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The typo makes the post.
repeatedBuild up for the Endbringers. Nice, safe, stuff that doesn't frighten people. Build up for the next Endbringer.
different tense from the surrounding words.
amniotic gel
Also, I laughed at using the antimaster drug as a preventative.
It works on the Manton limit, yeah. Nothing says it can't work on multiple Manton limits at the same time, especially since it works by basically signalling the shard that it is attempting to affect its host. So you just get lots of different DNA bits keyed to different parahumans. It's gross if you think about it, since it means that the people on the broad spectrum anti-master drug are basically just breathing a gas made up of Heartbreaker's kids' flesh.Wasn't the anti-master drug based on the manton limit (appearing to have the same DNA as the Master)? Maybe I've forgotten something, but wouldn't this mean that you would need to take one specific to the exact Master you needed to resist, and that the effect is mutually exclusive (if you take multiple versions, you only get the result of the last version you took).
Wouldn't make using it as a preventative impossible.. but it would be rather hit-and-miss unless social situations are being very strictly controlled.
crystalline
Could also be amino gel, as in a gel made primarily of amino acids. One of the basic building blocks of life.
DNA only had to be close enough, one tailored to Heartbreaker will also work for all of Heartbreaker's kids.Wasn't the anti-master drug based on the manton limit (appearing to have the same DNA as the Master)? Maybe I've forgotten something, but wouldn't this mean that you would need to take one specific to the exact Master you needed to resist, and that the effect is mutually exclusive (if you take multiple versions, you only get the result of the last version you took).
Wouldn't make using it as a preventative impossible.. but it would be rather hit-and-miss unless social situations are being very strictly controlled.
I think that after they triggered, they were immune to him.Though if you think about it....that should mean that heartbreaker's kids should be immune to Heartbreaker....
I wished I could talk to Ruth about this, but I couldn't imagine how she'd react to us keeping one of the most dangerous tinkers in the world like this. She was a wonderful woman, and I was prepared to even say that I loved her, but this was Bonesaw, here. That would be a bit much to ask her to accept.
Sorry bout the mini rant. One of the down sides to being lawful good IRL, you tend to wax poetic about virtuous things. And just for solidarity's sake, I'm an Asexual male. That was really confusing growing up and it's kinda annoying when people don't recognize it and I have to explain, but, hey, it's kinda impossible to trample on my rights without delving into the realm of bad Harry Potter Fanfics.
Amelia, Ch 198- Rey
Riley and I examined our samples of Simurgh material. The crystalline pseudo-organics were incredible. "Nothing in this should allow them to be alive," I informed the girl. She no doubt already figured it out, of course, but I was as much asking her to educate me as anything. As much as it galled me to admit it, sometimes, Riley was simply a stronger tinker than I was. Besides, she was splitting her attention between this and watching as Emma and Chariot worked with Chevalier. I hadn't seen our bosses so excited about a power since Lily's anti-Endbringer capability was suspected.
"That confirms Lisa's suspicions," Riley responded. "Endbringer matter is merely a construct, and the real life form powering the creatures exist in another dimension."
"Like the Passengers?" I asked. I had long wanted to know where powers came from, and had read every transcript that Emma and Riley put out on the subject, as well as my own contributions to the theories and discussions. I wasn't as gifted as Riley, though I had Emma beat as far as tinkers went. Her advantage was she didn't have the Taboo holding her back like the rest of us. Still, my part in the dialogue mattered, and helped our research move forward.
"Possibly," she answered. "Lisa's convinced that the Endbringers are controlled by people, not Scion."
"So unless someone's found a way to take control of Passengers, it's a parahuman power involved," I concluded. I'll have to bring up the possibility with Ruth.
"Power combination, most likely," she volunteered. "A team of powerful parahumans, like us."
"A team with nothing better to do than torture our entire world?" I asked. "What kind of sick fucks would do that?"
"The Slaughterhouse Nine," she whispered. Congrats, Rey, would you like some bread with those feet?
"Sorry," I don't know how to handle things like this. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories." I wished I could talk to Ruth about this, but I couldn't imagine how she'd react to us keeping one of the most dangerous tinkers in the world like this. She was a wonderful woman, and I was prepared to even say that I loved her, but this was Bonesaw, here. That would be a bit much to ask her to accept.
"I'll be fine," she answered, going back to her work. I frowned. There was a time when I thought she was far too childish to be the monster she was. Now it was the opposite. The child was far too young to act so old.
I went back to my work as well. It wasn't my place to get involved. She had her friends, good ones, and they would take care of her. I just worked here. Side by side with some of the most powerful teenagers to have ever existed while solving the problem of a space whale virus god that would destroy the world a decade or two from now.
"Riley, come look at this," I spoke up after about an hour more work. I was watching the clone sample of SEB tissue. She followed my instructions, of course.
"It's summoning mass from nowhere," she responded.
"A lot more," I confirmed. "By my calculations, its current density is akin to a hundred pounds of mass, yet it's only consumed a couple gallons of nutrient fluid material."
"Which means it's still capable of breaking the laws of physics, even without a Passenger connection!" Riley declared. "It actually is tinker tech!"
"It's like a nanotech assembly system that exists in multiple dimensions," I continued. "In fact, each nanite probably only exists partially in a single dimension, allowing them to..." I paused for a second. What was I talking about?
"The mass exists only partially in our own dimension," I continued. "But the properties of all its dimensions still exist in this one. In that way it is a lot like Chevalier's power, and even more like Theo's. His power does resemble the Endbringer mass, at least until a certain density is reached."
Riley's face darkened a little. "Theo's power looks like an Endbringer?"
"A little," I replied. "We know how shards evolve. Maybe one of the power synergies used to build them came from a Passenger that evolved from the same source."
"Maybe," she frowned. "We'll tell Lisa about the theory."
"Have to anyway," I informed her. "According to the computer, we tripped the Taboo at some point."
"Endbringers are Taboo?" she asked. "I always thought they were just power resistant. That's huge."
I pressed a couple buttons. "Flagged as priority," I informed Riley. "Lisa should get back to us right away on it."
"Taboo really sucks," Riley complained, going back to her computer. I went back to mine. This material was insane, and even if it had no other special features to exploit, there was no doubt the next generation of Zerg would be far more powerful. Especially now that we knew we could grow the tissue out of the amnio gel, instead of expensive and hard to manufacture tinker metals. Granted, we still needed those expensive components for shunting and power supplies, but now we only faced about a third of the expenses as before.
Of course, it would mean a new rebreeding program to adapt the zerg to their new physiologies, but at this point Khepri could do that on her own. There was no innovation to that process. Merely time and repetition. Building the new SEB growth shaping system would be far more complex. I started drawing up plans immediately while keeping an eye on the testing machinery. Powers testing would come later, as would 'breeding' it with other EB samples promised in the future, but we could give Emma a head start on her research into the energy properties of the materials.
I was still hard at work when Chevalier was finished with our battery of tests, six hours later. He looked exhausted when I came out, carrying the new weapon I'd grown for him. He looked up at me, then glanced at the gorgeous ivory sword. The SEB blade was flawless, and he wasn't even trying to hide his admiration.
"It is pretty," I said as I held it out for him.
"Very," he agreed.
"It's yours," I informed him. "One part apology for the ringer they put you through during testing, and another part proof of concept. Based upon our testing of your original weapon, this one's almost better even without your power behind it. A little heavier than your decorative ceramic sword, only slightly less durable than the giant blade. Its only real weakness, such as it is, is the size.
"Which is something I can easily fix," he concluded with a smile, taking the blade.
"Careful," I advised. "It's a lot sharper than your original weapon."
"Wait until you hear what else were gonna do for you," Emma's teasing could be mistaken for flirtatious. The girl had a tendency toward celebrity worship, and Chevalier was one of the big names. "Since all the durability is built into the SEB sword, we can replace your giant weapon with a tinker device."
"What would I be expecting out of it?" Chevalier asked, curiously.
"What do you want?" Emma replied. "The Protectorate's footing the bill for this baby, right? And I can make it the size of an RV and you'd still be able to make use of it. Which means I can set you up with forcefields, gravity sheaths, nanothorns, and have space to spare. How about a railgun? Adjustable output, of course, but it wouldn't be hard to build something awesome. Especially if you can use your power on the bullets. Depleted Uranium weight, plus Endbringer durability? In fact, I could probably make it rapid fire! I might have to create a secondary weapon-"
"Umm, Emma?" I interrupted. "You're starting to fugue." Of all the tinkers on the team, she was actually best about avoiding that, but she wasn't anywhere near immune.
"Uh, sorry," she blushed. Or, her body's equivalent to blushing. I doubted anyone who didn't know her would spot it.
"That's fine," Chevalier insisted, offering a winning smile to the pair of us. "I've worked with tinkers, before. I remember the first time I saw Hero come up with something that excited him. But he never thought of using my power to accomplish something like this. I mean, it all seems so obvious now that you've started doing it, but all those years going by without anyone really thinking to build specialized equipment to harness powers this way. You've accomplished something incredible, here."
The Taboo, I recognized. That's why it wasn't until Amelia broke through that we started seeing tinker-power augmentation, and power interactions. Of course, now that the idea had taken root in other organizations, it was only a matter of time until it became the norm instead of the exception. It made me nervous, however. Power interactions seemed vastly stronger than any individual parahuman. What would we do when we were faced with enemies using strategies like our own?
"Here," Emma offered him a card. "This has my personal email. I'll draw up a list of options for you, with a few estimates for costs and equipment requirements."
He accepted it. "Thank you, I'll get in touch immediately after I return home."
....
Ruth looked worse off than Chevalier did. The advantages and disadvantages of video calls. Tinker grade ones, no less. "Rough day?"
"Very," she agreed. "The Vasil children are starting to test their boundaries. Their father used fear to keep them under control, and that's wearing off. For some, it's a good thing. A chance for them to enjoy normalcy. Others are... well, they've started implementing the antimaster drug as a preventative instead of a treatment. It's getting to the point where some people are talking about giving up and locking them all away for life, instead of trying to help them."
"Masters scare people," I replied. "I should know, I am one."
"Fortunately, we haven't faced the nightmare scenario of one of them having a power on the order of Cherish or Heartbreaker himself in any of the children, it's basically the only reason this project still exists," she informed me. "We're trying to find homes for them within the Protectorate's system. So that when this implodes, hopefully there will be places for them to go."
"We came across one of those," I informed her. "Apparently they're implanting compulsions in criminals to stop them from using their powers. The bosses weren't happy to find out the way they did."
"That would be Florence," she sighed. "Tell them I'm sorry about that mess. It was part of our deal. Haven's taken responsibility for her and a few of the children who haven't had triggers. She's one of ones we have the most hope for."
"Well, that's a start, at least," I tried my best to sound compassionate. I was never good at conveying my feelings. Luckily, with Ruth I didn't need to be. Her powers meant that it literally was the thought that counted. She'd know what I meant, no matter how badly I bunged it up. Of course, it cut both ways. I couldn't fake anything past her even if I were the best liar in the world. "I know your powers make you a better expert than I could hope to be on psychology. But, one of the things they teach you early in med school is that you can't save everyone. You do your best, of course, but you have to find a way to come to terms with the idea that you're still human.
She smiled, genuinely. "A very smart, very good man said something like that to me before," she told me. "Thank you for reminding me."
"Hey," I said. "What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn't share the wisdom I've accumulated? Just don't expect me to do it again, because that was all of it."
She laughed.
I hesitated, then asked anyway. "So... you know how we talked about Passengers, and how they try to compel us to use our powers to the fullest extent?"
"Yes," she responded, a little warily. Conversations on the subject tended to upset her a little, and she refused to share why.
"Lisa came to the idea that Endbringers have a human controller, or controllers, recently," I informed. "I was thinking, you could probably apply your power to how they work. You could probably get a lot of data off Dragon to help. It might help you relax some."
"If I can find the time," she quickly agreed.
=============
A/N- Woo, Rey gets an interlude! Actually, I'm glad I did his one... more of the loose ends being tied up from the last couple arcs.
Also, I might still do that Rune interlude. Maybe. Anyone know if her actual name is ever mentioned in the story?
Well if she is any kind of real Christian, she'd be fine with it. Forgiveness and redemption is a central tenet of the faith after all.
Like, Vicktoria is going all loose cannon on everyone and if she isn't careful she might get hurt when she pushes someone at the wrong time.
I meant a three-way relationship.She is still 13. Preeety sure that means they're still at the adorable pecks on the cheek stage of growth.
I wonder if Theo and Missy would be okay about her cloning a copy of Theo so she's got a boyfriend of her own? What could we call him?
hmm so Riley has a thing for Theo. Maybe Theo and Missy will agree to a threesome.
Ultimately, the email turned out to be three pages worth of typed notes, and then two and a half gigabytes of attached schematics and designs
Someone needs to put a collar on Victoria, because this is getting ridiculous. People are allowed to not date who you want them to Damn it, regardless of what you feel. Lisa had a whole arc on it. She should share some of that knowledge.
Like, Vicktoria is going all loose cannon on everyone and if she isn't careful she might get hurt when she pushes someone at the wrong time.