Pho interlude

[X] Tomb Spyders (55pts each) – 1

[X] More scarabs to claim the boats in the graveyard (3pts per individual scarab)- 123 more

-[X] Have 30 scarabs dig a underground area in the sewers, when ready construct the tomb spyder there

[X] She needs to build up as much as possible before going out, at least a month.

Exponential growth is something that people hear but do not always understand. It's easy to say that two becomes four, which becomes eight, and so on and so forth, but it's not until ninety five scarabs descend on the ship graveyard and a further thirty disappear into the sewers after a mere two hours that such numbers begin to actually mean something.

It had taken 2 scarabs a single day to reduce a complete sunken ship to energy, it took 95 scarabs only 30 minutes to manage the same. They didn't stop there though, they'd been instructed to consume every ship that was completely submerged, and by seven o'clock the next morning, the only wrecks actually in the bay were all those that could be seen from the shore.

While they did this, 30 scarabs had disappeared into the sewers in search of a place to set up a base of operations. Thankfully, the sewers themselves were rather high and wide, so there was plenty of room to manoeuvrer through them for larger constructs.

Not wanting to accidentally dig into one of the Endbringer shelters, she'd marked all of their locations on a map and had found an odd but useful gap in their coverage directly south of her own home, on the edge of the down town area. Another positive was that this was pretty central to Brockton Bay as a city, and with access to the sewers they could go pretty much anywhere below ground.

When they got there, the scarabs began to excavate a tunnel that gently sloped downwards. While the concrete, brick, and earth did garner them some additional resource, it was a pitiful amount to what solid metals could give them, and it was consumed a lot quicker as well.

Once the tunnel was a dozen feet long, most of the scarabs began to enlarge it. Three of them, however, addressed the problem of how to hide the opening they'd left behind. Deciding to keep things as simple as they could, they formed a heavy metal door with a slide bar lock on the inside, and then recreated the brickwork and mounted it on the metal exterior.

Hinges and a slide were simple enough for the scarabs to recreate, and they had the memory of the brickwork that they'd just deconstructed, so that was no issue either. The only real problem was that it could only be opened from the inside, but leaving a single scarab there wasn't a hardship at all, there was over a hundred of them now!

Once the cavern was determined to be large enough, a room roughly twenty feet a side, one scarab began to construct the larger construct that they knew how to make, and it slowly began to take shape. It wouldn't be quick though, this one construct would take the scarab more than six and a half hours to complete.

The scarabs that had hollowed out the cavern began to grow restless and awaited the instruction to expand, but how should they do so? They would await their creator's orders, but what would she tell them to do?

When she wakes, which order will Taylor give?

-[ ] Expand to the West, further inland.

-[ ] Expand North, towards the docks and Taylor's home.

-[ ] Expand South, towards the nearest City edge.

-[ ] Expand downwards, less risk of hitting something already there.

-[ ] That's enough for now, no need for expansion just yet.

-[ ] Reinforce the walls, she doesn't want the cavern collapsing if she can help it.

-[ ] Write in.

xxxxx

The next morning, Emily Piggot pulled herself out of bed, ate her breakfast, and prepared herself for another day of dealing with parahumans. While she could freely admit to herself that their powers alone set her on edge, what made her worry the most was that these powers were handed out to the most unstable of people when they were at their worst.

While information regarding 'trigger' events was suppressed online and in the media, just so some fool didn't try and artificially replicate one, she herself was well aware just what it took to cause someone to get powers. Someone who had snapped was given ridiculous and almost always dangerous powers? A recipe for disaster if ever she'd heard one.

When she arrived at her office, she glared at the stack of paperwork, before going through it. There were the Protectorate's reports of last night's patrols from Velocity, Miss Militia, and Triumph, all rather quiet, at least for Brockton Bay.

There was a small stack of approval requests from Armsmaster alone, and she immediately dismissed the cybernetic enhancers right off the bat. She wasn't having him hacking his limbs off to replace them with something better, not until he actually lost a limb at any rate. The lie detector was fine though, and she tentatively agreed to the sedatives specifically designed for Lung, the troublesome leader of the ABB.

The psych reports for the Wards that landed on her desk every month read like usual, Vista was still trying to act older than she was, Clockblocker was still as aggravating as always, Kid Win remained frustrated by his lack of progress discovering his speciality, Aegis was trying too hard to be the leader he simply wasn't very fit to be, and Gallant still thought he was some sort of psychiatrist simply because of his power. Oh, and Shadow Stalker was still as anti-social and arrogant as she always had been.

Underneath that, however, was a very different report. This one came from a member of the PRT, and at first glance had nothing to do with parahumans directly, but she would eat her chair if it wasn't something to do with a parahuman power.

The rig that the Protectorate used for the Protectorate, the adults at least, was out in the bay and had a whole host of sensors, from the old fashioned to the cutting edge of modern tech that wasn't tinker made. It seemed the sonar had picked something rather unusual up the previous night.

In front of her there was two separate images, one taken yesterday and one today. It was blatantly obvious, even if someone didn't know what a sonar graph looked like that the latter was missing something, a lot of somethings actually.

Picking up her phone, she quick-dialled Armsmaster's lab out on the rig. The phone didn't get the chance to ring twice as the man in question picked up almost immediately. No doubt she had interrupted his tinkering, but this looked important dammit!

"Armsmaster, do you have a submersible camera available?" She started out straight away.

"How quickly can you build one then?"

"It will have to do, just get it out to the boat graveyard as soon as it's finished."

"Because according to sonar, more than a dozen boats have inexplicably vanished as of this morning."

"Yes, I will be calling a meeting. Make that probe and then get yourself over here, hopefully it will give us something to work with."

"Yes, I think this is important. Why? More than a hundred tonnes of boat just vanishes without trace and I want to know why!"

She put the phone down on him, took a breath, and then began calling the other members of the Protectorate in for a meeting. The switchover was a good time for such things, it was one of the few times that most of the Protectorate members were actually there.

xxxxx

Several hours later, Assault and Battery entered the meeting room. While meetings did happen at least once a week at scheduled times, and it wasn't too rare for them to be called in at other times, the city wasn't exploding, burning down, or turned into some sort of lovecraftian mass of blades, all of which were reasonable expectations in Brockton Bay.

"Now that we are all here, perhaps I could begin?" Director Piggot waspishly snapped at them. "This morning, I found on my desk a report from the rig's sensor systems, now, can anyone tell me what is wrong with this picture?"

They all looked at the two graphs side by side that were projected behind the director.

"I don't know what it is, but that right one is a lot emptier than the left." Dauntless said. "What is it we are looking at?"

"We are looking at more than a dozen missing ships. Roughly a third of the boat graveyard decided to grow legs and wander last night- no, Assault, I don't mean that literally." She pre-empted the childish man. "We don't know how it happened or why, but last night they seemingly disappeared."

"I sent a submersible camera down there this morning to see if there was any signs of who did this." Armsmaster took over. "However, there was nothing, at least nothing on who did it, there are a few hints as to how it was done."

Another picture was displayed. "You can see here where the ship used to be, but the interesting thing is that there are no drag marks. As far as we can tell, the ships themselves weren't lifted or dragged out of the water, they were either teleported or simply vanished. The confusing part here is that the water doesn't shift suddenly to fill an empty space on the scans, so we can only assume the ships were vanished one small piece at a time, albeit very rapidly."

"It could just be a tinker looking for parts, yeah?" Assault suggested. "It's not like this has hurt anyone or anything, hell, getting rid of the boat graveyard can almost be considered a public service."

"A tinker would need components or wires at most." Armsmaster disagreed. "They would have gone after the radios, the sensors, and individual systems, not gone for the raw metal in its entirety. Even then, one with the capability to do this would already be beyond those sorts of components."

"What do you want us to do?" Battery asked. "Without a picture or anything to go by, we've got nothing really to narrow down who this person is, or how their powers work. We don't even know if they're based out of the docks or simply needed the materials for something."

"Anyone that can make that much material disappear that quickly and easily is a worry, moreso that we don't know what they're going to do with it." Director Piggot responded. "However, we need to do something regardless, we can not have the gangs swell any further than they already have!"

-[X] Reinforce the walls, she doesn't want the cavern collapsing if she can help it.

-[X] Expand downwards, less risk of hitting something already there.

-[X] Whatever the QM decides, as we aren't Piggot, nor have we been Piggot, and we aren't going to become Piggot. Stick to one character please. (Well, that's me told).

When Taylor awoke on Sunday morning, she felt the comforting weight of her first scarab resting within her arms. Pulling the covers off and getting dressed, she made sure that he wasn't following her when she went to make breakfast, as yesterday's close call was far too close for comfort.

Once again, she made breakfast for her and her father, though she didn't make pancakes today, just some toast and jam. She had a relatively pleasant morning chatting with her dad, and once everything was cleared up she headed out once again.

Her dad did see the pepper spray she'd bought the other day, and he approved of it. He didn't see the taser though thankfully, that might be a bit beyond what he would be happy with, even in a gang filled city like Brockton Bay.

Collecting her scarab on the way out of the door, she headed towards the docks, and it wasn't long until she found an access hatch for a storm drain. Her scarab vanished the lock keeping it shut and she slipped inside, allowing the green glow from its head, which was now much brighter, to guide her towards where her new underground base was.

She was glad the drains were as spacious as they were, but then they had to handle some immense amounts of water sometimes. With the water run off from the steep hills further inland, the sometimes overflowing aquifer, and with it being a port city, they really needed to be able to handle a lot of water.

When they actually got to the secret entrance, Taylor didn't even realise it. The scarabs had hidden it so well that she couldn't actually tell there was a door there until it swung open and she scrambled through it.

Once through, she looked at the short stretch of tunnel she found herself in. Placing one hand against the wall she found it to be cold, smooth, and metallic. The floor beneath her feet was cross-hatched for grip. The metal was a uniform dull grey-silver colour, and was completely seamless.

She wandered into the first room that the scarabs had dug and found it was definitely large enough for her, the ceiling was about ten feet high, and the walls were approximately twenty feet long. There was a ramp at one side roughly five feet wide that went down to an identical room below.

Waiting in this room for her, however, was something that took her breath away. It looked remarkably similar to her scarabs, it even had six legs just like them, but it was also the size of a carthorse, and had two massive three-clawed grippers as well.

The thing approached her and made a noise, much deeper and with greater bass than her scarabs' chirps were. Looking at those claws, she didn't think the Ouija board would work this time, it would probably just crush it. Setting the board down, she asked her scarab if it could act as a translator for her.

YES

"Thank you." She sighed. "I really need to find a better way to communicate with you guys, and soon if we get any more guys along the lines of his size."

The thing made another noise, and the scarab chirped in response. They went back and forth between themselves for a few minutes, before the scarab began tapping the Ouija board, tapping out a question for her.

"20 resources is nothing if it will help me understand what is going on." Taylor readily agreed, and as soon as the words left her mouth, a green light erupted from the spider thing. It was much thicker and more solid looking than what her scarabs produced, and she thought it was going much quicker as well.

Roughly twenty minutes after it had started, the spider had finished what it was doing and a flat, shiny black thing dropped onto a waiting scarab. It flew over to Taylor, who carefully picked up whatever it was.

The object was about 10 inches each side and a third of an inch thick. The sides were rounded, not sharp, and so were the corners, but she couldn't see anything particularly noteworthy about it. It looked completely flat, like a slab, and it weighed about two and a half pounds.

She almost dropped it when several symbols in bright green appeared on it. She looked at the lines, circles, and triangles, but couldn't understand it at all. It was like looking at ancient runes or hieroglyphics, aware that it was a language, but unable to read a single word. She said as much our loud, and after several seconds the symbols were replaced with plain English.

THIS SPYDER APOLOGISES FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

I AM READY AND ABLE TO SERVE.

Spyder? She guessed that was the giant scarab thing with extra claws. It was as good a name as anything else, and if it wanted to call itself that then she wasn't going to argue with it, especially as she was now able to actually communicate with her metal creations.

"What can you do?" She asked.

LIKE THE SCARABS, SPYDERS ARE CAPABLE OF DECONSTRUCTION, CONSTRUCTION, MAINTENANCE, AND ANY MENIAL TASK YOU COMMAND US TO COMPLETE.

"Can you make anything other than scarabs or spyders?" She questioned.

SPYDERS ARE INDIVIDUALLY CAPABLE OF ALL CONSTRUCTION TASKS BELOW MONOLITH CLASS. MONOLITHS AND LARGER STRUCTURES REQUIRE MULTIPLE UNITS WORKING TOGETHER TO COMPLETE THEM.

"What other kind of constructs can you make?" She wondered.

I CAN MANUFACTURE SCARABS, SPYDERS, WARRIORS, FLAYED ONES, IMMORTALS, WRAITHS, AND DESTROYERS. MANUFACTURE OF EQUIPMENT IS ALSO WITHIN MY CAPABILITIES.

When she asked just what they were, the tablet computer – because what else could it be – opened up several images and a short description of what each creature was, what it could do, and what it was optimised for.

She flinched away from the descriptions of what the weapons could do. All of them stripped a target molecule by molecule and reduced them to their constituent atoms, and that sounded far more lethal and, honestly, rather painful than she was comfortable with.

Moving away from that, she looked over the machines themselves. Warriors were basic combat units, or at least basic compared to everything else. They were metal skeletons that marched forth in large numbers, an implacable army of terrifying soldiers.

Flayed Ones traded in the guns for ridiculously oversized claws and a horrifying visage. There was a note next to it that said wearing the skins of their enemies would amplify the visceral horror they engendered in their foes.

Immortals were like Warriors but tougher and with bigger guns.

Wraiths looked like long serpentine spines with shoulder blades, arms, and a skull. They had claws and a barbed tail, though there was a mention that they could use their claws as hypodermic needles and inject a variety of poisons into their target. In addition to that, they were capable of phasing in and out of 'this layer of reality', meaning they could 'ghost' through walls and floors.

Destroyers were small hovercraft, about the size of the spyder's body, and had the torso of a metal skeleton emerging from the front like a centaur, but a robot hovercraft instead of a horse. They were armed with either Gauss Cannons or Heavy Gauss Cannons as needed.

As for 'equipment', well there were some odd things there. There was a Chronemetron which had some sort of mild time-warping effect on an area, a Lightning Field generator that shocked those that attacked them, a Nightmare Shroud that caused fear in enemies, a Phase Shifter which gave someone the same phasing ability as Wraiths, a Solar Pulse which was a sort of super flash bang grenade, a Veil of Darkness which allowed teleportation! Oh, and most of her constructs could also self repair, which was made better in the presence of a Resurrection Orb.

That was on top of the nasty weapons that ripped apart targets and the atomic level, and pole-arms that could supposedly cut through literally anything.

Weren't Tinkers supposed to have some sort of speciality that tied everything they could do together? What was her theme here? Terrifying robot apocalypse or something? It looked like something out of a sci-fi novel, even moreso than capes usually were.

Feeling a little dizzy, Taylor fell back against the wall and slid down until she was sat on her rump. Touching what she thought was the screen of her tablet computer several times, she found that she didn't get a response from it, and after spending another five minutes failing to find any sort of button on it, she asked the spyder what else the tablet can do.

THIS WILL ALLOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH AND COMMAND ALL OF THE FORCES UNDER YOUR COMMAND.

"Does it have wi-fi?" She asked.

WHAT IS WI-FI?

"Umm, it's a way to wirelessly connect to the internet." She explained. "A lot of modern phones can use it, and laptops too. The internet is a sort of massive network that you can search for all kinds of things, cake recipes, things for sale, world news, and you can send and receive messages with e-mail."

THIS SOUNDS USEFUL, I RECOMMEND YOU MAKE USE OF THIS WI-FI YOURSELF.

"Yeah, but I don't know how to connect this tablet to any sort of network. I can't even find any apps or anything." She complained.

LEAVE THAT TO ME, IT SHOULD NOT BE DIFFICULT TO CONNECT TO ANY OF THE VARIOUS SIGNALS THAT ARE BEING SENT AND RECEIVED IN THE AREA.

"Thank you." Taylor smiled at the spyder. "While you're at it, could you research a few other things for me as well?"

WHAT IS YOUR WISH, MISTRESS?

Research

-[X] Integrating human systems (0/100) Cost of 1000 points.

-[X] Power armour for herself (0/100) Cost of 200 points.

-[X] Non-lethal weapon alternatives (0/100) Cost of 1000 points.

Units

-[X] 3 Spyders (55pts each)

-[X] 4 Warriors (18pts each)

-[X] 2 Immortals (28pts each)

-[X] 1 Wraiths (41pts each)

Base/Lair (Tomb?)

-[X] Convert one of the two existing rooms into a storage area.

-[X] Add an additional room to the base.

Once she gave the orders, the scarabs sprang into action. All one hundred and twenty-five of them – not including the first - began to excavate a new room and alter the one below the entrance room into somewhere she could store anything she might need.

The currently existing spyder drifted into the corner and began to generate another spyder. Once that first one was created, then she had been assured that it would start analysing the signals it could detect for her and then working out how to make use of them.

She left him to it and headed down the ramp, marvelling at how quickly and efficiently the scarabs were going about her instructions. They moved with purpose, like how ants or other social insects might when they went about their business in a nest or hive.

Already there was a doorway 'carved' into the wall and the scarabs were rapidly expanding it, allowing more scarabs to fit in there and work on vanishing the earth and rock, while a few others started covering the cleared space with the metal the rest of the base was covered in.

She sat with the tablet on her lap as the extra room rapidly took form. While they did that, she once again went through the information she had on the constructs that her scarabs and spyders could make. She might not like the weapons they were currently equipped with, but hopefully the spyders would figure out some non-lethal alternative.

She had made the extra spyders so they could focus on more research and development. She had so many scarabs now that collecting resources wasn't much of an issue, assuming she could find enough resources that was. Spyders were also apparently faster at making things than scarabs were.

The warriors were, simply put, in case of an emergency if the base was ever discovered by someone she didn't want finding it. Once again, she'd be a lot happier once they had a non-lethal weapon in their hands, but something was better than nothing.

The immortals were preparation for when she eventually decided to go out and actually be a hero herself. They were basically an upgraded version of the warriors, and that extra bulk was a little comforting, especially as you could never know what you would meet out on the streets of Brockton Bay.

The wraith was because that phasing ability fascinated Taylor. Able to pass through anything - solid, liquid, or gas - like it simply wasn't there was an amazing ability, and it was something that would make them very good scouts as well.

With just these she had the beginnings of a small hero team already. All of her constructs would count as brutes, if not for their strength and durability, then also for their self-repair capabilities. Their weapons… she didn't know how powerful they were compared to other blasters around the world, but she was willing to bet that 'atomising things' was a pretty powerful ability. The wraith phase ability also, if she remembered right, counted as a breaker power, at least that's what Shadow Stalkers' own similar ability was explained as online.

A nudge at her elbow made her look, and she saw that she was surrounded by scarabs. The additional room was already dug out and reinforced, the room she was sat in was now full of shelves and metal units, and the little robo-bugs were looking to her for something to do.

She didn't really have anything for them to do right this moment though, unless…

What does Taylor have the scarabs do now?

-[ ] Create new scarabs or spyders (Costs and resources are on the Apocrypha page).

-[ ] Dig out more of a base (Current rooms are on the Apocrypha page).

-[ ] She could read them a story, there's a few books in her bag.

-[ ] She could play a game with them, can metal scarabs even play hopscotch?

-[ ] Write in.

xxxxx

She went home several hours later. All four of the spyders were now focused on research, two of them collaborating on one subject even. That still left her to deal with her new creations though.

The warriors were… obedient, and mostly silent. Not as in them making noise, no, but in terms of communicating with her tablet. They didn't offer any words of wisdom or advice unless specifically asked, and followed her instructions to the letter. Where the scarabs could be a little playful and demanding, like puppies, she'd call the warriors' attitudes as belonging to mindless drones almost.

Immortals, on the other hand… well they treated her as if she was a goddess. Upon completion, both of them had fallen to their knees before her and declared their undying servitude to her cause, surprising her somewhat with their instant devotion. The two of them wouldn't stand for her expressing her doubts about herself, and they'd proclaimed her worries untrue when she'd voiced them aloud. It… felt good, having the two of them have such confidence in her.

The Wraith was an odd one. It seemed to embody stealth in a way that something that eye-catching shouldn't. It slunk through the base, sticking to the shadows cast by the glowing green eyes of her many scarabs. It hovered almost protectively over her as well, but never in direct line of sight. She knew it was behind her, but not hearing nor seeing it was… strange.

Anyway, she was rather happy that her creations all had distinct personalities, even if those personalities seemed to exist within each different type of unit she had. Maybe when she had more of them there would be some variance amongst them?

She was a little surprised, when she got home, to find her dad just returning in his truck as well. He wore something of a bemused expression on his face and smiled at Taylor when he got out and shut the door behind himself.

"Everything okay, dad?" She asked.

"Everything's fine." He told her. "I was just called into work today about something."

"But it's Sunday." Taylor responded in confusion.

"Yeah, well apparently the Protectorate couldn't wait until tomorrow to talk, and so one of the guys called me in." He replied.

The Protectorate? What the hell did they want with her dad? She understood the guys at the DWA calling her dad, as while there may be people higher up the food chain than him, he was the one who got everyone work and did everything he could for them, and that meant they respected him, and he was also the one who knew what was what around the docks.

"It wasn't anything too major." Her father said calmly, seeing her concern quite clearly. "About a third of the boat graveyard has apparently just up and vanished, and they're worried about it." He sighed. "Figures it would take parahuman involvement for any of them to give a damn about the docks."

"A third of the boat graveyard… that's a lot of boats." Taylor mumbled, feeling embarrassed. Two scarabs had reduced a boat to energy in less than a day, what the hell would almost a hundred of them do! No wonder they had noticed, that was a silly mistake!

"If whoever did it took the rest then I'd celebrate." He continued. "With the boats gone, we can clean up the water and maybe the fish will come back. Even without the fish, we could start taking cargo again. With the trainyard so close to the docks, we have easy access to an immense distribution network that we could make use of to raise the city back up again."

"And you can get your ferry up and running?" Taylor impishly added on.

Her father chuckled, nudging his shoulder against hers. "That too, but getting rid of all of those wrecks would be an immense boon for this city. I hope whoever it is keeps it up, and that they're heroic. I don't want to imagine what a villain would want all of that metal for."

"So what did the heroes want?" She pressed. "Did they just ask if anyone had seen anything odd?"

"A little of that, a little of asking if anyone knew what so much metal could be used for." Danny shrugged. "I think they were digging for information, a new tinker or something. With the boat graveyard right there, I guess the dock-workers would be prime suspects, especially with how vocal I've been about the ferry."

"So who did they send?" She asked. "As I remember, you once admitted to having a crush on Miss Militia when you were younger." She was surprised she could even remember that, it had been when Taylor was much younger and talking incessantly about the heroes and how cool they were. She remembered it because of her mom needling her dad about his old crush and how she should have played the villain to Miss Militia's hero, being a former minion of Lustrum and all.

"It was a young one with some sort of lion gladiator them going, Tri-something I think, and Velocity, the super fast one." He told her, making her blink in surprise.

"Why would they send them if they were looking for a tinker?" Taylor asked. "I'd have expected Armsmaster, he's the only tinker member I know of, aside from Kid Win in the Wards."

"I've heard things about him." Her dad said. "Abrupt and brusque being the most polite, maybe the sent the ones more likely to make a good impression?" He shrugged again. "Anyway, shall we get in and maybe start on dinner? I don't know about but I'm hungry, I missed lunch when I got called out."

Taylor smiled. "Maybe we could watch another movie or two as well, it's still early."

Danny grinned too. "Maybe Jaws, it's a classic I haven't watched in a long while, and as I recall you were rather too young last time you tried to watch it."

She blushed at that. Seven year old Taylor being caught trying to watch scary movies to prove she could be an 'adult' was a treasured memory, but an embarrassing one all the same. The only thing worse would have been being caught trying to watch an 'adult' film that she knew her mother used to like watching occasionally.

xxxxx

Curled up in bed that night, once again using scarab 1 as a heavy metal teddy bear, Taylor was quite happy with how the weekend had gone. She'd need that to face Winslow tomorrow, but before she went to sleep maybe she could give her constructs some instructions.

[X] Create new scarabs or spyders (Costs and resources are on the Apocrypha page).

-[X] 1000 scarabs

--[x] She could read them a story while they work, there's a few books in her bag.

[X] Consume ALL the boats! The PRT is already onto her, might as well go for broke. (By 1 vote over the sewage recycling idea)

When morning came, Armsmaster checked the submersible cameras that the director had had him make to watch the boat graveyard. There was nothing initially, after the sun had gone down and even he had gone to bed… that's when things changed.

Like some sort of biblical plague, a swarm of what was assuredly some sort of tinkertech bugs descended upon the carcasses of the wrecked ships and began to consume them in a wave of green light.

It was… amazing to watch. The little metal bugs divided themselves between the remaining wrecks and systematically vanished them from existence, or if his developing hypothesis was correct, disassembled them into usable energy.

The sheer versatility that such an ability would allow was almost indescribable. Not a single atom wasted, everything used to create something else, and not a bit of waste left over. That the Tinker that commanded these little robots had removed the eyesore that was the ships graveyard as well, that was commendable in its own right.

Still, this wasn't the actions of one of the currently known elements within Brockton Bay. The only Tinkers here were himself, Kid Win, L33T, and Squealer. He knew that he hadn't made these things, they were beyond Kid Win who was having trouble with simple laser guns at present, L33T had problems reproducing tech, and Squealer specialised in Transport, not to mention the aesthetics of these robots didn't match any currently known.

Seeing the robots depart eighty seven minutes after they had arrived, leaving not even a scrap of a boat behind, Armsmaster began to make plans. He quickly typed up a report for the director, added the footage to the e-mail and sent it off, before making a personal list of everything he now knew.

First off, this Tinker could make things in bulk. Aside from Masamune, who had gone missing when Kyushu sank more than a decade ago, there really wasn't any Tinker known for producing massive amounts of tech without maintenance issues making them nearly pointless. The stuff Dragon produced was almost an exception, as containment foam was a chemical product, not electronic or mechanical, and that was the main thing she produced.

Second, if he was right, then these tinkertech beetles were equipped with some form of matter deconstruction beam, allowing them to claim vast amounts of material resources in a very short frame of time. With this in mind, he wouldn't be surprised if they'd excavated an underground lair somewhere in the city. Also, he had yet to see if those beams could deconstruct organic matter as easily as they could the ships.

Third, the Tinker might be aware they were being observed. Previously, they had only gone after boats that were completely below the water's surface, but now they had taken everything. Either that, or they believed they now had enough resources to act more overtly. Personally, he would prefer the former option, as the latter might imply they would act against the protectorate, and he didn't want to think what else they could make aside from the collector-bots.

Tracking this tinker would be a problem, as unless the tinker was less than a foot tall, there was no way they had fit into one of those robots. That implied one of two thing, either the swarm had been controlled remotely, which was unlikely, or they had some form of on-board AI.

The latter option wouldn't endear them to the PRT, especially Director Piggot, who was known to have an aversion to Master type parahumans that possessed numerous minions. At least these ones were mechanical rather than biological, so the comparisons to Nilbog weren't as obvious, but the trade-off was that biology couldn't really match what technology could in terms of damage output, especially where Tinkers were concerned.

The PRT and Protectorate also had a blanket ban on any true AI that were developed. Simpler VI could be made when required, but the creation of true artificial life was completely prohibited, and that may well be one reason why this Tinker had not approached the PRT about joining the Protectorate. There may be other reasons of course, but aside from them targetting the boat graveyard as a resource, he didn't have any sort of psych profile to base any assumptions off yet.

For all he knew, the Tinker in question could be a teenaged girl going with her first impulses and possessing no true plan.

xxxxx

Taylor woke up in the morning, as was becoming normal, cuddling with her first scarab. As the little guy chirped a greeting to her, she wondered whether she should give him an actual name of his own. Unlike the masses of scarabs (and seriously, holy hell she had made a lot of them!), he was always with her, and he was the one always trying to comfort her.

What should Taylor name her first scarab?

-[ ] Scarab Prime, as is right and proper.

-[ ] Primus, hey, it could be worse!

-[ ] Jessica, it's a respectable name.

-[ ] Alpha, he was the first.

-[ ] Write in.

With that decided, she got up and got ready for the day. Her dad had already left, apparently having to get into work early today for some reason. Personally, she thought it might be the complete disappearance of the boat graveyard that might be the reason, and while she felt a little guilty for taking some of her dad's sleep away from him, she was also rather proud of what she had accomplished.

Granted, there wouldn't suddenly be cargo ships coming and going, even with the trainyard so close to the docks, and it was also true that there weren't quite as many boats on the water since Leviathan's debut, but the endbringer didn't really target boats.

There were almost zero cruises these days, and pleasure boats and other personal vessels had almost completely disappeared, but cargo ships still sailed the seas. The main damage Leviathan had caused was to port cities, and other places along the shore. England's famous Whitby was now just gone, to say nothing of Kyushu or Newfoundland.

Still, clearing the boat graveyard would allow for the possibility for ships to come and go now, and her scarabs had also cleaned the bay as well while they were out there, so fish should find the conditions much more pleasant than they had previously.

It was with this in mind that she got dressed and ready for school. Winslow wasn't a fancy school, and so it didn't have a required uniform that she had to wear, but she still wore relatively sensible clothing. A button up blouse and dark pants was simple and unremarkable enough for her to fade into the background, or at least it would be if the three bitches didn't constantly draw attention to her, singling her out as their target.

She sent a message over to her first spyder, asking whether the scarabs had all made it back okay. She got an almost instant response.

CERTAINLY, MISTRESS, THEY ARRIVED WITHOUT A SCRATCH. I AM, HOWEVER, CURIOUS AS TO WHY YOU ARE ACTING SO BRAZENLY WHEN OUR COMBAT FORCES NUMBER ONLY SEVEN UNITS.

She replied, telling him that she wanted to collect all of the resources she could before scrutiny on the docks became too great and too risky for her to let her scarabs go collecting there. She might have more than a thousand of them, but she didn't want to risk them needlessly regardless.

IN THAT CASE, MISTRESS, MIGHT I SUGGEST YOU USE SOME OF THE CURRENT STOCKPILE TO CONSTRUCT SOME GENERATORS WITHIN THE BASE. THEY DO NOT PRODUCE MUCH ENERGY VERY QUICKLY, BUT THEY WOULD BE MUCH MORE DISCRETE THAN THE SCARABS ARE.

Generators? What was he talking about. She sent a message across, asking what he was talking about, and if she could make such things why hadn't he told her about them. He responded straight away.

YOU ONLY ASKED ABOUT THE CONSTRUCTS I CAN MANUFACTURE AND THE EQUIPMENT I CAN PRODUCE, THERE ARE OTHER STRUCTURES AND ITEMS THAT CAN BE MADE TOO.

She immediately asked for him to send the files to her tablet for her to look over. There were several pages already highlighted for her attention. The first, Pariahs, were more soldier type constructs, or at least partially. They were made from living beings being fused with metal to get the best of both, or so it claimed. Still, from this she gathered that she could make cybernetic prosthetics, if ever that proved useful in future.

The next page highlighted was the generators. The scientific description of how they worked went straight over her head, but the gist of it, as far as she could tell, was that human knowledge of science, physics especially, was flawed and lacking. Once constructed, the generators took advantage of several quirks of science to essentially produce energy from nothing. It spat in the face of the first law of thermodynamics, but she trusted her spyder to know what he was talking about.

That was amazing, and so distracting that she was half-way out the front door before she realised her bag was far heavier than it should be. She opened it to find her first scarab curled up in there on top of her text books.

"You can't come with me, you know." She told it, and even when it gave her a pitiful look, or as much as it could give with a single green optic, she held firm. "I really don't want to know what would happen if anyone found you, and… I don't know how you would react if I was in trouble."

The scarab chirped in concern at her.

Taylor shook her head. "No, it's not like that. If I was in life-threatening danger, that's one thing, but I don't want you to overreact if they're just pushing me around like normal, and Sophia can get quite physical at times."

Honestly, that girl was like a gorilla beating her chest, 'look at me, I'm big and dangerous' as it were. Out of the three bitches, she was the one with the most screws loose. Madison was a follower, Emma… something had happened to her, but Sophia was legitimately insane in Taylor's own humble opinion.

The scarab gave a low, sad chirp, but climbed out of her bag all the same and went back into the house. Taylor smiled at that, glad that it was obeying her, but what she didn't know was that as soon as her back was turned, the scarab had sent a message back to the lair.

The scarab might not be able to watch over her, but nothing was stopping the wraith from lurking a few feet beneath the ground, ready and willing to shred her enemies if they actually did any true damage to her. In accordance with her wishes it would not attack, not unless she was at serious risk at least, but once that happened then nothing would hold it back.

xxxxx

When she arrived at school, Taylor was met with the expected whispers and rumours that she had anticipated. She could already hear the various versions of drug-abuse and insanity that were being suggested as causing her absence. This was all neglecting the fact pretty much the whole school knew about the locker, not that anyone had told the police anything apparently.

She walked past them all, completely ignoring everyone. She headed directly for the English classroom first, and seeing the teacher through the window knocked on the door. A few exchanged words later, she handed him the sheets she'd been told to complete. She went from teacher to teacher, handing each of them in before any of the trio or their flunkies could ruin them and get her in trouble.

Once the last piece had been handed in, she headed to her first class of the day and waited for the lesson to start. Thankfully, it wasn't one she shared with any of her main three tormentors, and she held together through the entire period.

Second period only had Madison in it, and her childish antics were relatively easy to ignore. Just picturing gauss flayers rending her down to her constituent atoms, one agonising layer at a time, was doing wonders for keeping her temper in check. Not that she'd ever do that to anyone, but her imagination had always been strong, so it helped somewhat.

Taylor near fled the classroom after that, hiding out for the fifteen minutes between second and third period, morning break. She had one period between morning break and lunch, and then two periods before it was time to go home.

Unfortunately, her third period would have all three of her tormentors in there, and just the thought of being in the same room as them was making her shake a little. She had been sent to hospital, and the ones she was certain had shoved her into that foul locker had gotten away unpunished? There was no sufficient proof apparently, and to a degree she could understand that, proof before conviction and all that, but the amount they got away with… some of it even before a teachers' eyes, and yet still it happened.

God, she almost wished she smoked. Those were supposed to help calm you, weren't they? Then again, drugs were the same, and she wasn't going to touch anything like that with a ten foot pole, she had no desire to become a druggie.

Still, she needed to calm down before next lesson. Deep breaths, they would have to do for now.

xxxxx

As it turned out, she needn't have worried as much. She couldn't help but hear what was being said about her, but Emma hadn't targetted her directly yet, and Sophia had barely shoved her out of the way on her way through the door, rather tame really. Of course, she had thought they were getting bored of tormenting her before the locker happened, and look how that had turned out.

After the lesson was over, Taylor eyed the door carefully before making a decision.

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♦ Topic: Where did the Boat Graveyard go?

In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay

Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Posted On Jan 17th 2011:

Well, for once it seems that my title isn't all that true. I don't know how it happened or where it went, but the boat graveyard has seemingly disappeared overnight. That's not an exaggeration either, as I distinctly recall seeing it on my way to work yesterday and on the way back, yet when I went past this morning, there was nothing there at all! There was like 40 or 50 boats there, including a huge tanker, and there's nothing to even suggest there was anything there at all now.

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►ByTheBay

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

@JCKey

No, the DWU had nothing to do with it, even if we are quite happy with what happened, maybe the shipping business can pick up again now.

I work at the docks, and this is just as much as a surprise to me as it is to you guys. I don't know what the hell is going on, but I do know we had two of the Procterate down yesterday sniffing around for something. They didn't say anything, but with the whole lot of them going missing like that, well, makes one wonder, no?

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

I can't speak for the PRT officially on this one, but I can tell you that nobody is panicking or anything here. Yes, the Boat Graveyard is gone, but we haven't yet seen any signs of someone doing anything with it yet, and until we do we are going to be cautiously hopeful that this is a hero who simply needed a lot of resources for something.

►XxVoid_CowboyxX

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

What the hell would someone need all that metal for?

If they're some kinda Tinker, what are they doing, making some sort of anti-endbringer cannon or something? Seriously, it's either something like that or one of those old Japanese cartoons with super huge robots throwing galaxies at each other.

►Thatdude

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

Can't believe I'm typing this, but I kinda agree with Cowboy here, that amount of metal is, well, a lot of metal. I want to know just how they managed to shift it all though. You'd think something like that would be either loud, visible, or both, and I don't recall hearing heavy construction vehicles last night.

►SmoothJazz

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

Not sure if it's related or not, but I do kinda remember waking up in the middle of a night for a snack and seeing some kind of green glow coming from that direction. I thought it was just me being sleepy or a cape thing, but maybe this and that are connected...

►Grettia

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

@SmoothJazz

A green glow and something happening? Unless you're trolling us, it's probably the same thing, though a green glow doesn't give us much to go on, that could be any sort of power really. I don't think anyone in BB is green, are they?

►katonokami

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

@Grettia

Not as far as I'm aware, which means *pops party popper* we have a new guy in the bay! Yay! Let's hope their not a nazi at least, those guys have far too many capes already. I want a new hero to make their appearance, we're pretty low on them.

►Zephal

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

Guys! Getting back on track - somewhat - do we know what sort of powerset could be used to move the ships? Everyone's going 'tinker this' and 'tinker that', but this seems more like a teleporter's work to me. Could it be two people working together, a mercenary hired for a job, or a tinker using a teleporter tech thing?

►SenorEel

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

It could be anything, we don't have enough info yet. I don't think we'll have to wait too long though, most capes can't help but be seen soon after they get powers, especially tinkers - if it is one - as they need money for all their gear, assuming they don't make ray guns from their toaster or something like that.

►HorrifyingWolf (Verified Grumpy Pants)

Replied On Jan 17th 2011:

As long as they don't start mucking about with stuff that isn't broken and at the bottom of the bay, I don't care.

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