dad
Apparently the thing it takes for Dad to take a week off of work is me getting in a fight with the Merchants, not that he specifically knows that's why I was out so late. He's made sure to pick me up and drop me off at school every day, so I can't even think of skipping out to do hero stuff like I had the week before. I was anxious about lost time at first, but now that it's out of my hands and all of my summons are gone, I'm strangely tranquil. I'll be starting back on square one when I get back to my base- assuming it hasn't been taken over by some gang- but I have a better idea of how things should go so my nerves are resting easier. Even more fortunately Emma and her orbiters were content enough with my ditching school after the juice thing that they mostly left me alone and just made snide comments. I can handle a rude word or two from them, Skidmark's were more biting.
But even my 'juvenile delinquency wasn't enough to pull Dad out of his funk for long, and once my grounding wasn't distracting him he slipped back into his distant, work obsessive self. I was disappointed at first, but on the bright side I was finally free to keep ditching Winslow. I'll have to start almost entirely over, as the only things that have stuck around are my body sense and that fucking water feature. But honestly, I kinda like this part anyway. Maybe I'd even get lucky and get something that could help Dad for real. POP
Spoiler: 6
Istanbul Bilgi University - Wikipedia Thinker power, instant knowledge of all forms of war profiteering. This is when Taylor finds out it's legal for an independent hero to rob villains as long as you put the funds right back into catching more villains. Buying yourself a coffee to stay awake during a stake-out counts.
Or maybe I'll just realise how much of an idiot I've been about this whole thing. If I just did more research in how independent capes support themselves I could have turned in some of those drugs I found in Skidmak's base for a bounty and gotten a fraction of the poison's worth put towards a real costume or something. Ugh. I hate Thinker powers, they make me feel so dumb when I get them. I made sure to mark down everything I could about my newfound legal mercenary know-how in my hero-notebook, since I discovered that things I learned with super-reading or when they otherwise popped into my head didn't stick around when when the power went away. POP
Spoiler: 11
Magoja - Wikipedia Fancy shirt from Korea. It's unisex.
It's a shirt? It lasts for over a minute, so I slip it on over Dad's old jacket, my old jacket now I suppose. I probably look ridiculous, but underestimation could save my life one day. Besides, it might be a magic shirt. And it's a little chilly today, so the extra layer was kind of nice. One last pull before I risk attracting a gang or something. POP
Spoiler: 15
Dagger (typography) - Wikipedia Striker power, creates a mark that dissolves non-living matter around itself until mark itself is destroyed. Can be applied to living tissue. Looks like ‡
The knowledge of the power suddenly and literally at my fingertips was probably the root of the phrase 'intoxicating'. I actually had a real power for once, not just knowing stuff or some random guy, but a real power like the Protectorate and New Wave all do! Oh this was, this was wow. I could do some real damage with this power. I just had to get within poking distance of any equipment and poof, it'd be useless, if I had this the other night I might have been able to destroy the nailgun before Squealer thought to threaten me with it. Hopefully it was fully Manton-limited, I wouldn't want to use it on a weapon and then have it spread to the guy holding it, that's villain territory.
A distant popping sound derailed that train of thought. Aw man. Wait no, I still have everything then what was-? There was a flash, and a sudden gust of air pushed me back a bit. I looked up across the bay and gaped in shock. A cloud of fire and smoke rose from the Boardwalk, slightly green in tint. It was already taller than the Ferris wheel by the time two more exotic explosions made themselves known deeper in the city. I had to go help!
--
Topic: Brumthing on camera!
In: Boards->Cryptids&Folklore->America
Xyler (Original Poster)
Posted on Jan 8th, 2011
Dudes dudes dudes dudes!1
I just got fucking video evidence of Brockton Bay's most famous (and only) broom-shaped alien/witch/pre-scion parahuman thing! Check it out! Also ignore the bit of talking at the middle I don't know how to edit video.
(Showing page 2 of 2)
->Lolwarrior
Replied on Jan 11th, 2011
Fake. I can tell by the pixels.
->Derpigurl
Replied on Jan 11th, 2011
Can somebody explain to me what I'm supposed to be amazed by in this 3 second clip? no offense but I've never heard of this "Brumthing" thing.
->Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied on Jan 12th, 2011
The Brumthing of Captain's Hill is one of the oldest cryptids on the North American East Coast, it's universally described as a hovering straw broom that only appears in your peripheral vision if you're standing in front of the historic McLanney Mansion. That's pretty much it, it's not associated with any ghost stories or anything, just a bunch of people over the last 400 years all claiming to have vividly hallucinated a flying broomstick for a split second. Personally, if I hadn't seen it myself I'd write it off as a bunch of people looking for their five minutes of fame.
There's a lot of theories about what it actually is; alien experiments, Brockton's atypical climate producing an oddly specific sundog, an immortal witch who forgot to make her broomstick invisible, some kind of Mesozoic petrified snake ghost, etc. This is the first time anybody has claimed to have video of it though. It's weird, it almost looks exactly how I remember it, even the angle is the same. I wonder if that's a clue?
->Gangesman
Replied on Jan 12th, 2011
Huh. So you guys just have a friendly broom monster over there?
->Shielder (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
Replied on Jan 17th, 2011
Personally I think it's a timetravelling alien artifact designed to trick us into thinking that it's a broom.
->5teven Jame5
Replied on Jan 17th, 2011
@ Shielder: Are you fucking serious?
->Shielder (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
Replied on Jan 17th, 2011
@ 5teven Jame5: Yeah, what of it?
->5teven Jame5
Replied on Jan 18th, 2011
@ Shielder: That's completely absurd. It's obviously a witch dude. What would aliens get out of sending broom-shaped alien tech back in time for? Just because?
->Shielder (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
Replied on Jan 18th, 2011
@ 5teven Jame5: To uplift our primitive civilization. Obviously.
->Lolwarrior
Replied on Jan 18th, 2011
Both of you need to get laid. DM me, I can totally hook you up write it off as charity.
USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST
Mod -_thunder_-: 1. Shielder is underaged.
2. You admitted in another post that you were a Merchant, so this is probably abusing PHO for villainy.
Now sit in the punishment sphere to think about what you've done.I was going to have to pull a Mover power at some point, or at least some kind of bike or scooter. Jogging all the way around the bay might have been great cardio and stuff, but unless you were on Lord Street it was a bitch to navigate. The only thing speeding up the trip was that I didn't have to wait to cross the bridges between the various harbors at the rim of the Docks. Those bridges had been designed with horses in mind and they'd never been updated, which meant that they only allowed one or two cars at a time and they weren't wide enough for two lanes.
At least the commute gave me time to plan out what I could do in this situation with my new power, even though it severely limited what good I'd be able to contribute by keeping me so far away from all the action. Those explosions were probably starting lots of fires, maybe I could delete blockages and help people evacuate? Could I delete the fire? I wasn't actually sure what fire was made of or if it was even a physical thing that could be interacted with beyond adding to it or putting it out.
A hollow crackle punctuated that thought ominously; that was a new one, unfortunately I couldn't see what it did from this vantage point so I had no idea what sort of plans to make to counter it. But it was probably typical bomb stuff. Even Tinkertech bombs couldn't get too weird. Hopefully. The only explosive-using capes in the Bay were Oni Lee and occasionally Leet, but I don't think Leet meant for his stuff to explode or else it would probably have better comic timing. Did Oni Lee rob a fireworks factory? Was it racist to assume an Asian cape is using fireworks?
At this point I was deep enough in town that I couldn't make out any of the explosions as I ran. But I could tell I was going the right way because all the civilians were running in the opposite direction. Some people were faster than others but- wait, those people up there aren't running at all. As I got closer I could see that they weren't even moving. I didn't dare get closer, I recognized that shimmer in the air and the black and white effect from cape history class. Those people were frozen in time. Fuck. Fuck.
Who would do that? thanks to the grayscale nature of the power, I couldn't tell if any of the victims were wearing gang colors, but something even more important stood out to me after a minute of horrified saring. There were children in there! I had to do something, but as my powerset was now I didn't have many options. I hesitantly touched the ground just outside of the washed out effect, hoping to whatever god was watching that I wouldn't accidentally cause a black hole or something somehow worse. The symbol formed exactly as I instinctively knew it would and the pavement around it began to hiss and evaporate, and the 'smoke' it emitted didn't go more than a foot away before vanishing entirely. But no, only the street in front of the time-locked zone is affected, and the most my power could manage was a fairly large pothole with a perfectly round crescent edge 'bitten' out of it where the Grayboy power starts.
Fuck. I'm useless here. I turned away from my failure and tried not to tear up. Heroes always do the right thing and never need to take emotional breaks. I had to move on, I had to find someone I can actually help with my powers and bury this helplessness in as deep of a hole as I can. I had to do something. But I needed to be stronger for this big of a situation. I pulled on my power POP
Spoiler: 6
Lego Prince of Persia - Wikipedia LEGO Prince of Persia set, includes Prince Dastan, an ostrich jockey, and Shiek Amar, the characters are a mixture of their movie and game selves, but the time mechanics are all from the games.
Three life-size LEGO figures stood in front of me. One of them was riding a LEGO Ostrich. Okay, I- Okay."Wow, I've seen some pretty ugly people, but you sir! Damn. You take the cake! Why are you so skinny and lumpy? Did you catch fire at some point or is that water damage?" I'm being insulted by my summon, none of the others ever did that, so I sort of assumed they couldn't. He looks behind me and a drawing of eyebrows appears on his face apparently just so he can raise them. "Huh, timelocked. Weird." Then he looks back at me and smirks a little. "Well it could be worse, at least they're not-!"
I scolded him before the giant toy could get another word out. "Have some fucking respect, this is serious!" It takes him aback and the eyebrows reappear.
"Easy there, kid. I didn't mean anything by it. Just some friendly ribbing for the audience, yanno?" As he said this he gestured vaguly towards the empty street. Great, another crazy minion. "Besides, it's not like they're dead." He was interrupted by a distant explosion that sounded like crystalized rain. "What was that?"
"Sounded like somebody dropped a whole box of bits after stepping on a brick barefoot." The ostrich rider mentioned off-handedly. I ignored him and gave the correct answer.
"Bombs, a supervillain is dropping bombs on innocent people and instead of calling on someone useful I ended up with you."
The regal looking one steps between us to defuse the argument. "Okay you two, we're all friends here. At least I know you're my friend, this guy works for me, and she?" I nod "She feels trustworthy, you learn to get a good sense for people as a leader."
"Okay wait, rewind a bit, what did you mean-" the air around us briefly turns gray before I finish speaking. "-they're not dead?"
"Aaaaaaahhhh!"
"Eeeeaaahhhh!"
Suddenly people are screaming again, wait, didn't they already leave? A man pushes past me in a panic, he'd have knocked me over if not for my super body senses. What the fuck, there's nothing behind us but the time bubble. I turn around just in time to see it.
An Asian kid clutches his head in pain right before the bubble expands through his skull and swallows all the bystanders. I turn back to my summons, dumbfounded, and then stare past them at the approaching figure of myself. My past self. What the fuck? "Time to go!" Wait what?
The air turns gray again, my past self is gone, or possible just my current self now. I look at my time-controlling summon with a critical eye, suddenly realizing that I will tolerate a lot of verbal abuse from talking toys if it gives me domain over the building blocks of reality. I'm pretty sure that's a postive trait, assuming that this suddenly discovered part of myself is selflessness and not power hunger. "How often can you do that?"
"As often as I want really, only for a minute though." An unfortunate limitation, but still more than I should reasonably expect when it comes to power over time.
"And you can save those people in there?" Please. Please say yes.
"Of course, just watch!" I tried to watch, I really did. But from my perspective the people caught inside just seemed to vanish from the bubble and reappear outside of it. Usually angry at being manhandled at first but then scared and grateful as they too watched victims inside the bubble teleport to safety. Eventually it was just the kid at the epicenter. "I don't think I can get him out by myself miss, I've reloaded the save at least a dozen times but I'm missing something." I ignore his nonsensical terms as being obviously time-travel related. Instead I focused on the problem at hand.
I didn't want want to just leave him in there without trying anything, but I don't know if my deletion mark is Manton limited and I'd rather not risk dying before saving everybody who doesn't need such risky tactics. He wasn't really going anywhere as it was, right? "I have a plan, but I don't know if it'll work. If he dies from it, will you rewind things back to how they were?"
"Absolutely, you wouldn't even know the gory details unless I told you." Well that's horrifying to think about. What sort of depravities would the average person do if they knew there'd be no evidence of it? Had my summon already sunk to that level? I resolved to keep him on a tight leash until I got a better idea of his character.
"Okay, take me in and we'll try something." The air turns gray again as we're whisked back to the past. I didn't notice the first two times, but it's disconcertingly devoid of any feeling of movement or sensation beyond the color change. I hurry over to the kid, desperately hoping this worked how I thought it would. The kid backs away as I do, likely concerned about stranger danger, or possibly Stranger danger,- but I didn't have time to reassure him of my intentions. It was now or never, or literally both, in this case.
I touch him with my power, right at the base of the neck where I could see an unnatural bulging. The symbol forms and both his baseball cap and the back of his shirt fizzle away as he understandably freaks out at the cool sensation of rushing 'air'. And for a while that's all that happens, but then I hear a muffled hiss and the bulge disappears, smoke drifts out of the kid's ears and the air turns gray again. He looks up at me, baffled. I realize it's because from his point of view, I came out of nowhere, melted his clothes, and then teleported away again, only to teleport back. He might not even realize the bomb is gone. Or that there evenm was a bomb, depending on how nice Oni Lee was feeling when he stuck that shi in this poor kid.
I don't know how to reassure kids, so I awkwardly pat him on the back. He flinches and jerks away, which is- perfectly reasonable now that I think about it. Maybe I should just ignore the next few rescuees unless they initiate? Stranger danger and all. I looked back at my summons. "So how many people does that ostrich seat?" I had a plan!
--
01/15/11
INCIDENT REPORT #964678534USENE
At 9:23 this morning Oni Lee was spotted traveling Southbound in the Docks towards the Boardwalk while visibly carrying numerous Tinkertech devices of unknown function. Before the villain could be intercepted by Protectorate personnel, his intent was made clear as several explosions of various types began to engulf the area. Oni Lee's current arsenal has been observed to include Class 2 Time Warping, Class 8 Spatial Warping, Class 4 through 7 Transmutation, and Class 1 EMP devices, all of which appear to be on timed triggers. Personnel should assume that these are in addition to his standard loadout of flashbang, incendiary, and fragmentation grenades.
I remember the first time I got a report card. I took it home to show my parents, so proud of myself for how I did. I wanted to share that feeling with the ones who brought me into this world, especially my mother who sacrificed everything to make sure I never had to toil in poverty under the brutal CUI regime. It wasn't enough though. I had gotten three Bs and a C+, and it wasn't enough for them. They shunned me for a week until I brought the next one home, straight As, I was my mother's daughter again. And I was happy.
That trend continued for the rest of my academic career, in every class from PE to chemistry I was expected to get at least an A- if I wanted to have anything resembling a healthy relationship with my demanding family. If I didn't get perfect grades, if my performance wasn't perfect, then how could I possibly show my face as a Cheng-Jacobs? Moot point now though, I went and lost my temper after I got a B+. Cornell was unlikely to grant any requests to the woman who threatened to blow them all to hell, even if the request was so minor.
So now I'm not a Cheng-Jacobs, I have no parents, and I have no face of my own except this gasmask I made when I was Tinker fuguing for the first time. If I remember correctly, the mask was originally just meant to protect me from the hyper-dimensional gasses I had to manufacture for my prototype partially inverted zero-point bomb. I couldn't really be sure of it though because I only Tinkered up safety equipment as a byproduct of my bombs, it wasn't something my specialty let me do intentionally. In any case, now I'm Bakuda, right hand of the Dragon, greatest Tinker on the Eastern Seaboard!
"He doesn't think so, you know." Who the fuck dares interrupt me while I'm Tinkering? I whipped around, uzi held properly and perfectly level at where I heard the voice come from. I'm a professional villain, not some two-bit wannabe trying to look cool by copying Earth Aleph movies. The short figure throws up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender before stepping into the brightly lit room. I didn't bother wasting power on lighting up the rest of the hideout, since I spent all my time Tinkering in here. "Easy there, I didn't mean anything by it. It's just what I've heard. I know exactly how smart you are." It was a monkey, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and goofy sunglasses of all things. There was a monkey standing in my workshop. I've always liked monkeys, they reminded me of that simpler time before grades and perfection. My parents had taken me the zoo in New York, and we spent the whole day learning about nature and eating snackfoods I wasn't allowed to have at home.
Of course, this was obviously no ordinary monkey. It was some kind of Case 53. "Who are you supposed to be?" I demanded, adorable or not, I couldn't let some monkey walk into my lair without a good explanation. I wasn't super familiar with Brockton Bay or the cape scene in general, so I couldn't write off the possibility that he was spying on me.
"Ah well, I haven't picked one yet. A name, that is. I mean, I did have a name picked out, but the big guy on top said it wasn't Asian enough. So now I'm kind of at a loss, you get me?" Oh, this must be the new guy I was supposed to show the ropes, nobody told me he was a Case 53. That would have been useful information.
"Okay, what's your power?"
"Just like that, big bad you is helping little old me? You're so nice, I knew there was a reason I liked you." Of course, only fools deny the will of the Dragon, he was invincible. "Well I suppose you can say my power is knowing people, and I must correct you there, Lung is very removable if you know what you're doing." Knowing people huh? Sounds like a potent tool in backroom deals, I could see why Lung would want to- wait a minute.
"So before, when you came in here and disturbed me while I was working- stupid move by the way, never do that again if you want to keep your skin where it is. What is it you were talking about?" His ever present grin only got wider. Like some kind of cape drama trope, was that something Thinkers actually did or is he just weird?
"Well you had been mumbling something about being Lung's right hand, and well, my power doesn't lie, he just doesn't think the same." What? Who else could it be? One of those unpowered peons? This monkey that just showed up? Obviously I'd been mumbling again as the monkey answered. "No no, you got close but it's actually Oni Lee who has most of his respect. I don't understand it myself, the Mover is basically lobotomized. Says a lot more about Lung than it does Lee, you get me?"
That bastard! After everything I did perfectly for him! Every test revery bit of grovelling, outfitting that idiot suicide bomber with whatever he asked me to? It still wasn't enough? Why if I only knew how to get past his scales I would- Wait. I look up from my assassination daydreams. Didn't the new guy say something about that too? "So how do you feel about going by Wukong?" This was going to be the start of a perfect friendship, I could feel it.