[Worm AU] Cogito Ergo Lung : I Think, Therefore I Am Dragon100.00%

15

Weapons were primed and aimed at the triumphant shout. Fingers almost twitched.

Then came the understanding of what the booming words actually were.

Cute.

Wards 101: A "spotlit Hero" couldn't attack first unless it was in clear defense of another. Words first, unless it was a Master, Thinker, or a clear threat to others. Always attempt to De-escalate.

That certainly would have qualified as "not heroic".

So, a Villain known basically for the sheer amount of direct potential destruction he could cause was now playing mind games. Wonderful.

Lung would, therefore, have to strike first, attempt to escape, or, refuse to surrender when the de-escalation attempts were tried.

Which meant...

"You've caught on," Rumbled the voice of his opponent. "Excellent."

He'd have to listen to what Lung had to say.

In front of witnesses.

---===---

My children, proud to be chosen and resplendent in their colors, were to a one surprised when instead of roaring and flinging flame, I struck a peculiar pose. I don't think any of them understood it, but they were young, and most weren't Japanese.

The start of the Roppō. The final movements of the Kabuki on the stage.

When the actor leaves the stage, he cannot walk off as the Warrior or the Villain, he has to leave as the actor, or risk spoiling the performance by not ending it.

And so in front of Armsmaster, I would end the role of Lung, albeit briefly. And while I doubt any present would understand the motions of Roppō, I was still a ten-foot tall scale covered dragon-man. I knew how to move with people staring at me.

I was being recorded. And thanks to Taylor, I knew who was watching.

---===---

Try as he might, Armsmaster could find no actual hostile motions he could justify to attack. The peculiar steps, the motions of the hands, the tilting of his head, they were odd, but not an attack.

His predictive software was even throwing up possible Master warnings due to how many of the motion weren't in the database of recorded motions of the Villain.

And then with a small hop, it was over, and the Villain stood within easy swinging distance of the man in the massive armor. Abruptly he relaxed, his hands falling loose by his sides. He didn't grow or shrink, there was no flame, and the scales did not change.

An impasse. No advantage given or taken.

"How quickly we turn into savages." Lung began without preamble. "As if the moment we trigger, the clock begins ticking, a countdown to... conflict."

ArmYouLying

Truth

"Will you surrender?" If he had to listen to a Villain's rant, he may as well get all the "Heroic" requirements out of the way. And legally recorded.

"Honestly, I might have." The casualness of the statement made not only Armsmaster but the Wards and ABB teens inhale in surprise. "Had it not been for your words. One Hundred Dash P."

ArmYouLying

Truth

Interesting, both of the acknowledgment and the fact he'd heard them. That meant...

"You heard me talking." When Lung nodded, Armsmaster added. "While frozen by ClockBlocker."

Said Ward's faint cry of 'Bullshit!' was drowned out easily. "Indeed, I was trapped in my own skin, and while I couldn't see, I certainly could hear."

ArmYouLying

Truth

Thankfully, the layers of armor made most of the physical motions of surprise unable to be read. "I see."

This made many of his actions, and the actions of others make sense.

How could a man accept an offer of surrender when he knew it leads to a quiet chopping block? It was why the Birdcage, nightmarish as it was, got held up as the penultimate punishment for parahumans. You at least had a chance in there, a slim one yes, but a chance.

"Splendid." Lung rumbled, scaled face looking pleased. Rather, the corners of his scaled maw turned upward. "I was correct in sparing you."

ArmYouLying

Truth

What?

"Without mercy, without shame. Willing to go as far as needed."

ArmYouLying

Truth

"What?" The mechanical timbre of the voice modulator did not conceal the uncertainty in that single word.

"I had hopes for H- for Miss Militia." He continued as if Armsmaster hadn't said a word. "She grew up in war, and she tasted the ashen fruits of hell it brings. But she is too compassionate, too ready to forgive. She will not do."

ArmYouLying

Truth

"Do? Do for what?" A leading question, even he knew it was, and the answer was a setup, but he couldn't strike yet.

"To Rule."

---===---

Armsmaster was silent at my response, and I gave him the time to process it gladly. It let me have a moment to reminisce. The Roppō always did that to me.

Oh, how I missed the stage, the drums, the flutes. All gone.

I remembered how I left that warehouse of corpses, cocaine and blood washing off my frame from the nightly rain. I knew what it meant, Japan had many parahumans in those troubled times, and now one more.

I staggered home, collapsed in my bed, and slept.

When I woke late in the afternoon I was larger, stronger, and there was a new fire burning inside me.

And my mother was cold in her hospital bed, her fire burnt out.

I didn't need to fight -I no longer needed the money- but I had so much anger to let out. And with the power vacuum created by the death of most of the gang I was a runner for, others gangs circled in. I welcomed them.

I fought, and in my newfound strength, I became the leader of the scraps of the gang in short order. I learned how little sleep I needed or wanted, how inexorable my stride had become, and how if I struck a drug den or a hideout that I'd grow and grow as more reinforcements came. That the fire went from wild to controllable the longer I went, as well as hotter.

I secured my territory from within and then pushed outward, taking over theirs. Some buildings burned, people died, and power changed hands. They called me many names as I did: Tatsu, Ryu, Naga, ドラゴン, but the Chinese 'Lung' came from the first man who died at my newly forged and burning hands. I kept it, if only for the utility of the fact I could say it far longer than any of the others when my face grew distorted.

Eleven days and nights passed before the prefecture was mine, Lung's, and with nothing else to fight I could finally stop, if only for a little while.

After sleeping again, I returned to the theater.

Naturally, I could no longer take the roles I had practiced so long for, I was bigger coarser, and my voice... well, I could no longer hit the right notes. In yarō-kabuki men play all roles, even the women, and I was good at them with my former slight and delicate frame. But, by this point, there were enough parahumans in Japan that my size and voice gave the troupe leader an idea.

And so I started from the beginning, again. Another two years of learning. Even a former veteran turned parahuman actor was not exempt from this, and I welcomed it as a chance to discover this new part of me.

New stories, and new roles within them. Mainly the villain, the ogre, the oni, the monster.

With practice I could generate flame safely, not tear the cloth they draped me in, and they could put makeup on me without it boiling away.

By day I was in the troupe, by night I ran my gang. I slept rarely.

The applause I had gathered from my size and the force of my enhanced frame in my new roles was just beginning to be tapped as a possible new form like the Onna-Kabuki and Wakashū Kabuki had been before the modern form. Parahuman theater.

Then the water began to rise...

And sadly, the culture had failed to flourish elsewhere. Not in Korea, China, America, or anywhere else the Japanese had scattered to.

Pity, but that left me my other occupation. A gang was little different than a theater troupe for the most part. Mostly bluster and posturing, with those few desperate minutes of violence intermixed with the quiet days.

And paperwork. Couldn't forget that.

---===---

Rule?

Armsmaster's mind was in a frightful whirl.

Thankfully, Lung was content to let him think, he dearly needed it.

Was this why the approval came so quickly? Why it happened at all?

He had typed it with his one remaining hand, waiting for Panacea to be brought in after being stabilized by the trauma team.

A petulant pipe dream at best, for without something as clearly threatening as an Endbringer or the S9 behind it he had been expecting it to take weeks for it to even be glanced at before being denied like so many of his requests for anything.

Yet the approval beat Panacea to his room, and on seeing the confirmation from not one but several Directors including the Chief-Director herself, for a moment he honestly thought that they had put something extra in his IV drip.

But there it was. His long-denied chance to prove himself.

No restrictions, only results. The authority to override Director Piggot if necessary, to not even involve her if expedient.

With it, he had begun preparations for a midnight ambush, only to have Lung march around in broad daylight for the first time in years. Carefully made plans thrown into disarray.

How smart was he? Was Lung countering a plan that been made before Armsmaster had even left the hospital, arm reattached? From even before when he took the arm off?

"Surprised Armsmaster? The enemy has to be killed in wars, whether conducted according to the rules of morality or against them. Isn't that why we're here, you in that vast machine?" Lung brought his hands up to encompass every Hero and Ward around them. "Isn't that why they are all here, instead of letting me leave quietly?"

ArmYouLying

Truth

No, it was too many late nights planning, too many preparations, too many hushed conversations where Director Piggot wasn't present. Velocity first, the former army man knew what could be required in the dreadful times, then Assault...

"That's why I spared you. I thought you understood." Lung's gaze was steady as he took a step forward, he was easily within reach of the larger arms of his opponent. "The slaughter of foes by deceitful measures is not detrimental to one's righteousness."

ArmYouLying

Truth

Preparation leading to quiet escalation.

Lung took another step. "Good and Evil can only be framed in a single way that makes sense during war; That the only path to peace is through victory."

ArmYouLying

Truth

What always happened when Parahumans survived a near-death experience.

Another step. "Always a king should slay his foes by unfair war."

ArmYouLying

Truth

No...

Another. "This is the law you believe in."

ArmYouLying

Truth

This is wrong.

"This is what life is."

ArmYouLying

Truth

This isn't what a Hero was.

Lung was mere feet away now, not even bothering to look up at the cameras, content to stare at the barrel-like torso of the machine Armsmaster lay in.

"I will not surrender, nor will I back down, and I know you cannot either." He started to chuckle, harsh, rasping and metallic, the laughter of a dragon. Yet still human, proud, tired.

Ready.

"For we are but actors on a stage, no, not even actors, puppets, yes puppets dancing on strings."

ArmYouLying

Lie

Slowly he raised an arm, then gently -at least for a Brute- his scaled knuckles rapped the Endbringer armor, ringing like a bell, leaving a tiny dent in the outer metal.

"There." Lung said, satisfied. "I have struck you. You have all the justification you need."

ArmYouLying

Truth

And with that, he turned and walked back to where he started. As he did, the man started to change, not physically like he often did, but in all the subtle ways that set Armsmaster's prototype prediction software alight. The subtle difference in the way he set his shoulders, how he walked, how his hands flexed.

ARM-Predict-v0.44b

|Target = Lung|

"Now play the part you were given Armsmaster. Be the Hero."

ARM-Predict-v0.44b

Fire? [Y/N]

"The first blow is already mine. I await yours."

ARM-Predict-v0.44b

Fire? [Y/N]

ARM-Mail

|Priority 1|

ARM-Record

Pause

---===---

The immense armor took a single step forward. The teenagers in the gang colors jumped at the sound.

Lung did not move.

And then it knelt and began to open. Armsmaster, still in his larger power armor stepped out. He drew his halberds and magnetically stuck one to his back, flicking on the other with a mechanical whine.

"I will not be used," Armsmaster said quietly. "Not by them. Not by you." His, halberd remained pointed at Lung.

"Do you even know who they are?" Lung said, amused. "Or why they set you on this path?"

"No, but I will, soon enough." Armsmaster's voice was set. Certain. "I have no doubt that what will come will be bad, it might end my career or even my life, but it will be by my decision."

Lung nodded, satisfied. He turned his head slightly to look over at the limping Battery. She stared back, caught by his burning gaze. "As I said to you girl, 'You always have a choice, you simply choose not to accept them.' He," he pointed with a clawed finger at his opponent. "is strong enough. Remember this."

She nodded, tersely, then directed her gaze at her wounded partner. Another who understood.

"Your words were truth," Armsmaster said, voice tightly controlled, bound in iron. "All of them, except for one lie." His armor began to hum. "And for that lie, I will face you. And I'll use everything I have to win."

And then the time for words was over.

---===---

Armsmaster was renowned for his polearm, ever since an idle idea had spread to the focus group determining his fate and got approved, condemning him to it for as long as he was a Hero.

Over the years he had put in long hours, all while incorporating countermeasure after countermeasure.

Other Tinkers had jetpacks and rayguns, he had a long stick. He hated the limitations at first, but he made it work, and gradually he started making it look good.

The jousting knight on a motorcycle.

The Tinker with just the right tool for the problem. Any problem. Every problem.

Halbeard.

Oh yes, he'd heard that one too, slung around by the Wards -the previous batch- under his wing, he saw how it spread to the office crew, the PRT personnel, the internet. It was then that his quiet frustrations had truly taken root.

But it never was used by the Heroes he worked with. Velocity, Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, even Challenger when he was around. He lead them and was respected by those who counted on him, and for a while, that was enough, despite his frustrations.

Until Dauntless and the Christmas party two years ago. Still reeling from his divorce and drunk off his ass, he threw arm around Colin's shoulders, led him to the lady he was trying to impress, and introduced him with that goddamn name.

That was when the tunnel vision really began.

Had they, whomever they were, spiked the punch? If they could arrange paperwork with the Chief-Director of the PRT, what couldn't they do?

Questions for later.

But he knew one thing, if they ever stuck him and Dauntless on a deserted island, classic Star Trek style, he'd maul that wannabe Gorn with a stick, no diamonds needed.

---===---

I was fast, but the bladed weapon was faster, always moving, never letting me grab a hold of it.

With this power armor, Armsmaster wasn't quite as strong as I was right now, but he had something far more dangerous than mere might behind him. He had experience.

This was no ambush, much of my new tricks he had seen, experienced and watched on the recordings before he ever arrived here.

And he prepared accordingly.

And he had two weapons, each to be wary of, particularly the vorpal one that wouldn't work with my flame, flame I wasn't using, still strapped to his back. Waiting.

The one he was using was interesting for completely different reasons.

Whatever the metal the blade had, it was hard, far harder than my scales right now. The welts and dents on my arm were healing, but the pain, the ache of my bones ringing, that made me leery of lunging for another grapple. From the vibration my ears could pick up, I think it was a solid core throughout. A parried snap kick followed by an elbow to the shaft confirmed it.

Solid all the way through. Likely resistant to immense heat as well. It was made to beat me after all.

But I was stronger, and I had fought against many staves, held by Brutes and Speedsters alike. They were surprisingly common, more publicly acceptable than swords or guns, and very useful against Strikers, people with auras, or people on fire like I often was.

But I, I had a counter. Take the hit, grab the shaft behind the blade, and either destroy it or at the very least wrench it out of their grasp. Force them to come in closer.

Four steps to victory.

It had worked many times, thus I was surprised when midway through the third step the staff abruptly became a three-section staff, ruining my balance and staggering me.

No, now it was a nine-section staff. And it wasn't a solid core, I could see it was hollow when he twisted the bottommost part of the handle to aim at my torso.

The somehow flexible mass driver fired, and it's payload hit me in the torso and sent me flying over a car.

Fucking Tinkers.

---===---

Meanwhile, Taylor was in a battle of her own.

[WHY?] That certainly seemed like a bad idea.

[WHY?] If there was a reason, it wasn't going to stop until it had it.

[INSUFFICIENT.] It had no allies, only it's Host, and the Key. Fire and Scales didn't work with many powers, and frankly, it hadn't bothered going down the synergistic route like the others had.

[INSUFFICIENT.] It had made no deal.

Desperate, she went over what little she knew it cared about.

She could feel that she had its total attention. The mountain, no, the continent with its many eyes, all focusing on her.

[AND?]

With her tethered connection to both Lung and it, she could feel something stirring.

In her mind, it smelled like old leather and felt like an old heavy sweater, worn soft with time.

Pride.

Buried under boredom and conflict and the endless battle against Paperwork.

[STUDY.]

---===---

Heroes, Villain, teenage gangsters, and a lone girl watching from around the corner of the gym building watched with ears ringing as Lung slowly get to his feet.

He was coughing -wheezing really- and with his rough booming voice, it sounded almost like an old truck trying to start.

But the hand that grabbed the car and hauled his metal body to his feet did not grow, did not burn.

He stood, and all saw the damage he had taken. His barrel-like torso was dented, pushed inwards nearly a foot, directly over his heart. As he leaned forward and tried to take another breath a flattened metal pellet fell out of the crater in his chest and hit the concrete, sounding like an overly large coin.

"T-tungsten?" he wheezed, "That isn't magnetic."

"A tungsten sabot surrounded with a High-Speed Steel-Jacket." Armsmaster corrected, holding one up between his fingers before loading it into the slot in the still flexible polearm. "Which contains 18.2% tungsten itself while remaining magnetic."

Even without his lower face visible, all heard the satisfaction in his voice. "My own recipe. The magnetic properties of my alloy are very sensitive to microstructure."

Nodding absently, Lung looked down at the damage he had taken. "Nicely done." He was already breathing easier.

"Not enough," Armsmaster noted calmly. "Not to worry though, with the tube straightened the impact should be two or three magnitudes greater easily." A subtle twitch of his fingers and his weapon started to straighten in a snake-like motion. "More, if I overload it."

It was a challenge to the Villain, everyone present knew that. Grow, use your flame, escalate.

Instead, Lung put his hands together in a prayer-like gesture over his injury. Scales twitched and flexed and suddenly with harsh screech of metal his chest had unbuckled. The scales started to ripple and change.

"If you intend to use reactive scales, don't bother." Armsmaster proclaimed. "At these speeds, it won't..." and trailed off.

The scales were coming together, fusing, becoming almost like... panels.

Lung's body almost looked like armor a samurai might wear, stiff bands across his torso, his shoulders, his thighs, his shins.

And then he breathed. Panels moved and shifted, flexing and shifting.

His visor mapped the angles, watched how they mimicked the sloped armor that battle tanks used. No, like belt armor on a battleship.

Living belt armor. Possible internal modifications.

Marvelous.

Undeterred, Armsmaster looked for weaknesses and found them. Like most armor, the joints, the sides, the throat, he had to be able to move.

And his arms weren't armored save the shoulders. Why?

He watched the scales on Lung's arms darken in bands, each a different color.

---===---

I ran a finger across the bands and noted how each sounded different.

It was working with me, so it seemed prudent to give it what it wanted.

Glancing down at the car, I took a step and shook my legs, feeling the new weight they bore. Then without a word, I deicided I would give Armsmaster a Brute-kiss.[Glasgow!]

I threw the car at him.

Despite being bigger and thicker than our last battle, his armor was surprisingly mobile, and I watched him dive into a perfect roll, the car crashing and tumbling where he once was. Dragon intercepted it and caught it neatly as Armsmaster smoothly got to his feet, halberd screaming towards my neck.

I took a step and swung my arm in a curving backhand, intercepting the edge with a mighty clang of metal. It dug deeply into my arm and stopped when it hit bone. [Not these...]

Even as I reached for it, tiny thrusters swiveled in a quick 180 and fired, freeing the weapon. Holding it at the end of the handle like a baseball bat -a metal, rocket-powered, razor-sharp bat, he spun and sent the second massive swing at nearly twice the speed as the first one.

I felt my other arm itch as scales shuffled and changed. The weapon didn't care and it bit even deeper into my other arm.[Nor these...]

I could have dodged the wing or the next, but it was a matter of pride now, for both of us.

Which will fail first, the ultrahard metal of his edge, or my arms?

The fourth strike didn't bite in, a single band midway in my forearm had endured the impact.[Ah, Harbenite, of course!]

His blade had a notch in it now.

---===---

God his arms ached.

Even if the rocket jets were doing most of the moving. Even if the vibration was being dampened by the armor and the impact gel.