalent to one of his special items. It is honestly probably harder to get than actual tinkertech, and if someone tried to sell some while somehow having proof it was the real deal, they could probably sell it for a lot. Also, you are an even more rare unmasked cape. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of pairs of panties in the entire world that belonged to an unmasked cape and weren't in the possession of their original owner was less than a thousand. Granted, I also wouldn't be surprised if it was more than a thousand, but still." Bella shrugged.

"That's… actually shockingly well thought out." Crystal admitted.

Bella nodded. "My second idea was to see if your used bathwater would work. There's that weird thing online about 'gamer girl bathwater' or something, so I figured 'used unmasked objectively hot young heroine bathwater' might count as being equivalent to one of his 'shop items'. If you ever get desperate for money, you can probably auction your bathwater for more than a lot of tinkertech sells for." She smirked playfully as she said that last part.

"I'm not giving Dave—or anyone else—my used bathwater." Crystal deadpanned. "He can wait an extra day for one of his roles. Or go bother Armsmaster for his used bathwater. On second thought, Vicky might actually give him her bathwater if she could be convinced it would expand his powers. It's kind of disturbing how interested she is in Parahuman powers. Of course, if it didn't work, she would probably do her best to punch his head off even if he wasn't immortal or close to it."

Dave respawned. "My master plan worked!"

"Your master plan of taking a laser to the face and dying?" Crystal asked sarcastically.

"Yes! I am now an Innocent!"

"Wait what? I thought you said you needed a 'toy' from a cape in order to get a new role from your begging thing?" Bella asked confusedly, while Crystal was just a little mad at being tricked.

"Yes, normally that would be the case, and it would have been fantastic if Crystal had been less of an uptight prude and had just given me her panties… and it actually worked. But the beggar has another way of winning that I obtained just in time for it to kick in. It wouldn't have worked when I first woke up this morning, but by now my Beggar power 'strengthened' enough to use this aspect. If a Beggar is killed, then they will join the opposite team of whoever killed them. It should have resulted in an instant respawn though, so I'm not totally certain what happened with the extra wait."

"Hmm," Crystal hummed, a lot more interested now that they were talking about powers. Little hypocrite that she was, disparaging her cousin for being fascinated by powers as if she wasn't guilty of the same. "Maybe your power only just gave you that aspect of your 'beggar role' and it needed time to sort of recalibrate things because you died at the same time you got the new aspect instead of after?"

"No, that doesn't sound right," Bella said. "I suspect it's more that it takes a little time for him to get a new role. So far, you've only gotten a new role after you woke up from sleeping right?" She asked Dave for confirmation.

After receiving a nod, she continued. "So maybe his power just needed a bit of extra time to suddenly give him a new role. What does this one do anyway?"

"Well, it is a green role, and the default role everything is based on. In other words, nothing. I can take a hit normally now without needing to be unable to do damage, because it has normal health instead of the Old Man's one health weirdness, and it is a green role instead of a pink role, so I can now do damage normally. Also, I'm a real terrorist now instead of a sellout like the Beggar or a quasi-civilian like the Old Man."

"Wow, that's lame," Bella deadpanned.

"Well, at least it removed it from the pool though, right?" Crystal tried to be optimistic for Dave.

"I don't actually know if it is removed from the pool or not. Either way, I can still keep the Beggar role active, and then I'll be able to unlock the Traitor role and start getting shop items. I just need to either get a Toy from a Traitor, or get killed by an Innocent terrorist. So, can I have some of your panties please?" Dave gave Crystal his best puppy dog eyes.

"No." Dammit, I should have turned into Pikachu first. Nobody would refuse to give a Pikachu their panties.

"Oh yeah, also, your parents are back." Dave added when it was clear Crystal wasn't going to expand on her refusal. Honestly, she really reminded him of someone with the way she refused to give beggars a toy and just killed them instead. Maybe he should give her some harpoons after he unlocks the Traitor role?

"They are? Oh shit, I didn't want to introduce Dave to them yet. Dave, can you turn into a small form then use that thing that made you smaller and sneak out the window?" Crystal panicked slightly for some reason. Dave was great with parents. Really, who wouldn't want their kids spending time with someone like Dave? Meanwhile…

"Where do you want these?" Dave asked, holding a pile of grenades.

"I think I see the problem now," Bella said with completely unwarranted sarcasm.

"I was thinking earlier that you really needed to expand your kit, and since I have an unlimited amount of these, I figured I would give you some until we can work out something better." Dave generously explained.

"That's nice Dave, but maybe you should consider asking me first before trying to put a pile of grenades IN MY ROOM?" Crystal screamed the last bit.

The door opened, and Lady Photon stood there with an unimpressed look on her face.

Dave looked from Lady Photon in her civilian clothes to Crystal, to the pile of grenades in his arms, to Bella, back to Lady Photon, the cogs almost visibly churning in his head.

"We were about to have a threesome I swear."

"DAVE!" Bella screamed.

"Oh right, these are sex toys," he said, holding out the pile of grenades in his arms. Before adding "Also, may I have a pair of your panties?"

Nailed it.

Author's Note: Next chapter, the true (current) extent of Dave's "Changer power" is revealed, in all of its Psychological Warfare glory. This chapter and the next are quite short, so they will get released together! Yay!

Phili · Jul 29, 2026

Chapter 10: Meeting the Parents.

January 2, 2010. Brockton Bay, The Pelham House, Crystal's Room.

Sarah Pelham, also known as Lady Photon, gave her daughter a supremely unimpressed look.

"In my defense, you said he could come over."

Ooh, bad move Crystal. You never start off on defense, you take refuge in audacity. You should have gone along with my plan of embarrassing her into leaving, then I could turn into a Pikachu and pretend to be a custom plushy you wasted all your money on, and you could gaslight her into thinking I was never here.

"I believe I said you could bring your friends over to watch your Pokemon show, not play with grenades and have sex."

"But—"

"Downstairs. Now." Sarah turned and left the entrance to Crystal's room. Crystal hung her head in mock shame and floated after her, while Bella rolled her eyes and smirked a little in schadenfreude, and Dave looked on in confusion.

"Did I say something?" He asked Bella. When she just raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged and turned into a Pikachu, before hopping up onto her shoulder and saying "Let's gaslight them with the power of friendship to get Crystal out of trouble."

When they arrived downstairs, Crystal was receiving a light dressing-down on inviting people to the house that neither of her parents had met yet, and the dangers of using grenades as sex toys with the involvement of people without forcefields.

Crystal's extremely tall father Neil, also known as Manpower, gave a little wave and a smile to Bella before doing a small double take in confusion at seeing the Pikachu on her shoulder.

Meanwhile Eric shouted "I fucking knew it! I told you there was a Pikachu!"

"Language!" Sarah immediately changed target to her son, before looking where he was pointing and seeing a Pikachu double jump from Bella's shoulder onto Crystal's head.

"Pika Pika!" Pikachu waved.

"Well, I'm off to start my Pokemon journey, I promise to call, I-love-you-guys-bye!" Crystal caught on and made a valiant attempt at nonchalantly walking out the door.

Sarah immediately shouted "Sit back down young lady!"

"So." Sarah stared at Dave, making him sweat a little. "Are you going to introduce us to your friend?" She asked sweetly.

"This is Pikachu," Crystal said seriously while pointing at the yellow Rodent Of Unusual Size (ROUS) on her head.

"Pika Pika! Pikachu, Pika Pi. Chu! Pika Pi Pikachu, Kachu, Pika!" Pikachu said enthusiastically.

"Uhuh." Sarah said, sounding distinctly unimpressed. Eric meanwhile, looked extremely impressed, as if all his childhood dreams were suddenly coming true. Neil just looked amused, as if this wasn't even the weirdest thing Crystal had tried to get out of trouble.

Pikachu saw his target, and double jumped over to Neil with his arms stretched out, and got caught by a slightly confused Neil. Pikachu looked up at Neil with his big cute little eyes and said "Pika!" before licking Neil's nose.

Neil immediately folded.

"Okay, I give up. Crystal wins. Carry on as you were."

Pikachu did a little fist pump of victory before noticing Eric staring at him with naked desire and Sarah staring at both him and Neil with an even less impressed look on her face than before.

"Neil, honey, shut up."

"Yes ma'am."

"You, over here." She pointed at Pikachu and then the floor in front of her.

Pikachu jumped down to the floor and scampered over to her before looking up hopefully at her and raising his arms up towards her, silently asking for uppies.

"Turn back." She said while staring down at him.

"Pika?" Pikachu gave a confused look at her before looking around then pointing at himself.

"Yes you, I'm not an idiot, I can put two and two together."

Pikachu looked shocked at the admission she wasn't an idiot. Then shrugged and pulled out a weird, obviously tinkertech device and fiddled with it.

Then, became even smaller, shrinking down to about 8 inches tall while standing up fully straight and stretching, but his tail and ears remained the same size they were before and started flopping around.

Then, he scampered up her leg and shirt before perching on her shoulder. When she slowly turned her face to look at him, he looked deep into her eyes before licking her nose.

"Awww." She melted a little, her face softening.

Sarah coughed, then continued as if she hadn't just fallen for the adorableness of tiny Pikachu with normal-sized floppy ears and tail. "No, try again."

Even-smaller-Pikachu looked at her with teary eyes, before looking around again then pointing at himself.

"Yes, you're not getting out of this by being cute."

Damn, she's good. Dave thought. Well, if I'm not getting out by being cute, there is only one solution. Escalate.

Pikachu looked sadly at her with tears prickling his eyes before letting out a sad, wailing "Pika!" and sadly jumping down from her shoulder and pathetically belly-flopping onto the floor, then struggling to get up.

While Neil and Eric were looking at Sarah as if she were a monster, she continued looking unimpressed at Pikachu. It seemed to be her default really. It was surely unrelated to the implication that he was going to try and stuff grenades into her daughter's orifices for the purposes of sexual pleasure. While in her own home.

Pikachu continued his best impression of struggling to get up, before finally standing, then looking at Sarah hopefully, as if enough cuteness would change her mind.

She made a rolling motion with the implication of "get on with it".

Pikachu let out a sigh, and Dave deactivated the minifier before transforming again and speaking with his best Solid Snake voice.

"It's me, Gaseous Snake!" Into a man in tactical camo and wearing a headband. Then farted.

"No, try again." Sarah repeated after momentarily raising a single eyebrow.

Dave gathered his courage, before resolving himself to show the Pelhams his true self in all its glory.

"Hello My Children." Said the T-Posing Buff Garfield wearing nothing but a red, bulging thong with bits visible on either side of the fabric.

Everyone screamed.

Author's Note: Just ignore the Captain America in the image. I couldn't find a better image of Buff Garfield that had the thong visible. I'm likely going to continue to have a tough time with some of the other skins unless I can figure out a way to upload images to QQ from my desktop instead of needing to link a URL.
The picture of Solid Snake farting is from This Video
The picture of Buff Garfield and Captain America is from This Video
The first ever appearance of Buff Garfield is This Video.
Here is a good snapshot of Buff Garfield from that video. It will (theoretically) start at the second of the video that I am intending to show you.

Phili · Jul 30, 2026

Chapter 11: The Continuing Mission, to Seek Out New Toys And Gain New Roles

January 2, 2010. Brockton Bay, The Pelham House, Living Room.

Three lasers came from three different heroes and hit the Buff Garfield at different angles, killing him instantly.

"Oh my GOD!" Eric screamed. "DID WE JUST KILL HIM?"

"What happened? I have more control over my power than that and—what the fuck is wrong with his tail?" Sarah's panic turned to confusion as she beheld the Buff Garfield lying facedown in her living room.

There was only a little blood, but the extraordinary part was Garfield man's tail. It was… fully erect in an oddly lewd manner. Standing straight up and just above the line of Garfield's thong that wasn't doing much to cover his extremely sculpted ass, was the cat-man-thing's tail. It was just… perfectly straight and stiff enough that everyone paused from panicking at the dead body in the living room to stare at the tail.

After a short pause, Dave respawned standing straight up, still T-posing as Buff Garfield. Luckily, he still had the beggar role turned on, so he respawned after only around 30 seconds.

He quickly turned back to his actual skin before he could get shot with a laser again.

"Man, you guys are scary. On the bright side, Crystal! Your mom and your brother are both Traitors just like you! I turned Innocent again."

"What?" A supremely confused Eric warbled.

While Bella and Crystal did their best to explain Dave's powers and his… weirdness, Dave was banished to the corner for timeout due to his increasingly unhelpful explanations regarding being a terrorist.

After Crystal's family were somewhat satisfied by the explanations regarding Dave's power, Sarah turned to Dave and said "While I understand that it can be confusing and scary to be a new Parahuman, I want you to know that there are channels you can go through to get help. If you need resources or help, New Wave and the PRT are available as resources. Even if you don't want to join the PRT, you should consider going to them to register as an independent hero and take advantage of their power testing facilities. As a rare escalating trump, you don't have to worry as much about your capabilities being known, since any information on your capabilities villains might gain will become outdated almost immediately. That said, while you haven't made the best first impression… I think you could do a lot of good as a hero, and given a little time to meet everyone else that is part of New Wave and to get to know them… after discussing it among ourselves some, we might invite you to become a member." Sarah had softened considerably by the end of her speech, likely remembering just what it was like to be a recent trigger, along with whatever conclusions she might have drawn from his strangeness, along with her daughter and her daughter's level-headed friend vouching for Dave's character.

Dave nodded solemnly, before turning to Neil and asking "May I have some of your panties please?"

Neil nodded "Sure."

"DAD!" Eric shouted.

"What?"

"Why do you have women's underwear?"

"Well, you see son, when you get to a certain age, you will end up going to bachelor's parties as the people you know get married. Things happen there, and sometimes, those things happen after the people involved have consumed alcohol."

While Eric was looking like he was reconsidering how much he looked forward to being able to legally consume alcohol, Neil got up from his chair and went to the master bedroom down the hall.

While the absurdly tall man was getting a pair of panties, and Crystal and Eric were sinking into their seats and dying internally from the idea of their seven foot tall father wearing women's panties like they had just seen on Buff Garfield, Sarah was receiving an explanation from Bella on why it was a good and reasonable idea to give one of her husband's few pairs of panties to a Parahuman she had known for less than an hour.

"You know, Crystal had the same reaction earlier. She also killed him when he surprised her earlier, and she was really surprised by the sudden loss of control. Do you think something about his power makes Parahumans try to kill him even if they normally wouldn't?"

Sarah thought about it, before shaking her head. "No, while there is a well-recorded increase in aggression in parahumans, there isn't a reason we know of that would make other parahumans target you in particular lethally. Not to mention, none of us intended to kill you, we were all startled and used our powers reflexively. It was more like… we temporarily had decreased control over our powers. I'm not sure what could cause that, aside from an aspect of his own powers that he hasn't discovered yet, which wouldn't be a surprise given how wide-ranging and random his current powerset already is. Something like one of those 'taunt aura' things from one of Eric's video games doesn't seem too absurd if his power relies on him dying in order to activate certain effects."

"Wow," Dave was rather stunned. "I see why Crystal is so smart. I see that she inherited brains and beauty from you miss."

"Oh yeah? What's that supposed to mean?" Neil said jokingly from the hallway where he was carrying back a rather cute pair of panties.

"Just that she got her amazing personality from you! Also, no offense, but you're not the one I've seen called Photon Milf online." Bella stepped in and used her familiarity with the family to prevent Dave from sticking his foot in his mouth again. Dave, upon hearing this information, looked again at Sarah up and down, before nodding in confirmation before turning to Neil and giving a thumbs up.

Neil smiled smugly. Oh, I see, Crystal got the smugness from him.

Manpower handed his panties over to Dave, and everyone stared to see if anything happened.

Bella bet Crystal $5 that Dave would get a traitor role from it, citing the logic that 'something as rare as a 7-foot-tall male heroic open cape's cute pink bunny-covered panties has to be worth more than some tinkertech from the sheer rarity alone.'

Nothing happened.

"Ooh, oh yeah, Crystla thought of this earlier. Mr. Pelham, trying saying something like 'I hereby formally and officially give this pair of Manpower's personal cute bunny panties to Dave to permanently keep as his personal property.' Crystal tried that when we tried this with one of her action figures to see if that qualified."

"Wait, I have to give this up permanently? I'm not sure I'm willing to do that. Sarah absolutely loves when I wear that pair."

One cry of "NEIL!" and two cries of "DAD!" came from the peanut gallery, while Neil snickered at successfully doing his job as a dad and embarrassing his family, and Dave assured Neil that a Beggar only needed to own the toy for a moment, and could return the toy afterwards, but they did need to actually 'own' the toy for at least a second or two in order for it to count.

"Fine, I hereby formally and officially give this pair of Manpower's personal cute bunny panties to Dave to permanently keep as his personal property." Neil recited dutifully.

Dave paused for a moment while holding Neil's panties, then handed them back.

"It feels like it sort of… loosened it? Like I'm closer to unlocking the Traitor role than before, but I don't actually have it unlocked. Maybe I need something a little more extreme?" Dave pondered aloud.

"Well," Bella said thoughtfully, "Maybe we need to be a little more literal with the term 'toy' if we don't want to go the Tinkertech route."

"I see." Dave said, before turning to Crystal, who immediately went on guard. "Crystal, may I have a dildo please?"

"THAT'S WHERE YOUR MIND WENT?" Crystal shouted at him, while Neil burst out laughing, Sarah smirked at her daughter getting her just desserts after being pranked with the sex toy grenade implications earlier, and Eric just sank deeper into his chair. "I don't want to think about any of this," Eric whispered quietly to the air.

"If we decide to sign you up for power testing, Armsmaster can likely be convinced to temporarily give you ownership of an outdated piece of tinkertech in exchange for some samples of your items –like that thing you used to shrink earlier— as well as permission to use any results the testing gives as inspiration for his tinkering." Sarah suggested after Crystal calmed down a little.

"Or…" Bella suggested playfully, "We can go with Crystal's other idea," she said and wiggled her eyebrows.

"I'm afraid to ask." Eric said from where he had sunk as far down into his seat as he could go.

"She suggested that Vicky might be willing to give her used bathwater to Dave if she could be convinced it had a reasonable chance of expanding his powers and that she could then play with the fancy items he would then have available." Bella said with a smirk.

"Oh god, she would, wouldn't she?" Eric said in despair. While Sarah just looked amused.

"Now, now," Neil said, also smirking. "It's your cousin's choice what she wants to do with her bathwater. If she wants to trade it for the chance to play with tinker-tech-equivalent power manifestations, that is her choice and her choice alone," he playfully admonished.

Author's Note: I couldn't find much on when Dean (Gallant) got his powers on the Worm Wiki. I originally had a line in this chapter where Eric claims that he heard from Vicky who heard from Gallant that there was going to be a new Tinker Ward (Kid Win) introduced soon, but I had to remove it because I couldn't tell when Dean actually became a ward. I figured he probably wasn't a ward yet, because Chris (Kid Win) was supposed to have built him his power armor so that he (Dean) could pretend to be a tinker, and according to the worm wiki Timeline, Chris joins the wards in 2010 "sometime during or before the end of January". Thus, logically, Dean must have not joined the wards yet and hasn't met Vicky yet.
If anyone knows information that contradicts this, please let me know.

Next chapter we have the very serious ™ conversations. Unfortunately, Worm is a very serious world. Don't worry too much though, Dave will happily drag the world of Worm, kicking and screaming, into becoming a Noblebright Comedy Slice of Life with the power of friendship and terrorism. In the meantime, Dave will have to resign himself to dealing with Worm with the only language it understands: violence.

Phili · Jul 31, 2026

Chapter 12: Where Nobody Jumps to Conclusions and Everyone Makes Totally Correct Assumptions During A Very Serious ™ Conversation

January 2, 2012. Brockton Bay, Pelham House.

After a little more conversation, it was decided that Bella and Dave would stay for dinner, and Sarah began cooking, which Bella was weirdly excited for.

Dave realized why Bella was excited when Sarah began shaping her forcefield into a pan to pour water into, then firing lasers at it to boil the water.

When Dave took out a shotgun and looked at it contemplatively, Bella immediately smacked him without even looking away from the conversation she was having with Crystal. After the conversation moved on a little, Neil eventually asked Dave "So, what do you do for a living?"

Dave happily answered "I have no idea!"

And thus came the revelation that Dave had amnesia. For some reason, the Pelham household and Bella both found it upsetting.

Neil Pelham

"I hate to ask this, and I mean it, I do hate to ask this, it is simply not done for a good reason, but Dave, do you remember your trigger event?" Neil, no Manpower asked. This was not the time for Neil Pelham, this was the sort of scenario where a hero was needed instead of just 'the dad of Dave's friend'. He was worried. Despite Dave's… eccentricities, he truly seemed like a good young man from what he could tell, and Neil had no idea what could cause someone to completely forget things.

"Nope," Dave said, still quite happy. That's… good I guess, at least he isn't traumatized by the fact he doesn't remember.

"Are you certain that the way you look now is your original form and not the result of your Changer ability?"

"Yup," Dave replied.

"If you are really sure… I ask because there is a certain type of parahuman known as a 'Case 53', and they share certain characteristics. One of those characteristics is that they all have some sort of inhuman appearance, and the other major one is that they all have near-total amnesia, and the amnesia seems almost identical to what you have described. The main difference as far as I know, is that they don't have what you call "Earth Bet common sense". They need to be told things, whereas you managed to recognize my wife and I well enough that I suspect you are a Brockton Bay native, as opposed to a Case 53, who nobody knows where they come from."

Dave paused. Then nodded in comprehension "I see. Crystal got her intelligence from both sides of the family. No wonder she's such a smart cookie!"

Crystal looked rather happy at that, but instead of fishing for compliments as she would have when she was little, she let the conversation continue. Was it the serious topic of conversation? Neil wondered. Or was it just his little girl growing up?

Then Dave continued "Truly, I am a genius for befriending her."

Bella chimed in "Actually, I think I get credit for introducing you."

"Nonsense," Dave immediately countered. "I get credit for her because I get credit for you. You latched on to me like a baby duck due to my immeasurable charisma."

Bella spluttered. "That is not what happened! You latched on to me like a baby duck, I even used those exact words to Crystal yesterday to describe you."

"That sounds made up to me. Crystal, did Bella describe me as latching on to her like a baby duck or is she just projecting what she did to me thanks to my unimaginable good looks, amazing personality, and generally being a chill cool guy?"

Crystal caught on and nodded instantly. "Yup, Bella, you were looking very ducklike. Baby ducklike in fact."

Well, at least none of them seem traumatized. Neil thought with small smile.

A few more theories on possible causes of Dave's amnesia were thrown around before being dismissed.

A powerful master or stranger was theorized by Eric, but Neil dismissed it as "possible but extremely unlikely" on much of the same grounds as the Case 53 theory. Namely, that Dave still had "common sense" with regards to Brockton Bay, and a Master or Stranger with a power able to inflict that level of memory loss hadn't been seen in the Bay in years. Not to mention, Dave still had an apartment in Brockton Bay, meaning he had been living there before he triggered and it showed no sign of damage or an unknown parahuman squatting in it while messing with Dave's mind. In addition, there had been no indications elsewhere within the city of a Stranger or a Human Master that could have done that sort of thing; as well as that Dave didn't remember fighting off or killing anyone, so that theory would need the Master or Stranger to have left right as or just before Dave triggered, and then not return for some reason.

Bella brought up simple head trauma, which Neil didn't dismiss right away. "I'm far from an expert on amnesia, or even medicine in general; but I've seen a lot of things throughout the years, and this doesn't really match any cases of memory loss I've seen. In my experience, they usually are a lot less dramatic than Hollywood tells you, and are either highly temporary or involve parts of the brain physically missing. We can ask Amy if she can see anything wrong when we introduce Dave to the rest of New Wave. Don't get your hopes up though Dave, as amazing as Amy's power is, she can't help you if your memory loss is a result of anything to do with your brain; she'll only be able to tell us if your brain looks like it might have been damaged enough to cause memory loss."

Crystal had another theory. "What if it's a result of his trigger going wrong somehow?" She asked.

"How so?" Sarah asked from the kitchen, where she was chopping up carrots and broccoli with her forcefield sharpened into a knife, while using another part of her forcefield as a cutting board.

"Well, in my Parahuman Studies class last quarter, we learned that there is a new theory that every new trigger experiences memory loss when they trigger, and it happens to varying degrees. They think it is the same reason why Thinker powers can't predict new triggers regardless of how strong the Thinker power is, and usually other capes nearby will lose control of their powers when a new trigger happens. What if Dave's trigger went wrong somehow and accidentally made him lose more memories than it was supposed to?"

Neil hummed. "Well, I've never heard of anything like it. I'm afraid that when your mother and I were in school we didn't have anything like Parahuman Studies classes. I can't say I've encountered anyone with this kind of memory loss before either –aside from some Case 53s, as I mentioned. It's possible I suppose, that I've encountered capes with this kind of memory loss before and just never knew. For obvious reasons, I can't imagine most capes would be eager to make it known that they've experienced amnesia, it would make it much easier to connect their Cape and civilian identities, along with making a significant weakness known for bad actors to take advantage of.

For that reason, actually, Dave, I suggest you don't make your amnesia known to too many people. Obviously, I can't dictate how to live your life to you, but it could be a major weakness, and if you don't decide to join New Wave and unmask, then it would be a major point for thinkers to take advantage of to figure out your civilian identity. While it would still be against the unwritten rules, some people will take any excuse to ignore those, and if they think they can get away with unmasking you against your will by taking advantage of your memory loss, they will."

Neil finished his small speech, before seeing everyone staring at him, aside from his wife of course, who was still cooking.

"What? I wasn't the leader of the Brockton Bay Brigade for nothing you know? It's important to know when you don't know something and be willing to admit it, and it's important to know that you can't force others to live how you think they should, but advice is free to give and can be worth a lot." He seemed to be turning it into an impromptu lesson on heroing to his children (and Bella, who was just interested in seeing the inner workings of a Cape team, even if it had lost some novelty over the years of being Crystal's best friend).

Dinner turned out to be Stir Fry Lo Mein, and Sarah hadn't used any pots, pans, knives, cutting boards, or the stove at any point. She only put the end product in a large bowl after it was cooked to her satisfaction, and brought out bowls for everyone else to dish up their meals into.

"I made Lo Mein because I wasn't sure what sort of dietary requirements you have Dave. It doesn't use any cheese in case you are lactose intolerant and I didn't put any meat in in case you decide you want to be a vegetarian, vegan, or pescatarian. Crystal told me about the lunch you ordered earlier, so I knew gluten was fine. You do have to think about these kinds of things now that you are effectively starting your life over. You should take some time to think on what kind of lifestyle you want to live, as well as checking if you are allergic to anything."

While Dave appreciated the thought, and absolutely saw how she got the name "Photon Mom", he did have to say something before her life advice continued building up steam to the point she wanted to adopt him or something. "Actually, I'm fairly sure my power would deal with any allergies I might have, or might have had. Even if it didn't, I'm fairly sure I could get it working to remove any allergies I might have within a week or so. Even if that didn't work, I can't exactly die, and eventually I'll be able to give myself a regeneration effect."

"Oh," Sarah blinked.

"Well that's convenient. I wonder if Dauntless does that sort of thing with his power? Maybe he has crowns or fillings he used his power on to remove any allergic reactions he gets to food or something?" Neil mused.

"Well, you can always ask about it next time you see him," Bella commented. "If he hasn't done anything like that, the power testing people might be happy to see him try. Although there are rumors on PHO that he has to follow a fairly strict schedule of what he uses his power on and in what order. I'm not sure I put any stock in those rumors though, considering I've heard from mysterious sources," she pointedly didn't look at the sheepish Crystal, "that he gets his 'charges' faster when he goes into combat; So the solution to not having any free charges to test things on is fairly obvious: go outside and punch nazis."

After everyone finished eating, and Crystal was given a quiet threat from her mother about bringing capes home without telling her parents that the person she was bringing was a cape (and forgiveness in this instance because Dave was "so innocent, he wouldn't betray us like I would usually be concerned about from an unknown cape"), Dave and Bella needed to head to their apartment soon.

First though, Sarah had something to tell Dave. "You've been a delightful guest, despite your… odd sense of humor Dave, and I wanted to thank you. Crystal doesn't have too many friends because of the risks of being associated with an open cape after Jess's death showed everyone just how small the consequences of breaking the unwritten rules were."

"Mom! I have friends! I just don't invite them over because you and Dad embarrass me!" Crystal denied.

"That's nice dear," Sarah said, though a small smile while she turned her face so Crystal couldn't see indicated she was likely pulling her daughter's leg. "Anyways Dave, I'll see about setting up some power testing for you at the Protectorate. You can trade contact information with me, Neil and Eric in case any of us need to contact you or vice versa—I assume you already traded contact info with Crystal and Bella—and I'll let you know when the testing is scheduled for. It should be either tomorrow or the day after; the Protectorate really likes to do power testing for new capes, so they will want to schedule it for as soon as possible to avoid you changing your mind. Crystal and I will go down with you and make sure they don't do anything they shouldn't and they don't get too aggressive in their inevitable recruitment attempts. If you do decide to join the Protectorate, that is your choice of course, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn't be able to handle you very well." She had a small smile when she said that last part.

I knew it, I am amazing with parents! Crystal had nothing to worry about, they already love me, and I didn't even Hypnotize them with a Brainwashing Device!

While Crystal was seeing them out to Bella's car, Dave had an idea to make sure he would always be able to tell if they were suspicious imposters, or if they were actually his cute traitor friends.

"Would you guys be willing to Forever Traitor ™ with me?" he asked somewhat shyly.

Bella gave him a deadpan look, "Is that your weird version of marriage?"

"No, that's soulmates. Or being the Romantic. Or being the Revenger."

Before Bella could get off track by going down the rabbit hole that was Dave's mind/power, Crystal interrupted to ask "What is Forever Traitor then?"

"Well, it's normally a promise between innocents that if either of you are a traitor at that moment, then whoever is the traitor will forever be considered a traitor, even if they are no longer a traitor, and even in future lives, they will forever be marked as a traitor, for daring to break the Forever Traitor promise." Dave said with as much grandiose as he could muster.

"But didn't you say Crystal was already a traitor though? And that your traitor and innocent thing breaks down really quickly as soon as civilians are involved?" Bella asked, unimpressed with his brilliant idea.

"Indeed, so we will modify it!" Dave said dramatically. "We will instead say that whoever is not a traitor, will be a betrayer forevermore, even in future lives!"

Crystal caught on rather quickly. "Oh! It's like Master-Stranger protocols. If someone doesn't know how to respond, it shows we are compromised and they might be a Stranger disguised as one of us—" "A sussy baka!" Dave interrupted, "—or that they might be controlled by a Master. It won't work against all kinds of parahuman powers, but just about nothing actually would, so as a quick and dirty identity check it actually works well. We use something like it in New Wave as well, but we all use our powers in a particular manner or pattern to verify our identity. This is actually a really good idea, good job Dave!" Crystal patted his head.

"Hey, I'm not a good boy yet, I can't get headpats!" Dave complained before adding "I truly am a genius, for befriending someone such as you Crystal, that is smart enough to see how much of a genius I am." He nodded with self-satisfaction.

"So, what's the actual thing we say?" Bella asked after warming up to the idea from hearing that New Wave did something similar already.

"First, someone says 'Forever Traitor?' while looking at the other person, then the second person looks at the first one and says 'Forever Traitor.' But it is acceptable to say their name after the word 'traitor'. The first one must be said as a question, and the response must be a statement—not a question. Any other response or an incorrect request for Forever Traitor means you shoot them in the face!" Dave lectured.

"No. No shooting people in the face for not passing Master-Stranger tests. They could just be mastered, not actually having turned evil for ambiguous reasons." Crystal said, gently chopping him on the head.

"Oh yeah, you're right. Shoot them in the chest not the face. As long as they're not brain dead I'll be able to resurrect them if I've unlocked the paramedic role by then." Dave corrected himself.

"Fucking excuse me?" Bella asked.

"What?" Now Dave was confused.

"You'll be able to resurrect people?" Crystal also seemed weirdly invested in this line of questioning.

"Yes? Obviously? As long as they aren't braindead, a Paramedic, a Mad Scientist, or a Hypnotist can all resurrect someone. With the right shop items available, most traitor roles and most detective roles could do it as well. The Randoman would have options that can bring people back from the dead as well." Dave said casually.

"Would they be like your respawns? Where it is actually you and not just a copy like PHO thinks happens to Oni Lee when he teleports?" Bella asked. Dave nodded.

Immediately after Bella's question, Crystal asked "Could you resurrect my aunt? She died in Fall of 2007? Is that too long? What sort of restrictions are on it?" She was shaking his shoulders now.

"I have no idea; I haven't unlocked any of the right roles yet. Eventually, I could most likely resurrect her by expanding my power in that direction even if I couldn't do it from the start. If you're okay with raising her as a zombie I could probably so it a lot earlier, but otherwise, I'd estimate it could be anywhere up to a decade before I can resurrect her. I would need her body though, and I assume that the better condition her body is in the easier it would be." Dave answered as best he could. If absolutely necessary, he was fairly sure the alien friend in his soul could help him out. It was unbelievably awkward having the now crying Crystal hugging him while Bella tried to comfort Crystal from the side. If anyone other than him had been the one making her cry, he would have just shot them, but he was the one making her cry.

Maybe he should just shoot himself?

Before he could bring out a gun to shoot himself with, Crystal pulled herself off of him, with tears still in her eyes and said "Thank you, Dave. You have no idea how much that means to me, or my family. Aunt Jess was the heart of New Wave, and her death was what killed the movement. Not just because we lost two members when she died and Uncle Mike left right after, or even that the asshole who killed her faced no consequences; it was that without her we simultaneously drifted apart and just lost motivation. She was both a core part of the family and the one that kept us happy and smiling." She was back to crying harder.

After Crystal managed to get her sniffles under control well enough to talk, she continued. "I'll talk to Mom and Dad, and see what we can do about her body. I know she wasn't cremated, but her body is probably not in very good condition after all this time. I'll ask and see if we can have her remains put on ice or something. She would get a kick out of being frozen in order to be resurrected later like in a bad Hollywood movie." Crystal gave a small, teary smile at the end. "No, she will get a kick out of it. Seriously Dave, I can't thank you enough, I, and New Wave as a whole will owe you a debt for this that can't be repaid. If you pull this off, we will go through hell or high water for you." Crystal gave him another hug, before hugging Bella for good measure, then walking back in to her house to give her parents the good news.

"Well that was awkward." Dave said after a moment, before they entered Bella's car. "I thought I was going to have to shoot myself to end that awkwardness."

"Dave, do not shoot yourself to get rid of awkwardness." Bella said as she pulled out of the driveway.

"But, imagine how effective it would be!"

Author's Note: There we go, serious conversation completed! Don't worry about resurrection abilities being too overpowered, the ability to bring someone back to life is shockingly useless in a world like Worm, where if someone died it usually means they weren't that strong in the first place. Nothing in the TTT powerset Dave has can bring back Fleur, he is going to have to wait until he gets the Professor role from Blood On The Clocktower before he can resurrect long-dead individuals. Even then, I will be counting 'Once per game' abilities of Blood On The Clocktower (BOTC) as only working once every 5 days, so he can't just turn the world into an undying utopia where everyone he likes gets to live forever. And of course, if he was in a world with more exotic powers like Naruto or Star Wars, people would still be able to kill eachother so hard he wouldn't be able to resurrect them. Here, there isn't anything that does things like attacking the soul (or the 'soul'). The Paramedic can't resurrect long-dead people because, it turns out, people's brains aren't in great condition after 2 years of being dead. Who knew that would count as brain-dead?
Next chapter, we learn a little more about the requirements Dave has to meet before he can unlock new roles, and we get one step closer to Dave going out on his first patrol… which I'm sure will go absolutely fine with nothing unusual happening and nobody getting traumatized. Don't get too excited though, as of chapter 19 we still haven't gone on a patrol yet, but the ingredients are there. I'd estimate by chapter 22 we will probably have gone on a patrol
We also decide on a name for Dave's alien soul friend!

Phili · Aug 1, 2026

Author's note: If anyone remembers what episode this chapter title is from, let me know and I'll add a link to it so more people understand this particular reference.

Chapter 13: "Doctor, Could You Take a Look at The Rash on My Balls?"

January 3, 2012. Brockton Bay, Dave's Apartment.

Dave woke up. He seems to be doing that a lot lately. Almost once a day in fact.

He set his bagel in the toaster, poured his orange juice, and put the kettle on the stove to boil water for tea.

Hi Dave!

Good news! You grew a lot yesterday. Like, a whole lot. It's almost like going through things, and talking to people, and going outside helps you grow as a person! So, you unlocked the Innocent role a little bit early, and almost fully unlocked the Traitor Role as well. You took a little longer to respawn after being killed as the Beggar yesterday; that was because it took me a little time to squeeze the Innocent role into your soul. Normally, I have all night to fit a new role into your soul, so it was actually quite impressive of me that I got it done in only a minute or so.

For your second death, you respawned in only around 30 seconds, as I'm sure you noticed, and that was because I was trying to see if I could finagle my way into considering any of the three people that killed you as "an innocent terrorist". It turns out, sometimes heroes and terrorists aren't the same thing. Who knew, right?

Anyways, while your efforts to unlock the Traitor role yesterday didn't fully succeed, they did loosen up your soul in such a way as to make the Traitor role take up less room in your soul, so now you can unlock the Traitor role through the Beggar without necessarily needing to be given some of the local "Tinkertech". Incidentally, this will also make it easier to get the Detective role naturally through your daily role gain.

Your new role for today is: Doctor!

As your now have your first role with a shop, it's a good time to tell you how credits work. You gain them about the same way you would likely expect. If you are a traitor, then killing an innocent or detective will give you credits, and if you are a detective role, Mercenary, or Survivalist, then killing a Traitor will give you a credit. Otherwise, a Detective role, a Traitor role, or a Mercenary or Survivalist will gain a credit every minute while you are alive. And of course, all of those roles will start each round with two credits. Except for Summoner which will start with 5 credits.

The Doctor, as the role with the most anemic shop options, only gets one credit per round, at the start of each round… so every ten minutes, you get a new credit as a Doctor.

Currently, you can't spend credits from one role in another role's shop… not that you have any other roles with a shop at the moment. But you do keep separate credits for each role, meaning if you have three traitor roles active and kill an innocent terrorist, you get a credit for each of your three traitor role shops.

You can stack up as many credits as you like, and your shop items will stack in your inventory with no limit.

Also! I pulled some strings with the locals yesterday to get you killed so you could get your beggar role to activate more easily. These guys may suck at taking care of their human friends, but they are masters of increasing their human friends' aggression at the drop of a hat. You're welcome.

"I see," Dave nodded wisely. "I understood most of that… but not in language."

Fuck! Seriously? That still isn't fixed?

"By the way, I was thinking, I need something to call you."

What about SAF? For Super Friendly Soul Alien of Friendship and Doom? It's the perfect acronym!

Dave nodded "Daf it is!"

Uhh… you know what, I'll take it. Let me look at the associations in your soul though.

Hmm… I'm not really Welsh though. I do do a lot of work behind the scenes though. Heh, doo-doo. But Wales though… I'm not even a soul whale, and those space whale assholes wish they were as cool as me. I guess I can ignore the implied association with any space whale morons though, because I am a pretty snazzy singer if I do say so myself.

Dave nodded in satisfaction. With that settled, he went about eating his bagel.

After finishing his breakfast, he got out his phone to check his texts and calls to figure out what he was going to do today.

He had gotten a message from Sarah, saying she had set up the power testing at the Protectorate Headquarters (PHQ) for 10:00, the next day, but for today, she wanted him to meet her and Crystal for lunch. For some reason, she also said not to ever mention what he had told Crystal about last night over any electronic device before talking to her and Crystal about it.

After realizing he had nothing to do until lunch, he decided to start his career of online terrorism.

After getting banned from four different forums for "trolling", "provoking others", and "spreading lies about Sweden on an Ikea help forum", he got bored again. It also occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, shitposting online wasn't growing his soul very much.

Shrugging, he decided the correct course of action was to bother Bella.

After knocking on Bella's door, she came out to meet him.

"Forever traitor?" he asked her.

She sighed for some reason. "Forever traitor," she said resignedly.

"Wanna go bother New Wave?" he offered kindly.

"No, I have to actually do homework, unlike some people. Actually, do you even know if you are a student? Do you know if you have a job? When the next quarter starts, we can ask at Brockton U if you are or were registered as a student. Although, given your amnesia, I'm not sure if you would actually be able to keep up with any of the classes. Maybe you should redo high school? Or even middle school if you've forgotten enough?" Bella casually uttered terrifying things.

So, he gently… slammed the door in her face as hard as he could and dove out the nearest window. He forgot to double jump and died instantly.

Five different people spotted his dead body in the alleyway he landed in and just completely ignored it, they didn't even try and rob his corpse. Bella even repeated a couple of times to empty air that she didn't need to be worried about anybody reporting his dead body because it was Brockton Bay. After she was reasonably sure he had heard at least one repeat of her message, she went back to her living room to continue preparing for her next quarter at college.

After he respawned, he decided to walk to the Pelham house so he could avoid the scary lady living next door to him.

After arriving, he got sat down by Sarah.

"It's a little early for lunch, but we'll eat now and I'll call and see if any of my sister's family are available to meet you today before we go to do your power testing tomorrow. In particular, Amy might be interested in checking you over, both to see if she can spot any brain damage that might have caused your amnesia, and to watch your 'respawn' in action."

"For now," she continued, "we need to talk about what you told Crystal last night. I won't go on and on about how much this means to us, but suffice to say it is a lot; and if you pull it off, we will go to bat for you against anyone; and we fought in the Boston games, so we understand better than most just how bad Parahuman fights can get, so we do not make such a promise lightly."

After he nodded in understanding, continuing to do his best to be a polite parent-pleaser, she kept speaking. "We are looking into making arrangements to make things as easy for you as possible, but for now, I am more worried about you should news get out of the possibility you could eventually do this kind of thing. While my daughter tells me you can defend yourself fairly well, and obviously you're much safer from death than most people, Parahuman abilities are wide and varied, and you should never lower your guard. You can still be captured, and you never know when you will encounter an unexpected power interaction that will go against your favor; and even an ally's power might have a poor reaction with your own. Even if you don't decide to join New Wave, I highly recommend you join us in some of our training sessions so you can better defend yourself and we know how to coordinate with you better in the future."

"In the meantime," she said, her tone of voice changing slightly, "I want you to think very carefully on how much, if any, of your future potential you want to tell people, including the Protectorate. While people are observant, and will catch on pretty quickly that you are showing capabilities you weren't before, you can probably claim to be a versatile Shaker for a little while to give you time to grow before people catch on, or you might be able to get away with claiming to be a Tinker instead of a Trump, and I would be willing to cancel the power testing appointment at the Protectorate if you want. While they wouldn't be happy about it, it would be far from the first time a Parahuman decided to cancel testing with little or no notice. Your resurrecting abilities you could gain—Crystal told me you said there were a few possibilities—are very much the kind of thing people will fight over. I personally, would recommend that you only tell people about what you can do after you can already do it. You could do a lot of good with an ability like that, regardless of the restrictions, but it would be risky to have it known. Even Parahuman healing abilities are already rare, and while Amy just recently got her ability to heal—"

"I can heal." Dave interrupted. She paused. Whew, saved. I thought I was going to have to take notes, or even drop my 'charming-the-parents' mannerisms.

"You mean you can heal other people? Already? Not just yourself?" She asked, her impromptu speech losing its momentum.

Dave nodded and gave a charming smile.

"Bella said last night you called each new… thing, a 'role', so I take it you got one that could heal today?"

"Yeah, I'm a fully trained and qualified Doctor. I can take a look at the itchy rash on your balls if you like!"

She gave him a disappointed look.

Nailed it.

…

"Try again." Sarah said.

Dave plopped a microwave out of his inventory onto the floor of her living room.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

He pulled out a Parasite Cure and set it on top of the microwave.

She rolled her fingers in a silent gesture to explain.

I see! We're doing charades!

Dave pointed at the microwave, rested a hand on it, then made a satisfied face. Then he opened the microwave door, took out a burrito from it, and took a bite, before making another satisfied face, before nodding emphatically at Sarah.

Then, he pointed at the Parasite Cure, then at himself. Then he turned into Mr. Blobby to indicate being a tapeworm. Then, he took a gun out from his inventory, and shot himself, and died instantly.

Mr. Blobby:

Nailed it. She understood perfectly.

Author's Note: And thus, we meet Mr. Blobby. Oh yeah, and I guess it's revealed that Daf (our Dear Alien Friend, therefore also known as DAF), communicated with New Wave's shards yesterday to get Dave killed and activate the beggar role. The shards already have their hosts' aggression increased by quite a bit, but as soon as Daf told them 'Something interesting will happen', they heard '[DATA?] [DATA!]' and instead of increasing the host aggression even more, they just backseat controlled the New Wave lasers to snipe Dave with powerful enough lasers to kill him after New Wave had a startle reaction the shards could play off of. Did they get anything from that? Sure, just not anything particularly useful, not that they have determined that yet. They will probably be encouraging their hosts to spend more time around Dave to see if any new interesting things happen that might lead to new paths to eventually meet their goal. Daf doesn't even realize what they want, he just thinks they're simpleminded, weirdo, very distant cousins of his, possibly becoming stupid due to generations upon generations of incest or something. We also find out Daf knows about the local space whales, and has determined they are total morons, but we don't know how much more Daf knows about them.

Daf probably won't be communicating with the locals (shards) much, he finds it exhausting to be around that much stupid while reaching out from his soul-level of existence to be able to reach a level of existence the shards can comprehend. He might do it if he thinks it will help Dave, get himself useful things (like if they have any new colors of glitter glue for his collection), or if he thinks it will be funny enough. Also, it turns out Daf was fudging things to help Dave get a new role (Innocent, and he tried to get Dave Traitor as well) early, I'm sure that won't have consequences.

Phili · Aug 2, 2026

Chapter 14: Earth Bet's Very First _______ ______!

January 3, 2010. Brockton Bay, Pelham House, Living Room.

Sarah stared at the dead Mr. Blobby that had just commit suicide in her living room and leaving its own dead body to fall onto a microwave, leaving the gun and half-eaten burrito to land on the carpet.

She walked upstairs, and opened Crystal's door without knocking.

"Mom! What if I had been naked?" Crystal shouted.

"It would have been nothing I hadn't seen before. Dave's here, he's in the living room. You can come down and deal with him while I make lunch in the kitchen, sound good?" Sarah asked sweetly.

"Uh, sure?" Crystal naively agreed.

"Perfect." Sarah smiled, before going back downstairs and into the kitchen, where she started to make burritos. She was inspired, okay?

"Oh, for fucks sake." Crystal said upon seeing the dead body of Mr. Blobby, microwave, strange device filled with green fluid, gun, and half-eaten burrito all on the floor of her living room.

"Language!" Her mom shouted from the kitchen.

"English!" Crystal shouted back.

"Don't steal that from your cousin Crystal! Amy doesn't get enough socialization practice as it is without you stealing one of her catchphrases! By the way, thanks for agreeing to deal with Dave. That includes cleaning up after him, just to be clear."

After Crystal had put the burrito in the trash and mixed salt into cold water and begun cleaning up the bloody carpet with the mixture, Dave respawned, then wandered into the kitchen and asked the still-cooking Sarah "Did I win at charades?" He still looked like Mr. Blobby.

She gave him a dry look. "No. I did not understand your intended message. Thus, you did not succeed at silently communicating information and therefore did not win charades."

He nodded. "Do you have any sunglasses? The lasers you're using to cook those burritos are really bright."

She pointed at the counter, "You can borrow Bella's pair until we get you your own. I'm sure she won't mind. Me, my children, and my sister are all highly resistant to being blinded by light, so any frequent guests—and my husband of course—get their own dedicated pair for when they are in the kitchen while I'm cooking. Speaking of guests, I've invited Vicky and Amy to join us. I invited my sister as well but she is busy, and her husband Mark is… busy as well." She paused before finishing her final sentence.

Dave digested that information as he put on the sunglasses, which were rather hard to get on as Mr. Blobby. Glory Girl and her sister, the new hero Panacea who had been active as a healer for a month or so were coming to have lunch. For some reason, he shivered. Then he shivered again, harder.

Sarah noticed and offered, "Do you want me to turn up the heat? I'm a little surprised your powers didn't give you temperature-resistance to go with your other abilities. You mentioned it changed your sleep-cycle, and it has certainly given you some brute powers, so a weak temperature-comfort power seems fairly on theme for such a wide-ranging power in my experience with grab-bags. Maybe you just haven't gotten it yet?"

"No, I have." Dave answered, somewhat surprised Sarah had managed to predict one of his powers, but he supposed that was a benefit of experience. "No need to turn up the heat, I do have that minor temperature-comfort thing you mentioned, it widens my comfortable temperature range by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit in both directions, just enough to increase my performance as a terrorist and not have a bomb slip out of my hands because of sweaty palms or something. I've just been shivering occasionally since I got my powers, but it seems unrelated to temperature."

"Anyways," Dave continued on ignoring Sarah's mutterings that his temperature resistance was 'weaker than expected,' "Do you know when your nieces are likely to arrive? I would like to greet them in style." He said, before transforming into Pikachu and striking a pose.

"It should be any minute now. You can wait for them in the backyard with Crystal if she seems like she's done cleaning up the blood."

"Okee dokee artichokee!" ~~Dave~~ Pikachu saluted, before scampering into the living room to see if Crystal was ready to greet her cousins.

After a little brainstorming, ~~Dave~~ Pikachu and Crystal had come up with a plan of action…

After Vicky touched down in the Pelham backyard while holding her sister in a princess carry, Crrystal proudly strode out, Pikachu on her shoulder.

Amy got down on her own from Vicky's arms while Vicky stared.

"So, you thought you could challenge me to a Pokemon battle?" Crystal asked haughtily in a deepened voice, before turning her dad's baseball hat around on her head and shouting "Fine then, let's battle! Go Pikachu!"

"Kachu!" Pikachu let out an adorable warcry as he jumped down from Crystal's shoulder and ran out to the more open part of the yard.

Vicky's eyes changed and became more competitive. "Fine, you shall face the strongest member of my team, GO PANPAN!" She shouted dramatically and pointed to the space across from Pikachu, indicating where she wanted Amy to start the battle at.

"I'm not doing this." Amy said dryly after a withering look at her sister failed. She received puppy dog eyes from Crystal, Vicky and Pikachu simultaneously. She folded instantly.

"Fine, but why am I the Pokemon?" She grudgingly agreed before walking to where Vicky had indicated.

"You were too slow sis! I called dibs on being your trainer. And everyone knows Chansey is badass anyways, I believe in you!"

Amy blushed, either at being insinuated as badass or at the thought of being trained by her sister… or at being told someone believed in her… or the humiliation of taking part in what seemed like roleplaying magical cockfighting of friendship… or the rather cold weather.

As she stood across from Pikachu, Amy still wasn't totally sure what was going to happen next, when Crystal shouted, "Go Pikachu, use Minimize, then Tackle!"

The Pikachu shrunk somehow, but its ears and tails stayed the same size and were flopping madly as it moved around. It ran surprisingly quickly, but not that quickly at Amy, before it jumped, then jumped again midair to reach her face. She reflexively grabbed it before it could headbutt her face, and she held it right in front of her face, and noticed her power didn't consider it biological, but also did at the same time.

"What are you?" She asked the tiny, shrunken Pikachu.

It wiggled its nose at her, looked deep into her eyes, then licked her nose. "Pikachu!"

Amy melted immediately. "Awww!"

Vicky pouted immensely, until Amy couldn't resist the puppy dog eyes anymore and reluctantly handed the Pikachu over for Vicky to play with.

Crystal gasped. "Oh no! Pikachu is being stolen by Team Rocket! Quick, Pikachu, use Pikapistol!"

"Pika Pika!" Pikachu brought out a Glock pistol and shot Vicky once with it.

While Vicky was surprised and her strength disabled form her forcefield being broken, Pikachu jumped down and scampered over to Crystal where Pikachu got picked up, given headpats, and placed back on her shoulder.

"Good job Pikachu! You escaped from Team Rocket all on your own!" Crystal praised.

"I told you; you can't give me headpats until I'm a Good Boy." Pikachu?? said to Crystal… in a normal man's voice?

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Vicky screamed.

Amy looked disappointed as well.

Crystal meanwhile was nonplussed, "What, did you think I found a stash of Professor Haywire's technology and opened a portal to the world of Pokemon and grabbed a Pikachu? Then taught it how to use guns?"

Vicky fake-sobbed dramatically "You gave me hope of completing my dream of becoming the very greatest Pokemon master, like no one ever was! Then you cruelly took it away. WHY CRYSTAL WHY?!" She floated over to Crystal and shook her so hard 'Pikachu' fell off.

'Pikachu' unminified himself and wandered over to Amy who was just looking tired at her sister's antics.

"So, I figured it was something like this, and she probably did too before she got caught up in the moment. Are you a Case 53 or something? If so, I'm afraid I can't help you."

"Nah, I'm good. Name's Dave, nice to meet you." The Pikachu(?) apparently named Dave said.

"I'm Amy, or Panacea, I guess. It's a new thing, I only became a cape at the end of November, so I'm still getting used to everything. I started helping out at the hospital a couple weeks ago with my healing power."

Dave returned to his original form, much to Amy's disappointment. "I'm Dave, just your friendly local terrorist!" He reached out his hand. She shook it with a slightly bemused look on her face.

"You know, your biology was… weird when you were a Pikachu, but like this it's almost normal, just with some of that same weirdness around the edges of your body instead of throughout the whole thing. It's actually quite interesting, do you mind if I examine you a little with my power at some point?"

"Oh baby, you can examine me whenever and wherever you want."

"Excuse me?" Vicky flew over from where she had been talking with Crystal. Then she looked Dave up and down.

"I refuse, you're too old for my sis. It's kinda creepy actually, since she's underage, and you're an adult."

While Crystal tried to explain to Vicky that that was just how Dave was, and he probably didn't have any flirtatious intentions, Dave gasped dramatically. "How dare you besmirch my honor? I challenge you… to a DUEL!"

"Fine, when I win, you won't flirt with Amy." Vicky agreed instantly.

"Fine, if I win, you will give me some of your used bathwater!"

"Um… what? I knew it! You are a pervert!" Vicky said with vindication, while Crystal facepalmed and Amy just looked amused.

Dave walked over to where he had started the Pokemon battle as Pikachu, while Vicky flew over to where Amy had started the 'battle'.

Dave pulled out a weird gun from his inventory. It was completely covered with nothing but weird bright purple squares checkered with pitch black squares. It looked… dumb as hell.

"This, is a Free Kill Gun, also known as a Railgun Sniper Rifle." Dave bragged. "Whoever uses it to kill someone is ethically free of guilt. In exchange, anyone else is free to kill whoever is holding it and be ethically free of blame!" Dave… explained? The gun he had pulled out.

"Now witness its power!" Dave shouted dramatically, before pressing a button on it. The gun made a high-pitched noise, that quickly got louder and higher pitched as time went on. After about five seconds, the gun exploded and Dave died instantly.

Vicky and Amy screamed.

Author's Note: At least Dave has made a good first impression this time… right? The blanks in the chapter title were Pokemon Battle by the way, I even used the correct number of underscores for each word.

Phili · Aug 3, 2026

Chapter 15: The Most Overpowered Burritos You've Ever Seen

January 3, 2010. Brockton Bay, Pelham House,

Amy immediately started to rush over to Dave's body before Crystal grabbed her partway there.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. One of Dave's powers is that he comes back to life after he dies, like Alabaster, but not a Nazi. It takes a while though, usually it takes exactly ten minutes unless he has a specific part of his ability toggled on. And… It looks like it's going to take ten minutes this time though, so he must have forgotten to turn that part on." Crystal comforted her cousin.

Vicky meanwhile, stopped panicking after hearing Crystal's explanations, and got figurative stars in her eyes upon hearing about a new cape power. "Really? That's so cool! So, he has a bunch of things he can toggle? Does he have a maximum number of things he can have on at once? Is there a cooldown to turning anything on or off? Are there separate cooldowns for each ability being turned on or off? Is being a Pikachu one of the toggles?" Her mouth ran a mile a minute, asking about the cool new parahuman powers, just as Crystal suspected it would.

"He actually goes into what he calls 'spectator mode' when he dies, so he can see and hear everything we are saying and doing, and he can fly around invisibly and 'no-clip' through solid things while he is dead." Crystal pre-empted her cousin before Vicky could say anything embarrassing.

While Crystal began filling in Vicky on what she knew of Dave's powers, Amy calmed down some more before slowly going over to Dave's body. She was about to reach down to examine it with her power and see if he was actually still alive when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.

"Crystal… is that plant pot moving?" Amy asked.

"Um… so it is. Huh. I'm not sure how, but I'm pretty sure this is Dave's fault." Crystal said as the plant pot finished slowly moving over to her before nudging her leg repeatedly. The plant pot managed to look offended.

"Just ignore him. I didn't know about this particular power but I'm nearly certain this is Dave somehow making the plant pot hump my leg." Crystal said with an impressively straight face, to which Vicky burst out laughing and Amy let out a small giggle at hearing her cousin's interpretation of what was happening.

While Vicky and Crystal continued their conversation about Dave's powers, with Amy keeping an ear out because it was actually quite interesting, Amy leaned down and touched Dave's body to look at it with her power.

It was weird. It wasn't a dead organism, but it certainly wasn't an alive organism either. Her power couldn't manipulate it at all, but she could feel it was different from both his normal, living form and his Pikachu form. It was like his body changed to be entirely made up of whatever his not-biology components were that were at the edges of his body's normal form, and that made up most of his body as a Pikachu. Her power kept poking at Dave's body like it was confused, but also confused about why it was confused.

Out of curiosity she touched the plant in the pot that was still nudging her cousin affectionately(?) and examined it with her power. It was… totally normal. Then one of the fronds of the plant slowly furled around her finger, then pulled on it.

Her face went flat. Totally normal my ass. Stupid power.

A couple minutes later, Eric came outside, saw the dead body in the yard, ignored it, and said "Lunch is ready ladies. Mom made burritos. I was going to ask about the microwave in the middle of the living room floor, but I think I figured out how it got there now."

Dave conveniently respawned at that moment. "Yay, burritos!" He cheered.

As they all went inside, Vicky and Amy saw the pile of towels, some of which were slightly bloody, surrounding a microwave and a weird handheld device with a red cross symbol on the side with green liquid in it.

While Amy was just done with things and didn't bother asking about them, Vicky was more curious. "What are those? Are you guys getting a new microwave? Why is there blood on those towels?"

Crystal answered the last question. "Well, there is blood on the towels because someone decided to kill himself in the living room for some reason, and I had to clean up the blood. I don't know about the microwave or the green thing, but I assume Dave is also to blame based on the proximity to where his body was when I came downstairs."

Before Dave could explain that he had become a Doctor, Sarah called them to eat. "Come on kids, lunch is ready, we can talk about powers after we've eaten."

After everyone had eaten Sarah's homemade laser-burritos, the conversation returned to Dave's powers now that Sarah wasn't interrupting them every time they tried to bring the topic up.

"My new role today made me a Doctor! Let me know if you find my rightful screwdriver or blue box, they are my birthright as a proud inheritor of this role." Dave said, before continuing his explanation on what new things he could do.

"So, this bad boy here," Dave slapped the microwave, "is a Healing Station. You can open it up and grab a Hot Pocket or a Burrito from inside, and eating those will heal you up, or you can just press a hand on it and focus on wanting to be healed. But only one person can be healed at a time, and it has a limited amount of charge, only enough to heal about two people from the verge of death to full health, and each Hot Pocket or Burrito will also use up charge. It automatically recharges over time though, just not as fast as it uses up charge when it is healing someone, which will take about a minute to bring someone to full health if they start on the verge of death. Every time you open the door though, a new Hot Pocket and a new Burrito will appear as long as there is charge, so it does mean I just made infinite food. You guys can keep this one. You're welcome. It's not indestructible, and if it takes enough damage, it will just cease to exist, so don't shoot it too many times with a gun or smack it too many times with a crowbar."

Dave continued after seeing their gobsmacked expressions. "Meanwhile this bad boy," he picked up the Parasite Cure, "is the Parasite Cure. It's hard to deduce what it does from the name, but it actually cures parasites! Like, all of them. If I had the Parasite role unlocked, and I was infesting someone and was about to burst out of their chest like that Alien movie, using this on the person I was infesting would cure them of me. It will also work on any other parasites, including but not limited to brain worms, tape worms, ear worms, ring worms, leeches, and ticks. You just hold it and focus on curing yourself for five seconds, or you hold it and focus on the person you want to heal—while being close enough to them, like within a couple feet or so—and then whoever it is used on will be cured of any and all parasites!"

"Like this!" He said, before starting to use it on himself. "Oh yeah, and if they don't have any parasites they die when you—" he cut off as the Parasite Cure finished. He died instantly.

"Well," Sarah said, ignoring her still gobsmacked nieces. "At least now we can make sure Amy cuts down her hospital hours."

"He just died, AGAIN." Amy nearly screamed at her aunt.

"Yes, he does that." Eric said, already having the benefit of experience with Dave over his cousins.

"That… what?" Vicky was still processing.

Amy meanwhile, after calming down a little, opened the Health Station, and took out a Hot Pocket, and examined it with her power. As she had suspected, it was the same not-biology that Dave himself was made of when he was dead… or at least that his body was made of since presumably his consciousness was what counted as 'him' and that was floating around elsewhere when he was dead.

"Oh, right," Crystal gently smacked her hand with her fist, "Mom, remind me to ask him about the plant pot when he comes back, I don't think he could do that before."

After she said that, the Healing Station started slowly moving a couple of centimeters at a time towards Crystal.

"I assume this is related to what you were talking about?" Sarah asked her daughter while indicating the slowly moving healing station, while Vicky leaned in to inspect the buttons on the healing station and holding it still with her super strength.

"I think this thing has options guys. Like, I think the buttons let us choose how hot we want the burrito or hot pocket, and what ingredients we want in them." Vicky said after examining the buttons for a moment.

She messed around with the buttons, before taking out a Burrito under Sarah's bemused gaze, and took a bite from it. Amy yelped and scolded her sister before grabbing her hand, "Idiot, wait until I'm able to start examining you first. Even if Dave was right about everything, we don't know what he or his power considers 'healing', and I need a baseline of you to make sure I catch everything it does."

"Aww, I knew you would save me if anything went wrong Ames. Anyways, Aunt Sarah, these burritos are pretty good, I think you might be in danger of being replaced." Vicky joked.

"Huh," Amy said after a moment.

"Well?" Vicky asked, totally confident in her sister's ability to protect her if there were adverse effects.

"It's hard to say what it is doing about 'damage' since you aren't exactly grievously wounded, but it is improving your health a little. It's removing cholesterol buildup in your arteries from all the junk food you eat that I haven't gotten rid of recently, and it's removing the lifetime of microplastics from your body."

Vicky frowned, "If I have microplastics in my body, why haven't you gotten rid of them sis?"

"Because they are in your brain," Amy said dryly, before letting go of Vicky's hand. "That was reckless Vicky. While Dave seems like he wouldn't intentionally harm us, and obviously Aunt Sarah and our cousins are vouching for him, you shouldn't recklessly try Parahuman effects on yourself, especially while I'm not already touching you and you've just seen another example of that same Parahuman's power instantly kill someone when used on them."

Vicky gave her sister puppy dog eyes. "But… but… I trusted you would save me if anything went wrong! And these burritos are so good and I was still hungry!"

Amy caved immediately. "Fine, as long as you don't do it again," she muttered.

After it was established just how wrapped around Vicky's finger Amy was, Eric took out a Hotpocket from the Health Station and offered "Mom, Crys, you two want to split this one with me? If we split it into thirds and eat our pieces one at a time we can let Amy examine its healing effects three times while also getting rid of any of those microplastic things she mentioned. That sound good Ames?" Eric directed the last part to Amy who nodded.

"Yeah, it's better to get as many samples as possible, especially when it comes to healing, though we will also need to get a non-parahuman volunteer to try the food— and the machine itself—to make sure it isn't limited to only healing parahumans or something."

Crystal immediately sold out her friend, "Bella will do it. She already knows Dave and is familiar with his powers. She also has never had a checkup from the legendary Panacea herself," Crystal smiled at Amy, who blushed a little at being called legendary after only having her powers for a little over a month, "so I'd be happy to have the assurance that would come from her having something that can remove health problems like this. Also, she might snack on them if they are healthy enough, she doesn't have enough snack options in her apartment."

"While I can't look at the burritos and Hotpockets themselves," Amy started before grabbing Vicky's hand again, "I can see them starting to break down in Vicky's system, and if I accelerate it a little," she looked at Vicky, who quickly gave permission to go ahead, "I can see… they seem to be breaking down into a wide mix of nutrients… in fact they seem to be breaking up into exactly whatever Vicky needs most of, while none of it is breaking up into the things she already has enough of."

She paused for a moment to let the accelerated operations of Vicky's stomach finish. "Huh, the last bit of the burrito just didn't turn into any calories, but the first part of the burrito did. I'm starting to think that it may just turn into whatever combination of nutrients and calories would be healthiest for whoever is consuming it, while just dissipating into nothingness if they don't need anything at all at that moment. It doesn't look like it's related to what it does for healing though, that happened as Vicky was eating it instead of while she was digesting it."

Crystal was impressed. "Wow, that's actually a lot more impressive than I was expecting. Dad will love these, I'm gonna set two of each aside for him for when he gets back. He needs to eat a lot, so something that tastes at least alright but also has all the nutrients and calories he needs will be great. We might even end up turning these into lunch boxes or something to bring with us when we are doing patrols or training and need a lot of calories. They will also probably make staying in shape a lot easier if they won't continue adding calories to our body after we have had enough already, while also providing enough nutrients like protein that we need to build muscle." She analyzed, before doing as she said and grabbing the Hot Pocket and Burrito from the Health Station, then closing the door to it and opening it again and grabbing the new Hot Pocket and Burrito, and going to the kitchen to set them in containers for her dad.

"I'm just glad that we'll have something to help Amy. Both to lighten her load at the hospital and in case she ever gets hurt. You spend too much time at the hospital Ames, and if Dave can get enough of these, then you won't have any excuse to spend so much time there!" Vicky said before pouting at Amy.

"I spend so much time there because people need healing Vicky. With a power able to healing, it is my responsibility to heal them, and if they aren't healed, that makes it my fault if they die or are permanently injured when I could have helped them."

"Bullshit," Sarah said, despite Eric's immediate "Language!" that spoke of being on the receiving end of a scolding for swearing too many times.

"Your only moral responsibility Amy, is to enjoy your childhood while you still can. You have an amazing power and can do a lot of good, yes, but it is not your duty to fix everything wrong with everyone. You should talk to Crystal about her Philosophy classes she is taking, and look into seeing if there are any you could take at Arcadia. You should never be thinking that way Amy, it risks too many things."

"Like what?" Amy asked, having never received anything but acceptance from her adopted mother at the idea of spending all her time at the hospital.

"Well for one thing, an overinflated ego. Power over people's life and death can cause god-complexes in regular doctors, let alone one of the world's most powerful healers. It's not a major risk with you of course, but you could end up that way after a few years if the cards fell the wrong way. Burnout is a near guarantee, along with overwhelming guilt for everyone you fail to save, and there will be people you fail to save, whether because you aren't quick enough at healing them, they are too stubborn to accept help, they don't get to you quickly enough, they are too damaged for you to help by the time they get to you, or they have something wrong with their brains. That's not mentioning that there is only so much time in the day, and you can't be everywhere at once, and simple logistics means you can't help two people on opposite sides of the cities if both are near death, and trying to save both could mean failing to save either." Sarah went into lecture mode, as Amy looked slightly guilty, but also thoughtful, while Vicky was just happy that someone else was telling Amy all this and seemed to be getting it into her skull successfully.

"Then there is the risk of people becoming dependent on you. If people think they can just be treated by Panacea as long as they go to the hospital, a lot of idiots will take risks and injure themselves when they otherwise wouldn't and that will get some of them killed. Some of those idiots will just be teenagers doing stupid stunts to impress their friends because they don't know any better and their brains haven't developed the right parts to properly understand how to measure risks yet."

Vicky looked guilty now, probably because she was a risk-taking teenager. Sarah continued her lecture, having built up even more steam.

"And then there are the villains. If the villains see that injuring a hero just results in them coming back a couple days later because you healed them, they will be more likely to seriously injure a hero and risk accidentally killing them, or just escalating and killing a hero on purpose because they don't want them to be back in the field as quickly as you can get them back in. Either way, healing heroes too much and too indiscriminately can result in villains escalating and heroes dying."

Sarah still had more to say. "Then there are doctors and pharmaceutical companies. They are busy people yes, but if you somehow managed to heal everyone the doctors would become dependent on you because they are used to have you bail them out if they make mistakes, in addition to you just being able to heal people much more quickly. They also might stop ordering drugs that they need to help people if those drugs start going bad because you heal people that would otherwise need them before they actually use the drugs. Then there are insurance rates. They have to decide insurance rates and you affect those in multiple ways…" Sarah continued on, starting to make Amy dizzy from how much Sarah had to say about her hospital time.

(Big) Author's Note: Here we go, another serious-ish conversation. The Pelham house really seems to attract those doesn't it? Either way, we find out Amy has surprisingly few mental problems so far. I use the Worm Wiki Timeline page for a lot in this story, and it says that Vicky claims that Amy triggered some time in 2010, but that Amy claims she triggered in late 2009. I'm inclined to believe Amy with regards to when Amy triggered.

Anyways, that means she has only been working at the hospital for a little while, she only recently made her decision to not work on brains, and she only recently made the decision to not do anything with her power beyond healing. In other words, she isn't really burning out yet, she hasn't lost touch with reality from getting too much gratitude from people, she isn't overwhelmed by internal guilt for not saving everybody, she hasn't started smoking yet, and her power isn't furious at her for not using it for anything aside from healing. She's still a closeted lesbian that has an incest fetish and isn't aware that 'step-something' is one of the most common porn tropes of all time and has few friends in high school… and lives in Brockton Bay, so obviously she isn't exactly a picture of mental health, but it's nowhere near as bad yet as people (readers, not people on Earth Bet) normally think of her being.

It turns out, drawing the Pelhams' attention to Amy's problems before they start snowballing may be just what the doctor ordered… heh, I'm so clever… get it? Because Panacea and healing, and Dave just got the Doctor role?... Okay, I'm sorry, I'll go now.

Not really going, I've still got more to say, I'll probably put this author's note in a spoiler box actually. So, Dave had a lot of extra space in his soul because he hasn't gotten that many roles yet and only the Doctor has had shop items so far, so his power went a little ham on adding features like ingredient options for the hot pockets and burritos. (Get it, went ham on adding ingredients?... I'm sorry)

This doesn't mean he can solve world hunger. While he can generate a new source of infinite food every ten minutes, that won't actually help with world hunger that much. (I want to say Accord canonically had the goal of solving world hunger as well actually. If someone can verify that for me, that would be nice, and I'll start planning to take that into account down the road). In real life, we actually have enough food to solve world hunger, and have had enough for a while. The problem is that it is expensive to get the food to where the people that need it are, and then those people aren't necessarily able to afford it, especially after the price increases to reflect how difficult it was to transport the food there. Ultimately, in real life, the problem with world hunger is purely cost and logistics. If we had unlimited Star Trek style transporters that didn't need energy, we could solve World Hunger in however long it took to get the paper work done… and we solved poverty, because otherwise we would also need to be willing to give food to people who can't afford to pay for it, and the Star Trek thing is more likely than that happening.

On Earth Bet however, someone like Accord could –given enough time— singlehandedly make a logistics network sufficient to solve world hunger… if it weren't for the Endbringers, who would attack both the network itself and food sources like farms. Unfortunately, without at least a few years to stockpile enough Health Stations, and some method to ensure they wouldn't get destroyed by bad actors after arriving wherever they needed to go, Dave just can't make enough food to actually make a dent in world hunger.

Also, Dave remembers he can possess props while in spectator mode!

There are a couple other things that happened that are worth mentioning, like the parasite cures, but I'll leave that for you to discuss and think about as you wish.

I'm sure absolutely nothing will go wrong with using parasite cures on Earth Bet. Why would anything go wrong with using a parasite cure on Earth Bet after all?

Phili · Aug 4, 2026

Chapter 16: Operation Protect Pan-Pan is a Go!

January 3, 2010. Brockton Bay, Pelham House, the Dining Room.

Amy was mentally spinning while Crystal and Eric looked on with sympathy at receiving one of Sarah's lectures, this one in particular, they had both received before on how doing the right thing was actually wrong under certain circumstances. Vicky just looked happy that Amy would probably be spending less time at the hospital.

"I'm back!" Dave said as he respawned from where he had died.

"Welcome back," Eric said reflexively, before doing a small double take at the exact situation, before shrugging and deciding it was the right thing to say anyways.

"So," Dave said, turning to Amy, "I hear you have a neat power."

"Yes?" Amy said suspiciously, but still off-kilter from Sarah's lecture.

"Can you do more than healing with it? Like, could you turn someone else into a Pikachu? Then make them evolve? Then turn them back into a human? Or like—" Dave got interrupted.

"Ames can only do healing I'm afraid." Vicky said in a slightly guarded tone.

"Oh, that's a shame. While it doesn't seem like it would have a ton of synergy with my powers, that would have been a pretty strong Trump rating if you could do more. It's quite good as it is of course, but I'm sure everyone here aside from myself, along with your parents and uncle would enjoy a bit of extra protection from a bonus to their Brute ratings, along with things like enhanced reflexes and stamina to make sure they can avoid injuries and stay active in fights. Maybe you could try something like blood doping them? All-natural steroids by 'healing' them to give them extra blood, and therefore oxygen as an emergency performance boost during combat? I know there are all kinds of neat superpowers in the natural animal world, I think gorillas are like four times as strong as a human the same size and stuff, so I just wanted to know if you could do things like give Crystal the superpower of that one lizard, and let her shoot blood out of her eyes." Dave went in a different direction than Vicky and Amy expected, but about where Crystal, Sarah, and Eric thought he was going. Not the exact details, but wanting Crystal to be able to shoot blood out of her eyes seemed pretty on-brand for Dave.

"Oh. Uhh, maybe I could try the oxygen thing?" Amy said, desperately looking at Vicky for help.

"We can try it later, just us two." Vicky said.

Neither one noticed Sarah and Crystal looking at them suspiciously.

"So Crystal, why did you want me to bring this?" Vicky asked, holding up a water bottle with a piece of tape on it with the words 'DO NOT DRINK'.

Crystal was ecstatic, "You actually brought it? Pay up Eric, I win!"

"No you don't, I never agreed to that sucker's bet. It was obvious that Vicky was going to do it as soon as she heard it would do something interesting with powers." Eric said.

"Hey, I'm not that predictable," Vicky pouted.

"Yes you are Vicky, we love you, but you brought your used bathwater without asking questions as soon as you heard it might do something interesting with a parahuman power," Crystal said.

Crystal quickly explained the gist of Dave's Beggar role, and that he had already 'loosened up' another role with it that would let him unlock a bunch of neat things, including things he could give others like the Healing Station, and that Crystal suspected Vicky's bathwater would be enough to fully unlock it.

"So, since an open cape's panties were enough to almost unlock the role, I was thinking, someone like you Vicky, who is a 'gamer girl', and an open cape, and objectively highly attractive, would be even more significant, and the bathwater would be 'bigger' so to speak compared to panties, and thus would probably fully unlock his role." Crystal finished her explanation.

"You gave him your panties?" Amy questioned.

"No," Crystal did not elaborate.

Amy turned to stare at Sarah who just smiled with amusement and didn't clarify.

"Well, if Aunt Sarah did it… sure!" Vicky came to a decision remarkably quickly. Nobody corrected her assumption, Sarah out of mischief and Crystal and Eric out of mortification, Amy out of ignorance, and Dave out of not wanting to accidentally prevent himself from getting a Toy.

"Dave," Sarah interrupted before any reckless decisions could be made, "Be sure you want to do this now. If it does work, then that means the protectorate won't be able to analyze your power while you are gaining a new role. If you don't care then that's fine, but if you want to know more about what happens when you gain a role, you should consider waiting until they have you hooked up to things to analyze what is happening."

Dave nodded to Sarah solemnly.

"Toy please," Dave reached out his hand. Vicky handed the cheap plastic water bottle, which she just now realized was probably a source of the microplastics Amy had mentioned, over to Dave and waited to see if anything would happen.

"So… want another superpower?" Dave turned to Amy and asked.

"What… me? I don't go into combat. And did it work?" Amy questioned confusedly.

"I am now a Traitor! And even if you don't plan to go into combat, this bad boy also helps with noncombat! It's the ultimate soda!" He said, before pulling out a purple soda bottle from his inventory, implying it did in fact work. The soda bottle had the words "PhD Flopper" written on the side in large letters.

"You just do this…" he said before chugging the entire thing and letting out a loud burp.

"And Viola! I am now immune to explosions and fall damage. Also, if I would fall a far enough distance at a fast enough speed to actually harm me, I just explode instead! So now I can jump off a building onto an Innocent Terrorist and cause an explosion big enough to kill them instantly!"

"It's voila not viola, a viola is a musical instrument like a smaller violin" Crystal said at the same time as Amy said "You can't just kill people, and what do you mean 'innocent terrorist'?"

Eric had another question. "Can you turn off the making-an-explosion part though? That seems like, if she takes it, it's just asking for her to get tossed by a villain or something and accidentally kill someone when she lands."

"Nope! Can't turn off the explosions. Well, I'll be able to eventually, maybe I can extend that to other people? Maybe make a variation? But for now, no."

"I don't think I should take it then," Amy said reluctantly, unhappy about losing out on cool powers, but not really seeing the point in powers that only protect against explosions and falling when she shouldn't be seeing combat anyways, especially if they came with the downside of risking killing other people any time she fell hard enough.

"Actually, Dave, do you know how those interact with flight?" Sarah asked with interest.

"Yes actually, that was going to be my next offer… as soon as I got enough credits to buy more anyways. If you land on the ground normally, nothing happens, if you would hurt yourself when you land, you explode, but also aren't actually hurt by either the explosion or by the fall." Dave replied.

"Hmm, I think we flyers might take you up on that then. If we actually need to cause the explosion, Crystal, Eric, Vicky and I can all disable our forcefields at our feet and increase our flight speed while going down to land harder; and if we don't want to cause the explosion, we can just land gently or keep our forcefields up, or both." Sarah said thoughtfully, before turning to Vicky.

"Vicky, it's up to you if you want to use one of these, but you and Eric will both need to do some training before you're allowed to drink one of those."

"What, why?" Eric complained.

"Because you two are the youngest aside from Amy, who was mature enough to think through what she wanted and decided to refuse a flashy new power. This won't help any of us much, but it has a lot of synergy with Mark's powers and would let him use his explosions nearer to us, even right next to us, and would increase New Wave's effectiveness as a whole. While he probably won't want one of these himself since he is already immune to his own explosions, us taking them would make him a lot more effective. If you two want to take it, you would be training with me and Mark, and my sister if she decides to take it, so we can make sure you have the maturity required to actually use it properly, and not do anything stupid like damage property and hurt people by causing an unnecessary explosion when you land for dramatic effect."

"I meant why doesn't Crystal have to do it?" Eric asked.

"Because she is a fully grown adult now, she will be training with me to get a handle on it if she decides to use it, but I trust she is mature enough to not need extra training to ensure she won't do something stupid with a flashy new power. If she wasn't going to be busy with college, I would have said she would probably be helping train you and Vicky with it."

Dave nodded sagely throughout Sarah's explanation, before turning back to Amy.

"So, I was thinking, I'll get you other stuff eventually, but right now, you are my squishiest friendo aside from Bella, who will be getting her own toys from me later. If you don't want a Flopper, I'll find other toys for you to play with. In the meantime, take these!" He pulled out a bunch of goodies for the Panpan to play with.

"And just let me know if you ever need a refill on ammo or supplies, or if you lose or break any of these, and I'll give you a new one, I have an unlimited supply!" he said as he handed her a whole bunch of family friendly fun things. While he hadn't gotten any new credits yet after he bought the flopper, he would eventually equip as much of New Wave (and Bella) as he could with fun toys.

He gave her a Pocket Sniper Rifle, a Flare Gun that worked both as a regular flare gun and a device that set anyone hit by a 'bullet' from it on fire for a set amount of time (but the 'bullet' itself didn't harm them)—though it also perfectly destroyed any bodies it was used on and left no evidence behind—, a minifier, a parasite cure, a knife ("I'll teach you how to throw it," he told her), a pistol, a double barrel shotgun, and two of each kind of grenade he had available: Smoke, Discombobulator, and Incendiary.

"There we go, now if you don't like someone you can diagnose them with a bullet to the face from mysterious causes, it was too late by the time you got to them. And if some asshole tries to kidnap you to force you to heal them like one of those stupid movie cliché things, you can 'diagnose' them with the Parasite Cure –actually take two, just in case they do have parasites—so when they suddenly die of mysterious causes, nobody can be blamed for their unexpected allergic reaction to life!" Dave suggested brightly to Amy who now had her arms full of guns and grenades and had had to set the knife, minifier, and parasite cure down on the table.

"I don't know how to use any of these things," Amy said.

"Don't worry, we can fix that with a little time and unlimited ammo! I'll make you into a wonderful terrorist before you know it."

Amy turned to Vicky, "Help."

"No-can-do sis," Vicky said, "I always wanted you to have more ways of defending yourself, this works great as far as I'm concerned."

Sarah gave her input, "We'll need to make arrangements, and actually get you trained with how and when to use firearms, but I don't see a problem with you having some of those with you when you are acting as a hero. You obviously can't bring most of those to school—" "Why not?" wondered Dave – "but when healing in the hospital or working as a hero, or just walking down the street when you might get recognized, having a concealed weapon that you only use in an emergency could be a good thing. I trust you Amy, to be mature enough to only bring a weapon out if you actually need it, and a flare gun is a good way to quickly signal you need help in an emergency if you can't call one of us quickly enough for some reason. You know what happened to my sister and I, so I actually do approve of Dave's measures in case you get kidnapped, and if you need to use his parasite cure as he suggested, well…" she chuckled darkly in anger at the though of someone kidnapping her adopted niece "sometimes things happen, and I would argue Darwinism can count as natural causes. I believe that one," she pointed at the minifier, "is the thing Dave uses to shrink, and that could be a great tool for escaping in an emergency, or just being harder to find, so I'll see if I can get the school to let you bring it with you so you can always have it on you."

Amy was wide eyed at how protective her aunt was. "That's… a lot. Are you sure? I thought the idea was to make sure nobody attacked me in the first place?"

"It is," Sarah confirmed before continuing "but while we did put measures in place, and designed your costume and filled out the paperwork to have you protected under truce, it doesn't mean much if whoever attacks you is destroyed if you are hurt or killed in the process. That's a thought," Sarah paused mid-speech, she really seemed to like her speeches, didn't she?

"If you are willing, now that you will be spending less time at the hospital," she put a lot of emphasis on that, both the part about Amy being willing and the part about spending less time at the hospital "we can see about contacting permanently injured and disabled heroes, and even rogues, across the country, or even through the Guild to get some international heroes, or maybe even further abroad, and you could heal them, and they will owe you a favor. As long as we play our cards right and make it known how many formerly disabled heroes you have helped, we can make sure your reputation expands to include 'is protected and will be avenged by hundreds, or even thousands, of heroes across the entire globe.' At the same time of course, we –or rather, you— would also be bringing disabled heroes back into the scene, and doing good from the direct manner of having healed them and indirect good from all the people they will then help."

"Of course," Sarah continued, "No amount of reputation will help with certain kinds of people, either idiots, people not in their right mind, or the utterly insane and evil like the Nine or the Teeth, so I think we should still go with Dave's idea of arming you and concealing as many weapons on you as we can after teaching you how and when to use them."

She looked at Amy affectionately, "I know you don't come over as often as you used to Amy, but we do all love you and want you protected. You don't have to carry the firearms if you really don't want to, but I suggest you do, your hero robes are highly concealing anyways, and if nobody knows, then they won't anticipate them; and they would mostly be idiot insurance in the first place. Either way, I would like to strongly advise you to at least bring the shrinking thing with you everywhere you go, and the knife and flare gun when you aren't in school." Sarah finished.

Amy was gobsmacked for some reason. Honestly, she looked like she hadn't received open affection from an adult in months and had forgotten what it felt like or something.

Author's Note: And here we go. Another serious-ish conversation at the Pelham house. I've always felt that Worm's grimderpness was built on a pile of bad decisions and idiocy yes, but also on a pile of bad lack and unfortunate timing and coincidences, along with a heaping of poor communication. Seriously, how unlikely was it that Amy never realized a step-sibling fetish was one of the most common kinks of all time (according to porn statistics at least)? Not to mention, I feel like a lot of problems in Worm are caused by the same thing that causes a good 30 or more percent of problems in all of fiction: communication, or lack thereof.

Continuing that line of thought… All it takes to start chipping away at Amy's problems is a little luck making Sarah and Crystal notice something is stressing Amy out early on, and giving her the love and affection she craves but can't get from her step-mother, while also representing two sane(-ish, they are still parahumans) adults that are smart enough to suss out Amy's 'dark secrets' and pop her self-hatred balloon before it gets too big.

Meanwhile, Dave has decided that the Panpan must be protected so she can grow into a big strong terrorist, and has decided to teach her his ways, since she is, as far as he knows, the most vulnerable person he knows, as someone that is just as defenseless as Bella, but with less common sense and a much bigger target… not that he isn't going to also equip Bella.

There are some pretty neat things in the Traitor menu, and New Wave will be getting some upgrades… but only eventually, for now, he is out of credits and doesn't have many things available in his shop.

Next time, we find out the consequences to squeezing Dave's soul full of 5 roles when it is only supposed to fit 3! It's not a terrible consequence really, just a bit of an annoyance really. After that, we go to see the Protectorate, meet some other heroes, get some power testing done, and maybe corrupt a couple of wards along the way. The next day (in-universe), Dave is going to go on his first patrol! So those of you waiting for action, you only need to wait a little bit longer, I promise.

Phili · Aug 5, 2026

Chapter 17: Where Dave Offers to Let Miss Militia Stroke His Dingus

January 4, 2010. Brockton Bay, Dave's Apartment.

Dave woke up feeling the consequences of his actions. He had never actually felt pain before, but now he felt sore for the first time since he woke up all those (three) days ago.

It turned out, squeezing five roles into his soul in a three-day period, when he is supposed to only get one new role per day, had consequences.

After lunch at the Pelham's house yesterday, he had returned home and, after some light prodding from DAF (also known as Daf), gone into his bed. Daf had claimed that as a result of squeezing so many roles into his soul so quickly, his soul got overfilled and stretched a little, and Dave needed to go into low-power mode for a while until Daf fixed everything. Also, his soul was 'absolutely not ready for the P-A-P,' so that has now been manually removed from his shop by Daf.

As a result of needing Daf to fix his soul for longer, Dave had been asleep since about 1:00 PM the previous day, until exactly 7:00 AM today.

Hey Dave.

So, I've fixed everything and removed from the shop that shop item you bought that you weren't supposed to have access to, so I hope you used it wisely. You'll be able to buy more of it when you have enough room though don't worry. In the meantime, I had to disable most of the interesting roles for today to make sure you didn't overfill your soul again, so you had a much smaller pool of roles you could get today. Because you were sleeping and shitposting online most of yesterday, you didn't expand your soul very much compared to the previous couple days, so you didn't have a ton of room for me to add things.

Your new role today is the Romantic! It will work just as you expect. You will have one person randomly selected, and you will know for certain that they are good. Also, you will be in a one-way soulmate relationship with them, they are your soulmate, but you are not their soulmate. They will gain no special information about you, and if they die, so do you, but if you die, nothing happens to them.

You'll know when you see them. Good luck!

"Huh, I still can't read this."

Wuh? JFjfnesekjfbesjgesiugb! YOU FUCKING CAN'T? I JUST FUCKING TROUBLESHOOTED YOUR SOUL FOR 16 HOURS STRAIGHT, THE FUCK YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T?

"Oh, my bagel's done. Yum."

January 4, 2010. Brockton Bay, Protectorate Headquarters.

The forcefield roadway was kind of neat, but even being driven over it in Sarah's car wasn't really adequate compensation for missing out on Dave's requested method of transportation.

"I'm telling you," Dave reiterated, "we totally could have done a flying totem Pole, with each person carrying another person on their shoulders. It would have been Photon Mom, Glory Girl, Shielder, Laserdream, me, then Panpan, and it would have been glorious. Vicky, you like glory, right?" Dave had decided to use Solid Snake as his Hero skin, to use when doing hero things.

"Please don't call me Photon Mom," Sarah said dryly from where she was driving.

"And call me Glory Girl while everyone is in costume, it's a bad habit to get into. It's okay to make mistakes with calling us New Wave heroes by our names, but making that mistake with anyone else will cause you problems." Vicky said with an air of wisdom. She, Amy, Dave, and Eric were in the back seats of the car New Wave used for official operations. This probably didn't really count as one, but it was borderline, and the car had enough room for everyone, so it was what they used. Sarah and Crystal were there as official New Wave liaisons, and Amy was there to help with power testing, and Eric and Vicky were there because they wanted to watch.

"Speaking from experience?" Crystal asked teasingly from the front seat.

"No, of course not, I would never make such a silly mistake!" Vicky retorted with a bit of heat.

"Uhuh," Amy said doubtfully.

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Eric said.

"Totem Pole, Glory Girl, yes or no?"

"Why would you be carrying my sister?" she asked suspiciously. Apparently, she still wasn't over his comment that Panacea could examine him 'anytime, anywhere baby'.

"Well, we are the only ones without Forcefields that let us imitate super strength, and unless she is way buffer than she looks under those clothes, I don't think she is going to be able to carry me… or anyone else for that matter. Besides that, she needs to be carried by someone who can help her if she or they fall, and when I double jump, I break my momentum and can thus fall from any height and land safely while carrying her, even if everyone else that can fly somehow fails to catch us." Dave replied.

"You've put a lot of thought into this I see," Sarah observed.

"Of course! I always take Totem Poling seriously!"

"Please don't call it that," Crystal requested.

"Why?" Dave asked.

"It sounds… dirty when you call it that. I'm not sure why, but it does." Eric answered for her. Apparently, he had the same thought process as Crystal, since she didn't disagree with his reasoning on why Dave shouldn't call it that.

"Hmm, are you sure you aren't just dirty minded? I knew you were a prude, but I didn't think you were so repressed as to think something as pure and innocent as Totem Poling was lewd. You've even corrupted your brother! For shame Crystal, for shame." Dave said in despair.

Vicky and Amy snickered, while Sarah gave a small smirk that is every parent's right at seeing their children harmlessly embarrassed.

While Crystal was wise to the ways of Dave, Eric was doing his best to object.

Dave answered Erics objections, "so are you saying you aren't on a fifteen-year dry spell for sex? Fifteen years is a long time, and makes it perfectly understandable to become sexually repressed after that long, but if you aren't on a dry spell of over a decade, what's your excuse for being such a pervert?"

"Yeah," Crystal piled on, doing her noble duty as an older sister, "and when are you going to introduce us to your girlfriend you've apparently been having sex with? Are you embarrassed to introduce her to us or something? Are you humiliated by the fact that we are family?" She asked with crocodile tears in her eyes.

"Crystal!" Eric shouted.

"Ah, I see, it's okay if you have a boyfriend instead Eric. You know everyone in the family is an ally, and we can send you to college in New York with Legend to protect you from the Nazis after you graduate high school." Crystal continued on.

Dave and Crystal both noticed Amy oddly perk up at that last bit for some reason though.

Ah, I see, Dave thought. Clearly, she is one of those Fujoshi things!

After they were checked in, and Sarah had made sure that Dave remembered everything regarding what he planned to tell the Protectorate, they all filed in to the Protectorate Headquarters from the parking lot.

"Welcome," Miss Militia said, giving her patented Eye Smile ™. "You said you wanted to go by 'Solid Snake,' or 'Snake' for short during the testing but hadn't decided on a final cape name, right?"

"Doki Doki." Dave said.

"What?" Miss Militia asked with confusion.

Crystal slapped a hand over Dave's mouth and ignored him as he immediately began licking her hand, like a goat that just discovered salt-covered feet.

"Sorry about him Miss Militia, he is… weird. Like, really weird. Like, really, really weird. He doesn't mean anything negative by anything he does or says, but he tends to… not give the greatest first impression, as my mom will agree—will you quit licking my hand?" Crystal took her hand away from Dave's mouth, resigned that she couldn't cover his mouth forever, and he was determined to stick his foot into his mouth as soon as she stopped covering it with her hand.

"I'm sure it'll be fine if you let him speak, though I'm not quite sure what he said earlier…" Miss Militia started, before staring.

"Milady," Dave said, tipping the cowboy hat he was suddenly wearing, before getting down on one knee.

"It's always wonderful to meet a fellow Traitor Terrorist, especially one with such a great appreciation for holding a perfectly reasonable amount of firearms inside a hammerspace to deploy at the slightest provocation," Dave began.

"Upon seeing you, it feels like there is a soul bond between us, and I have suddenly become a Romantic, and I would surely perish if you were to die. May I offer you this token of affection to keep you safe?" Dave said, holding out a bomb Defuser to her.

After Miss Militia reflexively took the bomb defuser from his hand, he pulled out his secret weapon of romanticism. "And to show my sincerity, I will allow you to pet my dingus." He said, holding out his dingus.

dingus, no capital D, was a cat that normally took up the grenade slot, and apparently counted as a rare item, but did not count as a shop item. As soon as he realized he had a dingus yesterday, Dave had bought the Pack-A-Punch item from his shop (which then broke his soul a little) and used it. The Pack-A-Punch upgraded any item it was used on, and it worked on both normal guns and grenades and potions, and on shop items, but the Pack-A-Punch cost a credit, so it was best to use it wisely. After Dave realized he couldn't buy anymore Pack-A-Punches (or P-A-Ps, or PAPs as they are also known), he used it on the best thing he could. A Packapunched dingus would gradually change color throughout every color in the rainbow. Like a normal dingus, it also meowed when pet. That was all it did, because that was all it needed to do. His only PAP for the foreseeable future was truly spent on the best possible thing.

"Meow." dingus meowed, purring. The entirety of New Wave present simultaneously facepalmed.

Miss Militia stared.

Nailed it.

Author's Note: Here we go, a nice gentle car ride across a forcefield road that seems like it should be a mario kart level, and nothing else of note happens. Oh yes, and I suppose he calls Miss Militia a fellow terrorist. I'm sure it'll be fiiiiiiine.

Oh yes, and we find out the (admittedly minor) consequence of using the Beggar role as it is intended and gaining new roles from it. It probably would have been fine a week later, but only a few days in to having his power, it meant his soul had nearly double the roles it was supposed to, so it borked things a little. It did let him get a PAP earlier than he was supposed to, which proceeded to break things more, and made him need to enter Sleep Mode so Daf could install System Updates. After this, Daf will be disabling other methods of gaining roles for a while, mainly the Drunk, which would give him a new role every three minutes he had it turned on otherwise, so now the Drunk will only be able to give Drunken powers like how the Old Man got the Combat Thinker thing. Otherwise, Dave would actually permanently die from the Drunk role unlocking everything at once if Daf didn't notice what was happening quickly enough. Good thing the Beggar role revealed that early on huh?

Dave found out who his soul mate is… but just because she is his soul mate doesn't mean he is her soul mate.

Also, we meet dingus (no capital D). Does Dave have an unlimited supply of dinguses? Yes. Is the plural of dingus dinguses or dingi? I don't know. If anyone does know, hook me up with the correct answer.

Phili · Aug 6, 2026

Chapter 18: Power Testing! Finally! Wait a Minute, Didn't We Already Use That Title?

January 4, 2010. Brockton Bay, Protectorate Headquarters.

Crystal Pelham

No way, is she… blushing? Crystal stared in disbelief as Miss Militia, Crystal's first childhood female role model aside from her mom and aunts, blushed at receiving a weird rainbow cat and a bomb defuser from her new idiot friend. It was hard to see because of Miss Militia's bandana covering the lower half of her face, including most of her cheeks, but it was there.

"And you use this button to deactivate the bomb, but not move it at all. This button will bring the bomb directly to the bomb defuser after defusing it, and this one will simply erase the bomb from existence. It works through focusing on what you want to defuse, so you can't accidentally turn off a bomb you don't mean to, and it has a couple feet of range. You can also use it on a person and it will work on any and all bombs on or inside them, as long as the defuser itself is held within a couple feet of some part of their body. Unfortunately, the whole thing is one-time use and will stop existing after it's used, but I can give you another one later to practice with." Dave was explaining… or flirting? It was weird.

Miss Militia meanwhile, was saying "Oh, that would be nice, I don't have a good way of dealing with a lot of explosives at the moment, I mostly have to try and contain them with Containment Foam and evacuate the area when I encounter them. We don't really encounter them often in the bay, and I don't think there have been any capes or cape organizations that used them in a few years here, but this would have been amazing for me throughout the years… for a variety of reasons."

Miss Militia trailed off before reaching up to pet the cat Dave had called 'dingus' (no capital D, Dave insisted), that had crawled up onto her shoulders, and was audibly purring still, but seemed receptive to Dave's weird terrorism flirting.

This… had to stop.

I'm sorry Dave, my introduction that you were just weird but didn't mean any harm worked too well. I have to fix my mistakes.

"Miss Militia, you should know… he's 18." Crystal suddenly said, while Dave was about to start the process of making Miss Militia as unlikely to die as possible. After all, if she died, then Dave would die too, and unless Miss Militia was alive when he respawned, he would just immediately die again, even if he came back through the Parasite or the Phantom.

Wait a minute… he can just turn off the Romantic role. Oh. Well, she seemed happy about the bomb defuser so she can keep that, and it's not like dingus is mortal, and he can just make more dinguses as needed, even if they won't be rainbow color-shifting dinguses.

Miss Militia looked surprised and oddly disappointed. Was she that unhappy he was 18? According to his ID at least.

"Actually, it's arguable that I am 3," he said.

Miss Militia grew more confused. "You mean, like a leap birthday? Because being 18 would still make you 4 if you were only counting your 'number of birthdays' and you had been born on leap day. And you… don't exactly look 18 as it is."

"Actually, I meant 3 da—" Crystal slapped her hand over his mouth again.

"Mom, did he tell you what he decided he wanted to do about things?" Crystal asked her mom for help.

"I suppose I can help you out," Sarah, or rather, Lady Photon said, now that the free entertainment seemed to be over. She hadn't gained the information she wanted, but since her daughter asked for help, she should probably oblige her.

"Yes, he did tell me what he wanted to tell the Protectorate, which you would know if you had been paying attention. And yes, Miss Militia, he is really 18. He has a changer ability, and this particular appearance was the one he decided on for being his 'hero costume' because it looked 'the most natural for pulling out a ton of guns'. He was probably going to say that he is arguably only 3 days old due to his amnesia, which…" Lady Photon began filling in Miss Militia, and by extension the Protectorate, on Dave's amnesia.

"That's… really interesting actually." Miss Militia said with unusual eagerness, especially after hearing Crystal's theory regarding the amnesia being caused by a trigger going wrong due to research saying every Parahuman forgot things from their trigger. Miss Militia actually seemed weirdly invested in the theory, even asking Crystal if she knew of any other related information.

Crystal didn't, but promised to contact her if she found out anything more on the topic.

"Well, I'm afraid the Protectorate can't help you much in regards to your amnesia. There are programs in place to help Case 53s, but I don't believe there is anything in place for other amnesia-related cases. If Panacea couldn't find a cause for it, I don't think anyone else will be able to either. The only person I can think of that might be able to help you is Scapegoat, and he isn't Protectorate affiliated, nor does the East-North-East Protectorate have the funding to hire him willy nilly. We might be able to arrange it if you joined as a full member, but even then…" Miss Militia gave a helpless shrug. "I'm afraid I don't think we can do much to help you with memory loss." She finished.

"Um, I wasn't actually asking for help with that, I've been doing fine on my own, and New Wave have kindly been showing me the ropes. I'm mostly here for the power testing, because I don't have the means to safely test all of my current powers myself, and I don't particularly mind the Protectorate knowing what I can do. And of course, I want to make a decent impression on the Protectorate and make sure they know who I am so I don't accidentally get labeled as a villain or have someone panic when meeting me in an emergency setting or something." Dave shrugged.

"That's remarkably well-thought-out reasoning. I wish more new parahumans would come to us for testing, even if they decide not to join. I do understand that not everyone wants to join the Protectorate, one of my dear friends ended up leaving the Protectorate, and she happily operates as an effective hero still." Miss Militia seemed surprised when Dave used his basic competence skills. Maybe they were secretly intermediate competence skills? Or even… advanced competence skills?

"Would you like to register as an independent hero? Or were you planning to become a part of New Wave?" Miss Militia asked after a moment.

"We're still discussing the possibility of Dave joining us," Sarah said. "We don't want to rush him into any decisions before he is ready, and we want to give him plenty of time to think things through and decide what exactly he wants."

"I see, well, we can come back to that after the testing itself. For now, we're here." Miss Militia said as they entered a large room full of various pieces of equipment, along with a great deal of open space.

"Armsmaster will join us soon to look at your things. Lady Photon said you called them 'items,' and she described them as being 'Tinkertech-like' is that correct?" Miss Militia asked after looking at a clipboard for a moment.

"Yup, indeed it is," Dave answered.

"Well then, if you are ready, then we can start. The technicians will be guiding you through a series of tests based on the paperwork Lady Photon filled out, but let us know if there are any other tests you want to run or things you think we should know about." Miss Militia said, distractedly petting Dingus the rainbow cat.

They started with a series of simple physical tests, which Dave passed with flying colors, for a normal human. The technicians did note that his capabilities didn't quite match with what he looked like he should be able to do based on the development of various muscle groups he had, but accepted it with a shrug after being told it was a mostly aesthetic changer form.

Things got rather interesting when they were testing his jumping abilities however.

"So, your normal jump height is here, and your maximum double jump height is here. Do you think you could go any higher?" The technician (her nametag said Stacy, not that he trusted a nametag, anyone could be in disguise after all) asked after pointing at two black lines on a measuring stick.

"Yeah, I can squeeze a little more height out." Dave said, before jumping, then jumping again at the peak of his jump height using his Old Man 'Combat Thinker' skill, then… crouching? At the peak of his second jump he crouched, and his head moved a little, giving him a good extra half a foot of height. It looked incredibly odd, and didn't change his moment like a double jump, and was utterly useless for anything other than jumping the smallest bit higher, but had a massive trade-off in how awkward the movement became.

"That… what? That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen," one of the technicians said after a moment.

Dave turned to him "Are you challenging me? Because I accept!" Dave said enthusiastically, but only managed to take a single step forward before the entirety of New Wave's younger generation dogpiled him. Eric was screaming "DO NOT CHALLENGE HIM TO A STUPID CONTEST, YOU MORON!"

"I wasn't though! He challenged me!" Dave said from the bottom of the pile with an aggrieved air.

"I wasn't talking to you," Eric answered.

"So, is there anything interesting you wanted to cover with your changer power?" Miss Militia asked after Dave got bored of telling the Technicians he couldn't turn into such and such thing or this or that famous hero or villain. They did find he could choose to use his normal voice, or the 'correct' voice of whatever his skin was, though the technicians seemed doubtful of those being the correct voices instead of what he thought would be the correct voices because none of them had heard of many of the things he turned into. Dave had just thought he was really good at imitating Pikachu and Solid Snake voices until the technicians actually tested it.

"Sure!" Dave said, before turning into Shaun the Sheep from Wallace and Gromit. Then… T-Posing, which for some reason lowered his entire body through the floor without interacting with the floor itself, leaving just his little sheep head above ground, staring at Miss Militia, New Wave, and the technicians.

"I… see?" Miss Militia was confused.

"Do you actually need to do that thing with your arms?" One of the technicians asked.

"Obviously, I need to T-Pose for dominance to make the ground submit to my will. How else would I be doing this?" Dave asked.

"…"

They ended up pulling out a table for him to T-Pose on after unsuccessfully trying as many other poses as they could think of and obviously finding none of them worked to make him sink into the ground. After all, why would anything other than a T-Pose let him sink into the ground?

"And this doesn't work with any of your other forms?" Miss Militia asked.

"Nope, none that I've found anyways." Dave said, before T-Posing and sinking his body through the table. His body below his neck was visible underneath the table, while his head was above the table. "Wow, I've never been in this position and not died immediately before. Normally, people die when there is a table through their neck."

He turned to look at New Wave, without actually moving his legs or touching anything with his arms somehow, "Fear me mortals, for I am become sheep!" He said, still a small T-Posing sheep with its neck through a table and its head above the table and body below the table… without damaging the table.

Armsmaster entered shortly after that.

"My apologies," he said as he entered, "my tinkering session ran long. I understand I am here to verify and examine pieces of near-Tinkertech, that are manifested by a power without actually being built from real components?" he asked.

"Yes, we have finished up the baseline physical testing and the Mover testing, all that is left is the Blaster, Thinker and Tinker parts of the testing." Miss Militia confirmed.

"If he does not actually Tinker the things he makes himself, then it would a Shaker power not a Tinker power." Armsmaster corrected, before turning and staring at Miss Militia, who had an innocent eye-smile visible above her bandana covering her mouth.

"Please explain." Armsmaster said after no explanation seemed to be forthcoming regarding the rainbow cat on Miss Militia's shoulders.

Miss Militia gestured for Dave to come over. Crystal also came over to supervise.

"This," Dave said dramatically while pointing at the docile cat shifting through every color of the rainbow, "is my dingus. I gave it to Miss Militia as a token of affection after I realized that she was my Soul Mate, and that should she ever perish, I surely would as well. So, I gave her a Bomb Defuser and my personal dingus in order to keep her safe from the threats she may face in this dangerous, dangerous world of ours."

Armsmaster turned back to Miss Militia, "Please explain."

"So, this cat is totally immortal?" Armsmaster asked for clarification.

"Indeed, nothing can harm him, he does not regenerate because he cannot be harmed. He does not need food, water, air, air pressure, or anything else, though he appreciates pets and scritches. He can be used as a shield against bullets, but flames may go around him, though he will not catch on fire. He has no offensive capabilities beyond what a normal cat has, which is to say he can probably still kill a person if they somehow piss him off enough, which would be very shocking because he is such a good calm boy, yes he is!" Dave got distracted partway through his explanation by scratching Miss Militia's dingus under the furry chin.

"Also, most importantly, as you can see, he is fabulous," Dave finished extolling the virtues of his dingus by pointing out the gradually changing rainbow color of fur.

For some reason, Armsmaster and Miss Militia were reluctant to test the Parasite Cure on someone.

"So, you haven't tested it on anyone aside from yourself, and when you did use it on yourself, you simply died?" Armsmaster clarified after being told what it did.

"Yup!" Dave answered.

"I am afraid I cannot permit this to be tested then. It would be unethical and against regulations to test it on someone. It might be possible to draw up paperwork to test it on a volunteer who has a terminal condition that otherwise cannot be treated, but given Panacea's presence in the city," Armsmaster nodded at Amy as he mentioned her, "it is unlikely anyone will volunteer for a treatment that has never been shown to actually work and has killed everyone it has ever been tried on, even if it is only a sample size of one."

"Well," Miss Militia said, "There is that villain in Europe, I can't remember his name, who fills people with parasites that Master them, and when they inevitably die after a month or two, the victims' bodies are filled with those parasites. The authorities in areas where he is active may be interested in your Parasite Cure. The last I had heard, there has been no way to save his victims, and they had a few in custody that they were trying to treat. They may be willing to test your device on any of those victims that are nearing their death anyways, since the victims all die after a certain amount of time after being Mastered. With no hope of a better alternative, and a terminal condition that will kill them shortly anyways, there may be next of kin willing to give permission to test your Parasite Cure on one of the victims that have been captured and put in custody."

Armsmaster paused. "Yes, if you give permission, I can request Dragon reach out through the Guild to the authorities in areas that villain has been active and see if they are interested." He said after a moment.

"Sure, I've got a ton of these bad boys," Dave said agreeably.

"Please do not refer to any of your devices as 'bad boys.'" Armsmaster requested. "It may encourage people to associate your items, and possibly yourself by extension, with the Azn Bad Boys."

"Do you wish for me to contact Dragon now?" Armsmaster asked Dave. "If she is not busy with something, she may be interested in watching the results of testing your other 'items.' Her insight could be extraordinarily valuable."

"Sure, Dragons are pretty cool, and I love Canadians." Dave agreed.

After a short while, Dragon's voice came through the external speaker in Armsmaster's helmet. "Hello, Armsmaster has said you wanted to make a request through the guild and have me observe… what?" She trailed off as the camera focused on Dave.

"Greetings comrade!" Dave said, T-Posing as is the traditional greeting of his people, in his current form of a human-sized, bipedal Minecraft Ender Dragon.

"What?" Dragon repeated.

"So, this here Flare Gun, is a fantastic and versatile tool. It sets anyone hit with it on fire for a start. Only if they are hit with the projectile it fires though, for some reason it doesn't set people on fire if you hit them using the Flare Gun as a melee weapon." Dave explained.

"I assumed as much," Armsmaster said flatly.

"They stay on fire for a set amount of time, unless they go into water of course, otherwise they will stay on fire for about 20 seconds. It isn't very damaging, but it gets really hard to see while you are on fire. Also, any corpses it is used on will burn and disappear completely after burning for around 5 seconds."

"Excuse me?" Miss Militia asked.

"So, it looks like your 'magneto stick' can hold things with no space between the tip of the stick itself and the object it is carrying, and can go up to having about one meter of distance between the tip of the stick and the object it is carrying, but we can't measure it very precisely. There is significant variation in how close an object remains in relation to the stick, but you can grab an object with it from further away than the object will be carried. It also looks like you have no maximum weight it can carry—that we have been able to test for at least—but your maximum size is only about the size of a person. There seems to be a limit in terms of maximum length as well as maximum volume, and it is Manton Limited to not work on living things in the animal kingdom." The technician said.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it would work on a person if they were limp enough, or unconscious," Dave corrected. Which resulted in one of the technicians doing their best to remain as limp as possible while Dave lifted them with the Magneto Stick, and falling when they accidentally stiffened at the sensation of floating.

Dragon made a suggestion after the third time the technician fell. "Perhaps we could test it on someone present that has a forcefield? I am curious if it works even through the forcefield, and if it doesn't the New Wave members with a forcefield can also fly and are unlikely to be hurt by falling. They may also be less likely to stiffen up because they are used to the sensation of floating."

Which resulted in the discovery that the Magneto Stick did work through the New Wave forcefields, but that Glory Girl was not good at remaining limp and kept trying to wave her arms around like she was on a roller coaster, and the discovery that Lady Photon was too dignified to go fully limp and be waved around by Dave's Magneto Stick in front of other professional heroes.

After testing how the Magneto Stick worked on people and its range and carrying capacity, as well as what counted as a 'single object' for its purposes, they moved on to testing how much force it could exert.

They found that Dave could carry an object with it, and regardless of what that object was and how heavy or large it normally was, it could be used to push people, and nothing a normal person could do could stop it.

The technician volunteer had tried planting his feet as firmly as he could on a high-friction surface, and just fell over when Dave pushed his chest with a bottle he was carrying with the magneto stick. On a normal surface, the technician was simply pushed back until he hit a wall, and was unable to struggle free after the bottle was pressed against his chest and the wall was behind him.

Upon Armsmaster's request, they found that someone with a sufficient Brute rating, or wearing armor like Armsmaster, could simply break the bottle and escape that way as the shards of glass fell to the ground. A normal human or a parahuman without a Brute rating could theoretically also escape by breaking the bottle, but would likely have bits of glass embedded in them as a result, and would likely struggle to break the bottle without sufficient leverage and not having a surface to smash the bottle against because it was floating in midair.

"You could probably use this to trap someone for containment if you had a durable enough material to use with it. It wouldn't even need to be particularly well shaped as long as it was tough enough to not break from a Brute, Striker, or Blaster trying to destroy it." Miss Militia suggested.

"Hmm… I'm afraid I don't have anything like that at the moment. Perhaps I could trade with a Tinker for something."

"I'd be happy to send you something to assist you. It's always good to see new heroes stepping up, and I'm happy to help give you more options for capturing people that are otherwise difficult to nonlethally contain." Dragon offered. "It's not my specialty, but I can come up with something rather durable. You don't need to give me anything in return, though I wouldn't say no to the opportunity to study some of your items."

They went over the Health Station, and got Panacea's report on the effectiveness of both the food and the station itself after a technician volunteered to cut himself to test the healing.

"It really was simple to use. Focusing on being healed is the best way to describe it, but it doesn't require a ton of focus, I could probably do something else at the same time for example, but I still wouldn't be able to accidentally heal myself with it." The technician described.

Glory Girl had happily described all that she had discovered regarding the various settings and ingredient options for the burritos and Hotpockets. After Laserdream's suggestion that they could be highly effective workout food, and Panacea's confirmation of their nutrient and caloric value, Armsmaster seemed even more interested in the food than the healing.

"How difficult are these for you to generate? The Protectorate would be very interested in obtaining some of these, and I suspect the PRT would be interested as well. It would accelerate a lot of the training of troops and make maintaining fitness levels much more efficient, in addition to their healing value."

"Every ten minutes, I can make either one of these or one of the Parasite Cures, although the Parasite Cures are one-time use by the way, but it seems my power considers the two things equally valuable."

"I was going to just give the Protectorate one, though I was told I should stipulate it remains within Brockton Bay, and I don't mind giving the PRT one as well, and I'm happy to send one to the Guild as well," Dave continued. "I was considering giving a few to the local hospitals, but Lady Photon counseled me against doing so without ensuring that they are protected, as otherwise they may just attract villains or gangs to attack the hospital hoping to steal them. Speaking of which, she volunteered to negotiate on my behalf for things, and also wanted to explain why using Parahuman healing for everything is bad or something, so… Go Photon Mom, I choose you!" Dave pointed at Lady Photon, who just sighed at the nickname before beginning a similar speech to what she had told Panacea the previous day.

While Armsmaster and Dragon were forced to deal with Lady Photon's speech on the ethics of Parahuman healing and negotiations for Dave's benefit that Dave was too bored to pay attention to, Dave sidled up to Miss Militia.

"Hey," he said, "Wanna play with my crowbar?" He pulled out his floppy crowbar and waggled it around. "It's floppy," he said enticingly.

"Excuse me?" Glory Girl interrupted.

"Fine, you can play with my floppy crowbar too," Dave said, before pulling out a second wiggly crowbar and handing it to her, before using the telekinetic shove function of the first one to shoo her out of the way so he could continue to wow Miss Militia with his crowbar.

…

It turned out, Miss Militia's power was able to copy Dave's crowbar, floppiness and all, and it had the same push ability that Dave's did.

"This here device, is a minifier. It minifies whoever uses it. It sometimes interacts strangely with parts of my body when I use it while in a more exotic form, usually it is either ears, nose, tail, or hair that don't shrink with the rest of me, but it isn't harmful and it doesn't affect any of my more 'normal' forms. It won't do that to anyone that isn't either a Case 53 or a changer of some sort, or someone who's form is otherwise permanently altered by their power. Even in those cases, it is only a possibility it will happen, and even if it does, it won't be harmful, just look odd. It can't be used on someone else, you do have to actually use it yourself, but that's for the best really, because it increases your speed proportionally to the amount it shrinks you, and thus makes you able to move at the same speed, or maybe even a little faster, as you would be able to at normal size. So, aside from the slight durability loss from being smaller, there are really no major tradeoffs. I'd say it makes me about 40 percent less durable compared to my normal size, but it shrinks me by a lot more than 40 percent, so it is generally worth it." Dave explained the Minifier, which Armsmaster and Dragon were paying special attention to, as the most obvious 'Tinkertech' device he had shown, and one that related directly to Armsmaster's Tinker specialty of 'Miniaturization and Efficiency' at that.

"You can have some, I've got a ton and I get more all the time, I probably already have more than I'll ever need, you can reuse them as many times as you want, and after shrinking with one you can just use it again—or a different one—to grow back to your normal size. Things like clothes do shrink with you, and I can still hit just as hard with my crowbar while I am shrunk, so I believe it doesn't decrease your strength at all while you are shrunken." Dave finished his pitch.

Wait a Minute… why am I trying to sell them my stuff? I'm supposed to be here for testing!

…

It turned out that, according to a scale, Dave (and others that used it) didn't change weight when they were minified, but in practice their 'apparent weight' shifted to whatever was in their favor, which he was assured was on-brand for Parahuman nonsense, and part of why it was generally accepted that "Powers are Bullshit." (Dave was told by a Technician that 'apparent' was a scientific term used for 'fake' things, that weren't how reality actually worked, but looked close enough that scientists just threw up their hands and gave a name because people not educated in the field didn't want to listen to how things actually worked. Apparently, centrifugal force was another 'apparent force' that didn't really exist, but Dave just tuned out after that).

When Armsmaster requested a minifier for study, Dave activated his Photon Mom powers, in the form of sending Lady Photon to negotiate on his behalf. He had discussed with her beforehand the things that he might want from the Protectorate and the PRT based on what roles and items he might get in the future, and Lady Photon was a smart enough cookie to extrapolate and expand what he wanted to negotiate with the guild. He did ask her to be nicer because they were Canadians though (or at least Dragon and Narwhal were).

After the minifier negotiations were finished, Miss Militia asked "So, did you have anything else you wanted to test while we have Armsmaster and Dragon here?"

"Yeah, I'd like to ask if you have any way to detect me after I do this." Dave said. Then shot himself in the face and died instantly.

Author's Note: Whew, my biggest chapter ever so far. It's still really small compared to a lot of other authors out there, but I'm fairly proud of it.

Sarah was letting things happen at the beginning of the chapter to see if Dave and/or Crystal had feelings for one another. She was never going to let Miss Militia stay under the impression that Dave was a similar age or older than her, but she wanted to see how Crystal responded to Dave flirting with someone else.

The cat: dingus, is an item in TTT, meaning it can't actually die, take damage, or be harmed in any way, unlike the Doggo which is an actual entity and can be killed, thus we probably won't see the Doggo for a long while, if ever, because of the risks to its health, because the Doggo automatically attacks anyone that damages the person that placed the Doggo down, and the local neo nazis aren't known for being friendly to dogs that attack them. While dingus is completely invulnerable to all damage, and totally immortal in every way, otherwise dingus is basically a normal cat… except that he comes already trained to meow on command, and his little kitty vocal cords never get tired so he can meow as many times as he wants.

I might actually be mixing up the PAPed dingus with another held cat item, but I can't remember for sure and I haven't gotten that far in my TTT rewatching yet. I had originally called dingus Oscar the Cat in this and the last chapter (because that's what I thought it was called), but then I got to the episode where dingus was introduced and figured I was mistaken. I could be totally remembering wrong, but the item I was thinking of was just like dingus, except it was a detective item and actually healed whoever was holding it, and the PAPed version got the rainbow color changing. If I am remembering correctly, we will probably see that cat later on in addition to dingus.
Update: I was thinking of a detective item that doesn't take up the grenade slot, called Maxwell, but it looks identical. It heals whoever is holding it (fairly slowly) and if it is on the ground, it heals everyone in an aura around it. I'll decide what to do with it later after Dave unlocks Detective. This is the first ever appearance of Maxwell: https://youtu.be/zehDuZ-h1m8?list=PL3XZNMGhpynP4rbJJGg3NIpZJHB5QRVC1&t=68

I may eventually need to rename dingus as Dingus for the sake of clarity, even if it would be lore inaccurate.

This and this are the two most dingus-heavy episodes of TTT I am aware of. They are also the first two ever episodes featuring dingus.

We also introduced the Parasite Cure to the Protectorate this chapter. I'm sure nobody is going to overthink why the Parasite Cure and the Health Stations are considered equal by Dave's power.

I wanted to get through all the power testing in this chapter, but there is just too much to cover. Dave will be keeping some things close to his chest for now after advice from Sarah, who is a little (understandably) paranoid after living a fairly traumatizing life. Sarah's advice was to disguise his growth rate, so he won't be showing off any traitor items or the PhD Flopper, or his Medical Doctor qualifications just yet. Next time, the Protectorate has to deal with an Operational Security nightmare, Sarah has to do her best to make sure the Protectorate doesn't realize the extent of Dave's spectator mode while also making sure Dave doesn't go looking underneath anyone's masks or seeing any other heroes on the base without a mask on. After that, we find out how much Karma Dave has accumulated, the extent of his Combat Thinker ability, and how good his Knife is.

Phili · Aug 7, 2026

Chapter 19: Remember Kids, You Can't Operate a Toaster if You're Dead

January 4, 2010. Brockton Bay, Protectorate Headquarters.

After Lady Photon had explained that Dave dying was how he accessed his 'Breaker form', the concerned Miss Militia, Armsmaster and Dragon were placated… after also receiving confirmation from a sheepish technician that Lady Photon had mentioned it when she signed Dave up for power testing.

After Lady Photon had sternly requested that Dave enter a clipboard she held up, then set down on the table, Dave had the slightest suspicion, that for some reason he couldn't figure out, she was upset with his decision to suddenly kill himself without consulting her.

So, he dutifully possessed the clipboard in spectator mode, then began the process of slowly moving it over to Lady Photon so he could fawn over her by nudging her with the clipboard.

While the technicians and Armsmaster were busy setting up all the scanning technology they had in the room to point at the slowly moving clipboard, Miss Militia stated "Well I wasn't expecting that to happen. But you all don't seem that surprised?" She made her statement to New Wave into a question.

New Wave collectively sighed. "Yes," Laserdream said "he does this… often. Because he can't truly die, and has full continuity of consciousness, he doesn't really see his own death as something to make a big deal of, so he will happily kill himself for the slightest reason. And because he doesn't feel pain from anything we've observed, he doesn't actually lose anything other than the time it takes him to exit his Breaker form, and even then he can still have his fun by nudging people with objects. Though he seems to have moved on to my mother now, he was nudging me with a plant pot yesterday after he killed himself when meeting my cousin for the first time." Laserdream pointed at Glory Girl.

"Hey, that makes it sound like he killed himself because he met me." Glory Girl complained.

"If that's what you thought, perhaps you should take a look at yourself and examine why you came to that conclusion?" Shielder (Eric) suggested innocently.

Glory Girl pointed at him in betrayal, "This is why she is the 'Best Cousin'."

Laserdream stuck her tongue out at Shielder and gave him a superior look, "Yeah, that's why I'm the best cousin."

When Shielder tried to commiserate with Panacea, she simply gave him a flat look that made him mock sob, resulting in Lady Photon giving a warning of "Children, behave."

Meanwhile, Dave had finished moving the clipboard over to the edge of the table it was on and had started nudging Lady Photon's hand, when she simply took her hand away and the clipboard fell to the ground.

A technician had run to a breakroom to grab a toaster, and instructed Dave to possess it and see if he could press down the lever. If Dave could, it would allow him to operate any machinery he possessed, which would make the 'Breaker form' significantly more powerful.

Lady Photon then requested the Protectorate assist her with another part of Dave's requested testing, which was testing just how much blood was in his body, as well as if it was acceptable as a blood donation. Laserdream's help was enlisted as she, Lady Photon, and Miss Militia attacked Dave's body with as much firepower as they could muster without damaging the testing room, and a huge continuous splattering of blood came out of Dave's body with each attack, that was then drained into a large tub. Then another tub. Then another tub, and another.

While the technicians discovered that Dave could not in fact operate a toaster, Miss Militia, Laserdream, and Lady Photon found that Dave's body did in fact hold an apparently unlimited amount of blood, and that the blood came out from the body freely with each attack, even though the body itself remained completely undamaged from anything they were able to bring to muster. There were no wounds anywhere on the body when they were done, including the original location a wound would have been on a normal body from where Dave shot himself to death.

"I think we can safely conclude that his body is immune to damage –with a possible exception for All or Nothing effects—and that while he is alive, even if he still gets hurt by things normally, his body itself isn't actually harmed," Laserdream concluded. She may have vented a little bit of stress on his body, and by the time Lady Photon called for them to stop attacking Dave's body based on how long it had been, the technicians had filled six vats and tubs of various sizes with his blood (to be disposed of later, after Dragon, who was given permission to run tests on it to see what blood type it was and if it was acceptable for blood donations, was finished with testing it for any special properties).

Dave respawned, and the vending machine a technician had asked Armsmaster to move into the room to test what the maximum size of an object Dave could possess was, stopped nudging itself across the room.

Armsmaster left shortly after that to do… whatever it was that an Armsmaster does. He left a small drone with a camera and microphone attached in the testing room so that Dragon could 'stay' and offer input whenever she wasn't busy with something else.

Next, they moved on to the shooting range to test out how Dave's 'Combat Thinker' power affected his aim.

It turned out, it made his aim really good, as in, action movie level good, where he could actually dual wield pistols meant to be used with both hands and accurately hit things with both pistols. He also was able to disguise his Doctor knowledge by playing it off as part of his Old Man 'Combat Thinker' power to let him see where he could shoot someone to do the most, and least, amount of harm. They only let him use target dummies for some reason.

"While it is impressive how well you can aim, and our technicians tell me that none of the target dummies you shot would be at risk of death, and permanent injury would be unlikely in all these cases, even the ones that were doing simulated running… we can't allow you to sign on as an independent hero if you insist on using guns that can't use rubber bullets." Miss Militia sounded genuinely sad about that.

"I'm sorry my love, but I can't agree to such stipulations. They are my most powerful offensive option I have at the moment, and if a Brute is attacking an innocent civilian with clear intent to kill, I will in fact shoot a motherfucker." Dave said eloquently.

"We are giving him lessons on escalation, de-escalation, minimizing and avoiding collateral damage, coordination, and everything else that would be expected," Lady Photon cut in.

"I suspected as much, but it is unfortunate the Protectorate is unwilling to acknowledge that guns are a fact of Cape fights, as we both should very well know," Lady Photon continued, glaring a little at Miss Militia who had the decency to grimace and look uncomfortable at the reminder that Fleur was shot to death by an unpowered wannabe ganger.

"It counts as self defense if they kill me first though, right?" Dave asked for clarification, before Laserdream slapped her hand over his mouth again, and resigned herself to having her hand licked.

Miss Militia paused, "I… don't actually know? I would guess… No, I really don't know. I would suggest not doing it either way, because while Lady Photon did get agreements that the Protectorate and the Guild would help protect your reputation and image, there are bad actors who will happily latch on to any negative thing about you and yank on it for all it is worth, and it is better to not give them any more ammunition than necessary, even if a jury might rule it as self-defense."

Dave got bored halfway through the explanation and mentally conked out.

He tuned back in when Miss Militia asked him about his Karma.

"Yes, I am in fact, the best person you will ever meet. I have accumulated more Karma than is normally possible, so by now, when I have my Karma bonus enabled, I can deal double damage with anything I do."

The technician confirmed that the bullets he had fired into the targets had acted oddly and done more damage than they should have, and agreed it would be about double, though he then went off on a tangent explaining that it was impossible to perfectly quantify how much 'damage' anything in particular would do.

"Could you turn that effect down to make your bullets nonlethal? Make them into pseudo-rubber bullets perhaps?" Miss Militia asked him.

Dave raised a finger. "I… don't actually know. I can turn off all damage I do, but I don't have anything currently that would let me do some damage but less than I normally would. I can try and move my power in that direction to manifest that ability, but between you and me… I don't have a ton of control over what exactly manifests." He whispered the last part to her.

"Well, if you manage to get that to happen, I believe we could sign you on as an independent hero almost immediately." Miss Militia said, rather happy she had found a solution to her latest dilemma.

"So this," Dave held up a knife, "is a Knife."

He continued, "While I only get them occasionally, my power considers them quite strong, and it tells me that if I attack someone with intent to do so, I can kill a normal person with two hits, though armor would make me need more hits."

"We're not testing that," the technician told him flatly.

"But look how cool it is when I throw it though!" Dave demonstrated by flinging it across the room into one of the moving targets used for testing his shooting capabilities earlier.

"That is pretty cool," the technician admitted, "we can test how it does against nonliving objects to see how Manton-limited it is though."

"Woo!"

It turned out, the knife was indeed 'Manton-limited,' but it was just as indestructible as his other items, and the only volunteer they could find (Dave himself), found that it was just a normal, albeit very sharp and extremely high quality, knife if he used it on someone (himself) without intending to use its property of 'doing 50 damage to someone with 100 health'.

When the lucky winner of eenie meenie mini emo (Panacea) got to test if other people could use the Knife on the unlucky volunteer (Dave), they found that it did in fact work, and she managed to kill him in two hits after focusing on it, though she did look rather upset about it.

"I couldn't have done it by accident though. It was simply impossible to have that effect on by accident, it was the most idiot-proof thing I've ever felt, probably because it was power-enforced idiot-proofing… rather necessary idiot-proofing at that given who has these things," she said the last part while glaring at Dave's body.

"You know you didn't have to do it Ames," Vicky said, forgetting her own advice about using only hero names in public settings that they were in as heroes.

"No, it was good for me, I needed to know that I couldn't accidentally kill someone with it if I decide to keep the one he gave me," Amy said, before continuing "I hated the feeling of killing someone though. Even though I know he will come back, it was the worst feeling I've ever felt, by far."

"Aww, it's okay Ames, that's just because you're such a good person," Vicky said, giving her sister a hug.

"You would say that no matter what I did." Amy replied.

"Your sister is right Amy," Crystal said from the side, also doing away with hero names for the moment. "I would have happily killed him as revenge for the horrors he has inflicted on me," she added in a joking tone, before continuing, "knowing he would come back fine and not feeling any pain anyways, and I'm sure he doesn't hold it against you, see?"

True enough, the test clipboard from earlier was nudging Amy's foot, give Amy a feeling like a small dog or child asking for uppies.

"Thank you for coming in for testing today, we here at the Protectorate really appreciate your cooperation, even if you decided not to register as an independent hero. I hope you do register some day soon, of course it would be even better if you join the Protectorate in full," Miss Militia said with an eye-smile. "Though, I have a feeling we would have some competition," she said, looking at New Wave.

"Before you go," she continued, "what would you like us to register your Cape name as? While it is theoretically possible to change it later, it becomes more and more difficult over time. So, would you like to go with the temporary name you gave us? Solid Snake? I don't believe it is taken, but I'm not sure it would be the best fit for you."

"Nah, I've got something else in mind," Dave said, before telling her his planned Cape name.

"That… is quite fitting. I hope the thought of that name causes people to reconsider becoming Villains or turning to crime someday," Miss Militia said with another eye-smile, this one much more genuine.

"So, Lady Photon has signed you up for another power testing session next month on the first at 10:00 AM, with the expectation that your powers will have expanded significantly by then, is that alright with you?" She asked.

"Yup, sounds good, though I may want to reschedule another one for sooner if I get something particularly noteworthy that I have trouble testing on my own." Dave answered.

"That's fine, we can arrange one on relatively short notice if we need to, just let us know and we'll have it ready within a couple of days, barring emergency circumstances of course." Miss Militia said, before remembering something else.

"By the way," Miss Militia said sadly, "I'm afraid I have to return him," she said, nodding her chin at the purring rainbow cat in her arms. "I just don't have the resources to hide a rainbow, color-changing cat in my home, it would out me as a cape eventually, and I don't want to try and delay the inevitable of him being spotted by keeping the curtains closed all the time to hide the cat, and in the process deprive the poor boy of sunlight," Miss Militia said.

"Oh, well that's perfectly solvable," Dave said, taking back his rainbow dingus.

"Here you go," he said, handing her a non-rainbow dingus. "You can keep him, he is exactly the same as the other one, but without the color changing, so now you can keep my dingus with you wherever you go and never worry about him being harmed or giving away your identity."

Miss Militia looked at the new dingus in her hands. "Meow," dingus said, before he started purring.

"Aww," Miss Militia melted a little bit before coughing.

"Ahem, I accept, there is no problem with feeding him even though he doesn't need food, right?"

"Correct, he doesn't poop or pee either. He is still a cat despite being a very amazing good boy, so he likes treats and catnip and such. He is docile enough you can probably even dress him up if you want." Dave said.

Miss Militia looked down at dingus, who looked up at her and meowed again while continuing to purr, and resolved to use her rather large Protectorate salary for what it was probably meant to be used for anyway, cute cat costumes.

"So, what did you decide for your Cape name?" Crystal asked as they got back into the official New Wave capemobile.

Dave smiled. "Trouble."

Authors Note: Yay, we finished the power testing! Dave withheld some things on Sarah's recommendation, like being able to respawn instantly using the beggar, and all of his new traitor items. He also just straight up forgot or hasn't discovered a couple of things he can do, like a particularly interesting skin. Some Yogscast Fans may remember when Hat Films were in some TTT episodes, one of them had the skin of Wace Mindu, who has a surprisingly useful feature, much like how the small skins are harder to hit. He also has yet to discover a basic power possible in most multiplayer Steam games, in case anyone wants to take a guess at what it is.

He hasn't gotten any game-changing Traitor items available aside from the Flopper (and dingus, obviously), but we'll see some of what he has available in the shop soon, and he'll be unlocking more things now.

Also, Cape Name decided! Trouble was actually what I was leaning towards originally, but the polls going that direction solidified the decision for me.

Next time, it's a new dawn, a new day, and by the time the day is over, it's almost certainly going to be a new life. Dave has yet to make it through a day without dying, so pattern recognition indicates it is probably going to be a new life by the end of it.

Phili · Saturday at 5:07 PM

Chapter 20: Remember Kids, Don't Squirt Your Friends With Your Fertilizing Juices Without Consent

January 5, 2010. Brockton Bay, Dave's Apartment.

He woke up… again. Dave narrowed his eyes. Wait a Minute… Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but five times? Five times could only be enemy action.

After starting water to boil for tea, pouring his orange juice, and setting his bagel in the toaster, Dave waited for Daf's daily morning message.

Heyo Dave-o!

You grew your soul by a lot yesterday, so expect that you will be able to start growing more today. I was thinking about your request yesterday after your (one-way) soul mate made her suggestion of reversing the effects of Karma, and while I could do that, I found another path to nonlethality that you could do start working towards.

So, one of the things near and dear to your heart, also happens to be in-theme with some of the Yogscast. Which means, you get to make a choice, you can either wait for me to fiddle around with the Karma options to let you be able to temporarily lower your karma at will without actually lowering it… or you could make your soul adjust towards a nonlethal option through the power of Pokemon! You do have access to a Scyther skin, and if you stayed in it for a while, while also doing stuff to grow your soul, I can squeeze the idea of Scyther's old signature move "False Swipe" into your soul with the new room that will be well-suited to concepts related to Scyther. Since False Swipe's entire thing as far as your soul is concerned is that it can't 'kill' whatever it is used on, this will give you an option that to make your attacks literally unable to kill your target! Do keep in mind though, that this is only possible because you already have a jester role, and the jester role's entire thing is not doing any damage, so I would just be making a few connections between concepts to make it so your attacks don't do any more damage after a certain point. I would need the Scyther thing in order to make the no-killing connection apply to things you do that would otherwise kill someone in one go, instead of just turning on the Beggar's no-damage-effect once they are near death.

Or, of course, you could just wait until you unlock the nonlethal options in the buy menu, though you will need to wait for a Detective role for most of those. Up to you really, just let me know if you want to go with the temporary negative Karma thing or the Scyther thing.

Oh, and your new role for today is Paramedic. So, you get a new Defibrillator every round, and like your other items, they stack up in your inventory. Each one only works once, and it revives whoever you are using it on from death… provided they aren't brain dead. If they are missing their head, that counts as brain dead, though if the brain is in good condition and you reattach the head to their body beforehand, it will resurrect them anyways. Someone being shot in the head (and dying from it) counts as them being brain dead. When you bring someone back to life with it, it does heal them back to full health, so things like disease, poison, or having water in their lungs after drowning won't just kill them again immediately afterwards. The disease, poison, and water where there isn't supposed to be water will all be removed from their body after they come back.

Good luck!

Dave nodded sagely, picked his bagel from the toaster onto a plate, poured his tea, and sat down. Then turned into a Scyther, and used his new blade hands to spread the cream cheese onto his bagel.

Scyther:

After knocking on Bella's door with the blunt back of his knife arms, he got violently dragged in to her apartment and smacked on the head as soon as she opened her door and saw his snazzy new skin.

"What was that for?" Dave asked her with a hurt expression on his weird green face.

"Don't reveal who you know when you are in a cape form idiot! That will make me a target for being associated with an obvious cape and it will make it easy for others to figure out your identity by looking into civilians I meet regularly." She shouted at him.

"Wow, I forgot how smart you are." Dave said, giving her a compliment and a winning smile to make her stop yelling at him, it was guaranteed to work.

"That's BASIC FUCKING COMMON SENSE!" She shouted again, even louder this time. Somehow, his technique didn't work.

"I don't know, it isn't in my common-sense package. That means the people of Earth Bet have collectively subconsciously decided that it isn't in fact common sense. I'm pretty sure that makes it not basic fucking common sense. Although, my common-sense package doesn't include anything about fucking, I will admit. Actually, how is it basic fucking common sense? I don't see how it relates to fucking in any way really. Maybe for a hot and steamy midnight rendezvous between a monstruous cape and their nubile civilian lover, that they can only meet on nights of a full moon? But the monstruous cape—" Dave got smacked again.

"No, bad!" Bella said, as she squirted him with a spray bottle. It was labeled 'fertilizer' on the side with marker written onto masking tape.

"I'm sorry Bella," Dave apologized. "I just don't think I'm ready for our relationship to move to a stage where you squirt your fertilizer at me."

For some reason, he got smacked again.

After Bella made him return to his normal form, she drove him to the Pelham house. "Crystal sent me a message asking me to bring you over, apparently, I'm wanted as well, but the whole of New Wave will be there aside from Brandish who is busy with her day job. I assume they want to talk to you about cape things, but I'm not sure why they want me there as well." She explained as she got into her car.

"No distractions," she warned when he opened his mouth, ignoring his disappointed look afterwards.

After they arrived at the Pelham house, they were greeted by Crystal.

"Come on in, we were just waiting for you two." She said, waving them in.

As soon as they were inside the house and closed the door, Dave returned to his Scyther form, much to Crystal's delight.

"That's so awesome, I didn't know you could turn into a Scyther!"

"You know what this is?" Bella asked.

"Yeah, of course. What do you—oh right, we haven't seen it yet. It's a Pokemon, I don't remember when it shows up, but we'll get to it eventually when we continue watching the show, and then you'll see it. It's quite cool actually." Crystal confirmed.

"Did they arrive? Crystal, bring them in here so we can start." Sarah called out from the living room.

Crystal led them in to the living room where the (almost) entire New Wave was assembled in their civilian clothes. Neil, also known as Manpower, and Mark, also known as Flashbang, were both there, each one munching on a breakfast burrito from the Health Station; Everyone else that had gone to the power testing the previous day with Dave was also there.

"Hey Dave," Neil said. "Sorry I wasn't with you for your power testing yesterday, but I'm sure Sarah and the kids kept you company and made sure the Protectorate behaved, and I had to handle the stuff with… you know… Jessica's body." He started out smiling, but became rather morose by the end of his explanation.

"Nice to meet you, Dave I'm Mark, or Flashbang when I am in costume. Bella, I think we've met before a few times, it's nice to see you again. These burritos are quite good by the way, and Amy tells me they even help with my condition. I have chronic depression you see, and the thing about depression is, even if you have a relatively effective medication that can treat it, you have to actually take it, and if you are depressed enough," he shrugged helplessly. "You just… don't do things, even if they are easy to do and you know you should. It's something I have a hard time explaining, I can barely understand it myself sometimes, but I'm told it is common among people with depression." He said.

Mark continued, "Anyways, I just wanted to let you know in case you weren't aware, that the food from your device can help people with depression, and maybe other conditions. Something about it being tasty food helps I think, that I don't have to think of it as medication, but Amy assures me it is helping balance chemicals in my brain." He said, patting his adopted daughter's arm affectionately.

Amy agreed, "Yes, it is weird though, I'm not exactly a fully licensed doctor or anything, but from what I know, your brain should need unusual circumstances to go back to having depression, but it looks like your brain is trying to return to that state already, albeit slowly. The burritos actually brought your chemical balance back to a healthy neutral, unlike a medication which would only temporarily affect your chemistry. It almost feels like something else is affecting you, but I don't know what it could be, unless you are already feeling particularly stressed out?" Amy asked at the end of her explanation.

Mark shrugged, "Not really. We can put some thought into it later, and it will give me an excuse to spend more time with you anyways. For now, as long as you say it is safe and effective, I will just have one of these burritos for breakfast each day in lieu of medications that I might end up not taking. Vicky tells me I can even change up the ingredients they use so I don't get tired of them. Anyways, sorry to clog up the meeting with my stuff, we can begin with whatever you had on the docket," he said the last sentence to Sarah, who nodded.

"Let's begin then," she said. "To start with, Bella. We asked for you to be here so we could make sure you are, and feel, safe. It can be dangerous to know a Cape's civilian identity, which was a big part of why we started the New Wave movement in the first place. If it had thoroughly succeeded, nobody would attack civilians they suspect of knowing a Cape's identity in hopes of learning that Cape's identity. So, given you know Dave's identity, and he isn't currently an open Cape, is there anything we can do to make you safer?"

Bella was a bit caught off guard, but spoke anyways, "Umm, I guess a panic button? Something I can just press in an emergency and that will go off if it gets a jammed signal, and will send my last known location to you? I do see what you mean about the possible danger, Dave literally knocked on my door this morning looking like how he does now." Scyther waved.

Bella continued, "I can't really think of anything else unless you have something like an undersuit body armor I could wear underneath my clothes without it being visible, since if it was visible that would just make me more suspicious. Umm, maybe… I don't know. I guess permission to come over here regularly to use the magic burritos and Hotpockets to exercise more and get in shape. I can't exactly keep one of Dave's magic microwaves in my apartment without making the situation worse in terms of making myself a target by keeping tinkertech around."

While Sarah, Neil, and Mark all nodded in approval at Bella's well-thought-out requests, Dave nodded in admiration at Bella's intelligence before speaking. "I was going to do this anyways, but I might as well do it now. I am making a collection of items made with my power that I plan to give out as needed to people that need a power boost. In honor of the original recipient, I have decided to call it the Panpan Package ™!" Dave said dramatically.

Then he pulled out all the things he gave Panacea the previous day and handed them over to Bella. "I was also going to offer any members of New Wave this package, along with any other applicable neat goodies I get. Aside from my PhD Flopper, I do have a couple of other things you all might be interested in that I've managed to accumulate enough of to hand some out."

"So, everybody gets one Body Armor," Dave began. "This Body armor, you simply hold and think about applying it to yourself, and then it will make you take less damage from all sources… aside from instant-death effects, it very specifically won't help with those. And don't get your head cut off or anything, it will just make it harder for something to cut off your head, it won't make having your head removed any less lethal. It's not much, you can still absolutely die to just bullets, but it will take more bullets than it otherwise would. I'm afraid I don't know how it will interact with forcefields, but I would guess that it would apply underneath the forcefields. After you apply it to yourself, it won't actually be visible or take up any space, it is more like a toggleable power, except when you turn it off, you are then holding the body armor instead."

After he had handed everyone a body armor, Dave continued. "The only other new thing I have, is this here radar, which works similarly to the body armor. After you 'apply' it to yourself, you get a power until you actively choose to de-apply it. Every 30 seconds, it will ping and show you all living humans nearby, and wherever there was a human at the last ping, there will be a little green circle you can see through walls, and those green circles will stay in your vision until the next ping. Those green circles will also have how far away from the ping you are in meters inside the circle. You can choose in the settings to disable the ping, then manually activate it whenever you want as long as 30 seconds have passed since it last pinged. Like the body armor, you can disable it whenever you want, at which point the radar will appear in your hand."

As Dave was passing out radars, Neil was thoroughly impressed. "This will be an amazing tool for search and rescue," he stated. "It will also help you Bella, with awareness of people. Obviously there are a lot of people in the city, but it will help you avoid ambushes from both unsavory types and anyone that might notice you appearing in proximity to Dave's Cape identity. What did you pick by the way?" Neil directed the last question towards Dave.

"Trouble." The Scyther said with a smile.

"I see, I approve. Just try to ensure most of the trouble follows the villains alright?"

Dave saluted.

"So, what did you get today?" Crystal asked.

"Oh, my new role is Paramedic. It gives me a defibrillator every ten minutes I can use to resurrect a dead person to full health as long as they aren't brain dead. It's pretty boring I know, but I don't really get to influence what new roles I get."

For some reason, New Wave and Bella all freaked out.

After Dave clarified the capabilities of the Defibrillator, New Wave was substantially calmer. They were disappointed that he couldn't resurrect Fleur yet, but as Crystal put it, "We knew it would take longer from what you told me before. Hearing about something able to resurrect the dead just made us excited."

"Anyways," Sarah said after everyone had calmed a little. "I was thinking about what you said yesterday about keeping some of your Health Stations in hospitals, and it occurred to me, that you could let the hospitals use them, while guarding them yourself, and in the process protect Amy from anyone who might be trying to harm her, particularly before she decides if she wants to go through with the idea of healing injured heroes from across the world to gain their protection."

"Sold!" Dave said, slamming the table, which… didn't actually have a cut in it despite being slammed with a sharp blade that made up Dave's Scyther form's hands.

"What?" Vicky was confused. "Wait a minute… actually, how did you hand out the body armor and radios earlier? You don't even have hands, let alone opposable thumbs."

Dave shrugged helpfully. "It's a mystery."

"Oh, I'll show you a mystery." Vicky said threateningly.

"With that settled," Sarah said, "Dave, we would like to offer you something similar to what Bella asked for. It is a button you can press that will let us know you need backup of some kind, either because someone is trying to capture you or you are facing too many Capes at once and are trying to protect civilians or something along similar lines. It does track you, but that is so that if it encounters a signal jammer, we will have a last-known-location. On our end, it will also let us know if your signal disappears in case of signal jammers. If you don't want to have a tracker that is always on, we can try and work something else out but—"

"No, that's fine," Dave said before Sarah could build up steam for another one of her speeches. He has gained experience from last time, and knows he needs to interrupt her early on!

"Oh," she sounded disappointed. Did she write her speeches in advance or something and want an opportunity to use them? "Well in that case, I guess we can move on to the next item on our agenda for today."

Author's Note: So, DAF encourages Dave to start going around as a Scyther in order to 'learn' fake False Swipe, which will let him basically turn off killing but leave damage on. That is partially because it will give a nonlethal option that doesn't rely on Dave getting the detective role then unlocking nonlethal options, but also because Daf thinks it will be funny. Both watching Dave go around as a Scyther and telling people it is so he can be less lethal while brandishing his scythe hands at them, and also watching Dave use his most absurdly powerful offensive options to bring people to the brink of death without actually killing them.

Why does Bella have fertilizer in a squirt bottle some of you may wonder? She has a few plants she takes care of, and she is fairly into it, so she uses a special fertilizer mix to make them grow healthily.

Dave also turns into his first form that never appeared as an actual skin in TTT. I felt it would be fine, because a Scyther is the kind of thing that would be a skin, and I wouldn't be shocked if there is an option for it somewhere in the Steam Workshop.

Also, don't worry too much about the False Swipe and Scyther thing if you don't know Pokemon very well. It was just an easy connection in Dave's soul when combined with the Jester concept of not doing damage, so Daf took advantage of it. Dave won't be getting any powers actually from Pokemon for a long, long time, if ever. He would have to get everything from TTT, Blood on the Clocktower, and another thing the Yogscast used to do once a year. It is along similar lines as TTT if anyone wants to guess what it is, and the Yogscast have actually played TTT a few times on maps of that game. He will absolutely be able to use TTT powers to do a decent job of imitating some of the things from Pokemon though.

Also, let me know how the explanations of the radar and body armor were. Did they make sense? Were they total gibberish? (An) Enquiring mind(s) want(s) to know! (Me, I'm the enquiring mind).

Man, the Pelham house really attracts serious meetings, conversations, and speeches, doesn't it? It's almost like, as heroes, New Wave tries to solve things through dialogue whenever they can or something.

Phili · Sunday at 4:41 PM

Chapter 21: Dave's Biggest Weakness?

January 5, 2010. Brockton Bay, Pelham House, Living Room.

Sarah continued the meeting. "Since Amy will be spending less time at the hospital," she paused for a moment to stare Amy into submission. "I think it may be practical to have her more defended when she is at the hospital, at least until she decides if she wants to carry concealed firearms from Dave's power—as long as they are from Dave's power, they are considered a Parahuman effect and thus don't breach the unwritten rules—and gets training in firearms of course. So, while Carol is obviously extremely busy with her job, the rest of us, and Dave if he is willing, can take turns being with Amy while she is at the hospital, guarding both her and Dave's healing machines. Vicky and Eric, this would often be your job if you are able to bring your homework with you to the hospital, while Mark, Neil, Crystal and I would all be doing it as we are able to while considering our other obligations and patrolling duties. I was also thinking of asking the protectorate to see about having a ward or two help out occasionally to give a little extra firepower and deterrence. I expect some of the wards will jump on the chance if what Vicky has said about them is true, and their Image department will likely love it as well."

Everyone considered what Sarah had proposed, and surprisingly enough, there were no complaints. Even Vicky and Eric, who would be stuck doing homework at a hospital and losing out on some of their free time if they completed all their homework before Amy was done were willing to go along with it. Dave of course, was also happy to go along with it. He had theorized in his free time that 'soul growth' was similar to the way memories worked. New things stick out, while things someone has already done sort of blend in to previous instances. Which is why the first time someone goes skydiving is so memorable, but the 500th time someone takes a bus doesn't stay in their memory at all if nothing noteworthy happened, even if objectively speaking a bus is a rather absurdly amazing thing that would be equivalent to skydiving for a person from a thousand years ago.

Thus, Dave planned to do new things as much as possible for a while and see if that increased the rate at which his soul grew. Luckily, amnesia meant that basically everything was new to him for the moment. Perhaps amnesia was the real cheat code all along?

Wait, they started talking again. Dave tuned back in to the conversation.

It was decided that for today, Neil, Dave, and Amy would go to the hospital. Dave would be going to guard Amy and offer the use of his Healing Stations, Amy would be going to do her healing as usual and to vouch for Dave's healing, and Neil was going as the responsible adult, because the regular adult was Dave.

"So why did you decide to use that form today?" Neil asked. "It seems a little inconvenient."

"It's a Scyther from Pokemon," Amy gave her two cents. "Vicky has been trying to get me into it again after the Pikachu incident."

"Oh! Well in that case, you can join me, Crystal, and Bella on our watch parties!" Dave said. "We just started to go through the anime after Bella lost a bet to Crystal and are going to go through the whole thing. We can schedule things so that you can join us if you want." He offered. "Vicky can come too if she wants, though I assume she has already seen it, and I don't know if she wants to rewatch it."

"Anyways," Dave continued as Amy put on her hero robes over her casual clothes and Neil went behind a changing screen to put on his costume. "I'm using this form to guide my power into giving me a nonlethal option based on what I associate with nonlethality in my mind. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist. Because, in the games, Scyther learns a move that cannot defeat its opponent because it always leaves them with at least one health, this form will let me get a power to do something similar more easily because of that association… and of course because I could find this one as an option to turn into."

"Huh," Neil said as he came out from the screen in his costume. "I suppose that means you were probably a big fan of this Pokeemans thing before you lost your memory."

"Pokemon," Amy corrected. "Vicky would get upset with me if I let that go uncorrected."

"Sorry, force of habit," Neil apologized. "It's a father's solemn duty to poke fun at their kids by deliberately getting the names wrong, and Pokemon makes that way too easy with it being from Earth Aleph's Japan, it becomes so much more believable that I actually don't know how to pronounce things from it." Neil let her and Dave in on a Dad Secret ™.

"That's… so mean," Amy smiled. "I'm going to need to do that to Vicky at some point with one of her other niche things she likes."

"Aww." Dave said. "Bonding moment!" He tried to give them both a hug, making them both punch him when they saw a giant green bug with blade arms rushing towards them.

"Ow."

"Oh, seriously?" Manpower muttered as they were about halfway to the hospital. They had decided to walk and turn it into a partial patrol so Manpower could guide Dave through what to do and look for.

As they passed an alley, they saw five men in grungy clothes surrounding a man in a suit with a briefcase. One of the grimy men was holding a knife to the man in a suit, while three of the others pointed pistols at him, and the last man was watching the surroundings.

"Gentlemen, I think we can solve this amicably, now, don't you?" Manpower said, standing at his full, seven-foot height.

"CAPES!" One of the grungy men screamed, before immediately firing his pistol at Manpower. The bullets simply crumpled against his forcefield before falling to the ground.

Panacea poked her head around the corner from the entrance of the alley, where Manpower had instructed her to stay in case bullets started flying.

"Man, what did I take?" the man with the knife wondered upon seeing the green bug-monster with knife arms. "I should get more. AHHH!" He screamed as he got shot in the foot by the green bug monster with knife arms that was now holding a gun… somehow.

While Manpower had simply physically subdued two of the gunmen, Dave, or rather, Trouble gave glancing shots to the other three men, who fell to the ground in pain.

After Manpower ziptied all five of the men and approached the man in a suit to speak with him and call the police, Panacea approached the five men to heal the bullet wounds.

"Careful," Manpower warned. "None of them were surprised to see Trouble's current form, and from what they were said, I suspect they are all on drugs, possibly hallucinatory ones. If you can recognize what's in their system take note of it, but don't flush anything out yet, even if you know it is safe to do so. It will likely be used as evidence by the police, and they are better equipped to deal with drug addicts than we are. Feel free to heal the bullet wounds though, but do take note of them for possible legal proceedings, and use your camera to take pictures for the police." He said, before turning back to the very grateful man in a suit who had been getting mugged for drug money.

"That was lame," Dave said after the police took the men away.

"It's good that the guy was helped but… yeah I see what you mean." Amy agreed. "That would have been a terrible fight scene in a Hollywood movie."

"It's often like that," Neil said. "Fights with powers are often extremely one-sided, and someone like me, who hard-counters normal people with pistols and knives, along with someone like Trouble, who has a Combat Thinker power and plenty of equipment, simply can't be beaten in a normal confrontation against a small group of normal humans with only pistols and knives. The exciting cape fights people think of tend to be between either evenly matched parahumans, where neither side hard-counters the other, or a parahuman and multiple normal humans with significant firepower or numbers."

"Oh." Amy said with disappointment.

"These kinds of people are also part of why Sarah wanted to start increasing your security when you are at the hospital. People like that, that are also high out of their minds would happily attack a hospital if they thought it would help them get more drugs… or they could just think it was a good idea while in a drugged-up haze." Manpower said. "If they are on the hallucinatory kinds of drugs like these ones were, they might not even realize you were a Cape, let alone who you were before attacking you. There is that new gang in town too, the Archer's Bridge Merchants, who focus on drug dealing and have at least one Cape in the gang, and we don't want to risk your safety on their awareness that attacking a hospital isn't a good idea."

"Oh." Amy repeated. "I hadn't thought of people too stupid to think about consequences."

"Ah, a classic mistake," Dave said. "Never underestimate people's stupidity. I say that, but it isn't actually possible to follow that instruction. No matter how stupid you think people get, they will always be stupider."

Amy gave him a flat look for some reason. Neil also looked at him oddly. Maybe they were having a sudden onset of facial twitches to give them weird looks? That was probably it, what he said this time was perfectly normal.

After they arrived at the hospital, the hospital director came to meet them upon hearing that there was a new healing Tinkertech device available, and that Panacea vouched for it.

"This is amazing! Both the healing itself and the food component will help a lot of people. And you say it works on people with harm to their brains as well?" The hospital director asked for confirmation.

"Yes, it does," Panacea answered.

"That must be a load off your mind young lady, I know it burdened you to see people that you couldn't help because of where they were harmed. Before we get into the nitty gritty, I wanted to make sure this is correct: The burritos and 'Hotpockets' can have their ingredients altered with great specificity at no cost? I ask because the nutritional benefits you mentioned could be a great boon to people that are recovering from a wide variety of things, but we need to be sure that the benefits of all the nutrition still apply while accounting for patients with things like Celiac disease, and common and uncommon allergies, as well as any other dietary restrictions such as veganism."

Panacea nodded. "That's right. The nutritional benefits are disconnected from the ingredients, and the ingredient options are actually purely for taste purposes… and appearance I suppose. The food itself is actually a weird power manifestation—which I have tested thoroughly—so things like allergic reactions and ethical concerns about meat don't really apply. Personal taste still does of course, someone who hates mushrooms will still not like mushrooms as an ingredient in these."

"Fascinating, and useful. However… I'm afraid that we cannot keep this sort of thing on site." He said with a pained expression. "We simply can't afford to hire the security needed to protect a device like this, and villains will find out about it quite quickly, and eventually one of them will get the bright idea to steal it, and I cannot risk harm coming to the patients because we had a powerful piece of Tinkertech on the premises."

"Yes, we wanted to talk to you about that," Manpower said, before launching into an explanation regarding New Wave's plan for having at least one cape guarding both the Health Station and Panacea at all times, and bringing the Health Station away with them when they left. He also mentioned that Panacea would be spending less time at the hospital.

"Good." The director said immediately. "She should be spending her time playing with other kids her age and having fun, not being at a hospital all day, even if she is healing many people and we are grateful for her help."

Huh… Dave, actually kinda liked this guy.

"Now, there is some paperwork you will have to sign before we can allow your Tinkertech to be used here," the director said, looking at Dave. Nevermind, fuck this asshole.

Dave looked around, saw everyone looking at him, and pointed a single bladed arm at himself with a questioning look on his face.

"Yes, you." The director said indulgently.

~~Dave~~ Scyther shook his head, and motioned Neil forward towards the director and gave a big smile. "Scyyyyther." I definitely don't speak English. Just ask the nice tall man to fill out any paperwork for me.

"I can't sign anything for you Trouble, your Cape signature you made with my wife yesterday is just as legally binding as your regular signature, and just as illegal for anyone else to forge."

Scyther held up his bladed arms that clearly couldn't hold any writing utensils, and gave a sad "Scyther." And shook his head with despair. Clearly, I can't actually write my signature, I have no fingers with which to hold a pen.

"I saw you holding things with those earlier." Amy said flatly.

Scyther looked confused. "Scy?" You are clearly mistaken young miss-I-have-never-seen-before, these blade-arms couldn't possibly hold anything. It's a disability really.

"There are procedures in place for those like Case-53s who can't sign things conventionally, it is much the same is we use for patients who need to sign things but don't have use of their arms." The director said helpfully.

Scyther shot him a betrayed look, before taking out his last resort.

Scyther… sidevolved? into a Pikachu, took out a minifier to shrink himself, and ran away.

"Huh, I wasn't expecting that." Neil admitted.

"Yeah, I really wasn't sure where that was going, but it wasn't there." Amy agreed.

Author's Note: First fight, Yay!... Except… it was kind of lame. In my head, Dave's first fight was going to be against a whole bunch of unpowered Nazis attacking an innocent civilian, and Dave was going to brutally murderize them all in front of the terrified civilian, then resurrect them in compromising positions after immobilizing them by moving stuff with the magneto-stick. New Wave didn't like my vision, and were too responsible, and sent out Manpower to guide Dave through his first semi-patrol. Also, only drugged up idiots are stupid enough to attack people in broad daylight before noon, in an area of the city between a major hospital and the suburban area where the Pelhams live, therefore we got hallucinatory druggie muggers instead of nazis.

I did have the conflict, because there are enough drugged up idiots in Brockton that this kind of thing does happen, but I just couldn't justify it being a large number of Nazis, or it being Dave on his own that encountered them.

I suppose I technically kept my promise of the first patrol/conflict by chapter 22, but I feel like I can do better. I've never actually written an action scene before, but I hope it can be excused by how pathetic the action actually was. These idiots just couldn't justify a cool action scene. Anyways, now that the power testing, meeting New Wave, and establishing a routine at the hospital are all done, I suspect we will be getting more action soon. Also, with a routine of being at the hospital established, I no longer have to try and figure out "What would Dave do with the rest of his day?" constantly… only occasionally. Because Dave will not put up with the bullshit Panacea went through in canon of being taken for granted, and will not be spending all his spare time in the hospital. So far, Dave has been spending his off-screen free-time mostly at home, catching up on Earth Bet's history that isn't covered by his common-sense package, sending historically relevant memes he discovers as he does so to Crystal and Bella, and thinking about how to best grow his soul. And a little bit of shitposting on obscure forums, he hasn't actually posted anything on PHO yet though, but he has discovered it and used it to research various capes to see how his powers compare and stuff.

Also, we find out that Dave-type Pokemon are weak against Paperwork-type attacks.

Phili · Monday at 6:33 PM

Chapter 22: Why Would Anyone Want to be Able to Teleport When They Could Have a Jihad Bomb Instead?

January 5, 2010. Brockton Bay, General Hospital.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to be rude, but is he a Case-53?" The hospital director, George, asked. "We do have accommodations available for them, particularly if they don't speak English well enough to thoroughly understand anything we may need them to sign."

"No, he has a rather versatile changer ability. He was putting on an act for not understanding things and being unable to speak. I didn't realize he was this averse to paperwork though. Although in hindsight, he did get my wife to do all of the other paperwork he has been involved in so far. He does have other circumstances that aren't mine to share, but they could be affecting this situation." Neil admitted to the hospital director.

"Well, there are forms we can use instead if the normal paperwork would truly cause him that much distress. Instead of him signing it, it would need the signatures of two witnesses, along with myself, so you two would have to sign in his place." The director offered. "I will need to be sure that he actually understands what he would be agreeing to though. Normally, we just have to accept that they might not have read everything he signed, but if we do this, then I will refuse to give my signature if I don't think he understands what he is agreeing to. And of course, he will still need to give his verbal agreement before the witnesses can actually sign."

"I do trust both of you though, so if you tell me that you have gone over it with him, then I will also give my signature. It really isn't that complicated in this case though, so I'm sure you can decipher any of the more complicated language if he needs it." The director finished.

Neil agreed. "All right, that sounds fine. For now, I guess we should try and see where he went?"

After they coaxed the shivering, huddled up, miniature Pikachu out of the air vent, Neil and Amy sat down with him to go over the paperwork. In order to coax him out, Amy did have to make the painful sacrifice of agreeing to go to all of the future Pokemon watch parties Dave, Bella, and Crystal would be doing.

"You're lucky I don't have the Jihad bomb unlocked," Dave muttered petulantly after returning to his Scyther form.

Amy smacked him on the head. "Don't joke about that."

"Don't joke about what?" Dave asked with confusion. I haven't made any jokes in over an hour though?

They began the return to the Pelham house a few hours later. The hospital director had gone with Amy to explain to patients and staff the new policies regarding how she would be healing and making sure any anger was directed away from her… and making a note of anyone that tried to blame Amy for the new healing policies.

Amy would be using her power for its rapid diagnosing most of the time, and verifying any iffy diagnoses made by doctors. Incidentally, this would help the hospital director identify any of his doctors regularly making misdiagnoses. He had explained that "Despite my best efforts, sexism and racism leaks through occasionally into the new hires. Racism I have rather thoroughly rooted out for the most part, but male doctors are irritatingly often just barely sexist enough to ignore what female patients tell them and misdiagnose them, but not openly sexist enough that I can identify them."

Amy's rapid diagnosis would then be used to determine how someone would be healed. If it could be healed through a Health Station, and they accepted the use of Parahuman healing, then they would be instructed to use that, otherwise, if it was something that conventional modern medicine could handle, then Amy would leave it to the hospital (despite her protests, the hospital director was rather insistent on it now that he had New Wave's support behind the idea that Amy shouldn't handle everything). Anything that modern medicine couldn't handle, would then be fixed up by Amy, assuming it didn't involve brains of course, and only if the patient gave explicit permission to receive Parahuman healing from Panacea.

They had actually handled all the urgent cases (that were willing to use Parahuman healing, refusals were surprisingly common though) in a single day. It turned out that between Panacea, regular doctors and nurses, and three Health Stations, it was possible to relatively quickly heal large numbers of people.

The hospital director had suggested they reach out to other hospitals in the city. He offered to make some calls to them and see which ones seemed amicable to the idea of Trouble and Panacea visiting them, and warning New Wave about any that seemed like they might be belligerent or passive-aggressive. Neil had happily accepted.

Now, Dave was carrying one of the three Health Stations back to the Pelham house in his blade arms while Neil was carrying the other two as they walked back.

"It's a shame that your Health Stations don't cure cancer," Neil commented.

"Yes, but his Health Stations do treat it, someone with cancer that owned one of them and used it every day or ate meals from it regularly could live their entire life unchanged from before they had cancer." Amy said. She felt a need to defend the machines that had made her job so much easier and taken so much pressure off her shoulders.

"I should probably visit the various cancer treatment facilities in the city now that I have more time. I've never actually cleared out that hospital before, there have always been more patients," she said.

"Well, it's a good thing the director supported changing your modus operandi then, some of those people did not need your help. You should never have been healing someone with a sprained wrist. A lot of people don't even go to a hospital for those, and it was a waste of your time to bother you over it," Neil said.

"I guess. I just always accepted before because I don't like seeing people in pain."

"People have been dealing with sprained wrists for thousands of years; they can live without you holding their hand, Amy," Neil insisted.

"Huh." Dave said.

"What? The sprained wrist thing? It's not that profound, it's not even true in the sense that people have been getting sprained wrists since people have existed, which is a lot longer than a few thousand years." Neil asked.

"No, not that, my shop just got a new item. I was kinda expecting to not get anything until I 'unlocked' the ability to not kill people."

"What'd you get?" Amy asked curiously.

"Oh, nothing special, it's just a teleporter, not even a teleport attack."

"Fucking excuse me?"

"Language," Neil said automatically, even as he stared in confusion at the man-sized green bug monster with sword arms that thought that teleportation wasn't anything to write home about.

"English," Amy snarked back.

"Hmm," Dave pondered. "I guess I'll need to start putting up some receiver pads in various places now. Man, each teleporter costs a credit, and each teleporter only gives one receiver pad and one teleportation device to go with it. I'm going to need to spend a bunch of credits on these now." Dave sighed. "At least they are reusable. I really wanted to save my credits for when I start getting one-time-use items available though."

Amy gave a withering glare at the guy who had the audacity to complain about receiving teleportation while walking down the street. "Oh, woe is you, who randomly received teleportation while walking down the street instead of unlocking a suicide bomb."

"Thank you Amy, I really appreciate you morosing with me." Dave said sincerely while Amy mouthed 'morosing' questioningly to Neil, who shrugged.

"It's just so hard," Dave continued, ignoring that Neil was also giving him a flat stare now. "None of the other Terrorists are going to take me seriously if I don't even have my own Jihad bomb. It's basically the symbol of being a Traitor. Really, I'm surprised the government trusted I was also a traitor to the terrorist cause without me showing them I had a Jihad Bomb. What if I had been a Glitch after all?"

Amy snarked, "Yeah, what a shocker they didn't demand you pull out a Jihad Bomb to prove you are a good person."

"I know right?" Dave agreed. "New Wave must have much more standing than I thought among the wider Terrorist community if I didn't even need to prove I was a fellow Traitor."

"Why don't we finish this conversation later on, and not talk about terrorism in the middle of the streets?" Neil suggested nervously for some reason. Dave shrugged and happily agreed.

Greg Veder

Greg had been walking down the street when he happened to pass some members of New Wave and a weird green bug thing carrying some microwaves down the street.

He thought about asking the obvious Case 53 for its Cape name before he decided discretion was the better part of valor and left them alone after seeing the gigantic knife things it had in place of arms. How was it carrying a microwave with those things anyways?

Then, he heard a gold mine of info for his next PHO post.

I knew it! New Wave is working with terrorists! They are even planting microwaves across the city, but those microwaves are actually bombs! And Case 53s were in bed with the government all along! It's just like what we learned about in school with that war a while ago where the government funded, trained, and equipped foreign terrorists. But this time, they are doing local terrorists! Which war was it again? The Afghanistan war? Or was it the Vietnam war? Crap, I'll have to research it before I tell everyone on PHO. This is serious stuff, I can't risk people not believing me because I didn't remember which war it was that the US Government equipped foreign terrorists.

At least there is historical precedent this time, so people will actually believe me.

Author's Note: For those that aren't aware, in TTT, there is a Traitor item called a Bomb Station, that looks exactly like a Health Station, except it doesn't recharge, and when it runs out of charge it blows up. It also doesn't actually heal traitors, but they can make the charge go down manually while pretending to heal at it. Dave doesn't actually have this unlocked yet, but Greg drew the obvious conclusion when hearing them talk about bombs while holding suspicious microwaves.

In unrelated news, Greg Veder is going to ace his next Social Studies test where they cover the Afghanistan War. Truly, Dave is a genius, making the youth of today have better grades just from his mere presence. Clearly, even temporary proximity to his genius rubs off on people. Maybe he should tour schools to improve the intelligence of the next generation? He can let all the kids pet his dingus and shoot some guns and stuff. Maybe he'll have even unlocked his Jihad Bomb by then and he can show all the little Terrorist children what one looks like.

Oh yes, also, Dave has been walking around openly as a Scyther. I'm sure that won't cause any misunderstandings with anyone.

On a totally unrelated note to the paragraph above, I have figured out who Dave is going to encounter next in terms of Capes. If anyone wants to guess, if they get it right, I'll give them a… Terrorist point? Listen, I would offer a burrito point or a dingus point, but there are only so many people it could be. I need to build a stable economy of arbitrary internet points here that I am going to forget about in five minutes, I can only justify a Terrorist point instead of a burrito point, and certainly not a dingus point.

Ooh, my burrito is ready as I write this. I'm out, see ya next time.

Phili · Monday at 7:52 PM

Terrorist points are low-level rewards, Burrito points are medium-level rewards, and Dingus points are the highest level of rewards to readers. You can get them through various things in the author's notes, mostly correctly guessing things before they are actually revealed, and this is a little chart to keep track of everyone who has gotten any of them and how many they currently have of each. This keeps track of score in both the SFW and NSFW threads, so don't be confused if you see a name and don't remember them getting points.

Username	Terrorist Points	Burrito Points	Dingus Points
@Laerza	0	1	0
@JohnDoeHM	2	0	0

Phili · Monday at 10:45 PM

Someone asked for this, and I was planning to do it eventually, so now I have a reason to do it now!

Dave's Roles:

Role:	What It Does in TTT:	Bonus Effects Dave Has Unlocked:
Old Man	The Old Man has 1 health instead of 100, most methods of healing don't increase their health. Their win condition is to survive until the end of the round.	Combat Thinker effect. Based on the saying that goes along the lines of "Be wary of an old man in a profession where men die young". Basically makes him an Action Movie badass, but it is purely a 'Thinker' effect.
Beggar	The Beggar is a Jester Role, meaning it doesn't deal damage and has an unusual win condition. In this case, the beggar needs to receive a Shop Item from either the Traitors or the Innocents (and on the Innocent team, usually only Detectives can get shop items, though unusual circumstances like randomats can let other roles do it as well). Upon receiving an item, the Beggar will change roles and become an Innocent or a Traitor based on which team gave them their item. The Beggar then wins and loses with that team. A Beggar loses if they haven't joined a team by the end of the game. Later on, there was a change that made it so that killing the Beggar made them join the opposite team of whoever killed them as well, because someone (Lewis) kept killing Beggars.	Because there are no people with Shop Items, it was decided that certain things counted as Shop Items in their place. The obvious being Tinkertech, but as it turns out, unique and rare enough items associated with specific Capes also count, even if those items aren't particularly useful in the conventional sense.
Doctor	The Doctor is an innocent role that has a shop with two items in it: A Health Station and a Parasite Cure. That's it. If you think that sounds boring or redundant, that is probably why it wasn't in very many episodes.	Like the Old Man, this gave Dave a small Thinker power, associated with being a doctor. It basically makes him a fully qualified doctor, and gives him a tiny bit of medical knowledge when he looks at people, things like their age and 'Hey, this person is deaf in one ear.' It also came with another thing that hasn't been revealed yet, which will be added to this description after it is revealed... which may not be for a while based on how some of my other planned reveals are going.
Innocent	The most basic role there is. They are on the innocent team, and they get nothing special whatsoever.	Nothing.
Traitor	The default role for the traitor team. They have access to a buy menu, or shop, which they can spend credits in to buy special items with.	Nothing.
Romantic	An innocent role. At the start of the game, the Romantic will receive a name, that player is their Soul Mate (but the Romantic is not that person's Soul Mate), and if that player dies, the Romantic dies too, but if the Romantic dies, nothing happens to that person. The player the Romantic is in love with is guaranteed to be on the innocent team. Special Note: If someone's Soul Mate is dead, then even if that person is revived, as long as their Soul Mate remains dead, they will just die instantly after they are revived.	Nothing. Special mention that Dave can disable his roles though, so he isn't trapped in forever death if his one-way soul mate dies. Dave has never disabled the Romantic role yet, so his initial Soul Mate is still his current Soul Mate.
Paramedic	The Paramedic is on the innocent team. They start the round with a Defibrillator, which can bring a dead player back to life as long as they aren't brain dead (and there is enough room to resurrect them, which doesn't need very much room, but it is a limitation). A Paramedic reviving someone does not change their role or alignment. Brain death only occurs if someone is specifically shot in the head.	Nothing. There are more ways for brain death to happen though, such as being dead for a very long time. (Dave has not currently tested exactly when he can no longer revive someone yet).

Buyable Items! (All Buy Menu items Dave has access too, including ones he doesn't actually need to buy from a buy menu, as long as they are available in a buy menu. Probably not in order of appearance.)
Note: Traitor menu = Traitor shop. Buy menu = item shop = Detective menu or Traitor menu. They are just interchangeable.

Item:	What it Does in TTT:	Changes to How it Works:
Flare Gun	Very occasionally found on the ground (which is why Dave gets them without needing to buy them, he gets all of this type of item at randomly throughout the day after he first 'unlocks' them, which also happens at random). Shoot someone with it, and they will be set on fire for a set length of time. Being set on fire doesn't do a ton of damage, someone at full health can survive the full interval of being on fire. Being on fire does make it quite hard to see though.	Also works as an actual Flare Gun, can send up flares.
Knife	Traitor Item, very occasionally found on the ground. Melee weapon, hitting someone once with it will deal 50 damage (maximum health under normal circumstances is 100 health). Can also be thrown, which will also deal 50 damage, but then you don't have it anymore.	Now also works as a regular knife. Like most of Dave's held items, it is indestructible. Also quite sharp. The function to use the 'deal 50 damage' part is toggleable, and completely accident-proof. It is physically, metaphysically, and narratively impossible to accidentally use that part, and anyone that experiments with it will be able to instantly realize that.
PhD Flopper	Purple Soda Bottle, buyable from Detective Menu and Traitor Menu. Upon use, they chug the entire bottle in one go and let out a loud burp, which may let other player's know that someone has drunk one. After use, they are completely immune to explosion damage and fall damage, and if they fall far enough that they would take fall damage, it causes an explosion instead which will kill anyone too close to where they land.	No significant changes. Dave may try to make an adjusted version eventually to disable or toggle the part that causes explosions, but he has not yet done so.
Body Armor	Detective and Traitor shops both have this. After buying it, whoever bought it will take less damage from most sources (most importantly, this includes bullets). No visual difference happens after it is bought.	Now also an actual item that can be 'equipped' and 'de-equipped'. Still invisible when actually equipped though. It can now be given to other people instead of just instantly being applied to whoever bought it.
Radar	Detective and Traitor shops have this. After buying it, every 30 seconds the buyer will have little green circles on their screen that show the locations of every living player at the most recent 30-second marker. The green circles will show how far away the person was in meters with a number inside the circle. It works over any distance and through walls. Also, there is an option (that is used a single time ever before being forgotten about) to not automatically activate every 30 seconds, and instead activate at the manual press of a button, as long as at least 30 seconds have passed since it was last used.	See above. Also, does not mind-break people with information overload by showing them every single person on the planet. Limited to a reasonably nearby area, the exact distance has not been measured by anyone yet, but it is at least several blocks, probably close to a neighborhood.
Defibrillator	Traitors and Detective can buy this. Paramedics receive this automatically. It revives a dead player upon use, as long as there is enough room for them to respawn and they aren't 'braindead' from being shot in the head.	See the Paramedic role above for notes on this.
Health Station, sometimes called (by the Yogscast) Healing station, or 'Health Teat' or 'Teat'	Detectives can buy this. So can Doctors, but Traitors cannot buy this. Looks like a microwave. A player can use it to heal rather quickly over time, but only one player can use it over time. It holds 200 charge at most, and recharges when not in use, one charge heals one health.	Now can be opened like a Microwave, and will contain one burrito and one Hotpocket whenever opened while having enough charge. (This is because the Yogscast often refer to healing as 'eating a burrito' or 'having a hotpocket' because the Health Station looks like a microwave... they do also refer to it as 'suckling on a health teat' but that hasn't come up yet in the story.) The burrito and Hotpockets heal whoever eats them and give ideal nutritional and caloric value personalized to whoever eats them. The buttons on the microwave can be used to choose what ingredients are used in the Burritos and Hotpockets, as well as how hot they are, how crispy they are, how they were cooked, etc.
Parasite Cure	Can be bought by: All detective roles and Doctors. If a player is infested by the Parasite role (which happens after they kill the Parasite), using the Parasite Cure will cure them, making it so they will not die after around 30 or 45 seconds have passed after they killed the Parasite, and the Parasite will not respawn from their corpse. The Parasite Cure takes about 5 seconds to use. If someone uses the Parasite Cure on themselves (or someone else uses a Parasite Cure on them), and they are not infested with a Parasite, they will instantly die.	Now also cures other parasites, like tapeworms, brain worms, ringworms, leeches, ticks, etc. The only person this has ever been used on so far is Dave, who simply died. It is unknown what, if any, other effects this may have that Dave is not aware of.
Teleporter	Can be bought by: Detective roles and Traitor roles. The buyer can put down a teleporter pad, then at any point later on, they can use the teleporter in their inventory, and will be teleported over the course of about 1 second to the pad that they placed earlier.	No longer limited to 1 teleporter per player (this is true with most of Dave's items, he can't stack body armors on himself but he can have as many in his inventory as he wants). Each pad currently still corresponds to a single remote that transports the user to its corresponding pad, but this may be improved in the future.
Pack-a-Punch (or PAP)	Can be bought by: Any Detective or Traitor role. Can be used on any item, and will upgrade it in some (almost always significant) way. Arguably the most powerful item in the game.	Dave only got one, and after buying it his soul borked a little. He will not be seeing any more for a while. He used it to upgrade his dingus. See the table below for more details (in the dingus section).

Dave's other powers, abilities and items that are not Roles or Bought Items (Probably not in order of appearance):

Item, Ability or Power:	What it does in TTT (if applicable):	Changes from what it does in TTT:
Double Jump	All players can Double Jump. They jump at any point while in the air, which increases their height slightly and breaks their momentum, so they can fall from any height and survive as long as they double jump right before they hit the ground. They can still take damage and die if they double jump too early in a fall.	No significant changes.
Guns	Lots of guns exist, in a large variety, most of which are based on real guns. I'm not putting every single gun here, that would take too long and most of them aren't very special. Guns have ammo, and spare magazines. Guns and ammo are both found around the map of a TTT game.	They are quieter than normal guns because they are based on GMod guns. Dave does not find them on the ground, he gets them over time (the same applies with all other items that can be found on the ground in TTT, albeit he gets them at different rates depending on how rare they are, and he needs to 'unlock' them first, which happens at random). For other major differences, see the Inventory entry a few rows below this one.
Crowbar	Crowbars, the default melee weapon. Every player has one. (There was a period of time when the model for the Crowbar was floppy and waggly, and that version is what Dave has.) When used to hit someone, they deal 20 damage (in normal circumstances, things like randomats can change this). They can also be used to push players slightly, including off ledges.	Also work as an actual Crowbar now. No longer always deal an equivalent of 20 damage. Can be used like a normal crowbar when hitting someone instead of a game-ified simulation (ie. hitting someone 5 times on their hand won't instantly kill them, just fuck up their hand if you hit them hard enough).
Magneto Stick	All players have this. Used to pick up and hold props. Has a size limitation for things they can pick up. Ragdolled but living players and corpses can both be picked up with this, but normal living players can't. Can be used to throw objects at high speeds, and thrown objects can deal physics damage to players if they are large enough and thrown fast enough. Actually doing it is really difficult, and even when done successfully, aiming is also really difficult, but players have been killed with this technique (it is pretty universally easier, faster, and simpler to just shoot someone though).	No significant changes.
Magneto Stick Note:	There are two other abilities the Magneto Stick has that Dave has forgotten about. They will be added to the entry above and this will be removed after both have come up in the story.
Inventory	All players have an inventory which holds all of their guns and items. Each item type has a slot, aside from buyable items. A player can only have at most 1 of any given gun or item. Slots include things like: Pistol slot, rifle slot, grenade slot. The grenade slot is what holds non-Shop grenades, potions, and dinguses.	Dave does not have slots, he can have as many things as he wants simultaneously. His inventory can (currently) only hold items from his power. He can hold an unlimited number of each thing he can put in his inventory, and can immediately pick something from his inventory and be holding it at will.
Crouch Jump	Crouch Jumping lets someone jump ever so slightly higher than before. After double jumping was added, it almost never was needed again.	It gives Dave about an extra 6 inches of jump height. While a certain Protectorate technician finds it rather pathetic, some men would kill for an extra 6 inches. Some women would too.
Skin Change	Players can change their Player Models to anything they have available in the skin menu. Each player normally has a specific skin they use so people can tell who is who from a distance. This relies on the Steam Workshop.	No major differences. Dave doesn't have to pick from things in the Steam Workshop, as long as whatever he wants to turn into could reasonably be found in the Steam Workshop... even if it isn't actually in there IRL.
Grenades	Goes in the grenade slot. These are the ones found on the ground, not the ones that are bought in a Shop with credits. Discombobulators: Do no damage, throw all players away from wherever the grenade was when it went off. Discombob for short. Smoke: Does no damage, releases a pathetic amount of smoke that can easily be seen through... but someone might panic upon seeing a grenade thrown at them. Incendiary: Releases a damaging explosion, then sets everything in the area on fire for a set amount of time. The fire will expand to a larger area if a discombobulator goes off within the fire of an incendiary grenade.	No major changes; no limits to grenade slots, he can have as many in his inventory as he wants, he generates more grenades over time instead of needing to find them on the ground. Smoke Grenades actually release enough smoke to hide people and things.
Dingus/dingus	Cat. Goes in the grenade slot. Meows when the 'activate' button (left click I think) is used. A very good boy. Is technically 'dingus' not 'Dingus', the in-game item is not capitalized. Sometimes used to symbolize truces. Mistreating may result in nobody caring when you get murdered in front of them.	To reflect dingus being an item, Dave's dinguses/dingi are totally immortal and indestructible, and immune to harm in every way, the same as they are in the game. Unlike the game, they are actual cats, so they can move around on their own if they want. Like the game cats, they are docile and calm enough to not care if they are in a gunfight, or bombs and grenades are going off. Dave gets a new one in his inventory every ten minutes. Only two have ever left the inventory so far, neither one cares or minds going back in. A dingus could survive everything Scion could throw at it and be totally unharmed... offensively it is just a normal cat though. A dingus has immortal and indestructible vocal chords, and can and will meow on command. Do with that information what you will. (For clarification, dinguses are also immune to mental harm in addition to physical harm.) Dave also has a Pack-a-Punched version, this one slowly changes color, going through every color of the rainbow. Miss Militia has received a dingus (non-rainbow edition). One could argue that the best tactical decision is to use a bunch of dinguses as meat shields to block bullets and attacks. The dinguses wouldn't care if anyone ever actually does that.
Minifier	Found on the ground occasionally throughout various maps. When used, shrinks the player greatly, and lowers their maximum health to 60. Increases their speed slightly as well, but the small model's little legs make them seem even faster because they retain the base speed of a larger model. Also slightly decreases jump height.	No major changes. Jump height is not decreased.
Karma	All players have Karma. They gain Karma by playing the game properly: winning rounds, killing people on the opposite team, things like that. They lose Karma by playing the game poorly: pretty much just by killing people on their own team. People below a certain level of Karma will do less damage, and the less Karma they have, the less damage they do. (The largest damage penalty I remember off the top of my head was a 40% damage penalty). If a player's Karma got way too low, they would, at a certain level of low karma, automatically be banned from the server, and need their karma manually adjusted by an admin to be able to rejoin.	Dave automatically gets karma every 10 minutes he is alive, because 10 minutes is how long a round lasts, and the Old Man (which he started with) has a win condition of being alive at the end of the round. Unlike the game, Dave deals more damage after getting above a certain level of Karma. It is strictly additive, there will be no exponential nonsense involving Karma to instakill Scion by throwing a pebble hard enough with an absurd damage multiplier. The last time it was mentioned (on January 4, 2010), Dave had a Karma bonus that made him deal about 200% damage (that is 200% times damage, not 200% more damage, so he dealt double damage not triple at that point). Dave has theorized that if his Karma ever got low enough he might get 'banned from the server.' He is unsure if that would involve being shunted to Earth Aleph, or being ejected to outside the atmosphere of Earth Bet, or totally ejected from the Worm Multiverse. He does not want to test this, but he is not concerned about it happening because it would need him to disable all of his roles except for ones of a specific team, then kill a bunch of people on that team (either heroes if it was traitor roles he had enabled or villains if it was innocent roles he left enabled).
Incomprehensible Shivers	N/A (N/A means Not Applicable, for anybody not aware)	Sometimes Dave will have a severe shiver or shudder throughout his body after hearing something or having a particular thought. Perhaps these moments have something in common?
Undiscovered Power	Every player can do this in GMod. This can be done in several other Steam games as well.	Dave has not discovered he can do this yet. Points are available to the first person to correctly guess what this ability is.
Friendship	N/A (?)	The real superpower was the friends we made along the way! Especially if being friends with them gives us other superpowers, that helps quite a bit with friendship being considered a superpower.

Let me know if I missed something (I bet I did, there are a lot of things that go in these).
Edit: Less than 2 hours later and I realized I forgot the Minifier. derp.
Edit2: Realized I forgot Karma. I wonder if that's ever been someone's excuse in court.

Phili · Tuesday at 5:36 PM

Chapter 23: Hangin' Out With The Crew in The ~~School Yard~~ Bar?

January 6, 2010, Wednesday. Brockton Bay, Dave's Apartment.

Dave woke up… again. He had forgotten yesterday to try and figure out exactly who was waking him up after he concluded it was enemy action, but he'll figure it out today for sure!

Why do I keep waking up? Who is doing this to me? I bet my soul mate Miss Militia doesn't have to deal with waking up every single day.

Bagel in toaster, orange juice poured, water for tea in the kettle on the stove with the stove turned on; Dave was ready for the start of the day.

Good Morning Dave!

So, you haven't unlocked your 'False False Swipe' yet, but progress has been made. I thought about things a bit, and decided to disable any roles you might get with shops in them for today. You see, shop items naturally take up soul room, and you need soul room to get your false swipe thing, so having more shops unlocked means your soul will need more room for shop items that it then can't use for other things. Don't worry though, math dictates that each thing you unlock that doesn't have a shop will make you more likely to unlock something with a shop later.

Also, it won't exactly take long to get your False False Swipe thing going, probably a couple more days at most of going out as a Scyther.

Anyways, today, your new role is the Good Boy!

This one works a little differently than you might expect.

Instead of blinding whoever kills you for fifteen seconds or whatever, you can decide in advance how long you want whoever kills you to be blinded for. And of course, you can unblind whoever kills you at will at any point. Because of this, the default blinding length I have set it for is 'forever'.

Huh. "You've gotten good at explaining things without writing them in English." Dave offered a compliment to Daf.

There are no walls in soul space Dave, you can't make me bash my head against one!

"Have you considered adding them?" Dave wondered.

*Sigh* Just… whatever. I give up. Maybe you'll be able to read my perfectly normal English letters after your soul grows more or something. Like, I had heard humans got weird, but every bit of knowledge I have says that you should be able to read these, and that if you somehow couldn't you wouldn't be able to understand it at all.

"There there," Dave patted his own head as he started eating his breakfast.

"I'm going to classes Dave; the college starts up again today after Winter break." Bella told him when he went to bother her—in his normal form this time.

"I'll go bother Crystal then!" He decided as Bella walked to her car.

"She has classes too." Bella told him bluntly.

"Uhh…"

Bella sighed. "High schools probably have the rest of the week off if you want to bother the rest of New Wave, and the older generation are full time heroes aside from Brandish, so they might be willing to take you on a patrol or something." She caved and gave him the information he needed.

"Thank you Bella! I love you!" Dave said gleefully.

"I heard that you said that to Miss Militia too, does she know you have feelings for another woman?" Bella asked with a strange expression on her face.

"Miss Militia is my soul mate." Dave confirmed.

"Just… whatever. Sorry Dave, I really need to leave now in order to not be late to class. I'm sure you can manage to entertain yourself without me and Crystal somehow. If you give strong enough puppy dog eyes, and we manage to finish our homework early enough, the three of us might be able to hang out later today." Bella said, before she left to go to her classes.

Dave was in his Scyther form, walking along on his way to the Pelham house. It was a nice sunny day, and he waved to a couple of people he saw along the way. One of them even waved back.

"Hey, can we talk for a second?" Someone said to him from the side.

Dave turned and found… a person. He never would have expected that. He was a rather tall man with visible muscles and wearing sunglasses.

"My employer would like to speak with you as soon as you are able, and she said that –"

"Alright let's go!" Dave interrupted. How convenient, something to do!

"Oh, uh, alright. Follow me please." The mean said, before walking in a different direction, occasionally glancing back to see if Dave was following him.

They quickly arrived to a parked car, and the man said "Come in please, I'll drive you to meet my boss."

"Sure thing." Dave agreed.

After the man started driving, Dave quickly grew bored and asked, "So, are you kidnapping me?"

"What? No, of course not, we don't do that kind of thing." The man said in an offended tone.

"What kind of terrorist refuses to kidnap people?" Dave asked, puzzled.

"What? I'm not a terrorist? What would give you that idea?" Now the man was just confused.

"Well, who else would see a green bug monster with swords for arms, and decide to try and bring them back to their boss? Oh wait, I see now. You're a poacher!" Dave happily concluded.

"No! Ew, I got shivers from hearing that. Do you have any idea how incredibly evil a poacher is? The shit they pull makes the Nazi dog-fighting rings look like top-notch humanitarian animal welfare clubs…" The man started going on about how evil poachers were.

Great, he's just like Sarah. Another speech-happy maniac. Although, now that I think about it, none of the other terrorists I've met so far have given me a kidnapping vibe either. Both New Wave and the Protectorate actually give me the impression they would object to kidnapping. Wait a Minute… I object to kidnapping! Am… Am I a bad terrorist?... Nah.

The car pulled up to a fairly fancy bar called 'Palanquin,' and the driver said, "well, here we are."

The driver, Jeff, turned out to be a really nice guy. Apparently, he was a bouncer at this place, but the boss wanted to talk to Dave for some reason, and he volunteered so he could drive his new car around the city.

They walked in, and Jeff led the way upstairs and knocked on a door. "I brought him boss, should I open the door?"

"Yes, please, come in." A female voice answered from the other side of the door.

Jeff opened the door and stepped in, waving for Dave to go in with him as he did so.

"Here he is boss."

"Thanks Jeff, I hope you had a nice ride. You can leave now, please close the door on your way out." A woman in a moderately armored costume and a welder's mask said.

Jeff left, saying "hey, hit me up on your way out," as he did so.

"What a nice man." Dave commented in his best Florida accent, before turning to the rest of the room.

"Allow me to introduce us, I am Faultline, this is Gregor, he is Newter, and that is Labyrinth." She said, pointing at each other person in the room in turn, Dave recognized them anyways of course. Gregor being the large man with translucent skin and internals, to the point one could see his skeleton; and Newter being an orange-skinned man with a rather cool tail. Labyrinth was probably in her late teens, and wore a green dress with a maze on the front and a simple mask.

"Okay." Dave said. Everyone looked at him expectantly. "Oh right, I'm supposed to introduce myself back, I go by Trouble!"

"It's good to meet you Trouble. You see, we wanted to reach out to you as soon as we got word of a new, local, Case 53. I imagine you have been very confused. May I ask when you woke up without any memories?" Faultline politely asked.

Dave wondered why they wanted to reach out to him after hearing of a Case 53. Maybe they heard about how he was a chill cool guy from the same source that informed them of a new, local, Case 53?

"I woke up on January 1, 2010 with amnesia, why do you ask?"

"You see," Faultline began, "we have been investigating the origins of Case 53s, and we are, as you might guess," she gestured to Newter and Gregor, "rather sympathetic to their plights. So, we wanted to offer you a few things, none of them being contingent on each other. The first, which you may of course think about, is a spot on our team. We are like family, so there would be growing pains as we all get accustomed to each other, but I thought I should mention that offer first. Aside from that, even if you should refuse that, we wanted to offer to get you set up with an identity; and Gregor and Newter wanted to share their experiences with picking their names so you could give your own proper consideration."

"Oh, I already picked my name, and I apparently still had my ID on me when I woke up… or I woke up in someone else's apartment wearing their clothes I suppose. Nobody has claimed I was stealing their identity though. It was a great coincidence really, the name I picked out turned out to be the name on my ID, which I thought really was astoundingly unlikely." Dave explained.

"Hmm, those are quite unusual circumstances for a Case 53, regarding your ID, perhaps you subconsciously remembered your name?" Gregor mused.

"Guys, this could be a clue! These are really unusual circumstances for a Case 53, right? They never have any sort of identification on them when they wake up with no memories!" Newter said excitedly.

"I thought it was more likely that reality was rewritten so my ID matched the name I picked than me subconsciously remembering my name." Dave replied to Gregor's musing.

"You did?" Labyrinth seemed to perk up at that. It was actually quite cute. "Does your power rewrite reality in some way?" She asked.

"I… have no idea!" Dave said proudly.

"Um… what?" Labyrinth was confused for some reason.

"My power does lots of things, I never actually asked it if it did the ID thing though. I'll grant you; I haven't actually tried to rewrite reality myself. When I woke up, my powers were mainly guns, double jumping, being really easy to kill, and transforming." They all nodded along until that last bit.

"Wait, transforming?" Faultine asked.

"Yeah, like this." Dave said, then transformed.

Everyone screamed, three guns shot at him and reality spontaneously broke, specifically to cut him in half. He died instantly.

02925E2304A0D82E566CA53B4F28BACF0CC3A9D8

red shirt instead of blue of course.

Author's Note: I'm starting to get sick, so the quality may be a little lower than usual… I won't really be able to tell if it dips, because again, I'm starting to get sick. It shouldn't affect the schedule too much, I've written stuff in advance specifically for this type of issue, so by the time you see this chapter I might already be better… hopefully. All I usually do the day a chapter goes up is proofread it one last time and check the word count and decide if I need to put up another chapter if the first one is too short.

And today, we unlock the Good Boy role! Also, I started putting the days of the week in the date and location thingy at the start of each chapter. I looked up what day of the week January 1, 2010 was and went from there, but Dave didn't actually think about what day of the week it was until this chapter, so the previous chapters won't get that added through the magic of editing. I sure hope Wildbow matched the days of the week with the real-life dates, otherwise that could get awkward upon reaching canon time periods.

Anyways, the Good Boy role, now Dave can accept headpats! Also, some people might draw comparisons between the Good Boy powers and certain other parahuman powersets, one in particular really, and draw strange conclusions, but I'm sure it'll be fine. If anyone correctly guesses what I'm referring to there, I will award the first person to do so a Burrito Point (as long as they do so before that comparison is first made 'on-screen' of course).

And uh… nothing else really happens this chapter… Yup, nothing at all.

Regarding his ID, I've been planning that in the background for a while now, and I'm looking forward to the reveal of what exactly is on his ID. That probably won't happen for a bit though, Dave is much too smort to be tricked into revealing his real name to these terrorists! He will be trying to get an extra ID out of them though. There is a name he wants to use, and I want him to use it as well. If anyone correctly guesses it, I will award them One (1), dingus Point. A rare and powerful currency, only bestowed upon those blessed by the dingus. A hint for what he wants his ID to be is: It was the name of an episode of TTT.

As of just before I upload this chapter, it looks like nobody successfully guessed that he would be meeting Faultline's Crew next, even after he was walking around as a Scyther. Did… did people believe me when I said who he was meeting was unrelated to the walking around as a Scyther thing? If so, I guess that's just one of the limitations of text instead of speech. Maybe I should have said 'definitely unrelated' instead of 'totally unrelated' or something.

Phili · Tuesday at 6:00 PM

If anyone can correctly guess why exactly I was thinking about what I was thinking about when I made the title for Chapter 23, I will award them points. Your first major hint is the chapter title itself of course. Your second hint is that I named chapter 23 just now after I proofread it a final time before I uploaded it, and the chapter I was working on most recently was Chapter 28.

If anyone can correctly guess exactly what was going through my mind when I named it, and they do so before chapter 28 is released, I will award them: 15 Terrorist points, 10 Burrito points, 5 Dingus points, and 3 Rainbow Dingus points.

This bounty offers so many points for a reason, and that reason is that I'm somewhat doubtful anyone will successfully cash in. I may award partial points for partial guesses though, don't expect very many points for partial guesses though. If anyone guesses it spot on though, I will beg the site staff to add something to their avatar to indicate they are some sort of god. I don't know if the staff will do it, but I will beg them for it.

Rainbow Dingus points are the new, final point currency for the story, and are only awarded for things I'm fairly sure are not going to be obtained. Don't get me wrong, it's totally possible, but in order to guess it someone would need to be fairly well versed in two separate franchises aside from Worm, one of them being Yogscast TTT.

If someone guesses it after Chapter 28 is released, but before the idea in my notes that made my mind go onto the train of thought that resulted in this chapter name actually happens, I will award them 1 of each type of point, including a Rainbow Dingus point, though that may be a bit too easy to warrant a Rainbow Dingus point, they will get one anyways.

I'll only add Rainbow Dingus points to the Scoreboard after someone actually gets one, because... I'm not sure anyone will get any for a while.

Phili · Wednesday at 6:05 PM

Chapter 24: Dave's Popular Phase Has Begun?

January 6, 2010, Wednesday. Brockton Bay, The Palanquin.

"We KILLED HIM!" Newter said in panic as the body of Buff Winnie the Pooh fell to the floor, full of bullet holes, but weirdly not sliced in half after Labyrinth split reality halfway through his body.

Then, buff Winnie the Pooh, who was still half-naked like normal Winnie the Pooh and only wearing a shirt, albeit with the genital-less Barbie-style groin, but an extraordinarily sculpted ass, suddenly disappeared from the floor where his body had fallen and reappeared standing up.

"Don't worry guys, I survived!" Winnie the Pooh said in a… strange voice. A Robin voice in fact.

Everyone screamed again.

"So, you're not a Case 53?" Newter asked.

"Not as far as I'm aware," Dave said cheerfully, back in his Scyther form. Apparently, according to Newter, he needed to 'Turn it off, turn it off, oh god my eyes! Turn back to the green bug monster with blades for hands please!' So, he did.

"But, you said you had amnesia?" Newter asked, though it wasn't really a question, he said it questioningly.

Before Dave could spiral down that rabbit hole of thought, he answered, "Yup, I woke up on January 1, 2010, with no memories that significantly match Earth Bet, but I got a common-sense package."

"You call that common sense?" Gregor asked as everyone else sweatdropped. Newter even collected his sweatdrop in a little bottle and stored it away somewhere.

"Yup," Dave said, trying to give a thumbs up, and realizing he had just stuck out a bladed arm ad Gregor instead. "Pretend I gave you a thumbs up." He added.

"Then how do you know you're not a Case-53?" Newter asked, trying to drag the topic back.

"Well, my normal form looks like a normal human. I talked about it with New Wave, and while they had various theories on why I might have amnesia, the Case-53 theory was discarded fairly quickly. Apparently there is some sort of tattoo I would have had, but my normal form doesn't have any, and none of the forms I can turn into have the tattoo that they described to me."

"Oh," Newter said with disappointment.

After everyone settled down a little from the excitement, Faultline got around to her previous offers.

"I take my promises and commitments seriously, so the offer for the new identity is still in place if you want it. As for the team… you would be welcome to join us. Based on what you said about using guns, as you can tell," she referred to her, Newter, and Gregor all reflexively shooting him when he transformed, "we don't shy away from something as practical and useful as guns, unlike the Protectorate who make even Miss Militia use rubber bullets against Nazis."

"I haven't thought about any teams yet. Although, this is the third team I've been offered a place on in less than a week. Could it be… the legendary popular phase?" Dave wondered aloud and got distracted before he could actually answer the offer.

"As for the ID, yes please, I already know what I want it to be called. It is actually extraordinarily useful for someone like me that can transform to have multiple identities. I would appreciate it if you made the identity exactly Twenty-One though. It is objectively the second-best age after all." Dave replied to Faultline's other offer.

"What's the best age?" Newter asked curiously.

"Eighteen of course!" Dave gave a V sign to the room filled with only people over eighteen and a single sixteen-year-old… only to realize he was just holding out his blade hand again, which didn't have any fingers. "Pretend I'm holding up a V sign with my fingers."

"Man, I feel so much better about my appearance now," Newter whispered to Gregor, who nodded seriously at the idea of not having fingers or thumbs, or even anything like tentacles to use instead.

"Ahem," Faultline coughed. "I would like to propose a pact of information. If you find any information on Case 53s, you will let us know and give it to us, and in exchange, we will let you know if we find any information about your memory loss. We would also let you know if we find out about anyone asking around about you. Given your whole… resurrection thing, we would still fight you if a job required it, but we won't ever attempt to permanently capture you. Sound fair?" She proposed.

"Sure!" Dave agreed happily. After all, he theorized combat would be an excellent way to grow his soul space, and he would guess that combat against new and varied opponents would help even more. Though… he should probably actually ask Daf about that. If they weren't going to try to capture him, they weren't even really a threat. Not that he would be particularly vulnerable to capture anyways, given he already had a Teleporter leading to his home he could use at any time. He needed to remember to set up more of those later.

"Yay, new friends obtained!" Dave cheered.

"Wooh!" Newter and Labyrinth cheered with him.

"Here, as a new friend perk, I'll give you some of these." Dave handed out his party toys.

"You each can have two smoke grenades and two discombobulators and two communal bomb defusers." He said, explaining the smoke and discombob grenades, along with the defuser, and after demonstrating the smoke grenade in the room, Faultline politely requested just having an extra discombobulator they could test on their own somewhere private, and not indoors in a meeting room filled with relatively fragile objects.

"Sure thing!" Dave agreed.

"Oh yes," Dave remembered. "Please don't attack hospitals." He requested.

"Um, dude. We don't do that anyway." Newter said after giving him a weird look.

"You're not very good terrorists, are you?" Dave asked, before ignoring Newter's spluttering denial of being a terrorist, which was exactly what a terrorist would say. "Anyways, I've been using my Health Stations to heal people, and I'll be going around to other hospitals to heal people there as well, so I was worried idiots might attack the hospitals, either while I'm not there to defend them thinking I'm dumb enough to leave the Health Stations there –which… I am, but I have smart friends—or while I am there to defend them, but risking collateral damage. So, if you agree to not do that kind of thing, I'll agree to heal you whenever you want. I will need a burner phone of some sort though, unless you want to send Jeff every time."

"You can heal?" Gregor asked with interest.

"Yup. Nowhere near as well as Panpan but it is faster and it can do brains. It will heal people to their 'peak health' state as best it can, but it won't help with things like cancer. It will treat all the symptoms, but it won't get rid of any of the cancerous cells or anything, so the symptoms will just come back relatively quickly."

"Oh," Faultline put the pieces together quickly, "so it won't work on Case 53s?"

"What? I mean it will heal them to their peak state, but unless being a Case 53 is actually a temporary condition caused by extremely thorough surgery or a parahuman effect that would go away on its own, it won't 'heal' away the Case 53-ness. At least, that's what Panacea told me, and she said she tried to heal one shortly after she got her powers, but her power told her the Case 53 'form' was the default state that the body naturally healed to."

"I do have some burritos and hotpockets if you want to try them though." Dave continued. "They have power-fuckery-ified nutrients, so if any of you have any nutrient deficiencies or exotic nutrient requirements, it will fill those for you."

"Wait, your healing power works through burritos and hotpockets?" Newter questioned.

"Yes? What else would they work through?" Dave asked with confusion.

Newter raised a finger, then thought about it for a moment. "You know what, fair enough."

After leaving his new friends ten burritos and ten hotpockets to eat as they pleased, Dave left the Palanquin. He waved to Jeff on his way out, and handed him two smoke grenades and two discombobulators.

"Don't use 'em all in one place." Dave said cheerily.

"Sure thing man, take care. Wait, what did you just give me?" Jeff automatically replied before realizing he was holding grenades. Dave had already left by then of course.

Author's Note: Ah, there we go. Another team met, and another recruitment attempt. Dave truly is popular eh? Sickness update: it is 8/7/26 when I write this, and I am worse than yesterday. It is actually throwing off my fingers a bit when I type because my reflexes are weird. It ain't fun. I have the ideas, but the fingers do not obey, ☹. Well, this kind of thing is why I made a backlog when I started, so go foresight I guess.

I was going to make this chapter longer, but I ain't feelin' it, much like Mr. Krabs, so this is gonna be a pretty short one. If I get better quickly enough, I'll have written more, so this will be released with another chapter, so I guess you'll know how I'm doing when this comes out based on that.

I've been thinking of doing a Behind the Scenes thing I would put in the extras or index as a sort of supplementary thing while I'm sick, where I would share things like what my original plans were and information that is unlikely to ever be found out in the story itself. Well, it'll probably have already happened by the time you see this if I decide to do it; if it hasn't and you want to see that sort of thing, let me know and I'll do it.

Phili · 2026-08-13T17:49:39+0100

Chapter 25: You Can't Just Drink the Super-Powered Soda Without a Pizza to go With It!

January 6, 2010, Wednesday. Brockton Bay, The Pelham House.

Dave knocked on the door. And waited. And waited. And… looked suspiciously at a garden gnome. He tried to point his fingers at his eyes, then at the gnome's eyes to indicate that he was watching it, then realized he was still a Scyther, and didn't have fingers. He settled for glaring at the gnome. He was considering if the best solution to this scenario was a shotgun, a sniper rifle, a bomb defuser, an incendiary grenade, or dominating it into submission.

After some thought, he decided to start with the domination to be safe, and was about to start T-Posing when the door opened, revealing Neil in his civilian clothes. "Hey Trouble." The man greeted, and Dave took a moment to realize he had addressed him by his cape name because Dave was in his Scyther skin, and thus could not safely be called "Dave" while outside.

"You have a gnome." Dave informed Neil.

"I'm… aware?" Neil sounded confused as if he didn't see the problem.

"Do you want me to handle it for you?" Dave asked.

Neil sighed for some reason. "Just… come in, and don't do anything to the gnome please."

Dave shrugged and agreed, it was their business what they wanted to do with their explosives after all.

After Dave went in, he found Sarah and Mark were also inside.

"Hello," Dave greeted. "I made new friends."

"That's nice, who were they?" Sarah asked, immediately revealing why the internet, in all of its glorious wisdom, had labeled her Photon Mom.

"Faultline's Crew." Dave answered.

"That's—huh, actually that makes sense in hindsight." Mark started before looking back at the Scyther staring at him.

"They sent a guy—Jeff, he's a bouncer at their club, nice guy, hates poachers, a real environmentalist and animal right's advocate—to pick me up. I agreed because I thought they were kidnapping me, but it turns out he was offended when I asked him that." Dave began his story as Neil also sat down, while Sarah grabbed a teapot from the kitchen and poured him a cup.

"… Then, they were offended when I told them they weren't very good terrorists." Dave continued his story when Neil interrupted.

"Were they offended because you said they weren't very good terrorists or because you said they were terrorists at all?"

"You know… I'm not sure." Dave admitted, before continuing his story as the three (present) adults of New Wave shared a look.

"Well… that… could have gone better," Sarah started with a slightly pained expression. "You probably shouldn't have given them anything, especially the grenades that could help them escape, though the bomb defusers are probably fine." She began.

"That said," she continued with a warm tone, "you did an excellent job in getting information on their goals, insight into their dynamics and methodology, a free burner phone, contacts with probably the best possible option as far as villains in the Bay go, and getting concessions regarding what jobs they will take, particularly with jobs involving hospitals."

"Yes, praise me more!" Dave preened, much to Mark and Neil's amusement and Sarah's exasperation.

"As I was going to say anyways," Sarah continued after trying to figure out if she should stop her planned praise, before deciding positive reinforcement was probably the best thing to do, even if she was slightly more reluctant to give it now. "You did something particularly hard for Parahumans, in the form of using diplomacy instead of violence upon meeting Capes from the opposite side of the law. I wanted to reinforce that doing that is a good idea generally, but you shouldn't count on it working out anywhere close to this well in the future. This was probably almost the best possible realistic outcome for meeting a Villain team for the first time—flipping them into becoming heroic is off the table from a realism standpoint, though it has happened. However, I wanted to warn you against trying it with the Empire 88 or the ABB, as they are a completely different kettle of fish, and will likely just try to kill and/or capture you; though the Empire in particular may be interested in recruiting you, and they are absolutely stupid enough to try to recruit Capes by force." Sarah finished her speech with a warning.

"Also, next time you go out, you are bringing a bodycam, just in case you actually get kidnapped and decide to go along with it again." She added on with slight exasperation.

"Well, I think we should talk about the revelations of Faultline's Crew when more of us are here," Mark said, before continuing. "Did you two come to a decision regarding our original topic?" He asked Neil and Sarah.

"Yes," Neil said, while Sarah nodded.

"In that case," Mark turned to Dave. "All three of us would like to use your PhD Flopper item if you are still willing," he said.

"Huh, I thought only Sarah was interested, but sure." Dave said as he pulled out five PhD Floppers and set them on the table. Three were for Mark, Sarah, and Neil, with the last two being for Carol and Crystal.

"I decided that I'm not very likely to accidentally trigger the explosion from falling," Mark started, "and the immunity to harm from falling is too useful to pass up on a team of flyers, where any of them aside from my wife could use their strength or forcefields to carry me, and I could drop into a point within enemy lines, triggering the explosion and not being harmed by the fall. I can also 'explain' to any particularly 'smart' opponents, that I figured out how to use my explosions to cancel out the force of the fall."

"I had similar thoughts," Neil said. "My forcefield means I don't need to worry too much about explosions or being harmed by falling in the first place, but it also means I am less at risk of accidentally setting off the explosion. Meanwhile, it opens up the same possibility for me as what Mark mentioned, where a flyer can carry me and drop me down as needed to cause the explosion. And of course, everyone that drinks it will become immune to Mark's explosions, which opens up a lot of tactical possibilities depending on how it interacts with our forcefields."

"I already explained my reasoning to you back when you first brought up the idea Dave," Sarah said, "but what Mark said inspired me a little. It is inevitable as you begin Parahuman combat that it will eventually be revealed that you have the same powers that we will have suddenly gained, though we will delay that reveal for as long as we can for the information advantage it brings. When someone does put it together though, it won't be clear if Mark somehow got new powers and granted them to the rest of New Wave as well as you through a Trump effect, or if you got the new powers and granted them to New Wave, and the obvious connection between the explosions and 'no fall damage' to a team of mostly flyers with an explosion specialist, will make people waste time trying to figure out what exactly happened, and if you, or a hidden other Parahuman, studied us to make Tinkertech, or used us as a basis for a Trump power somehow. Ideally, this will waste time, energy, and resources of anyone that considers fighting us, and might even make them choose not to fight."

"Where are the wee ones?" Dave wondered after a while of not seeing the younger generation of New Wave.

"Wee ones?" Mark muttered with confusion.

"Oh, Eric, Vicky, and Amy all went to the arcade, and of course, Crystal is at college," Neil said. "That is what you meant right?"

"Yup," Dave nodded. "Anyways, can I set up a teleport receiver pad here?" he asked.

"What exactly would it do?" Sarah asked.

"It would let me teleport to the pad… or anyone that had that teleporter device I suppose," he took out a remote-control-like object to show them. "Not that anyone could actually get it out of my inventory if I didn't purposefully give it to them."

Sarah thought for a few moments. "I think we can find a spot for it somewhere. It will need to be inside so you don't always have to come in your Cape identity, but I think we have room in the basement."

"Thanks," Dave said. "I need more places to put them so I can travel around more quickly in emergencies, like feeling really lazy… or if the city is attacked, I suppose. But mostly the laziness thing."

"We can see about setting one up for you at the hospital, they might appreciate having a way to get help from a Cape instantly, just in case any Cape is stupid enough to not realize you take back the Health Stations when you leave… or just as a precaution for when Amy is there and you aren't, that would mean an extra Cape – you—to defend them if someone attacked while someone else –who would already be there from our new arrangement— is protecting Amy and the Health Stations." Sarah offered.

"The protectorate will likely accept putting one on the Rig as long as they get to decide exactly where to put it," Neil added. "Though, that will mean revealing the teleporters to them. You will need to do that eventually, but it might be wiser to do so a little later to throw off predictions of your growth rate. Or don't," Neil shrugged. "Up to you really. It's just that, while I don't like to speak ill of allies, it is a poorly kept secret that information from the PRT leaks like a sieve to the gangs, and the Protectorate shares all their information with the PRT in Brockton Bay."

"I suppose I will wait a bit before asking the hospital and Protectorate then," Dave said disappointedly.

"Here is good," Neil said as he led Dave to the garage to place his Teleporter Receiver Pad (the garage was directly a part of the house, not separate, so there was no risk of people noticing Dave in his various forms constantly exiting the Pelham garage without going in whenever he went to their house). "We can set up some curtains to surround it for now, and just not let any guests ever visit the garage, which shouldn't be too hard."

"Cool," Dave plopped down the teleporter pad, then his phone rang. His normal one, not the burner phone he received from Faultline's Crew.

"Hello?" he said into the phone. "Oh, it's ready? You had to use a bunch of those thingies though? Okay, I'll be there right away." He hung up and looked at Neil. "Want to see how the teleporter works in action? I can teleport to my home, grab something and be right back if you want to watch?"

"Sure, just a second first though," Neil shrugged and agreed before calling, "Sarah! Mark! Dave is about to use the teleporter device; he's using it in about 30 seconds if you want to see it."

"30 seconds is fine right?" Neil confirmed with Dave, a little sheepish for making the statement without checking with Dave first.

"Yeah, that's fine." Dave confirmed.

After Mark and Sarah arrived, Dave waved to them and said "So, I just use this little thing, and press this button, then," he pressed the button, and his arms went straight down to his sides, then over the course of about two seconds he vanished.

"That was neat." Mark commented.

"Did he say when he was going to come back?" Sarah asked Neil after another 30 seconds or so had passed.

"Yeah, he said he just had to pick something up then he would teleport right back." Neil replied.

After another half a minute or so, the teleporter pad had a shape appear over it, that filled in to become Dave in his normal, civilian form over the course of about two seconds. His arms were straight down by his sides, but with a pizza box under one of them.

"My test worked," Dave said. "Something thin enough can be carried between the teleporter's arm and the side of their body. Their arms do still have to go straight down though, the teleporter forces that to happen when it teleports me. At least, for now it does; that might change on its own even if I don't try to change anything about it."

"You got pizza?" Neil asked.

"Yup, wanna share?" Dave asked in return.

After everyone nodded their assent, they returned to the living room and retrieved plates.

"It's just a plain cheese," Dave said as he opened the box, "so I hope nobody only eats the more exotic options."

"Why does it have like fifty of those little pizza holder things holding up the pizza? I've only ever seen one used." Mark asked.

"Ah, you see, I asked them for a very special pizza." Dave said as he lifted it up out of the box and showed them the pizza.

"That's… just a normal pizza though?" Mark said, still confused.

Dave flipped over the pizza, revealing the bottom of the pizza… also had sauce and cheese on it.

"It's a double-sided pizza!" Dave exclaimed.

Mark, Neil, and Sarah all face-palmed.

"It's perfect to eat together with the PhD Flopper!" Dave continued, deepening their exasperation.

"Fine." Sarah eventually folded after looking at Dave's hopeful expression.

Thus, the New Wave adults drank their PhD Floppers together with a double-sided pizza.

Author's Note: There we go, another New Wave meeting done, just the adults this time… aside from Crystal, who is technically an adult. New Wave has been doing stuff in the background and keeping Carol/Brandish in the loop, and talking among themselves, which I hope showed a little bit here. I also tried to reflect their cleverness, because they did think of hiding Vicky's forcefield limitations –and were successful until they encountered Tattletale, who literally has a Thinker specialty of 'figuring things out'—so they came up with plans to delay and confuse enemies with regards to their new powers.

Also, New Wave found out about Faultline's Crew's goal of learning about and curing Case 53s. It might make New Wave a little more sympathetic to Faultline's Crew, but I don't expect that to change too much.

After this, in the background, New Wave will begin training their members with the new PhD Flopper powers, and doing simulated exercises with the younger ones until they trust they will use it responsibly. Crystal and Carol will drink theirs off-screen as well, but they don't get any double-sided pizza with theirs.

Now, some of you might think I made up the double-sided pizza thing. You would be wrong. Here you go: https://youtu.be/qDS3c1Rjc7o?list=PL3XZNMGhpynP4rbJJGg3NIpZJHB5QRVC1&t=80 It should be right there at the 1 minute 20 second mark, which is where that link should take you. That one was pepperoni though.

Next time… nothing special happens… promise ;P
I'll even give you a Yogscast Guarantee ™ that nothing happens next time.

Wait a Minute... (Guy in Worm with Trouble in Terrorist Town powers)

Dave's Eventual Cape Name (Vote is not binding, mostly fishing for ideas)

Sharky

Palp

Trouble

Terrorist

Town

Snake

Solid Snake

Pikachu

Something else I am putting as a comment in the thread

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?