Wait a Minute... (Guy in Worm with Trouble in Terrorist Town powers)

[BlueCladOne]

I was a little worried I'd get too used to him. I'm happy to say that is not the case :]

 

[Phili]

Chapter 32: In Which Crystal Cleans Up Dave's Mess and Concludes Being an Adult Sucks

January 9, 2010, Saturday. Brockton Bay, Protectorate Headquarters 'The Rig'.



"It jiggles." Clockblocker whispered to Aegis as they took repeated glances at the glorious Pikabooty while Dave talked with Vista.

"I know, it's… kind of unnatural." Aegis commented.

"It's like it's flapping in the wind, but there isn't any wind." Clockblocker agreed.

Dave bounced in enthusiasm mid-conversation with Vista and everyone paused to watch the Pikachass jiggle and bounce for the next five seconds.

"So," Dave said to Vista, "I was thinking, and I realized, I didn't give you enough toys, so…" Dave pulled out some toys.

"This, is a Pocket Sniper Rifle. It's not actually small enough to put in your pocket, but it is the smallest sniper rifle I have, and your power might be able to let you fit it into a pocket. This is a defuser, it defuses bombs, I'm sure Miss Militia will be happy to teach you how it works. This is a Lift Grenade. It's a grenade, and when it goes off, everyone caught in its radius will go up, and up, and up, for about 50 feet, at which point they will fall. You will know it is armed because the top will glow bright neon green." Dave began explaining each toy as he handed it to her.

He had just unlocked the Lift Grenade yesterday. It was a normal item not from any of the buy menus, but it was rare like the minifier, so he didn't have very many yet.

"And this, is a crowbar, just like mine." Dave said as he handed it to her.

She waggled it. "Yes, as you can see, it is floppy. Waggle it at your enemies as needed. It is stronger than a normal crowbar when you hit someone with it though, so if you encounter a ganger of some sort, aim for the limbs, not the head unless you want to kill them, in which case aim for the head, then for the other head so they die in pain." Dave explained helpfully.

"Also, you can do this," he demonstrated with his own crowbar, "to shove someone with it without needing to touch them. I haven't tested it yet, but I suspect it will even work on Fenja and Menja, though it would only shove them by about the same amount I just shoved you. It's great for pushing people off of bridges and cliffs though, no fingerprints." He winked at her.

"Oh yes! On that topic," He recalled. "The flare gun I gave you, in addition to shooting up flares and setting people on fire, I forgot to mention. Its original purpose was actually to destroy bodies to erase evidence. So, if you ever need to hide a body, just shoot the body with the flare gun and it will set the body on fire, then completely erase the body from existence after around… ten or fifteen seconds." Dave said then patted Vista on the head.

"If you are nice and responsible with these toys, I will give you better ones later. And if you can demonstrate that you can survive falling from a great height consistently without harm, I will give you special toys, including a jetpack." He promised.

"Oh yes, one last toy." He recalled and pulled out two identical pistols. "I'm sure you remember this one." Dave said. Then handed one to Vista, and pointed the other one at Clockblocker and shot him with it.

Clockblocker froze in place, still conscious and seeing, but completely unable to move.

"It's not quite as good as Clockblocker's power as I just experienced, but it works from a range. You've only got three bullets in that, so use them wisely in case you run into Nazis again." Dave said, patting her on the head again.

Vista rolled her eyes and grumbled about being treated like a child, but put up with it in exchange for the guns and toys and promises of more.

Clockblocker unfroze, and promptly decided to hide behind Aegis for now until the scary sexy Pikachu left.

Triumph put a hand up to his helmet's earpiece and nodded after a moment. "Trouble, it seems like Armsmaster is ready for you, and he wants Kid Win down there too."

"Huh, I wonder why… unless… are you a Tinker Kid Win?" Dave asked Kid Win as they walked out of the doors of the Wards lounge.

---

Crystal Pelham

Crystal watched as Dave left in his 'Tall Pikachu' form as he called it, to go talk to Armsmaster with Kid Win. He can handle being without my supervision for a few minutes. I'm sure it'll be fine; I just need to clear up the mess he left behind with the Wards.

"So, Clockblocker, have we learned anything today?" Crystal asked sweetly.

"Uh… changers can awaken strange things in teenage boys?" Clockblocker tried to be cheeky. Heh, cheeky, just like that Pikachu, no wait, straight face Crystal.

"No, we already knew that. Try again." Crystal did her best to channel her mother's tone when her mother was dealing with her shenanigans.

"Uh… I think the intended lesson might have been to not use my power without warning on friendly Parahumans in case there is a poor power interaction that harms someone." Clockblocker said, showing he could in fact use his brain, even while a pretty older girl was glaring at him.

"Very good," she said in her best patronizing tone of voice. "Now, as he was trying to teach you in his own weird way," pfft, as if the thought of teaching went anywhere near Dave's mind. That was all pure impulse. "You shouldn't make assumptions in general when it comes to parahumans. As he is very proficient at showing, parahumans can be hard to predict."

"Yes Laserdream!" Clockblocker saluted. Well, as long as he buys that it was intended to be a teaching moment, I'll be able to mitigate any harm people might try to cause Dave with what he pulled here. I'm so glad he told me about the Possum role this morning, knowing about that makes this so much easier.

"Now, Vista… as I'm sure you are aware, I'm going to have to tell Miss Militia about your new toys." Crystal gave Vista the bad news, and Vista's eyes turned wide and she protectively hugged her grenades and guns.

"No! They will take them away!" Vista said defensively, then noticed the entire room looking at her, and coughed. "I mean, that seems unnecessary. I can just tell her myself, and she will surely understand the necessity of having them remain with me." Vista said, obviously—to Crystal at least, who was experienced in pulling this kind of thing—planning to not tell Miss Militia about all of the things she received so that she could guarantee being able to keep some of them.

"Panacea was planning to learn to use firearms soon as well, so if you can't get lessons from Miss Militia or Challenger, just send me or Glory Girl a text and New Wave will get you set up to take lessons with her. I'm sure the Protectorate will leave the freeze gun and the flare gun with you, so improving your aim will only help you regardless, even if your power will let you hit otherwise impossible shots even if you don't train; and if you show good enough firearm discipline, you might be able to wrangle permission to use other guns as well." Crystal placated Vista. She didn't actually know how likely it was that Vista would be able to use regular guns, but she could probably get permission to use one of the PRT foam ones given the extreme synergy they had with her power over space. At the moment, Crystal's biggest concern was taking away the Pocket Sniper Rifle from the preteen with power of space.

Man, being an adult sucks. Crystal groused in her head as she turned to Gallant to socialize a little with the new parahuman. I feel like a politician, I have to meet people because it is important that I know them, not because I want to get to know them. Ugh.

---

After talking with the suspicious 'Tinker' who somehow already found out his specialty, Crystal turned to Triumph to handle the last part of Dave's mess.

Seriously, maybe it's because I've just been dealing with Dave and we discussed earlier the possibility of disguising him as a Tinker, but I'm pretty sure this Gallant guy isn't actually a Tinker. I don't even think he's a new trigger. Maybe he triggered a while ago and is only just now enrolling in the wards? His powers kind of remind me of Vicky's aura too, maybe the Protectorate and PRT just want to disguise him as a Tinker to not have to deal with a human Master label? I know that was why aunt Carol fought so hard to get Vicky rated as a shaker instead of a Master, the stigma there is just absurd; but it feels like it's just asking for trouble to fake having an extra Tinker available, someone is bound to notice eventually that not as much tinkering happens as three Tinkers would imply, or that the guy never goes into Tinker fugues.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe this guy is a real Tinker. If so, they've already given him a significant diss by not inviting him with the other new guy, Kid Win to talk about Tinker stuff with Dave's meeting with Armsmaster and Dragon. Nah, taking that into account, there's no way this guy's a Tinker, he absolutely would have been in that meeting if he was.

I'll think about this later… actually, no I won't, I'll dump all this on Mom and Aunt Carol, and stop thinking about it at all. For now, I just need to handle Triumph and the 'exhibitionism furry porn' comments and the kiss on the costume's nose. I'm so glad Triumph is such a boy, he absolutely could have raised a fuss about that, but I guess guys don't care about it as much? Wait… I'm pretty sure he mentioned he was on a sports team, don't guy's sports teams famously slap each other on the ass and stuff? The kiss on the lion costume's nose might have not even registered as possible sexual harassment to him then if that's what he's used to.







Author's Note: Here we go, another chapter, still shorter than I've been doing while I build my backlog back up after being sick. In this one, Dave arms a small child with firearms and explosives, and we get a Crystal POV, yay! If you couldn't tell from my signature, I like reading alternate POVs to see what other characters think about the main character, but I've found actually writing that is rather hard with this story, because it barely makes sense as it is, without Dave's point of view to see some of his thought process it would probably read as pure gibberish a decent chunk of the time.

In Crystal's POV we get to see a real-time example of some of what New Wave has been doing for Dave in the background, and some of the lessons Sarah has been instilling in Crystal now that she is an adult superhero who is being trusted with more responsibilities. Crystal managed to get out of even more responsibilities being piled onto her by her mother by being in college though… perhaps that was Crystal's plan all along?

Crystal finds Gallant very suspicious after spending time in the past week thinking about how she might disguise Dave's powers as being a Tinker if needed.

Crystal tries to figure out how to handle Triumph getting his costume kissed on the nose without Dave getting in trouble for sexually harassing a minor. She concludes male sports are probably borderline homo-erotic enough that it might not have even registered on Triumph's radar as being sexual harassment, since the slapping on the ass thing doesn't seem to get any attention that she's noticed. I don't know why it happens either, I stopped playing sports before I got to the butt-slapping stage, but I guarantee anyone who isn't aware that it does happen… a lot, look it up if you don't believe me, the internet is just as confused as me on why it happens.

I've started exploring an idea in the past few chapters, and that idea is keeping a few of Dave's more recent items hidden from the readers for the sake of building… suspense? I hesitate to call it suspense because I don't think of suspense when I think of "well, is he going to pull out a remote-controlled super sheep or is he going to pull out a can of magic beans that make you have deadly farts when you move your arms a certain way?". I kind of like this, because then I don't have to keep spending time explaining each new thing as he gets it before he gets an opportunity to use it and the story can move on a little more quickly. We'll probably see him using an item once or twice without context, then get an explanation for what exactly he did and how shortly after. I'm sure there's a name for that particular writing technique, but I don't know what it is, so until I find out said name, I get to pretend it's an original writing technique that's never been used before by any of the tens of millions of people that have tried writing throughout human history.

 

[SpaceWhale]

Poor crystal is halfway to being a politician. What a horrible time

 

[Phili]

Chapter 33: Dave's Got a HUUUUUUUUUUUGGE Proposal!

January 9, 2010, Saturday. Brockton Bay, Protectorate Headquarters 'The Rig'.



Dave and Kid Win met with Armsmaster in his lab on a lower level of the Rig. Dave… hadn't actually paid any attention at all to where he was going on the way there, he was too distracted trying to stare at his own Pikachooty to see it jiggle as he walked, and failing because it just didn't jiggle properly while he was twisting himself around that much.

"Ah, Trouble, Kid Win, come in." Armsmaster said upon seeing them. He didn't even blink at seeing Dave's Tall Pikachu form, resulting in a little pouting from Dave.

"Dragon and I were just discussing the proposal you mentioned Trouble regarding the teleporters with a hub located in Brockton Bay." Armsmaster said.

"Yeah, I just had a Eureka moment yesterday, and thought of that with my teleporters. If it isn't a good idea, do let me know though, because that would be a pretty massive investment on my part, and I haven't actually worked out the logistics needed to make it work." Dave admitted. "I did get something else that might work instead, and I had a proposal for both you and Dragon, and Kid Win now that I know he is here, and a Tinker."

"Go ahead." Dragon's voice came from a speaker.

"So, I got access to a pretty cool item recently that would let me build large structures extremely quickly, but would do little in terms of small-scale precision or things like plumbing or electricity. Then, I got a Tinker power yesterday." Dave began.

"A Tinker power? Truly?" Armsmaster asked. "That's quite interesting, even Eidolon has never been shown to be able to get a Tinker power, it is extremely rare for a Trump to be able to grant themselves one."

"Yes, it feels like it is going to be very unusual to get that type of thing from my power, at least for the foreseeable future, my power becomes less clear on what it can give me when it comes to things further in the future." Dave said. "Anyways, perhaps because of the unusual method I got it, it seems a little different from what I know of normal Tinker powers. I knew my specialization right off the bat, and I started off with an item to help me get started. I've had lots of ideas for it, some of which are quite powerful, but I'm having trouble getting started because I can't get through the 'build the tools to build the tools to build the tools' phase, because my specialty is so far removed from the tools I need to use to make a lot of the bigger projects I could make."

"Hmm." Armsmaster hummed. "What was your specialty?"

"Mud. I've had ideas for things I could make that include synergies with my other powers, more healing items, beautification treatments, a variety of mud bombs to cause things like hydroplaning, as well as improvements to my normal teleportation items, among other things." Dave explained.

"That sounds quite useful." Dragon's cheerful voice came through the speaker again. "I'm glad you weren't discouraged by a specialty like Mud. I'm of the firm belief that any Tinker specialty can be powerful and useful, and I like to consider myself something of an expert."

"Indeed, though I'm not sure why mud would be considered weak. It is a significant part of the natural world, and can be devastating in many circumstances, and has been a tool used in civilizations across the globe for thousands of years." Dave said. "Anyways, to jump ahead a bit, I was thinking of making a place in the woods near Brockton that could serve as a large-scale Tinker lab. From what little research I've had time to do, there hasn't been anything like this in Brockton before, but Protectorate areas with enough Tinkers will sometimes have things along these lines, if not as ambitious." Dave began to outline his plan.

"I could build the outline of it within a single day, and I'd be happy to contribute to defenses as I get more and more items and abilities. It would provide a way to lure ambitious, cooperative, Tinkers to the Bay, as my research tells me Tinkers grow substantially by working together. The main thing I would gain, would be access to tools I can use to start things off along with permission to actually build the place. I don't have any way to do things like build my own centrifuge, and any more exotic 'tools to build the tools to build the tools' that only a Tinker could make would be out of my reach entirely if I couldn't buy them, and that would lock me out of many things I could potentially make, as well as any hopes of larger-scale production."

"That…" Armsmaster hesitated. "This would require a lot of funding that I simply cannot provide. I have a limited Tinkering budget that is provided by the PRT, and I cannot risk lowering my effectiveness by being unable to perform the needed maintenance on my projects while such a base is being built. Though I am interested in the concept." He admitted.

Armsmaster continued. "I can tell you from experience that your research was correct, working with other Tinkers is an excellent way to progress and gain inspiration, and when I worked under Hero with the other foremost Tinkers in the country, the shared Tinkering space and the many tools we had access to saved a lot of time and money. For example, something one Tinker only uses once a month might not be worth getting at all for them normally, thus lowering their effectiveness because they can't use it if they don't have it, but they will be able to use it freely if another Tinker that uses that same device every day already has one on hand and is willing to lend its use for an hour or two."

"Well…" Dave paused, "perhaps I should put it like this. I am willing to use my Health Stations and other healing technologies and items and abilities to get funding from rich individuals for whatever I need or want. I'm sure you've read Lady Photon's report on the Health Station at least, but unlike New Wave and Panacea, I'm perfectly happy to let a billionaire that isn't complete scum of the Earth throw money at me to heal them with the power of burritos. That was actually something I was hoping to ask Dragon for help with, a list of decent-ish people I could heal and get funding for projects from, since I assume the Guild has a list of charitable donors or something from around the world that they can vouch for in terms of character and want to have continue living so they can keep funding the Guild."

"Anyways, I don't really see any way that plan wouldn't work out, given how rich I've heard of Scapegoat being, and even if someone tries to throw NEPEA-5 at me, leaving aside that I don't think it applies here, I guarantee it wouldn't apply anymore after billionaires found out it kept them from being healed." Dave outlined his reasoning for how he was confident in gaining wealth.

"Thus, after I get that settled… which will be another thing I was going to ask Dragon for, someone the guild vouches for that can handle things like paperwork and contacting said billionaires for me.

Anyways, after I get that settled, I will be able to contribute:

• The bulk of the building itself, as well as materials for the building itself,
• Funds,
• Defenses for the building,
• A continuous supply of exotic items to be studied and used by Tinkers that are willing to help with the project,
• And eventually, a mud-based teleport network that would have a central hub within the Protectorate Headquarters and a secondary backup hub within the base itself.

And what I would want in exchange would be:

• Legal permission to build the base,
• Utilities such as electricity, plumbing, doors, and someone competent to help actually design the building itself,
• Tools to let me actually do my Tinkering,
• Permission to look at other Tinker's projects for inspiration,
• Someone else to fill out the paperwork.

How does that sound?" Dave asked.

"Why am I here?" Kid Win asked for a moment.

"You're a Tinker, aren't you?" Dave asked. "You would be one of the Tinkers using this if it actually happens, of course you get input."

"Indeed," Armsmaster confirmed. "I asked for you to be here because you are also a Tinker, even if you haven't found your specialty yet. You will eventually need to be able to deal with these kinds of things on your own after you graduate from the Wards, but for now, I just wanted to let you have a little experience with seeing proposals related to Tinkering, though I admit I wasn't expecting anything this large-scale."

"Oh?" Crystal asked sweetly as she walked in. "So, could you tell me then… why is Kid Win here but Gallant, his fellow Tinker is not?" She asked sweetly.

Armsmaster displayed an impressive poker face, while Dragon remained conspicuously silent and Kid Win displayed an impressive 'oh shit' face, visible even through his mask.

Dave displayed an impressive Surprised Pikachu face.













Author's Note: Here we go, another chapter, still shorter ones while I build my backlog back up, before we go back to the length of 'however long I feel like but trying to average above 2k words per chapter'.

To let you in on a little secret… I hate cliffhangers. I fucking despise them. My version of a Chuuni middle school phase was when I came up with all sorts of elaborate torture methods I wished upon the person who invented cliffhangers… and the person who invented suspense (I didn't mind Alfred Hitchcock style suspense, because that was done well, he had a whole thing he talked about occasionally about how if you spend time in a story showing a bomb about to go off that the characters don't know about, you should never, ever have that bomb go off; he had that bomb go off once in a story and he said it was one of his biggest ever mistakes as a writer. I didn't mind it when that metaphorical bomb didn't go off in a story, but cliffhangers? Oh boy I wished all sorts of forms of creative things on the people that propagated those. I've chilled out a little by now, but cliffhangers are the main reason I mostly binge stories now, I rarely read one chapter at a time and I do my best to look at things like what the latest chapter title is to try my best to avoid cliffhangers. If needed I will even glance at the last few lines of the latest chapter to judge if it is a cliffhanger because I would much rather be spoiled than get a cliffhanger).

Ahem… I went on a tangent; my point was that I try to avoid major cliffhangers in writing… Though I probably don't succeed by all standards, I do try quite hard to make sure there are no major cliffhangers; so something like an Endbringer fight will likely end up as one massive chapter rather than a bunch of little ones as a result. Anyways… We see Dave's big proposal in this chapter. Armsmaster is interested, Dragon is interested, Kid Win doesn't know why he's there!

Suspicious Crystal walks in! Crystal uses Sarcastic Implication! It's super effective! Armsmaster uses Poker Face! It would have been super effective, except Kid Win used 'Oh Shit' Face, and changed the effectiveness to be not very effective.

Detective Crystal is on the case! But not for very long because she hates the case and wants to shove it off onto her mom! Will she succeed? Find out next time! Not really, it probably won't actually be answered next time.

The chapter title is based off of a scene in Moulin Rouge where the main character's friends are spying on him when he is reading poetry to a prostitute, and the one that can actually see what's happening tells the others 'He's got a HUUUUUUGE talent!" I was originally going to make that joke about my author's notes, but decided I liked it better in the chapter titles instead.

 

[DracHoward]

Ngl, Crystal why you ruin beautiful Tinker talk? It was nice seeing Dave, Armsmaster and Kid Win talking about Tinker stuff and the potential of Dave's project being successful

 

[SpaceWhale]

Crystal your supposed to be the smart one. If Dave can figure it out you can to