Spark, Smoulder

The site has now migrated to Xenforo 2. If you see any issues with the forum operation, please post them in the feedback thread.The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.123 NSFW Creative Writing[NSFW] Ramping Up (Worm Power Manipulator OC) Thread starterEmizaquel Start dateApr 23, 2022 Tagsgot stronk power manipulation wormPrev 123…31 NextIgnoreWatchThread ToolsThreadmarksExtrasReader modeTheOneYouFeedI trust you know where the happy button is?Apr 26, 2022Add bookmark#61When you said that he can't make powers that "alter powers" does that include power negation like Hatchet Face or powers that temporarily buff other powers? Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:APAG-RafaelEmizaquelWhat is a self?Apr 26, 2022Add bookmark#62TheOneYouFeed said:When you said that he can't make powers that "alter powers" does that include power negation like Hatchet Face or powers that temporarily buff other powers?No, those powers are fine, I was more referring to things that alter the underlying power, like for example taking parts out of it, or improving a power by adding more charges.

Giving powers out, or taking them back is easier with his own created powers, but he can make more expensive powers to do the same with shard powers. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:aig, APAG-Rafael, acnologia and 1 other personTheOneYouFeedI trust you know where the happy button is?Apr 26, 2022Add bookmark#63Emizaquel said:No, those powers are fine, I was more referring to things that alter the underlying power, like for example taking parts out of it, or improving a power by adding more charges.

Giving powers out, or taking them back is easier with his own created powers, but he can make more expensive powers to do the same with shard powers.Wait, so is that rule just meant to prevent him from modifying his own powers? I honestly didn't even consider that an option, like, what power in a Worm fic lets you permanently modify itself? I was more wondering if he could make something like Ingenue or Teacher's powers, where he could tune existing Shard-based powers.

It doesn't seem to me like making powers for other people would be a very efficient use of charges for the most part unless the amount of charges needed to make a powerset that lets him grant powers is a lot cheaper than I'd have guessed. It also sounds like about the most dangerous decision you could possibly make in Worm. Then again power modifiers don't exactly have a very good reputation either, so power alteration would probably be particularly dangerous too. Like Quote ReplyReportEmizaquelWhat is a self?Apr 26, 2022Add bookmark#64TheOneYouFeed said:Wait, so is that rule just meant to prevent him from modifying his own powers? I honestly didn't even consider that an option, like, what power in a Worm fic lets you permanently modify itself? I was more wondering if he could make something like Ingenue or Teacher's powers, where he could tune existing Shard-based powers.

The logic behind it was to make powers permanent, You can't just fix a power with time, you need to consider your powers to make them good from the start.

Giving someone his powers, in the sense that he no longer has it, is indeed relatively cheap. It takes a single charge, as mentioned previously, or a level two charge if he wanted to be able to take it back and a couple other things.

The big benefit, of course, is that he's one person, and there are only so many powers he can use easily. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Venyr4434TheOneYouFeedI trust you know where the happy button is?Apr 26, 2022Add bookmark#65I'd think the biggest benefit would be in plugging holes in otherwise very strong powers. Like if he granted Shadow Stalker a power that let her get around her electricity weakness. Or if he granted a power that extended touch range powers to LOS to Panacea. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:aig and Venyr4434Bob SagetExperienced.Apr 26, 2022Add bookmark#66In regards to tinkering, there's probably an easy cheatcode to creating stuff, considering the points seem to be relative to 'threat scale'.

Slow Metal Generation and Slow Metal Shaping. Which could be later expanded to 'Material Generation/Shaping' (or in other directions) with more motes if desired.

So long as the metals generated aren't super-precious ones (which is its own kind of influence/power), and so long as the shaping doesn't extend beyond what's possible with conventional manufacturing, this shouldn't give their wielder much of an advantage relative to a trained and equipped paramilitary combat expert.

But when combined with a moderately useful Tinker specialty, it would drastically reduce manufacturing time and the pains of material acquisition. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Venyr4434EmizaquelWhat is a self?Apr 26, 2022Add bookmark#67TheOneYouFeed said:I'd think the biggest benefit would be in plugging holes in otherwise very strong powers. Like if he granted Shadow Stalker a power that let her get around her electricity weakness. Or if he granted a power that extended touch range powers to LOS to Panacea.That's probably true but that course of action depends on recruiting capes.

Bob Saget said:In regards to tinkering, there's probably an easy cheatcode to creating stuff, considering the points seem to be relative to 'threat scale'.

Slow Metal Generation and Slow Metal Shaping. Which could be later expanded to 'Material Generation/Shaping' (or in other directions) with more motes if desired.

But when combined with a moderately useful Tinker specialty, it would drastically reduce manufacturing time and the pains of material acquisition.Click to expand...

That would definitely be useful and within the bounds of what James would be interested in too

By the way, As a bit of a celebration of passing a hundred likes on the first chapter, I'm going to trim my buffer a little and put out Chapter 4 later today Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Bob Saget and Venyr4434BigBirbMaking the rounds.Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#68Emizaquel said:The short term precog isn't something James would consider good, I mean, both you and I can see how effective that would be, especially with some mental acceleration to help, but he wouldn't.Wait, since he has parallel cognition, could he look into multiple different futures at the same time? Also, is precognition not featured in debates on PHO?

Can he use Power Lab to view his own powers? Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Venyr4434EmizaquelWhat is a self?Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#69BigBirb said:Wait, since he has parallel cognition, could he look into multiple different futures at the same time? Also, is precognition not featured in debates on PHO?

Can he use Power Lab to view his own powers?I tend to think that precogs with such clear predictions are quite rare. Most precogs get their visions filtered through some intermediary, like predictions or something like that. So Battle precog doesn't really come up.

And yes, he can. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:JackbackThreadmarks 0.4 - Spark, Kindling Threadmarks EmizaquelWhat is a self?Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#70I suppose it was lucky that my appointment was so early because I could be sure that Panacea wasn't here yet, I noted.

Thankfully the door into Oncology was a valid target for me to mark. As I headed away, I immediately realised I had another problem.

The only way I had to know if Panacea was coming was by using Power Scanner repeatedly to try and scan her power. Power Scanner wouldn't just turn on randomly as soon as it had a valid target. She could take hours to show up. I'd get bored of trying to catch her and miss her.

Crap crap crap what do I do.

Okay, James, don't panic. You have thirteen charges. You could just make a power to test for her.

Yeah, er… power list. Do I have anything I wanted anyways that could work? Err…

No time. I just need something that will keep checking. Can't waste the charge though.

We're basically automating it, right? Like writing a program or something? Maybe that would work. Not a bad power.

Okay, one lane to keep checking if she shows up while I'm workshopping this, one lane follows along with the doctor eight are going to see about the power automation thing.

Right so, focus. It needs to be simple, it needs to be straightforward. I need a power that can control my other powers and just have them do stuff automatically without me doing anything. Also, it needs to be able to tell me if something's happened. Um… what else… I'm basically making a power computer anyways, so why not go all the way, can I throw in untraceable internet or something? Nope takes it above a charge. Whatever, I'll do that later. Umm… mental acceleration? Not worth it. Okay, so a mental computer that does computer stuff and can control my powers. Um… it can tell if I'm using those powers, just in case, and it can like read those powers, need to make sure that the power actually does something… oh, it needs to be able to link my powers together.

What else? Umm… I mean, I can already watch videos and stuff with mindscape. Adding any sort of connection to technology stuff pushes into a level two… Umm… oh, if I focus on it with different lanes or just multiple times I can do different things.

Yeah, that works, just under one. Cool, Another charge just happened, so that's fine. Make it, and let's get this working.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the power took form and I was able to quickly set it to use the projector to test the mark every second or so for power and notify me.

By the time I had swung into the x-ray room, I was quite happy, I tested the alerts and they worked pretty well. The control over my other powers meant that it could just grab one of my lanes and force me to focus on the alert.

I had even managed to mostly keep access to Projector. It didn't actually use Projector for all that long, just a tiny fraction of a second to quickly check if it could detect any capes in the area. So, since I set it to just sort of interrupted my control over Projector for a second to do the check, and returned it before I had a chance to notice.

Still,l it seemed to be working.

By the time my x-ray had finished, the relief had vanished and was replaced by annoyance. The power I had created wasn't nearly as good as it could have been, and I had wasted a charge on it.

I should have made the mental acceleration power first and taken my time creating it.

The waste irked me.

Still, I suppose it wasn't terrible. Having a power that did 'computer things' was surprisingly broad. I didn't program it really, not like writing the stuff for Mrs Knott's class. I didn't write specific code or anything. I just gave it a series of steps and it just kind of did it.

I'd probably have to learn more about computers to use this power properly though.

Still, it would do. Still better than my Evaluator power. I used most of the charge, even if it wasn't the most efficient thing in the world.

I pondered over my thoughts as the doctor ran the Dremel along the cast.

"Keep on the crutches for a while, but beyond that, if anything hurts, like at all, just stop and sit down or something. You should be all good in a week or two."

I nodded absently, still distracted by the thought of being able to study Panacea's power. Honestly, I had nearly six charges I would be willing to spend on a healing power after seeing her power, and if that went through I'd be able to just patch up my leg freely. If I was lucky, I'd even be able to head to the gym freely.

I thanked the doctor and hobbled out with my mom.

I didn't get a hit until lunch.

One of my lanes immediately took control using the opportunity to target the cape in range. A feral grin spread across my face as I set upon their power.

A grin that fell off my face as soon as I saw what I was analysing.

I'm fairly sure this was Panacea, but… there was a lot more to her power than I could have imagined. It wasn't healing, or at least not only healing. It was a lot more free form than that. Her power, if she chose to use it that way was effectively total control over biology with an entire bio tinker package mixed in. I watched as she healed cancer, twisting the tumours back into proper cells and altering DNA in order to repair the damage.

I could see as her power pulled up strange alternatives to twist her patient into something else, and I grew something of an appreciation for her. I could see parts of her power pushing her to use it in new violent ways. In fact, there was a portion of her power had a deliberate modification that wanted to make its wielder fight.

Still even dropping that her power was easily a tenth level charge to replicate, and dropping the touch restriction brought it down to nine at most.

That didn't mean that there wasn't anything I could use.

Panacea's power was still fairly modular. And while the whole package was fairly expensive, there were parts I could use.

In rough segments, her power broke down into seven parts. After the targeting, you had the scanning part, which would analyse a target space, and then a filter that would process that information to give panacea a sense of the biology she was touching, in addition to a bunch of extra information it was pulling from its records. Then she could biotinker the body into whatever she wanted, any change she wanted to would be translated into a series of changes using another filter so that a specialised atomic manipulation power that moved atoms and did something related to activation energy using electromagnetic energy or something? I didn't really have the words to explain it, but it helped her turn whatever she was working with into whatever she wanted.

There were a lot of translation layers, and filters that helped her use her power like that. Her power was probably very easy to use. And since I hadn't heard anything about her creating biotinkered monstrosities I could only respect how much effort she put in to control herself.

And to think I was scared about accidentally doing physics problems with my powers in an exam, while Panacea is somehow holding the reigns of probably the most dangerous power I could imagine and using it to help people.

She's fucking badass, isn't she! I wonder if I could do something for her. I mean, maybe I could make a power for her so that her power is easier to use? I dunno. Maybe I could talk to her about it?

Anyways, when I broke it down, the costs were significantly lower, and more open to optimization. The filters for example were all separate, despite only requiring a small part of a single level one charge. My mental computer power actually might be able to do a good portion of the filtering, interfacing with the different powers, processing the data and returning it.

Between that, Reserve, Converter and Projector, I sort of had the ability to make changes? I mean, I wouldn't know what changes I should make, but I could replicate a good portion of the last section of her power with what I already had.

The front half too, since I just needed one more power to allow me to scan stuff. Which was pretty important anyways. The scanning section of Panacea's power was actually pretty awesome, more potent than anything I could have come up with. It had really pointed out weaknesses in my current converter setup, in all honesty.

Examining the data it collected as Panacea went through her rounds I could see just how much information it was gathering, so much of which was just thrown away and ignored. I didn't even have words to describe it, which had become a recurring problem for me in analysing her power.

My power lab worked to provide me with more detail and insight, but it didn't contextualise that for me. It was like getting more information about a car engine, and being able to tall that the fuel lines and the brake lines were different but not knowing what gas or brake fluid even was. I mean I was getting to the point that I could tell that the stuff in the fuel lines was being burned to make the engine turn and that the stuff in the brake lines was being used to push the brake plates, but I could only really tell the function of stuff relative to how it ended up being used in the powers as a whole.

So all that stuff that was thrown away? I didn't have any clue what it was.

My mindscape was littered with notes at this point. Or, well, not notes so much as ideas and concepts pinned to the wall as I tried to make more sense of her power.

The big cost came from the biotinker at the core of her power. That alone was a level eight charge. Well, if you included the database at least. If you didn't it went down to a four. But it was a level four charge I was actually considering spending. I'd have to analyse more tinker powers first, but I bet that this power was what laid at the heart of every tinker power. To be able to match ideas to these records and adapt them to fit the current situation.

Other tinker powers must have a part that helped them build their ideas, like Panacea's striker powers, but really it was this core power that was the true tinker powerset.

Of course, that power by itself probably wouldn't do much, probably just help me make stuff by showing me what I already know and how it matches the things I want, so I'd need more information to fuel it. Basically, I'd need the database. Making one myself was apparently extremely expensive, even what I thought of as a basic speciality, like alloys or something was super pricy, like level 7 all by itself.

I hadn't figured out why until I tried to find out how much it would cost to copy Panacea's repository, and it was cheap. Like, a level four charge cheap.

As far as I could figure out, making a tinker repository was expensive because it had to make the stuff in the repository too, but copying a tinker repository meant that I could get away with copying the stuff in their repository, and I only needed to spend charges making the repository bits.

Could I just learn the stuff then? I mean, if I built the tinker power to just feed off of my Mindscape and just learned the in the Tinker repositories, I wouldn't even need to spend any charges.

Hmmm… Might as well give it a shot. It's not like there's anything better to do at home, just kind of chill since my leg still hurts if I do more than take a few steps right now.

As her power created some interesting replacements for mitochondria - is the powerhouse of the cell - I followed the connection back into the database.

The connection split a few times, one that pointed at a human mitochondria thing and another pointing at some weird molecules? Another went to some human cells. The other two, however, went to something that looked very much like the replacement, only with a few bits changed, and another cell looking thing.

It was actually pretty interesting to look at. I mean, I could tell it kind of looked like mitochondria, it had the squiggly bits that are for surface area, and it looked pretty complicated. But perhaps more interesting is something that both I and Power Lab quickly picked up on.

The mitochondria bits were actually inside the cell bits, which meant that it might be possible to kind of zoom out to get more information.

So, I did, slowly zooming out, and analysing more and more of the thing until I was left looking at a strange insectoid creature. I didn't really have a good sense of how big it was, but it seemed like it was able to fly. So maybe not that big?

As I continued to poke around in the creature, I was quickly realising that I didn't know enough to learn about this. I mean, I kind of know about cells and stuff from Bio, but there was a lot of stuff here, especially the small bits that seemed important.

I basically had to learn more just to study these things so that I could do this.

I'm not sure that it was the best solution in the first place. As I zoomed out and saw the scale of the database, I think it would take way too long for me to learn it. I kinda get why conjuring this out of thin air would take such a huge charge.

Though that kind of raises the question, did this power just make up a bunch of things? Or are these like scans of things. Because, well, if they are scans, and I've never seen anything like this before, then all those people on PHO who think aliens gave us powers might actually be right about that.

Plus with seventeen charges at my disposal now, I could afford to spend a few on other powers.

I'll save the eight for what I'm going to call Tinker Core for now, but it's just going to be until I get a chance to compare it against another tinker. Just because I think this is a tinker power doesn't mean that it is a tinker power. And well, tinker powers are cool. Plus I could have gadgets and stuff! Oooh and a fancy costume!

That only leaves one free for now. The next charge is growing quickly, so I hope I'll be able to use it soon, but I did have one charge I could use right now if I wanted to.

I'm kinda tempted to use it to make that scanning power though. The last couple of days were a huge mess because getting feedback from my power was so hard. Something like this, that I could use to just get all the details and see if my powers are working and everything? That's pretty important.

And with the rate the new charge is growing, I wouldn't even mind spending an extra charge to set up something that made sense of it for me.

Hmm…

Okay, did I really need to save the charges for tinker powers? I mean, I'm waiting to look at other tinker powers first, but where am I supposed to find a tinker? It's not like I can just walk up to the PRT and ask to meet Armsmaster can I?

Though, I guess I could visit one of their like press events. They do those sometimes.

I'll have to look it up, but checking things online for my powers still kinda spooks me. Okay, I've been dealing with this for way too long, I need to just spend the damn charges on an internet power already.

Mentally pulling up the diagram of the internet in Mindscape, I considered the technology power again. The latest version I came up with was decent, but the project planning thing said that starting again with a new idea helped sometimes, so here i go.

I wanted the power to give me free unlimited internet that couldn't be tracked. And to make it more general, I'd like to be able to make it so that I can connect to all networks maybe? Or like, all computers?

Oh and phones and stuff. A lot of the new phones have cool features and stuff, so I want to be able to do that. Maybe it could work like a TV remote or something too, so maybe aim for like technology in general?

But what counts as technology?

Okay, looking up how a TV remote works can't trip anything right? Get over yourself James.

Nodding, I lifted my laptop from my desk over to me, and started looking things up. Remotes are actually pretty cool, they have like little computers in them. Actually… most of the stuff I want to control has little computers and stuff in them.

So, like the power goes back to that, basically I want control over… computers, like all the different kinds of computers. Plus undetectable internet access.

Well, you connected to the internet from routers and stuff, so I could probably just control a router and just have like internet access. They could probably trace it to the router though. Eh, that's fine. I'll just pick a router in the library or something. Maybe in one of those offices where they have fast internet or something.

So I'd have to what? Mark a router and leave the mark there forever? I mean, I could make more mark powers, but it feels kind of wasteful.

Range is kind of an issue, so I'm not sure I want to ever worry about it.

Hmm… do I want to spend a charge on this?

Yeah, making sure villains or the PRT don't find out where I live is worth a charge. So, I'll make another version of mark? Not really, this doesn't need the whole power, plus I don't want to have to connect to the router every time and yeah, not cool.

Um, so what I want a power that's like, here's a target other power? that works…

"James! It's lunchtime! Are you feeling good enough ot come down here?"

I shook myself out of my stupor, "Um, let me try mom!"

As left one of my other lanes to carry me down to the dining room, I fleshed out the power.

Basically, I wanted a power that let me target something even if it's not somewhere where Projector can reach it. So, I go there once, and I can just be permanently connected to it.

Actually, that's not a bad idea. Like a version of mark that is instead of, I can use my powers from this thing as if I was there, it was just I can use my powers on this thing.

So I just use this power and make a target, and I just have my powers work on that target.

That works. Okay, if I do one target, what's the range I can get out of this. Range makes it cheaper. Okay, that's new. Damn, this is a cheap power. Okay, so like, global range, and I guess I'll do like a bunch of targets instead.

In the end, after optimising it, I came down to having ten Targets that I could choose, and my powers would connect to them regardless of where I was in the world.

Target took up one charge.

I decided to put off the electronics control power until after lunch.Last edited: Apr 27, 2022 Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Acratese, TooGood, HeartlessOne and 370 othersEmizaquelApr 27, 2022Reader modeAdd bookmark Threadmarks mrttaoGone for GoodApr 27, 2022Add bookmark#71Emizaquel said:still distracted by the throughout of being able to study Panacea's power.throughout -> thought

Emizaquel said:people on PHO who think alliance gave us powersalliance -> aliensLast edited: Apr 27, 2022 Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:HeartlessOne, darkimortal, aig and 4 othersEmizaquelWhat is a self?Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#72mrttao said:throughout -> thought

alliance -> aliensThank you, it has been fixed! Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:aig, Seek212., Red_Faux and 1 other personGodOfPixiesGetting sticky.Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#73Ooh this was an exciting chapter despite being all internal dialogue and power crafting. Figuring out he can just copy tinker databases from existing capes is definitely a game changer and I can't wait until he gets that database power figured out. From there a broad scanning and matter manipulation power will basically allow freeform tinkering and biological manipulation with fairly cheap copies of tinker databases. Definitely gonna need some data filtering and optimization for the database though, but he should be able to make tinkertech without the black boxing.

Hmm, there's no telling how much tinkertech is actually handled by the shard though, so some designs might just not work at all without significant reworking to compensate for the lack of shard shenanigans. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:HeartlessOne, Ralf, Jaron and 10 othersVaporwaveA Sapient Prism of Technicolor RadianceApr 27, 2022Add bookmark#74GodOfPixies said:Ooh this was an exciting chapter despite being all internal dialogue and power crafting. Figuring out he can just copy tinker databases from existing capes is definitely a game changer and I can't wait until he gets that database power figured out. From there a broad scanning and matter manipulation power will basically allow freeform tinkering and biological manipulation with fairly cheap copies of tinker databases. Definitely gonna need some data filtering and optimization for the database though, but he should be able to make tinkertech without the black boxing.

Hmm, there's no telling how much tinkertech is actually handled by the shard though, so some designs might just not work at all without significant reworking to compensate for the lack of shard shenanigans.Click to expand...I think the question becomes if he can get information on tinkertech that conforms to actual physics, rather than shard shenanigans allowing it to function. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:HeartlessOne, aig, acnologia and 5 otherseedaVersed in the lewd.Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#75Wow moving fast in the Thinkers rating, if he can really acces anything with an internet acces without anyone catching him... Damm that right there is a Thinker/Stranger with an open kill order just waiting to happens (an if he can modify things is even worse) Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:N0pe77 and G1 ConvoyEmizaquelWhat is a self?Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#76GodOfPixies said:Ooh this was an exciting chapter despite being all internal dialogue and power crafting. Figuring out he can just copy tinker databases from existing capes is definitely a game changer and I can't wait until he gets that database power figured out. From there a broad scanning and matter manipulation power will basically allow freeform tinkering and biological manipulation with fairly cheap copies of tinker databases. Definitely gonna need some data filtering and optimization for the database though, but he should be able to make tinkertech without the black boxing.

Lacrosse27 said:I think the question becomes if he can get information on tinkertech that conforms to actual physics, rather than shard shenanigans allowing it to function.

I'll be touching on it a little later, so this is spoilers but...

Spoiler: Tinker Blackboxing

eeda said:Wow moving fast in the Thinkers rating, if he can really acces anything with an internet acces without anyone catching him... Damm that right there is a Thinker/Stranger with an open kill order just waiting to happens (an if he can modify things is even worse)You'll have to wait for the next chapter to see, but I'm fairly sure you will enjoy what I have in store for you. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:HeartlessOne, tron, TroubleFait and 11 othersG1 ConvoyVersed in the lewd.Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#77Question/Speculation for author-san.

Spoiler Like Quote ReplyReportsearchVersed in the lewd.Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#78is he going to become a less murdery Jack Slash? Like Quote ReplyReportmrttaoGone for GoodApr 27, 2022Add bookmark#79G1 Convoy said:Question/Speculation for author-san.

Spoiler> Oops, I accidentally mastered Dragon into my robo-waifu

hmm... sounds like a doujin title to be honest.

I like it Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Enigmation, ToonDevilBat, LollipoPReapeR and 11 othersArezEozI trust you know where the happy button is?Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#80It seems like all power manipulator fics are 90% inner dialogue and no actual story. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:dsfjr1190, ThatGuy115, sagemo and 5 othersEmizaquelWhat is a self?Apr 27, 2022Add bookmark#81G1 Convoy said:Question/Speculation for author-san.

SpoilerSpoiler: Response

mrttao said:> Oops, I accidentally mastered Dragon into my robo-waifu

hmm... sounds like a doujin title to be honest.

I like itIt would be funny wouldn't it? Maybe as an Omake or something in the future.

search said:is he going to become a less murdery Jack Slash?I'm not sure what you mean by that so I'm going to guess no.

ArezEoz said:It seems like all power manipulator fics are 90% inner dialogue and no actual story.Hopefully I'll be able to move away from that soon. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:ToonDevilBat, aig, Anaerobie and 4 otherssearchVersed in the lewd.Apr 28, 2022Add bookmark#82Jack Slash real power is the ability to communicate with a parahuman´s Shard and use that to manipulate parahumans or dodge attacks he could not have known about. All that talk about controlling All Computers, and shards being giant biocrystal computers, gave that idea Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:ToonDevilBat, LollipoPReapeR, KingMako and 2 othersG1 ConvoyVersed in the lewd.Apr 28, 2022Add bookmark#83Emizaquel said:Spoiler: ResponseSpoiler Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:OblivionFan007EmizaquelWhat is a self?Apr 28, 2022Add bookmark#84search said:Jack Slash real power is the ability to communicate with a parahuman´s Shard and use that to manipulate parahumans or dodge attacks he could not have known about. All that talk about controlling All Computers, and shards being giant biocrystal computers, gave that ideaHe would need to know about shards first, which he wouldn't

G1 Convoy said:SpoilerSpoiler: Response Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:aig, Anaerobie and eedaG1 ConvoyVersed in the lewd.Apr 28, 2022Add bookmark#85Emizaquel said:He would need to know about shards first, which he wouldn't

Spoiler: ResponseFair enough.

Thanks for getting back to me and answering my questions. I'm really enjoying your story so far & look forward to more in the near future. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:N0pe77Bob SagetExperienced.Apr 28, 2022Add bookmark#86A clone hivemind power, that can make a few clones who don't have powers of their own, should actually only be about a tier 4 or 5 power. And then the MC can create another power to share his powers with his clones through some method.

Then again, that might not be where the author wants to take the story. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Venyr4434, N0pe77 and G1 ConvoyThreadmarks 0.5- Spark, Smoulder Threadmarks EmizaquelWhat is a self?May 1, 2022Add bookmark#87"Oooh, Meatballs! What's the good news mom?"

"Oh, nothing it's the holidays again, which means that I'm going to be way less busy now!"

I shook my head, "Don't people travel on the holidays?"

"Yes, but most of the packages I do are done like weeks or months in advance, I only need to deal with any problems that come up and a couple of last-minute bookings if they show up."

"Nice! Where's Jenny?"

"Jenny slept over at Tracy's last night, and they went to the boardwalk today. She'll be home in a few hours."

I nodded, "Hey, mom, you busy later?"

"What do you want to do sweetie?"

I rolled my eyes, "Wanna go to the library? I know it's been a hassle taking care of me, so I figured that it would be nice to go hand out for a while, plus, I'm sure you need to get some new books."

"James, honey, you broke your leg. I work from home anyways it isn't a big deal."

I smiled, "Mom, have some fun, I'll be there with you and we can check out some new books or something. Maybe we can get something to read together."

She shook her head, "Sure, we can go once I've started the dishwasher."

I nodded, settling in to eat.

"So, how's your leg doing?"

"I'm getting better, it still hurts if I try to walk on it, but as long as I keep my weight off it I can kind of ignore it."

As we descended into small talk, my other threads came to the conclusion that I needed a bit more information before I was able to make my computer control powers. As I sat down to eat, I had come up with an idea that would be worth the two charges that it could take for me to implement.

I still hadn't figured out if my Mental Computer could do the filtering and processing from a scanning power because if it did, I could avoid making a computer control power at all, and just make a copy of that awesome scanner power from Panacea and use that instead.

Actually, why haven't I made that power yet? It's not like I don't want the power anyways.

My thoughts chased each other in circles as I got in the car.

Balancing the crutches on my lap I waited for mom to get in the car, and took a moment o check back in on Panacea.

Who was still healing.

Damn lady.

Okay, when I get more powers I'm going to go buy her some lunch. Like some good food. What does she like?

I looked over her power again, letting the lane continue to dive into greater detail of the scanning component.

There was nothing I could imagine being missing there. It was complicated sure, but worst-case scenario, I need to spend an extra charge to add filters to manage the power, and honestly, for that level of scanning? I wouldn't care.

Though I could wait to see if I get a better scanning power…

"Hey, mom."

"Yes, sweetie?"

I closed my eyes for a second, "So, you know, how perfect is the enemy of good enough?"

"Yeah?"

"How do you know when you've reached good enough?"

As we stopped at a red light she looked at me, "What's this about?"

"Eh, just a thing I was thinking about."

"Well, I think that good enough is when whatever you got won't cause problems. If you stopped wherever you were, would it cause problems later? If not, that's good enough. You can keep going if you want, but if you have something more important you need to do then you move on."

I nodded, "Thanks, mom!"

Yeah, I've got a stock of nineteen charges at this point. Spending one on the sensor would leave me more than enough for the rest of my plans. I pulled the trigger.

And I was happy to learn that, yes, my Mental computer power could filter the input, just only one at a time. Which was fine, for the most part. I'd probably want a better solution in the future, but I was probably going to replace the mental computer at some point. Still a halfway decent power. Like a low-level thinker power. Might be useful for like an accountant or something.

Would I need accountants for a gang?

I did want money though… did New Wave have an accountant?

Yeah, still need to figure out how to make money as a cape.

As arrived at the library, I chuckled as I followed mom up the stairs and got to work.

First, I replaced my Mark on Panacea with a Target, I'd need the flexibility to find the router, and being able to mark my way along a line should mean that I could follow the ethernet cables to the router.

Then, as we passed the computers heading into the fiction section, I sprung into action. As my lanes started to work, I sent out my mark. Marking space was a little confusing to get my head around, but I knew it was possible, so I got to work.

The first few steps were easy, moving to the computers while I could still see things.

I quickly slapped a target on the computer to be safe before one of my other lanes took over.

It had set up Sensor to scan everything in range of the Mark my Mental Computer could actually parse it, as a sort of 3D map that I could see in my mind. It found the ethernet wire and followed it through the walls. Eventually, I found the router.

Well, at least, I think it's a router. It's got the same wires as the one I helped mom set up at home, so I think that's good.

As I set it as a Target and started to analyse it with Scanner, I realised that I had an issue.

I was a dumbass.

I bumped my head against a shelf as I followed mom over to the sitting area.

I'd expected that my mental computer power would have just let me use Scanner and Projector to connect to the router. But apparently, despite having a perfect memory, completely forgot that I hadn't made Mental Computer compatible with other computers.

"James, are you okay?"

"Yeah, sorry, was thinking about stuff."

"Let me look at that…"

"Mom, I'm fine, now what did you pick out?"

As I let a lane listen to mom's book recommendations, I buckled down and did what I should have in the first place and made the technology control power. Or, rather a technology interface power? Basically, it would act like those converter layers that Panacea had in her power, which let her figure out what it was that she was seeing, and how to change it to make what she wanted.

I still did want to keep it fairly flexible, especially if I made better versions of Projector and stuff like that.

I did want it to be able to target multiple electronics at the same time. So I had to take that into account. It took a while, by which point mom and I had picked out a book that we could both read. The Golden Chalice, seemed like an interesting story, at least from the little bit we read ahead of time.

What ended up coming under a single charge was a power that would use my current knowledge to analyse and build up an understanding of the electronics of the data it was given. That knowledge would be used to expand my knowledge of the chips and programming so that I could figure out how to interface with them faster, until I was able to create the interface layers.

I had tried to make a more general learning power, but limiting it to just electronics meant that the power was a lot faster. It hadn't finished in the time it took me to get home, but I could already tell that I had learned a lot. I still didn't know the names of anything but I could tell how the little bits on the board stored information, and after moving the Mark so that I could watch as some of the office people in the library used the internet, I could see how the computers connected to keyboards and mouses and stuff, but also how they connected to the router. Figuring out the actual protocols might take a minute, but since I manage to spot one of the office workers typing in their password, I could just spy some stuff online about how the internet works to help expand that power if I hadn't already figured it out by now.

I ended up calling the power Tech Analyser. Since it technically did more than just computers and integrated circuits and stuff. It figured out the whole system.

I'd even managed to learn more about how the car worked, by turning the power onto the car for a while. I'd even be able to hotwire it and drive it around with my powers if I wanted to. Well, I guess I didn't know like road laws and stuff, so I shouldn't but I could.

It was dark by the time we got home, and I decided to check back in on Panacea.

She wasn't healing, at least, which I took to mean that she'd wrapped up for the day.

I should probably stop looking at her power… but…

Well, I should probably look at the other powers New Wave has right?

I'll leave her as a Target for now, and I'll use Mark tonight to try and look at the powers of the other members of New Wave.

In the meantime, I needed to train up Tech Analyser. After mom led me up the stairs, I started browsing PHO again, letting my other lanes run Tech Analysis on my computer, figuring out how it worked.

Actually using the tech I was using the power on made the process much faster, since I could see how it reacted to specific things. After a while, I didn't even need to be touching my laptop to use it. I could just replicate the keyboard and mouse's controls and output the screen directly onto my Mental Computer.

Still, as I continued to randomly scroll through threads, I did manage to find something interesting. The wards were doing a meet-and-greet downtown in a couple of days - including Kid Win and Gallant, so I might actually be able to figure out how Tinker powers work then.

Honestly, a week wasn't a bad thing. With more time to think about it, starting work on my own version of Panacea's power and healing myself would let me get started on getting in shape and stuff sooner, and even if I didn't get enough charges to make the tinker power by the meeting. I'd still be able to make them Targets and study them for as long as I wanted to.

I hadn't revealed myself yet, and most of my powers were stealthy enough that I could delay my debut until I wanted to, instead of getting out there as soon as possible. I had to take care of mom and Jenny, so I couldn't just go out getting into fights. I needed to be careful about this sort of thing.

As the hours went by, my control over the computer got better, to the point that I could leave it closed at my bedside and still control it freely. I could even see Jenny's computer on the other side of the wall, but she was using it so the most I could do would be to read the files from her hard drive.

Besides, the library finally cleared out, so I can start connecting to the internet.

I'd already managed to piece together some of how my computer was doing it, but there was a lot I was still not entirely sure about, but with an internet connection that couldn't be traced back to me, I could just look those things up online.

So, I set to work, turning on the computer and entering the password, being careful to make sure the screen or the lights were turned on.

With an easy source of answers for a lot of my questions, Tech Analysis hit speeds that I hadn't even really considered, quickly filling in blanks. In a few minutes, I had managed to fill in the rest of the pieces and design a system that let me connect to the router here.

But I had also come up with a better idea.

To make it even harder to track me, I decided to go a few steps further, sending my Mark along the broadband lines and following the connections all the way up to the place where the ISP connected to the national backbone. Not only would I get way better speeds here, but I wouldn't even be able to be tracked down to a single city. It took a little more work, but by the time mom was calling us down for dinner, I'd managed to create a system for basically unlimited access to the internet.

As we had our sandwiches and watched TV, I was also finally getting answers to those questions.

If you weren't in the PRT, capes made money in a few ways. New Wave worked with the PRT to do merchandising and stuff through their affiliate program and also did fundraisers and took donations to get money separate from them. A few of the bigger independent hero teams and corporate capes actually did their merchandising themselves!

Heroes that weren't in teams seemed to just rely on their secret identity's job to pay for their caping.

Rogues were interesting. Apparently, the PRT had made it really hard for them to actually use their powers to make money, which was kinda expected. The NEPEA laws were what created the Elite in the first place. From what I had read, it was part of some sort of ploy to force more capes to work with the PRT. Which I couldn't really bring myself to be surprised by.

It was Villains that actually really got me interested. While a lot of the bigger villain gangs got their money from villain stuff like protection money and selling drugs, there was a cape called Accord in Boston, that actually earned most of his money by having a lot of businesses and stuff. He had a planning power of some kind, and he'd used it to take over a bunch of companies in the area, and he managed to build something of a business empire for himself.

That actually sounded pretty cool. I bet I could do something like that. I mean, there were rogues that did something like that. Parian has her clothes shop and she also did like stuffed toy puppet shows for kids, so I could probably make powers for people and set up a bunch of businesses like that.

I'd have to tell mom about my powers if I wanted to do that though since I apparently needed to be an adult to start a business, so I'd have to wait like three years to do anything like that if I didn't and it would be way too long.

But being able to look things up meant that I was able to really add to the list of goals I had for my plan.

Referencing the planning article, I set out some steps.

I wanted to go to the Wards meet and greet and use that to check out their powers.

I wanted to check out New Wave's powers. Oh, and I guess the Protectorate too. Though I don't know if I could like just mark one of the Wards and use that to infiltrate the PRT.

I'll have to think about it some more. It was getting late enough that I figured all of New Wave should be home now.

I took a moment to check if New Wave had been spotted on their patrols recently, and as far as I could tell, they were all home.

I marked Panacea and started looking around, I started moving the Mark around, moving along until I could anchor on the door. The little ten-foot sphere of vision was annoying though.

I don't want to make a remote vision power, it would be pretty expensive.

I was about to go on searching, but one of my other lanes pushed a change to the computer, adding a little filter that let me see outside of the area of effect, basically being like an eye. Having internet access so I could look things up was awesome.

With my expanded vision, I was able to move around a lot easier, and find my way to Glory Girl's room. As I claimed the door, I looked around the much nicer room. Even with only the moonlight filtering through the curtains, I could see pretty well.

The room was a mess, with clothes just kind of thrown everywhere on the floor. The only really clean part was the bed.

Where she was sleeping.

Naked.

On top of the sheets.

Those are some big tits.

Okay, ignore that I'm here for her power.

Ah so she's not naked, she's just only wearing panties. Tiny lacy black panties.

How is this hotter?

I made her a Target and let the other lanes analyse her power as I lifted myself out of bed and went to take a cold shower, moving the Mark out of her room as I did.

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