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Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by TanaNari, Jan 10, 2015.

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  1. sephlington

    sephlington Making the rounds.

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    Word of God.
    If one threw an Endbringer into the sun, though, given what the core is, both in immensity and that it's essentially a doorway into multiple realities, a lens to make the Endbringer projections manifest as reality, they might risk putting out the sun, or at least disturbing it to the point that Earth was gravely affected.
     
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  2. Mastigos2

    Mastigos2 Versed in the lewd.

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    I just figured out what they need to do to negate the threat of the golden man. One Tinker must rise to the occasion and create his magnum opus, the work he has been training himself to achieve for years. Leet must build the ultimate videogame. And then they drop the control harness onto Scion the next time he's spotted
     
  3. tarrangar

    tarrangar Versed in the lewd.

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    Wouldn't work they don't have any testers for it that fit the demographic of spacewhale.
     
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  4. SamPardi

    SamPardi Versed in the lewd.

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    I would note, though, that does not say that the Endbringer would survive the experience. It only says the results to the sun might be catastrophic.
     
  5. powerofvoid

    powerofvoid Versed in the lewd.

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    Other sections mention that Endbringers have mass comparable to a galaxy.
     
  6. dasstan

    dasstan :)

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    Are you calling the Simurgh fat?
     
  7. Threadmarks: Amelia, Ch 295- Victoria
    TanaNari

    TanaNari Verified Dick

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    Amelia, Ch 295- Victoria


    "We have his destination," Dragon informed. "He appears to be targeting San Fransisco, and likely the surrounding area. We'll be unable to stop him from getting into the bay, and once that happens the entire region is at risk."


    I ran the thought in my head, the same thoughts everyone else faced. "He's certainly picking a historic city for his grave," I boasted, with far more confidence than I could convince myself I felt. There weren't a lot of places on earth worse for fighting Leviathan. In fact, the only place I could think of was Venice. Leviathan wasn't going to make this fight easy for us.


    Space warped as Missy did her thing. I couldn't see her influence directly, but it messed with that constant stream of data that showed me how to avoid injury and kill pretty much anything in front of me. Zerg started travelling through, setting themselves up however Taylor saw fit. Meanwhile, Eric was tapping people and shifting them into location using his power. Pity it didn't work on the zerg, or the Endbringers for that matter. We could drop Leviathan off on the moon and that would be the end of it.


    "Worst case scenario?" Taylor asked.


    "The attack could likely splinter the San Andreas fault," Dragon answered. "We might lose all of southwestern California, in addition to significant consequences for the whole Pacific region. I'm already issuing alerts to the leaders of several nations. This could easily be a disaster on the same scale as Kyushu."


    I could see the emotions bounce through the others. They weren't too different from my own. I could imagine Taylor swearing up a storm under her breath. "Victoria," she spoke, her voice ice. "Restrictions are off. Future Endbringers be damned, there is no scenario where we can afford to give anything less than our best in this battle. Leviathan cannot be allowed to survive this battle, under any circumstances. I trust you don't have a problem with that."


    "Oh fuck the hell yes," I smiled.


    ....


    The Golden Gate Bridge looks different when swarmed with giant bug monsters. Taylor had the fliers take perch all along the bridge, resting until they were needed. Leviathan's signature downpour falling off of their uncaring forms. Several of the defenders had taken to hiding under the Gargants in their positions along the coastline, trying to stay out of the rain as much as they could.


    Meanwhile, I was on the bridge, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Triumvirate and watching the ocean. I wasn't sure how many of them could even see the ocean in these conditions. Certainly Alexandria couldn't. Probably not Legend, either. Who knew what Eidolon had going for him right now? I walked over to Sveta and Alexandria. The two of them appeared to be planning something. "So, you holding up okay?" I asked the girl.


    Sveta looked at me. Other than a self repairing Yggrasil body suit that only functioned to give her a working shunt drive and some modesty, she was without armor. "Still scared," she admitted. "So many people are depending on us. I don't know how the two of you handle it."


    "Just one of those things that comes with experience," I responded. "It gets easier with time." Alexandria gave me a glance that told me I wasn't fooling her. Of course, she wasn't fooling me, either. We were both faking it. "I'm sure you've heard I got one of the theoretical anti-Endbringer weapons."


    "I saw the design being tested," Alexandria responded. "It's pretty intimidating. The goal is still to let Atropos use her power to get the kill. We need to delay the Endbringer long enough to make that a reality. You're the backup, in case that fails."


    I know. God help me, I know. But it should be me to do it. That fucker stole half my friends and family from me, he trashed my city. I deserve to be the one that kills the bastard. "I understand."


    She looked at me. She was harder for me to read than most, because her power kept her body in a state of near perfection. Her emotions, if indeed she even felt any, didn't impact her body significantly. That was even more true after the improvements I gave her. But I could tell she didn't believe me, expected me to break rank and take it into my own hands. She might not be wrong.


    The swell started before I could say anything more, the initial tidal wave of the many that Leviathan would unleash this day. I lived through this once already, and I would do it again, but the sheer scale of his power was intimidating. Even Amy couldn't use her power like this. There was shimmering as forcefields came into place. Most from the zerg, some from local defenders and Protectorate and Guild heroes. At some point, San Francisco had picked up a tinker forcefield capable of covering the whole city. It wasn't going to stop Leviathan's power, but it was an extra layer of defense.


    "He's coming through your way," Dragon informed us, and my HUD shifted to give me an idea of where to expect. I activated the lowest setting of my laser and fired it toward the Endbringer. "That's your laser guidance," I told the others. "Hit him with everything you've got."


    Fighting Leviathan in the water was normally a bad idea. The usual strategy has always been to wait for him on land, where we had the advantage. That wasn't something we could afford to do here. Eidolon struck first, and parted the ocean like something out of the bible. The Golden Gate bridge spans three miles of ocean, and is one of the more iconic landmarks in the country. That ocean was forced back, leaving an open arena.


    A moment later, Leviathan splashed through the wall of water and fell a ways before landing hard on the exposed seabed. He glanced back toward the safety of the ocean behind, but chose to bolt forward toward the bridge, and us. A part of me was glad for that. If he ran, there was nothing we could do to catch him and my chance at payback would be gone.


    Atropos opened fire, a wide spread that left gouges in Leviathan and shredded the ground beneath him. He was spared the worst of it by sheer speed and erratic movement. Lily might have perfect aim, but she didn't have the power to foresee an enemy's evasion attempts like I did. Of course, against an Endbringer I didn't have that power, either.


    Legend's fire came next, as a series of forcefields from Narwhal hemmed the monster in, but Leviathan's shocking speed allowed him to avoid getting struck by any of them, instead allowing himself to be scratched by dozens of other potshots from lesser capes and the Zerg.


    "He has a Thinker power," I spoke to our command group. "Kinda like my combat precognition. Or some weird form of personal time manipulation. I'm not sure how, but there's no possible way he can avoid attacks like this without some way to see them before they happen."


    "Makes sense," Lisa agreed.


    The water started caving back in around the edges of battlefield. Whatever Eidolon had done was apparently temporary. Alexandria grabbed Atropos and dived down, pulling the girl faster than her flight system could ever go on its own. Not fast enough, however, as the Endbringer broke through the side, gripped the remnants of a ship anchor that had been down there for however long, and chucked it at the pair. Alexandria was forced to let go, and the anchor dissolved as it struck Atropos.


    The plan clearly wasn't to kill anyone, simply buy a chance to escape as our Endslayer was going too fast to correct her flight course without Alexandria's guidance. She hit the ground and kept going, using her power to destroy the mud and stone so she wasn't killed by colliding with it.


    Looks like I'll get my shot after all, I smiled. "Sveta, I need you to throw me down in front of the Endbringer," I demanded. To her credit, she didn't hesitate. Although she dislocated my shoulder in her haste. That's going to be annoying.


    I hit the ground hard enough to shatter several bones in my feet and break one ankle, but I was standing and facing the fucker that ruined my family and my future. The armor's reinforcements still held, and I shifted to my combat mode. Amplifying my physical abilities at the cost of most of my mental ones. None of which worked on Endbringers to begin with.


    I charged forward, the shimmering blade in front of me set to the nanothorn grade cutting potential. Wow, that really does eat up a lot of power. It's worse than the cloak and shunt modes combined.


    In a vague mirror of my fight with Baal, and Taylor's legendary last stand against Leviathan in Brockton Bay, I stabbed the Endbringer in the crotch. Not that it mattered. I didn't expect to hit anything important. Endbringers were nothing more than machines, after all. But it was the central body mass that I could reach. His core had to be in here somewhere, I'd just have to keep cutting until I found it.


    Leviathan's claw came down toward me, setting off all my danger senses. I clicked over to the super cutter mode and leapt upward, glad that I could only feel pain if I wanted to. I carved a long arc over my head, splitting through his torso, his shoulder, and then along the entire arm that was coming for me. The fucker collapsed around me. And then turned into water. I stood there unable to process it for a few seconds. A water double. I wasted my attack on a fucking water double. And if I'd just thought about it for a fucking minute, I would have known better. FUCK!


    My weapon flickered, and alerts popped up on my HUD warning me that the sword was about to break. I tossed it away and it vanished with an explosion little different than a cherry bomb. If it was anything like the blade's effect, I would have lost my arm.


    "Leviathan sighted in C-7, M-2, and R-8," Dragon's tech rattled off.


    "Something must be wrong with the system," Dragon herself spoke.


    I slapped the override system. "No," I replied. "Leviathan has a new trick. He's creating body doubles made from water. They're not the real Endbringer, but they're still tough. I'd class them as a five for brute and mover. And keep in mind that any of the doubles might actually be the real thing."


    "Thank you," Dragon responded.


    "Leviathan duplicates sighted, C-8, F-9, M-2, R-7," the system responded.


    "It won't be any of them," Lisa added. "Wherever Leviathan's at, he's choosing to fight by proxy. If you spot one, it'll just be a clone, not the real thing. For the purposes of this battle, we're fighting a Master power set."


    ===============


    A/N- Wildbow said that if Leviathan felt like fighting for real, his combat strategy wouldn't be that different from Skitters. I'm taking that at face value.

    Also, I'm trying narrating the fight scene from the ones on the ground this time. I liked using Taylor and Amelia for their ability to get greater awareness of the situation than most... but it could be fun doing it like this, too.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2015
  8. SamPardi

    SamPardi Versed in the lewd.

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    But they don't respond to gravity as normal mass would. If you threw one into a sun, the important measure wouldn't be mass, since it would appear to mass no more than a large mountain or so, it would be volume. Compared to the volume of a sun if the conditions within the sun were survivable to it it would have no more effect than a pebble passing through water. Only if that mass is broken down are we forced to deal with it like normal mass. So it at least deals catastrophic damage to the Endbringer. Whether that damage would be fatal is again unspecified.
     
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  9. dxdragon

    dxdragon Experienced.

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    This has got to be one of the best interpretations I have ever seen of Leviathan's cannon power set.

    The only other one that comes to mind is Weaver Nine's God-Tier Leviathan's Final Battle.â„¢

    I wonder if this version is going to use a Kill-Aura "Pop Those Squishy Meatbags" ability like W9's. I never would have guessed Leviathan would pull a Zabuza and use Water Clone Jutsu.
     
  10. The Shadowmind

    The Shadowmind Well worn.

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    So is Levy using his water sense to see the movements in the bodies of the people attacking. The way late-story Weaver did by placing bugs on people's joints? Then given the FTL nature of his power sense, he has zero lag time between when they act for him to react?

    Edit:
    Depending on the sensitivity of his water sense, Levy could be brain-reading.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2015
  11. Phoenix0995

    Phoenix0995 Covertly Aroused

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    I think you're missing a word or two at the end.
    Run-on sentence, fixable by replacing the first comma with either a period or a semicolon.
     
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  12. GladiusLucix

    GladiusLucix Versed in the lewd.

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    I believe Wildbow has said that Leviathan can't actually do that?

    I think the closer perspective will help combat the "Endbringer fights are boring" problem some people have been having. Just being closer to the action will hopefully make things more personal and dynamic, instead of just basically being Taylor, Amelia, and Lisa watching the fight on TV.
     
  13. Daunmi

    Daunmi Shun the sun, night so nice

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    Wildbow says a lot of things. At the same time he also doesn't.

    Personally I'd go for semicolon. A period just makes it looks strange.

    So! How's about that Leviathan? What a dick. I mean, who fights by hiding behind never ending swarms of hacked minions, hey Taylor?
     
  14. cosoco

    cosoco Not too sore, are you?

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    erratic
    He doesn't what?
    Fucking Masters.
     
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  15. Coruscant Knave

    Coruscant Knave 'Twas love that did this to you.

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    I have a hard time visualizing the water clones actually being good enough to fool people, especially Victoria.

    However, it does fit my headcanon for the water echo making Levi look like he's made of water in the first place, despite every description of him in canon constantly describing his appearance.
     
  16. CptTagon

    CptTagon Prolific Writer

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    Guild
    erratic
     
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  17. Mastigos2

    Mastigos2 Versed in the lewd.

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    Yeah, do these things have ink in them or something to make them actually LOOK like Levi?
     
  18. TanaNari

    TanaNari Verified Dick

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    One too many, actually. The comment about Venice was originally part of the same sentence. I thought it clunky.

    Here's hoping.

    Her senses aren't any better than human against Endbringers. Also, it's past midnight in the middle of a hurricane grade downpour when all the lights are off... how effective would YOUR vision be?
     
  19. Coruscant Knave

    Coruscant Knave 'Twas love that did this to you.

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    Me? I'd be useless. Good thing I'm not there. Basically the same conditions as in canon, where they were apparently able to see his features very clearly. I figure the canon battle, even during the day, was probably nearly pitch black from the storm too. And I don't think you need powers to tell the difference, especially in melee.

    Anyway, the whole point was to say that I thought your version made a lot more sense than canon. Canon really didn't put enough emphasis on the total chaos such a storm would cause and how difficult it would make fighting, even for those with powers that helped.
     
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  20. Daunmi

    Daunmi Shun the sun, night so nice

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  21. jaelin910

    jaelin910 habitual lurker

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    reminds me of that quote from hpmor
    "Hm," Harry said. "Suppose you threw it into the Sun? Would it be destroyed?"
    "It seems unlikely, Mr. Potter," Professor Quirrell said dryly. "The Sun is very large, after all; I doubt the Dementor would have much effect on it. But it is not a test I would like to try, Mr. Potter, just in case."
     
  22. Snake/Eater

    Snake/Eater Myth Maker of the North

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    Argumentum ad ignorantiam and argumentum ad consequentiam is the cause of whether or not Deathstar is a viable course of Acton.I admit i was wrong for not thinking the plasma from inside of a giant star would go though the portal to earth bet...my bad.:oops:but at same time you forgot they have and can.
    1. They have force fields to contain the plasma and Levi.
    2. Labyrinth can change the portal's destination.
    3. A star is more bigger and more powerfull then our sun.
    4. They have Rosary and Shaman to paralyze Levi long enough for the gravity of the star to pull him in to portal.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2015
  23. GladiusLucix

    GladiusLucix Versed in the lewd.

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    Doesn't Vicky glow in combat mode, or is that hidden under her armor?
     
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  24. SwiftRosenthal

    SwiftRosenthal Connoisseur.

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    That is a WOG I specifically ignore. Wildbow should feel dumb for posting it IMO.
     
  25. TanaNari

    TanaNari Verified Dick

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    For a matter of seconds if they're lucky.

    True. Irrelevant. But true.

    Our sun *is* a star. So no. Just. No. This is gradeschool stuff, dude.

    That's not how their power works.

    Not enough. Besides, her breaker state sacrifices a lot of her senses. She figured she didn't need them since they don't work on Endbringers to begin with.

    Actually, he's absolutely right. If you could constantly introduce high density atoms into a sun, you can easily destabilize it. Not enough to destroy it, but enough to make life on earth pretty much fucked.

    Would probably take a couple thousand years, depending on just how dense the EB gets near the core, and how deep the sun could consume before the EB tissue is tougher than the sun's heat, but it would happen.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2015
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  26. GiftofLove

    GiftofLove A Gift From The Heart

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    Trying to use the same strat they did on Wndigo is like trying to catch a jet fighter with a butterfly net.

    Sure you can do it. Good luck pulling it off.
     
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  27. Snake/Eater

    Snake/Eater Myth Maker of the North

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    The rebellion got lucky twice for trying the same trick in star wars.:D and the force(of comedic schadenfreude)is strong with Shaman.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2015
  28. SwiftRosenthal

    SwiftRosenthal Connoisseur.

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    The science isn't as important as the literary principle. If your antagonist is so bullshit that its defeat requries deus ex machina - canon examples: the fact that every Endbringer kill was Scion's, Jack's plot armor, the authorities' absurd levels of corruption and incompetence, Contessa's existence (arguably) - you need to rethink your antagonist. (Or your outline.)

    Wildbow wanked the Endbringers to insane levels in the cited WOG, far beyond Weaver Nine Levi. That is why I can't accept it.

    My exhaustion during the Wendigo fight and relief that Lisa finally made any sort of progress regarding "The Endmakers" was born from the same feeling.
     
  29. cosoco

    cosoco Not too sore, are you?

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    Yeah. I mean, Leviathan doesn't emit gravity like he's got the mass of a galaxy, he doesn't have the inertia you'd expect, he could accomplish everything he did without a galaxy of matter, etc etc etc.
    I wouldn't describe her as an antagonist, exactly. It's more accurate to say that Cauldron's PR department is terrible. (Seriously. Worm would be very different if Cauldron hired Glenn Chambers.)

    There's a related problem, which is that Contessa's power as written would bulldoze through the majority of the problems of the setting. Therefore, you need to constantly invent reasons why she can't or is unwilling to use her power.
     
  30. Daunmi

    Daunmi Shun the sun, night so nice

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    Since an argument could be made that there are stars bigger or more powerful than our own sun, I'm more annoyed at the 'more bigger' remark. Which is also gradeschool level stuff.

    *Ignores spirit of request*
    *Walks up to jet fighter*
    *Jams butterfly net into starter controls, damaging them*
    *Renders plane unable to start*
    *Hugs plane I just caught*
    *Wonders why all these people are shouting/shooting at me*
     
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