Takes place before Cherish joins the S9, The story of a Case 53 with power over bioelectricity...
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Whimsy (Worm Fanfic)
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fappingtoyourpost
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Takes place before Cherish joins the S9, The story of a Case 53 with power over bioelectricity.
---
If you are conscientious, competent and punctual, you can get superpowers by working for Accord. This "arcane" bit of knowledge is the reason I spent the last 15 years of my life committing violent crimes in a flowery yellow sundress. I'm in it for the bennies. One of the things you learn a bit later into your career with the organization is that sometimes coworkers who've been "promoted to parahuman" don't wind up on Accord's parahuman team. That's why, the moment I see the nurse grimace at me, I know I'm probably a dead woman. I actually have a soft spot for the polite little murder machine, but I was warned there might be physical changes, and if I'm a case 53 now I need to get as far away from Accord as is fucking possible.
Of course, Accord has planned for escape attempts. Accord has a plan for (literally) everything. The seat explodes under me, and I've dealt with containment foam often enough that I'm not super concerned for the well being of the nurse in front of me, who is now buried in the stuff. Of course, Accord's going to go nuts when the smell of the cleaning agent soaks into the outrageously expensive carpet of this penthouse office but, hey, silver lining, that's not my problem anymore.
Interesting side note: I am not covered in containment foam. Looking down, I see that this is because I don't have a body. Interesting. Wait, no, I should be panicking about that. interesting is the wrong word. I guess without adrenal glands I'm going to have to do all the heavy lifting on panic front from now on. What the fuck! holy shit! I don't have a body! That seems more accurate. I'll use that as my mood and take it from there.
With what some might call rational haste, but in my case I am proud to say is perfectly irrational panic, I leap from the ruins of the Bergen Belsen collector's edition dentist chair I was strapped into and sprint across the room. This affords me a moment to realize that despite my lack of body, I am not, in fact, invisible, because invisibility would be useful in this situation, and the universe is actively fucking malicious. First of all, my body lights up with electricity whenever I move it, and, more worryingly, my head is casting a shadow. Crossing my eyes I see my nose is a perfect red orb. An alarmed inspection of my face in the shiny chrome of the medical cart shows that my professional relationship with Accord is most certainly at an end.
Instead of a head, I have a cheapo plastic clown mask.
---
So, that's a thing. I wonder what would happen if somebody put me on? The electricity when I move looks like the signals the brain sends to muscles to get them going. I have the sneaking suspicion that I've developed as the world's shittiest master cape. I can take over exactly one person, and they have to wear an easily identifiable clown mask in order for me to do it. The intangibility's pretty handy though.
Speaking of intangibility, time to see if I can walk through the secondary defenses of this lushly appointed corporate deathtrap. I reach into the private climate control thermostat and grab the 24v control wires to see how I interact with electricity at a low voltage. Very well, apparently. Electricity feels very good. Pushing my hand into the 20,000v lethally electrified exterior window feels like tinkertech drugs.
I know time is limited, that silent alarms are certainly ringing at this point, and that one of the ambassadors is a trump, so I walk through the exterior wall, ignore the jolt of euphoria, and focus very hard on being able to fly.
Intangibility or not, stepping out a 20th story window is a pretty risky maneuver, but seeing as I have no mass, I figure the force of impact is liable to be tiny. I'm wrong. Having no mass means I've actually overestimated the effects of gravity, am now standing on thin air, and have no traction with which to get back into the building. I'm a sitting duck unless I can finangle my power into something resembling flight.
I think happy thoughts, to no effect. I try flapping my arms, which doesn't work either. I try willing myself to go forwards, and it feels surprisingly similar to constipation despite my lack of body to feel constipated with. Then I try visualizing wings. That has an effect. I've been acting silly, sticking to a human shape out of habit rather than out of necessity. I imagine I'm a falcon and take off.
---
I arrive at my house as Accord's crew is walking up the steps. I should have known the little bastard would send people. On the plus side, they seem surprised to see me too. A giant squid made out of electricity wearing a discount clown mask at a debonair angle roaring towards you, rocket-like, at a couple hundred miles an hour will surprise most people, though, so I don't hold it against them.
They put up some resistance, but I'm made out of lightning and they're shooting me with bullets, if you know anything at all about capes you already know how that song and dance goes.
I stun the last one and settle on his face. heh. I'm now firmly sitting on this criminal's fa-ha-nope. I'm going to come up with a better way of describing that.
I Facehug this guy and get an instinctive feel for his nervous system. This is definitely a master power. I stand up, and he comes with me. Handy. Time to grab my stuff.
I walk up the steps to my front door, and what this power lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in fine control. I'm all tuned up, and I get a fluttery feeling from his nerve responses that makes me feel like I'm on ecstasy. I start tumbling around and rubbing my back on stuff. I manage to make a bit of a fool of myself for the dash-cams before I realize that my power incentivizes me to caper. Cavort. When I got clown powers I apparently got fucking clown powers.
I cut that shit out and walk up to the front door. This is going to be a problem. My keys are wherever my body is. I could phase through the door, but then I wouldn't have a body to grab my stash bag with. Conundrum. I check to see if I've left the door unlocked, and conundrum solved, I snap the knob clean off. I apparently confer brute powers. Neat. Saves me having to figure out where I keep the sledgehammer.
---
I'm a fucking idiot. I don't magically confer super strength onto people, the electrical signals I send to my host are just stronger than the signals the brain sends. TL;DR, I've just completely mangled host #1's hands tearing up floorboards to get to my stash; and they're called necessary secondary powers for a reason. Keys or no keys, this guy's not going to be driving me anywhere, let alone carrying a box of cash and documents out to the car.
This is the point where I realize I have no clue how I'm meant to get off this guy. Like I said, I'm an idiot. I can't move the mask without moving the electric storm controlling this guy. Every time I move the mask away I move the head forward. Useless.
---
Accord has an interesting (read: detailed) spin on SERE training, because of course he does. He says it's more effective to have a good plan than to have an additional 5 minute lead. Actually, he has a system for treating proportional time taken from default valuable actions as a currency and offering percentage values on expenditures with sub-tables for situational values, with the end result being that I'm sitting in my most comfortable chair and thinking things through for a moment.
Then I get up and stick a fork in an electrical outfit.
Nameless mook #1 gets twitched across the room, I get a neat little tingling sensation in my fingertips and stay right where I am. Problem solved. I leave to grab one of the spares.
Nameless mook designee 2 is awake behind the wheel of a black Escalade, fumbling against nerve damage to dial a number on his phone. I take the form of a squid and launch myself at him.
Interesting thing about squids, is that they're jet engines with tentacles. Underwater this gives them the ability to launch themselves short distances at high speeds. Without all that water in the way, squid-form is slightly OP. All of this is to say that, between the time the agent noticed the disembodied clown mask coming at him and the time his phone hit the floor of the car, the agent was already possessed. Neat. I drive the car up to the front door, hop out, grab my stuff, and take off.
---
If you are conscientious, competent and punctual, you can get superpowers by working for Accord. This "arcane" bit of knowledge is the reason I spent the last 15 years of my life committing violent crimes in a flowery yellow sundress. I'm in it for the bennies. One of the things you learn a bit later into your career with the organization is that sometimes coworkers who've been "promoted to parahuman" don't wind up on Accord's parahuman team. That's why, the moment I see the nurse grimace at me, I know I'm probably a dead woman. I actually have a soft spot for the polite little murder machine, but I was warned there might be physical changes, and if I'm a case 53 now I need to get as far away from Accord as is fucking possible.
Of course, Accord has planned for escape attempts. Accord has a plan for (literally) everything. The seat explodes under me, and I've dealt with containment foam often enough that I'm not super concerned for the well being of the nurse in front of me, who is now buried in the stuff. Of course, Accord's going to go nuts when the smell of the cleaning agent soaks into the outrageously expensive carpet of this penthouse office but, hey, silver lining, that's not my problem anymore.
Interesting side note: I am not covered in containment foam. Looking down, I see that this is because I don't have a body. Interesting. Wait, no, I should be panicking about that. interesting is the wrong word. I guess without adrenal glands I'm going to have to do all the heavy lifting on panic front from now on. What the fuck! holy shit! I don't have a body! That seems more accurate. I'll use that as my mood and take it from there.
With what some might call rational haste, but in my case I am proud to say is perfectly irrational panic, I leap from the ruins of the Bergen Belsen collector's edition dentist chair I was strapped into and sprint across the room. This affords me a moment to realize that despite my lack of body, I am not, in fact, invisible, because invisibility would be useful in this situation, and the universe is actively fucking malicious. First of all, my body lights up with electricity whenever I move it, and, more worryingly, my head is casting a shadow. Crossing my eyes I see my nose is a perfect red orb. An alarmed inspection of my face in the shiny chrome of the medical cart shows that my professional relationship with Accord is most certainly at an end.
Instead of a head, I have a cheapo plastic clown mask.
---
So, that's a thing. I wonder what would happen if somebody put me on? The electricity when I move looks like the signals the brain sends to muscles to get them going. I have the sneaking suspicion that I've developed as the world's shittiest master cape. I can take over exactly one person, and they have to wear an easily identifiable clown mask in order for me to do it. The intangibility's pretty handy though.
Speaking of intangibility, time to see if I can walk through the secondary defenses of this lushly appointed corporate deathtrap. I reach into the private climate control thermostat and grab the 24v control wires to see how I interact with electricity at a low voltage. Very well, apparently. Electricity feels very good. Pushing my hand into the 20,000v lethally electrified exterior window feels like tinkertech drugs.
I know time is limited, that silent alarms are certainly ringing at this point, and that one of the ambassadors is a trump, so I walk through the exterior wall, ignore the jolt of euphoria, and focus very hard on being able to fly.
Intangibility or not, stepping out a 20th story window is a pretty risky maneuver, but seeing as I have no mass, I figure the force of impact is liable to be tiny. I'm wrong. Having no mass means I've actually overestimated the effects of gravity, am now standing on thin air, and have no traction with which to get back into the building. I'm a sitting duck unless I can finangle my power into something resembling flight.
I think happy thoughts, to no effect. I try flapping my arms, which doesn't work either. I try willing myself to go forwards, and it feels surprisingly similar to constipation despite my lack of body to feel constipated with. Then I try visualizing wings. That has an effect. I've been acting silly, sticking to a human shape out of habit rather than out of necessity. I imagine I'm a falcon and take off.
---
I arrive at my house as Accord's crew is walking up the steps. I should have known the little bastard would send people. On the plus side, they seem surprised to see me too. A giant squid made out of electricity wearing a discount clown mask at a debonair angle roaring towards you, rocket-like, at a couple hundred miles an hour will surprise most people, though, so I don't hold it against them.
They put up some resistance, but I'm made out of lightning and they're shooting me with bullets, if you know anything at all about capes you already know how that song and dance goes.
I stun the last one and settle on his face. heh. I'm now firmly sitting on this criminal's fa-ha-nope. I'm going to come up with a better way of describing that.
I Facehug this guy and get an instinctive feel for his nervous system. This is definitely a master power. I stand up, and he comes with me. Handy. Time to grab my stuff.
I walk up the steps to my front door, and what this power lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in fine control. I'm all tuned up, and I get a fluttery feeling from his nerve responses that makes me feel like I'm on ecstasy. I start tumbling around and rubbing my back on stuff. I manage to make a bit of a fool of myself for the dash-cams before I realize that my power incentivizes me to caper. Cavort. When I got clown powers I apparently got fucking clown powers.
I cut that shit out and walk up to the front door. This is going to be a problem. My keys are wherever my body is. I could phase through the door, but then I wouldn't have a body to grab my stash bag with. Conundrum. I check to see if I've left the door unlocked, and conundrum solved, I snap the knob clean off. I apparently confer brute powers. Neat. Saves me having to figure out where I keep the sledgehammer.
---
I'm a fucking idiot. I don't magically confer super strength onto people, the electrical signals I send to my host are just stronger than the signals the brain sends. TL;DR, I've just completely mangled host #1's hands tearing up floorboards to get to my stash; and they're called necessary secondary powers for a reason. Keys or no keys, this guy's not going to be driving me anywhere, let alone carrying a box of cash and documents out to the car.
This is the point where I realize I have no clue how I'm meant to get off this guy. Like I said, I'm an idiot. I can't move the mask without moving the electric storm controlling this guy. Every time I move the mask away I move the head forward. Useless.
---
Accord has an interesting (read: detailed) spin on SERE training, because of course he does. He says it's more effective to have a good plan than to have an additional 5 minute lead. Actually, he has a system for treating proportional time taken from default valuable actions as a currency and offering percentage values on expenditures with sub-tables for situational values, with the end result being that I'm sitting in my most comfortable chair and thinking things through for a moment.
Then I get up and stick a fork in an electrical outfit.
Nameless mook #1 gets twitched across the room, I get a neat little tingling sensation in my fingertips and stay right where I am. Problem solved. I leave to grab one of the spares.
Nameless mook designee 2 is awake behind the wheel of a black Escalade, fumbling against nerve damage to dial a number on his phone. I take the form of a squid and launch myself at him.
Interesting thing about squids, is that they're jet engines with tentacles. Underwater this gives them the ability to launch themselves short distances at high speeds. Without all that water in the way, squid-form is slightly OP. All of this is to say that, between the time the agent noticed the disembodied clown mask coming at him and the time his phone hit the floor of the car, the agent was already possessed. Neat. I drive the car up to the front door, hop out, grab my stuff, and take off.
Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
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I suspect the title is the answer.
fappingtoyourpost
Know what you're doing yet?
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This isn't likely to come up in story, so I'll explain. In the Cauldron interlude with the phantom limb guy Number Man explains that abstract Case 53 shards latch onto a concept, and then flip through iterations of reality to find a way to emulate that concept. The protagonist's abstract concept is "Commedia dell'arte."
gammoregan
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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I like it, but I don't really like that clown mask part. It just feels tacky and tacked on. And that's really not the sort of concept shards identify.
fappingtoyourpost
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Maybe not, but I needed a way for people she's mastered to be easily identifiable, I needed to cause conflict with Accord, and I needed an aspect of the power to really suck, so protagonist gets a clown mask.
WizardTwo
Not too sore, are you?
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Well, I'm enjoying this. Not an awful lot to see yet, but what is there is well thought out and well written.
Evil masks which possess people have been a thing in mythology for a looooong time, and its interesting to read from the perspective of the mask for once, rather than the people trying to get it off.
Evil masks which possess people have been a thing in mythology for a looooong time, and its interesting to read from the perspective of the mask for once, rather than the people trying to get it off.
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I have no problem with the mask part... just the clown part.
It's easy enough to have a mirrow smooth mask resembling a face or something...
Cyn
Making the rounds.
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Or you could always go with the classic movie possession special effect. Glowing eyes and layered voice.
TanaNari
Verified Dick
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The clown mask makes about as much sense as Lung turning into a fire breathing dragon. Giant dragon? Sure. Pyrokinetic? Sure. Together? Not any reason a shard should think that way. But shards latch on to their user's subconscious and build from it. Dragons are suppose to have fire in imagination of the host. So dragon gets fire.
... Implies the protagonist has some deep psychological issues when it comes to clowns which should probably make their way into the story...
But other than that? There's no conflict with Suspension of Disbelief to be had here for anyone who's paying attention to how Worm powers work.
... Implies the protagonist has some deep psychological issues when it comes to clowns which should probably make their way into the story...
But other than that? There's no conflict with Suspension of Disbelief to be had here for anyone who's paying attention to how Worm powers work.
pepperjack
A Variety of Cheese
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Clown mask is awesome. Also? In squid form, she almost literally flies by blowing.
This is the Wormiest original power I can currently recall seeing in fiction.
This is the Wormiest original power I can currently recall seeing in fiction.
fappingtoyourpost
Know what you're doing yet?
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A whimsical Post-GM oneshot
She didn't start crying until after she was healed. That should have been a clue.
The man with the knife wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to pick up clues at the moment, though. He was rather more focused on his dead team-mate, and how bad he was going to make this bitch suffer.
"Oh, darling, there's no reason to cry," he said, walking over to the sobbing girl "we haven't even started yet."
Normally, the man standing on the girl's right would chime in to say something witty about how they were going to take a long time finishing, too. He didn't, though, and that should have been clue number two.
Slightly off balance from the pause in the witty repartee, perhaps starting to pick up subconsciously on the fact that something wasn't right, the man slowed his walk to the girl.
"Hack, is everything alright?"
To which Hack replied with gibberish, drawing the knife wielding man to a halt.
The girl, dark wavy hair covering her face, covered in blood and entangled on her left hand side by a fake arm that had only barely moved enough to accommodate the sudden and spontaneous regrowth of her real arm stopped crying and started laughing.
It started low, and desperate. A sob that ended with a little hitch. Then it began to rise in volume and mirth, to the bemused laughter of someone who realized they'd been pranked but found the whole thing rather funny. It continued into belly laughs that had the girl rolling around in the blood, before crescendoing into the sort of mad, screaming laughter one might hear echoing down the halls of a madhouse with excellent acoustics.
This clue was slightly less subtle than the ones before it. The man with the knife started running. He wouldn't get far enough. Nowhere was far enough anymore.
The girl finally stopped laughing, face up in a puddle of blood, head resting in the crook of a spandex-clad corpse's arm, eyes full of mirth and a slightly unhinged smile stretching her too-thin lips. "Oh my god," she said, panting to get her breath back, "I can't believe I forgot I hadn't tried to make them talk last time."
Hack, eyes slightly glazed, walked over to the corpse the girl was resting on and started converting the living biological material in it into a mass of a curious sort of insect, an insect of a sort that had only ever existed on another world, far away from this one.
He left the arm for her to use as a pillow.
She didn't start crying until after she was healed. That should have been a clue.
The man with the knife wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to pick up clues at the moment, though. He was rather more focused on his dead team-mate, and how bad he was going to make this bitch suffer.
"Oh, darling, there's no reason to cry," he said, walking over to the sobbing girl "we haven't even started yet."
Normally, the man standing on the girl's right would chime in to say something witty about how they were going to take a long time finishing, too. He didn't, though, and that should have been clue number two.
Slightly off balance from the pause in the witty repartee, perhaps starting to pick up subconsciously on the fact that something wasn't right, the man slowed his walk to the girl.
"Hack, is everything alright?"
To which Hack replied with gibberish, drawing the knife wielding man to a halt.
The girl, dark wavy hair covering her face, covered in blood and entangled on her left hand side by a fake arm that had only barely moved enough to accommodate the sudden and spontaneous regrowth of her real arm stopped crying and started laughing.
It started low, and desperate. A sob that ended with a little hitch. Then it began to rise in volume and mirth, to the bemused laughter of someone who realized they'd been pranked but found the whole thing rather funny. It continued into belly laughs that had the girl rolling around in the blood, before crescendoing into the sort of mad, screaming laughter one might hear echoing down the halls of a madhouse with excellent acoustics.
This clue was slightly less subtle than the ones before it. The man with the knife started running. He wouldn't get far enough. Nowhere was far enough anymore.
The girl finally stopped laughing, face up in a puddle of blood, head resting in the crook of a spandex-clad corpse's arm, eyes full of mirth and a slightly unhinged smile stretching her too-thin lips. "Oh my god," she said, panting to get her breath back, "I can't believe I forgot I hadn't tried to make them talk last time."
Hack, eyes slightly glazed, walked over to the corpse the girl was resting on and started converting the living biological material in it into a mass of a curious sort of insect, an insect of a sort that had only ever existed on another world, far away from this one.
He left the arm for her to use as a pillow.
Last edited:
pepperjack
A Variety of Cheese
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So, is this part of the same story, or...?
Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased to see a post in this thread, I'm just uncertain what I'm reading.
Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased to see a post in this thread, I'm just uncertain what I'm reading.
fappingtoyourpost
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When I started this thread I thought I was going to post stories and oneshots with similar themes, but then I lost chapter two of the initial story and my yen for the process along with it. This scene wouldn't leave me the hell alone, though, so I figured I'd use this thread for its intended purpose.
The first story was going to be, at least a little bit, about the darkness of natural triggers mostly happening to kids and teens from the perspective of a cauldron cape who got their powers old enough to see the humor of it all, so I might wind up linking the two eventually.
pepperjack
A Variety of Cheese
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I really want to see more of Clown Mask.