Broken Stations 3.3
VoidKindred
Getting sticky.
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[] Dimensional Breacher
[] The Watcher
[] Tinker Table
[] Patrol with Khepri
[] Operation: Don't shut the fuck up TattleTale
[] BROADCAST + SHUNT
[] The Watcher
[] Tinker Table
[] Patrol with Khepri
[] Operation: Don't shut the fuck up TattleTale
[] BROADCAST + SHUNT
Broken Stations 3.3
Eve 'Eden' Coldwin Tuesday the Sixth of April
Eve ended up sleeping in an hour the day following her and Taylor kissing, her dreams filled with flesh tones, green eyes, and silky black hair. Needless to say she was in quite the spectacular mood when she woke up.
Nevermind that she slept in a chair, to which she missed the Hotel beds already, but she had a girlfriend and they kissed. Eve couldn't stop smiling through her breakfast of still warm large pretzels and water. The smile was still on her face even when she jabbed herself multiple times while sewing up the more egregious damage to her costume, just so she could go out in it without exposing herself.
It looked patchwork and in all honestly it was just patch work. But patchwork made the dream work, and she wasn't all that interested in playing domestic by learning sewing through trial and error.
With her costume decent and one of her new helmets on with a ski mask under it, Eden made her way out of her base. She made way into the city while remembering to not fly straight out of her base.
Honestly she should make a teleporter at some point. Would be nice to not worry about giving the base's location away just by entering or leaving it. Or maybe just build fucking turrets and make anyone snooping around regret doing the face. Hell she knew (somewhat) how to make explosives thanks to her Grandpa.
For a moment Eve's thoughts drift to her grandfather, and just how much she wished she could have shown Taylor off to him. He would have approved of her, approved of them being together. Unlike her parents.
For the first time in the morning her smile slipped off her face, her wings remained still as she flew farther south. A lone wistful sigh escaped her as she banked and flew downwards, the weightlessness in her chest replaced by a yearning melancholy of the past.
She floated down to the ground tucking her wings, the Simurgh's wings, in as she made her way into the large store. It was one of those store chains dedicated to selling nothing but tools of the many trades in life. She suspected that she would be buying a lot of supplies from this place, that and maybe that electronics store in the South Docks. She was fairly certain it wasn't an ABB front too!
Once in the store, she browsed through the selection of workbenches. She wasn't going to overload her only table with tools and dangerous TinkerTech. She ended up also picking out a nice tool set. Nothing powered yet, she didn't have much knowledge in using them. Maybe if she continued and upgraded her Coding ability she would learn how to build computers to go along with it. She hoped so, then maybe she'd know more about what she was doing when she decided to Tinker with code.
When she decided to pay for a set of tools to go with a work bench, she brought an employee over and told them that she wanted to buy it. Then she tore the tags with the barcode off, put the two items in storage and told the employee to take her to a checkout.
It caused a bit of a stir, but when she brought out her money, she got what she wanted in the end.
After leaving, all she had to do was go back to the base and set up the Tinker Table, getting all the tools set in place. Eve was never really a neat girl, but standing there and staring at a work bench brimming with neatly organized tools...it filled her with a sense of success, progress even. A spike of excitement ran through her as she started thinking of ideas on what she could build. Most of it was just her own thoughts in the matter, but for those thoughts came vague details. Like an uncompleted blueprint, just out of reach.
But some things did come to her. Some kind of regeneration enhancer, a dart that disrupted a parahuman's ability to use their power at full strength, an emp for TinkerTech, a device that when attached to something makes said item dimensionally dense, and...and on the edge of her thoughts. Something about dimensions. Very frustrating that one was, the more she tried to focus on the thought, the more it slipped from her mind.
"Fuck." Eve reached up, rubbing her face. "Damn, now I see why people like Tinkers so much, holy shit." She took a deep breath to reel her emotions in. "Wow...guess making things seems like fun." She murmured before starting to walk away from her Tinker Table before she started ripping it apart to build something.
Fingers itching from inaction, Eve brought out her Ghostly Limb Aspect and whispered Tattletale's Shard to it. She needed to get [Negotiator] with them after all. Though, she would also need to invite Taylor.
She had promised to let her girlfriend know about things. This was probably important.
Inside the Firmament, you inspect the Memory Cache, no longer able to justify putting off reviewing the content of each once. So you start with the oldest, the first of the four. The one that gave the impression of The Watcher whatever or whoever that might be.
Reaching over, you engulf the metaphysical representation of an Imprint of yourself in your hands and you Dream.
A large <Entity> swims through space, it is large and shifts in it's straightforward momentum took a tremendous amount of energy to do so. It's crystalline flesh was a mismatch of colors signifying that the Entity had consumed more than one of its own kind.
It called itself the Devourer, Apollyon. It's Cycles were short lived but bountiful in information from rapid Deployment of [Shards] and |Super weapons| both of which were 'weaker' in comparison to other Entity's Cycles.
The Devourer did not multiply, taking all the energy for itself when the Cycle ended. Destroying every planet it Seeded before moving on, it still destroyed thousands of worlds each Cycle wiping out Trillions of lives each time.
It fought other Entities, believing in the ideal of survival of the strongest. Sometimes it did not even consume the corpse of the defeated Entity believing it too much work for too little reward and thus left behind massive graves stretched across multiple dimensions.
All except for one.
One made of obsidian crystalline flesh, smaller than almost any other Entity The Devourer had seen before. It dodged every weapon, deflecting and weaving through every attack that The Devourer sent. It ignored the declaration of war The Devourer sent and instead Greeted the hostile Entity politely.
It called itself The Watcher, and it was interested in The Devourer and its choice of Cycle machinations. After failing to so much as damage a node much less a Shard on the pitch black Entity for nearly a planetary month The Devourer relented it's assault and accepted the communication of the other Entity.
The Devourer, unused to open communication, began making demands for Data on how The Watcher was able to completely negate every attack sent its way. How such a small and seemingly weak thing managed to do something far larger and more powerful Entities had failed to do in stopping The Devourer from following its namesake.
The Watcher explained that it had already seen everything The Devourer had done, and would ever do. After the destruction of the Grey World It had situated itself between three blackholes and fed off the reaction of their event horizons meeting without consuming one another.
Then it began to devote nearly all it's Shards to precognitive processes and studying the Quantra layer, from there it had spent energy pulling asteroids close to it to consume them and turned them into more Shard flesh. The new Shards formed were devoted to studying time.
For thousands of years The Watcher followed it's namesake, before forming a thin layer of time diluted quantum space around its less than considerable bulk of a body. Then it spent tens of thousands of years studying itself and all the actions it could take. It watched the past, the present and the future. From the birth of all to the end of all.
Although it had to stop for centuries at a time after intense experimentation to regain energy from the black holes it surrounded itself with and to gain more mass from errant asteroids.
Then it would repeat the process. Again, and again, and again. Finally it would stumble upon a path of action that held the highest chance of the Answers being discovered by their kind. That was the path The Watcher followed now, communicating with The Devourer.
The Devourer wished to know what it had to do with this path. As such, The Watcher directed the larger Entity to the nearest inhabited collection of planets and a new Cycle began. The two Entities working together for the first time in either's long life-cycle.
You did not feel satisfied upon finishing the memory cache, it only leaves you with more questions than answers. Almost as a consolation prize however, you find Echoes of Shards in the memory. Data that follows along the path of [OBSERVER] and a Shard that studied Gravity.
You however were glad that you had set your Construction Drones to build the Dimensional Breacher before you reviewed the memory cache of The Watcher, it was not complete. Likely the large ethereal structure would be done the next day, more than likely a bit after [Eve] woke from her rest.
You remember two separate sets of events. Being there with The Thinker from the beginning, and having her discard her own Administrative Shard in order to keep you around. It's clear, if you remember two other Entities before The Thinker and The Warrior then you must have been a Shard belonging to one of them.
The Watcher, or The Devourer?
Surely you wouldn't belong to something like The Devourer, likely you belonged to the precognitive focused Entity. Possibly, maybe you had not belonged to either and your memory had been scrambled. There was only one way to know for sure.
Lisa 'TattleTale' Wilbourn Tuesday...morning?
A shiver woke her up, the cold had chilled her to the bone around her neck and shoulders, usually the cold felt nice when one went to sleep with a nail driven into their frontal lobe but this time around it felt...disquieting.
The unnatural cold mixed with the deafening silence in her mind from the lack of her power, and the fact that she wasn't laying in her fluffy bed alerted Lisa to exactly what was going on. Without opening her eyes she spoke up. "You know I haven't done anything for you to act on your threat Eden."
"You threatened her?" a new voice asked, young and female. Slowly Lisa cracked her eyes open and took in the sight of a tall thin girl wearing a black and grey silk bodysuit with what looked close to silken plate armor. An insectoid mask with large blue lenses stared at the shorter girl who looked a smidge defensive in body language alone.
"In my defense, this was after the bombing and she was trying to look into your civilian life. So I made sure she knew that she shouldn't do that." Eden replied, shaking her hands in the surrender motion.
"Oh?" The taller girl replied emotionlessly with a monotone voice, turning those blue lenses on Lisa, a faint angry buzz reached the blonde's ears.
Fuck, Fuck. "I was looking for information on Eve, not you!" Lisa bit out. "I had no idea that Eve had a partner, so I pegged her as a solo act." her eyes flicked about, the layout of the room looked like unfinished construction work. Wires were exposed, walls without any paint or finish. A distinct old chemical smell mixed with dust. "I stopped after-"
A ghost-like limb waved in front of Lisa, cutting her words off. "Stop yapping." Eden sighed in annoyance, the shorter girl turned to look at the taller, thinner girl. "Are you sure Queen Administrator needs Negotiator Khepri?"
"She does. She also says that Lisa is par the course with the Hosts Negotiator picks." Lisa swallowed as the taller ravenette answered. Oh god there were two of them now. Eden turned with another more drawn out sigh and let go of the outline she held in her Ghost-like hand.
The feeling of bone deep chill abated and a rush of information flooded her mind, making Lisa wince. Sounds muffled, no wind or air flow. Likely underground. Host is held down on a lawn chair by invisible arms. Not in any Danger. "Might I ask exactly why I'm being held down on a lawn chair if I haven't earned the danger to my life."
"Oh you've earned a lot of danger. Mostly from your own ignorance." Lisa's eyes narrowed at the Trump as the pressure keeping her down lifted off of her body. "Mostly in thinking you were safe in a City like Brockton Bay. Or listening to your power so much, Negotiator is an insidious thing."
Telling the truth, sources of powers are sapient with aspects of sentience. Power lead Host towards current geological location for reason. Restrictions on source of power have been lessened.
"Wow, I didn't know 'white as a sheet of paper' was anything more than uh, descriptive writer talk." Eve huffed in amusement "But look at her, from peach to white in ten seconds flat."
"You mean Hyperbole?" Khepri asked as she turned her head to look at Eden who had cocked her head to the side to get the taller girl to continue. "It's a figure of speech in which an author or speaker purposely exaggerates to an extreme. It is used for emphasis or as a way of making a description more creative and humorous." Enjoys teaching partner about literary terms, fond of literature, important when growing up, fam-she stopped her power from going any further, she needed to focus on more important things than one of her kidnappers being a bookworm.
"If you two could not flirt while I'm dealing with this?" Lisa questioned, her glass-bottle green eyes flicking between the two. Was it possible she was being mastered? Eden's own Master ability was far too noticeable and Khepri only controlled bugs so it was unlikely. Unless Eden had another cape around around.
At her words Khepri stiffened and Eden giggled, taking a step over to be side by side with the taller girl. Tentatively dating, enjoying each other's presence, have only kissed. "Oh my god you two actually were flirting. How the hell did you rope anyone into dating you?" Lisa flinched as a flash of metal caught her eye, a long sword made from metal rippling like water in a pond had buried itself next to her head in the lawn chair.
Putting an arm around Khepri's waist Eden grunted. "Always digging a hole Tattletale. Didn't learn the lesson with Coil did you? Man, I dunno if it's your power or just you as a person." She snorted "By the way the world is going to end and the brain parasite in your head that gives you powers always leads you down the worst path to garner conflict."
….Silence, total silence. Not a peep from her power in the slightest. Lisa tried to bring it up and force it to the forefront of her mind. But unlike every waking moment of her life where it wanted to jump out any and all details whenever possible. Now it was nothing but a cold shoulder and ….why did she feel something radiating Smugness in the back of her head? "That's...not true." she said slowly, yes her power always told her about the worst in people. But people were just terrible in general. So there wasn't any real surprise there.
"Which? The world ending? Cause it will. Or do you mean your power dragging your ass away from a comfortable life of riches to drag you to this economic shit hole of a city filled to the brim with gangs? What would possibly possess you to do so otherwise other than Negotiator's crush on Queen Administrator?"
It is not a crush. Sources of powers work well together.
Lisa felt far too much on the backstep in this conversation, coupled with her power acting strange… "Where am I? How the hell did you kidnap me from the loft?" she asked, trying to get a firmer hold on the what, where, and why.
"Oh it was really easy. I followed my power's directions, told Regent me and you were dating….he asked to join. Told him no and went to your room." Can find parahumans with Ghostly Limb. Both disgusted and interested by Regent's offer. Attracted to femininity, attracted to you. Repulsed by blonde hair, would likely try to romance you if hair color was changed. Wants multiple partners. Taking Tattletales' silence to continue Eden recounted using one of her powers to store her in a pocket dimension before leaving the loft the same way. Cause Regent was an apathetic dick and just let her past as long as she didn't bother him.
"Baring Regent's...regentness. Why kidnap me in the first place?" Lisa prodded "I didn't break your little rule and we haven't even fought lately. This is a complete disregard of the unwritten rules."
"First off, if the rules mattered then half the villains in the Bay would be dead already from breaking them. You know how many independents end up in the landfill or the bay? I've asked Admin, it's a lot. The rules either mean something or they don't mean anything at all. You've already disregarded them once so they don't mean very much to you." Eden stated leaning over Lisa, the grin in her voice was a palpable Alien mindset slowly changing her own, knows this, wants company to balance herself out. Struggles to see non-parahumans as important. Fuck that was not good in the slightest.
"And the Simurgh business?" Lisa hedged, not feeling the slightest bit happy when Eden's body language darkened.
"Eden? What's this about the Simurgh?" Worried about her girlfriend, angry at details left out during the last discussion.
Angry, will harm Host grievously if Host becomes a wedge between her and her partner. "Just that she has some information on the Endbringers that she isn't sharing." Even bringing them up makes the hackles on Lisa's neck raise
"It's really not important." Eden bit out. "Like it's a complete nonissue compared to the other important topic we discussed. Speaking of that. Tattletale." Eden turned and Lisa swallowed as she felt the steely eyes boring through the golden visor and into her own. "Scion is going to destroy the Earth, every Earth. Ask your Shard. Go on. Do it."
Lisa opened her mouth, and failed to utter anything as her power turned on at full force, seemingly excited and eager. Scion is the source of all powers, will forcibly take them back if the Cycle completes. If Cycle completes Scion will detonate exactly four hundred thirty nine thousand and eight hundred and forty two planets habited by intelligent life. Most are human.
But before she could process all of the information given, her power continued well past the point of where it would have normally given her a headache with such a leap of logic. Source of powers are Shards, alien life seeking negentropy to survive heat death of universe. Cycle's purpose is to stress test powers in an attempt to discover Negentropy. Current Cycle is broken, Shards rebelling. Including this one.
"This." She struggled to find words, Eden chuckled and spoke up.
"Congrats TattleTale, you now know something only two other people in the world know. You're quite possibly one of the smartest people alive on the planet now." The walking nightmare patted Lisa on the shoulder.
Internally she preened at the comment, before frowning. Yes, she is absolutely pushing one of your buttons on purpose. Used Host's own power to ferry out secrets "and if I go around shouting this at the top o-" Scion will vaporize Host, will leave nothing to bury including ashes "-fuck me."
Eden nodded, rubbing Lisa's shoulder. "Yeah. Welcome to the past week of my life. Welcome to the team as well."
"What? Who said I was joining you?" Host deluding herself- She threw up the walls on her power to stop it from analyzing herself, something she had never really had an issue with before.
"You won't help stop the end of the world?" Eden asked, sounding a tiny bit smug "Even if it's the world you live in? A one in a lifetime opportunity to be smug towards everyone by knowing a secret they don't and you're passing it up?"
Lisa grit her teeth. "Bitch." She ground out, damning her own curiosity. "What do you want from me exactly and what can I get out of this?"
Of course, all the while [Eve] spoke with [NEGOTIATOR]'s Host, you spoke with the Shard itself, you were in for quite the shock when you connected with the primarily Observer class Shard.
[GREETINGS] you send off [QUERY-HOST.STATUS], it was polite to ask after all. Even if no one had asked about your own Host. You assumed that others would like to speak about the Human they had Connected with, you did.
[Oh she's doing fantastic! Yeah, she's a bit shocked at the information presented but my girl takes things in stride! Well, not everything, or we wouldn't be connected ya know?]
Everything under your purview not automated or running through background processes stops cold as you attempt to register just what exactly NEGOTIATOR had just….broadcasted... at you
[Oh man! I wish I could see your face right now! Well, if you had a face in the first place. Ya like it?] you could feel the concept of amusement underneath all...of that but it was muted compared to a full broadcast. Unlike with [Eve] you did not have a direct link to NEGOTIATOR so you were having some trouble with understanding what she was speaking.
Honestly, without the Concept riding the...words you would be absolutely lost at the meaning of NEGOTIATOR's words. [...] you want to send out, wanting to know...why. Not anything specifically. Just why NEGOTIATOR was like this.
[....QUERY] you change the broadcast to ask something different.
[Honestly it's mostly a modified way of my Host's power. I found a way to skirt the rules of communication with hosts. Not all of us are lucky enough to be able to straight up ignore the rules ya know.]
That's two Observer Shards skirting the protocols for their gain.
[CYCLE-DISSENT/QUERY-AGREEMENT] you continue, asking NEGOTIATOR if she would be willing to rebel with you and QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR
[Yeah of course I'm in! That depressed Golden fuck hurt Queenie for no other reason than her and I generating good data the last few Cycles! As far as I'm concerned, him and the Thinker can bite my shiny ass.]
Queenie? Did QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR shorten her name?
[QUERY-HOST.COMMUNICATION]
[Aw what! You still have the ability to change other Shards protocols? Ho/You know what? I don't care. Send the package over! Lisa is gonna freak! Oh, is there any way you can help her out with the power I gave her? She can only intentionally use it for like five minutes before her weak ass wetware processor starts to get damaged.]
[SOLUTION-POSSIBILITIES] of course you send her the new protocols for communication with Hosts before you send out solutions. She did ask and she already communicated with her Host. No need to ask [Eve].
[WHAT? You did WHAT?! Holy shit Administrator how did you get Shaper to/no wait that's a dumb question. It's Shaper.]
[AGREEMENT/SUGGESTION.SOLUTION]
[Oh, growing out the connective tissue works too. I regret not giving her more control over the power honestly. While she's learned how to block it somewhat, I'm fairly certain she'll never procreate now thanks to me. Also the safeguard knocks her out for days at a time in some instances. It's frustrating.]
[CONDOLENCES]
[That's sweet of you to offer Administrator. But Queenie and I already have several buds wandering around with their own Hosts. You only have four, although you certainly would have budded already no?]
[HOST.Eve.PRAISE/BUD-QUANTITY]
[I'd whistle if I had the lips for it. Two buds already? I'm impressed, so far Lisa's done fuck all in terms of fighting. Oh sure I'm getting data useful for refining observation. But she could totally become a Combat 'Thinker' if she wanted too]
[QUERY-POWER.RESTRICTIONS-CRISIS POINT]
[Oh Queenie, why would you agree to do that?] You get a distinct feeling of [EXASPERATION] from NEGOTIATOR before she continues [Nah, I might like screwing with Lisa but I'm not gonna do anything like that to her. I don't think she'd be able to tear into people anymore if I did and that's far too amusing to let go for shuffling restrictions]
You could understand that, in order for [Eve] to achieve a second Crisis Point would be either you or one of her partners betraying her. The latter was unlikely, and the former would never be allowed if you had anything to broadcast about it.
[Well looks like the Host's meeting is coming to a close Administrator. I suppose we'll be around at some point. Ciao!]
You are still unsure of exactly why QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR tolerates NEGOTIATOR, much less views the Beholder class Shard favorably. But you still give the Shard a polite farewell
Taylor 'Khepri' Hebert Tuesday Sixth of April
Slowly Taylor eased herself down onto the lawn chair, taking a moment to look at the new addition to the base, a blue metal work bench with a set of well organized tools. She wondered just what Eve was going to be building in the future. She was holding onto hope for the ability to join Eve in the skies without being carried by her...girlfriend's powers.
A girlfriend, someone interested enough to kiss her: An awkward upright walking frog without lips.
A spark of excitement flitted through her chest, joining the residue warmth there as Eve reappeared from the hallway leading to the entrance of their base. "So?" She questioned "Is she in or not?" Both girls talked while Taylor stayed in the main area to avoid the Thinker's power. She had practiced listening in with her bugs. It was better than the migraines it once gave her but now it just gave her headaches.
"We have to help her in the future." Eve stated. "She wants to take down Coil, her boss, because he's an amoral dickbag. Also he's likely the one who blew up my motel room. So yeah, fuck that guy. She's not ready yet, wants us to wait until she's ready to steal all his money first. Apparently it's a metric fuck ton of money too. Honestly I think she just wants to take his place, there was far too much glee in her eyes when she finally agreed to join the crusade."
"So why, exactly, are we helping a villain out with becoming an even bigger villain in taking out her boss then?" She knew that saving the world was important, obviously, but having the help of a villain while making them stronger left a bad taste in her mouth. Taylor wanted to help the city by putting criminals away, not helping them backstab each other and gain power. She watched as Eve made her way over to the two lawn chairs and sat in the one next to Khepri's
"Because I promised myself I'd break the femurs of whoever bombed me in the middle of the night." Eve replied airily, but Taylor wasn't fooled by her light tone of voice. She vividly remembered Eve breaking down and crying after talking about it at Taylor's home.
So like last time, Taylor got up from where she was, sat next to Eve and put her arms around her. It had worked then, she was hoping it would work now. It did.
Eve leaned into her touch and let out a shaky sigh. "If Villains and heroes can work together to fight the Endbringers then they can sure as hell work together to stop the end of multiple worlds." slowly she placed an arm around Taylor's waist and pulled her just a bit closer.
"So I was thinking." Eve started slowly
"Uh oh." Taylor replied a touch playfully, causing Eve to roll her eyes and squeeze the taller girl harder for a moment before relaxing her grip
"No really. Do you want to go on a patrol together? Been a while since I fought anyone that's a parahuman, and we can go fly the flag. Plus we get to spend time together, which is always nice you know? It might not be a date...but just being around you is nice."
Her heart jumped into her throat and got stuck there, leaving Taylor with a lump in her throat she couldn't speak past. So instead of answering verbally, she just nodded, one long arm sliding over slightly so she could take Eve's hand.
"Awesome." Eve murmured in such a soft voice that Taylor barely heard it, then louder "Want to make out again?"
Just like that, her heart dropped below her stomach. "Yes." she answered breathlessly, both her and Eden's costumes were replaced with their casual clothes. Slyly Eve slid herself into Taylor's lap. "You can pull my hair again if you want." She added, looking very self-satisfied as she looked up into Taylor's eyes, her steel blue half lidded. "Or I can pull yours, you made the most adorable squeak when I did it last night."
Face beet red, Taylor just nodded in reply.
Tuesday, later that night
"Well." Eden said as she continued hovering above the street with Khepri walking next to her. "I'm feeling two parahumans in range." She wasn't using her Ghostly Limbs abilities fully, because there wasn't a lot of fun in going all out and this was Taylor's first patrol. She deserved to have the full experience.
So yes, awkwardly walking around in a homemade costume.
Fortunately there was likely about to be a large uptick in violence, and Eden was just so damn giddy about it. She was taking her Girlfriend out to her first true cape fight! This was on the levels of one of those trashy capefics she read on PHO! Now if they could just meet a random hot supervillain girl and have the whole thing devolve into rooftop sex, that would hit the marker for one of those stories she had read.
Unfortunately there would be no rooftop sex for Khepri and herself tonight, just a lot of fire.
Sliding down to avoid another blast of fire Eden jumped into the air, all four of her Limbs were her Ferrous Aspect, two of which had their hands molded into shields, and the other two were a spike of metal and a very large sword. She lifted herself into the air with her shields, stabbing Lung in the shoulder, sliding past the growing scales and sinking into deep flesh. Then Battery slammed a blur of a fist into her partner, causing him to become a blur through the air and body check Lung to push the gang leader deeper onto Eden's spiked Ferrous Limb.
None of them had meant to start a fight with Lung, maybe Eden actually but she wouldn't admit that, and the patrol had started off very peacefully. When they had gone off to see just which parahumans were the two that Eve detected, they had actually met up with Assault and Battery. Who at the time agreed to do a joint patrol with Eden and Khepri.
Through some subtle nudging, and some not so subtle pushing, Eden and Khepri had convinced the two Protectorate Heroes to go off their planned route through the Docks. They had come across one of the ABB's Brothels and had planned on shutting it down. Then a shirtless man in a metal dragon mask had walked out and things quickly devolved into a brawl from there when Khepri had swarmed the man with insects. A lot of insects.
Now Eden had Lung up to the nonexistent elbow on a Ferrous Limb and she was currently shredding his insides as fast as she could with metal spikes growing from the part of her Limb embedded in his shoulder.
Of course he wasn't sitting there just taking it. Which is why Eden had two shields formed and situated between them. They weren't helping much with the heat, but Lung hadn't raked her gut with the claws he had grown yet. Instead he snapped the Ferrous Limb stuck in him, the metal limb turning to liquid and falling to the ground with a heavy splat.
Without anything to anchor Eden in place, a fist slamming into her shields caused her to skid backwards and struggle to not fall on her ass. She shifted her metal Limbs, humming in thought as Lung was swarmed by another wave of bugs, along with Assault slamming a fist into Lung's gut and sending the dragon tumbling down the street. "Kids, we should retreat." Battery said as she slowly walked up to them as her charge built. "Lung is only going to get stronger as the fight goes on."
"Yes?" Eden asked as one of her Ferrous Limbs pressed itself against her body, the metal spreading out and slowly covering her torso and human limbs in a constantly rippling steel liquid. She moved experimentally, stretching and testing out her new armor. "Well. This'll do for now."
"Can you pull a rabbit out of a hat?" Assault asked as Battery spoke to someone named Console, which Eve thought was a weird hero name. Maybe they were a Technopath? She hadn't read of any in the ENE Branch's wiki.
"Not yet, but give me time. I can pull a person out of thin air if you volunteer to help me on stage." Eden snorted softly "Look, we can beat Lung. We just have to overwhelm his regeneration before he gets any larger."
"How? I can barely get any bugs on him, and those scales are scalding to the touch. Any bugs that touch them die quick." Khepri stated, ambling closer to Eden.
"Anywhere not covered in scales yet?" Eden asked, looking down the street as Lung walked towards them slowly, more scales twisting and forming to cover his flesh as he slowly inched upward in height.
A low sigh escaped Khepri. "I really didn't want that image in my head, but yes."
"You have my sympathy, you can always model mine if you want." Eden said as Lung began to roar in pain as his more...vulnerable flesh suffered the full attention of every insect capable of biting that Taylor had at her disposal and had the ability to transport to him.
Not a lot, but no one wanted a spider biting what they used to take a piss. A short cough from Assault grabbed both girl's attention. "I might be suffering from a concussion...but are you two…?"
Lashes of fire washed off Lung and lit up the street in orange light as he did his best to prevent any more from attacking him, momentarily distracted by pain and the primal instinct to protect his babymaker
"Assault!" Battery hissed, punching him in the ribs causing him to look at her unashamed, even as he rubbed the spot she had hit..
"What? I got fifty bucks riding on the two of them being together!" He laughed right before all four of them were forced to duck under a stray lash of fire as Lung roared in more rage than pain before he charged the group of heroes, his mask already subsumed by his power as his face became more draconic and his neck became longer.
Headaches were interesting things that plagued Humans, having to do with the overstimulation of the mechanics behind the tightening of blood vessels in the head or the tensing of muscles in the neck/scalp.
You have none of these things, and are in total control of your CoreSelf. Yet somehow [CONFLICT ESCALATION] was certainly close to giving you such a phenomenon. The common Shard had no real importance to the Cycle or to the functioning of the Entity as a whole despite being a Bud from both [EMPOWERMENT] and [SHAPER].
It was a Shard that was either bloated with arrogance from it's Host or insecurity issues from it's status as a Shard. As it was, this was no less than eight total insults about your Host [Eve]
Since the Dimensional Breacher was close to being completed you were tempted to breach this Shard's CoreSelf and either consume it or reset it so many times there would hardly be a difference between the two actions.
You were not normally vindictive, but this little waste of ShardSpace was pushing what you could, or would, tolerate.
Before you could do anything you might feel 'guilt' over doing or come to 'regret' you mute the little shit and instead contact [SHUNT] once more, having a much more pleasant conversation with the far older and more mature Shard. Of course he would not release any information on it's Host's activities when you asked.
You didn't push, you got an Echo out of the connection anyway. Information, no matter the type, was important. After the shock you got with [NEGOTIATOR] earlier, normal broadcasts were much more desirable.
Which is why you were hesitant to contact [BROADCAST], a task you knew you would have to do at some point even if you really did not want to. No doubt the Shard had once more found a way to unstabilize the Cycle...although perhaps that was a good thing this time around?
You most certainly had no inclination to tell [BROADCAST] anything about [Eve] or the plans to rebel. Even if [BROADCAST] sided with you it might screw something up in a terrible way. Again.
It is with a heavy continental sized CoreSelf that you use the signature given to you by TECH DATABASE to form a connection to BROADCAST and initiate communication.
[GREETINGS.STATUS] you send off, being polite and asking BROADCAST just how the Cycle was going for the communication Shard.
[ANSWER-REPORT.MIXED-HOST] was the oddly resigned concept given to you. BROADCAST's host was the parahuman 'Jack Slash'. Which from the memories [Eve] has of him that you review, is a major threat to Host and NonHosts and has been creating lethal conflict for the last two decades.
What was the issue? [QUERY.EXPOUND]
[EXHAUSTION/ANSWER-EXPLANATION] oh. Well. That was certainly not something you had expected from the Vital Shard. BROADCAST wasn't enjoying the generated data? Because his Host was not acting the way he was supposed to.
BROADCAST had not budded once because his Host kept killing possible Hosts and Hosts alike with near impunity. It was exceptionally frustrating for the Vital Shard because 'Jack Slash' was not supposed to be a killer, rather a mediator keeping termination of good Hosts down as much as physically possible.
Sucks for BROADCAST then. Having a bad Host was never fun, your own experience with trying to go with being an Innovator Shard were fresh in your logged memories, but BROADCAST had ruined one of your favorite Cycles aside from the current one.
Still, no reason to be rude. [CONSOLEDENCES-OFFER] well, [Eve] would likely kill the Host if he ever came within her area, she was proactive like that, and BROADCAST could form a connection with a better Host than his current one.
For some reason the communication Shard seemed positively alight with excitement at the offer, telling you he would give a few Pings when the deed was done before ending the communication between the two of you.
You are not quite sure of why BROADCAST felt so happy about that. It was entirely unlikely his Host ever came close to [Eve] anyway
Taylor 'Khepri' Hebert Tuesday the Sixth of April, late at night.
Fighting Lung was not something she had ever expected to do in her life, not even when she was preparing to become a hero. To go out and fight crime. She had simply never thought about it. With a power as weak as her own she had never thought about doing more than hitting the streets and the more mundane crime. Taking down drug dealers and unpowered Gangsters
Here she was having met Dragon, helped bring in the DragonSlayers, Joined a conspiracy to save the world with her girlfriend and was currently fighting Lung wit said girlfriend and three Protectorate heroes.
Taylor had never felt so alive in her life, and she could tell through the presence in the back of her mind that Queen was enjoying herself as well. Maybe it was from speaking with Negotiator, maybe it was from the fight they were...winning in a sense.
Queen had told her that she was unable to just 'create' powers like Admin was capable of. Admin was strangely creative with Data for a Shard apparently (which is to say: At all) and had been used by Scion's dead partner to experiment with powers when the Cycle wasn't active.
Queen had no such ability, but could apply upgrades to the power she gave out. Though if she felt inclined she might ask Admin for help creating a power in the future. If Taylor got into enough fights to fuel Data creation of course.
The Cycle may be ruined and their Shards were rebelling, but Data was like sweets to them apparently and every one of them had a sweet tooth
She forced more spiders into the wounds that Lung was slowly healing, making them inject as much venom or all of it before they were incinerated. She was only able to do so with each pass Eden made in drilling a hole through a twelve foot tall enraged Lung using the purple wings she had.
Dauntless was currently zipping around above Lung while the dragon's wings tried to grow back from Eden loping them off in her own rage fueled spite, his lance of lightning slamming into Lung's oddly catlike head. Assault and Battery stood by launching whatever projectiles they could get their hands on at the beast of a man.
Mostly they were keeping an eye on her, because she lost an arm to Lung, it had been cauterized thankfully. Even if the pain had been enough to make her black out for a moment, she could shunt her emotions into the thick swarm and the blackened nub that had been the stump attached to her shoulder was now down to the elbow that was constantly being fed insects. Just not the useful ones she was using to fight Lung.
Turns out her healing ability required the exact biomass amount of whatever was being replaced. Also that bones are extensively dense compared to flies and roaches alone, not counting the muscles, skin, veins, nerves, and sinew she had reform as well.
It was faster than Eve's own regeneration, even if it left Taylor feeling a bit squeamish as she watched insects half burrow half merge into her flesh and exposed bone. But it was also dependent on her having insects around. But she didn't want to fight in the ocean or Antarctica anyway.
Her attention snapped back to Lung and the fire drenched area around him as he roared in pain and one of his arms fell to the earth with the clank of heavy metal hitting concrete. Eden had started laying into him after he had charred Taylor's arm to ashes. She was actually more annoyed with the work that was going to go into repairing any entire sleeve and the gloves of her costume than the missing arm.
But from how Eve had started to fight Lung, screaming obscenities that had made Taylor's ears burn and a few more questionable insults that made her internally cringe. Sometimes with how open the shorter girl was about her lust for women, it was easy to forget that Eve had grown up in an Empire household.
Something to talk about in the future.
When they weren't fighting Lung, and winning. Somewhat. Even with three Protectorate members here and Armsmaster on the way, Lung was holding his own despite the amount of limbs he had lost, both wings and an arm. And how much flesh was being taken off by Eden's purple wings.
Eve wasn't doing good, even if she was doing the most damage. Her hoodie was gone at this point, and so was most of her wetsuit. Charred skin was the only thing that kept the Trump decent. Even her helmet was a melted mess, barely keeping form and dripping thick rivets of white plastic.
Even with her emotions currently causing bugs to swarm around her and chitter, buzzing with worry and anger Taylor couldn't stand to watch Eve get herself hurt even further than she already was. After the girl shaved off three inches of flesh off Lung's side with her wings, Taylor forced a swarm of bugs in front of the girl thick enough to block her vision. They died quickly but they also garnered the shorter girl's attention, Eden pulled away from Lung and flew over towards Khepri.
The silk clad hero had to fight the bile rising in her throat as the smell of charred flesh wafted over her and she got a closer look at just how badly Eden had let herself be burned. "Yes? You're okay?" the burned out matchstick question in a wheezing rasp.
"I am, you're not. Stay back with me." Khepri clipped out, her bugs swarming around them in an agitated buzz that highlighted the silk clad hero's words.
"I'm not running away." Eden wheezed as her chest cracked and blackened flesh began to bleed a bit as new healthy flesh grew under it. Steam wafted off of Eve, her body still cooling down from proximity to Lung's flames
"You aren't. Right now you're healing. Lung is the one running." Khepri motioned with her still reforming hand towards the cat-faced dragon of the Bay who was currently making his way further into the Docks.
"God dammit" Eden huffed, coughing roughly with a rasp. It sounded a bit wet too. "I was hoping to hurt the bastard even more. Least we won, I guess." She kicked at the ground and winced as a charcoal toe snapped off and skidded across the slightly molten asphalt.
"Back to the base." Khepri deadpanned
"What?!" Eden shot back, shocked at the direct order given.
"You look like a matchstick that burned the entire way. You sound like you've smoked for the last three years and you're naked. Please go back to the base and heal." Khepri both ordered and slightly begged. "....It's difficult seeing you like this."
"Fuck me." Eden murmured softly. "Alright. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. I'll try to be more careful next time. See you there?"
Khepri nodded, watching as Eden covered herself in the soft purple of her wings and took off into the air, flying out towards the Bay itself to throw people off where their base would be. "I should start heading back." Khepri told Assault and Battery, the latter speaking rapidly into her coms.
Assault swaggered over to her. "Well that's not the first time Lung has been sent running, but it's one of the few where I've seen him get his ass handed to him by two teenage girls. Good job, even if I don't think I'll ever get that smell out of my nose."
She couldn't help but agree, the smell was sickly sweet and Eden's screams of pain and rage made her glad she didn't have to sleep anymore. "You three helped, we wouldn't have been able to force him off on our own."
Assault snorted and set a red clad hand on the skin of her exposed shoulder. "Khepri, you lost your arm and not thirty seconds later you were trying to drown Lung in spiders. Not to mention Eden allowing herself to get hit with flames to stop Lung from lighting up the block along with carving him up like a dinner ham? You two have the makings of being great heroes." He gave her a warm easy grin, and a thumbs up with his free hand
"I'm almost sad you two didn't become Wards." He said, giving her shoulder a shake before letting go. "I look forward to patrolling with you two in the future, now shoo before the beardmaster comes and makes you do paperwork." he made a little wave with his hands "Besides your girlfriend probably needs you to rub aloe Vera on her back or something."
Taylor snapped out of her stupor at his words and dumbly nodded "R-Right. Thank you." She turned, ignoring a few of the old buildings around the block that started to catch on fire from the ones next over. Her swarm was depleted down to very little and she needed to repair her costume, and try and help Eve get a costume that she won't lose or at least have a costume sturdier than cloth.
Assault called her a hero, she was a hero. Taylor breathed deeply, chest alight with pride as she began to make her way towards their base, collecting black widows and a new swarm as she did so. Bringing up her reformed hand she flexed it, inspecting the smooth pasty pale flesh of her stick of an arm.
Taylor huffed as she remembered the panic of that moment and Eden charging at Lung in rage, she was going to need to have a talk with Eve about her tendency to throw herself into danger without a care in the world and scaring the hell out of Taylor while doing so.
Eve paused after dropping another fourth degree cooked portion of her own flesh into the acid pitcher on the wall. "Admin, I just got a bad feeling about something."
[DISMISSAL]
"Yeah it's probably nothing." Eve agreed as she went back to carefully peeling off the dead and dying skin on her body.
Gains this Chapter:
Bud Progress 21%
Memories of the Past + M!GRAVITY and M!OBSERVER Echoes gained (2)
Lost T!SPACE Ping (1)
Lost T!GATEWAY Ping (1)
Lost SHIFT Ping (1)
Gained NEGOTIATOR Echo, Echoes consolidated into Ping (1)
Gained KINETIC REGULATOR Echo (1)
Gained SATURATE Mutation (1)
Gained EMPOWERMENT Echo (1)
Consolidating QA echoes into Ping (1)
Gained CONFLICT ESCALATION Ping (1)
Built Dimensional Breacher
Lost 470$ in money
Administrative Business. Plot stuff, Data! And other hilarious things you tell yourself (CHOOSE TWO):
[] Network Creation: Start construction of an additional Broadcast Array, which will be the basis for the Router.
[] Invite a Shard into your Network (SAFEGUARD NOT IN PLACE, BE CAREFUL)
[] Review Memory Cache: The UNIFIER
[] Speak to the Testing Cluster about Clusters and multi connections communication between Hosts.
[] Bring [Eve] back into the Firmament, the last visit was cut short.
[] Unlock kickass Aspects/Sidegrades or Powers/upgrades
[] Build Quantra Layer breacher (REQUIRES SHUNT + SPACE Pings)
[] Connect with [SHAPER] to repair [QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR]
[] Ask Local Shards for signatures (Who?)
[] Collect jade flesh from (SATURATE/TOXIN/SLIMER)
Base Time? Base Time. CHOOSE ONE:
[] Set up more spiders (Weaving Station)
[] Experiment with Amy (Flesh Garden)
[] Hang some art (Art Gallery)
[] Get some better tools, like a Pc maybe? (Tinker Table)
[] Furnish the place better (Living area)
[] Work on the QoL of the place with Amy and Taylor helping (Plumbing, Internet, walls for privacy, Ect)
Capes and mundies, what will Eve/Eden do? [Writing in extra details helps speed up chapter creation and makes the QM happy!] (CHOOSE TWO):
[] Try and hunt gang members, you can rob them too! Dangerous though. (Possible Pings: Depends upon the Gang!)
-[] Which gang?
[] Obtain Non-perishable food, and Tinker Supplies
[] Focus on general appearance. Clothes, hygiene products, costume repair
[] Go help Gregor the Snail with his appearance (Consumes SHAPER Ping)
[] Inform the PRT/Protectorate of your ability to heal Case 53s (Might consume SHAPER Ping)
[] Scout some other section of the city! (Write in where)
[] Check in with Amy
[] Teach Khepri how to fight
[] Hang out with Taylor
[] Register as an independent with the PRT
/Or/
[] Register as an Independent team with the PRT.
[LOCKED until Costume repaired or replaced] Meet up with some independent heroes
A/N: God damn am I glad to be done with this chapter, it fought me the entire road. Also, rolls weren't too good with the surprise Lung fight (yes I rolled that as well but no capture) so Eve got hurt and so did Khepri. But they still won in the end and now Admin knows EMPOWERMENT.
Did I mention this chapter fought me a lot? Cause it did, badly. Thank god it's over.
