BlueCladOne
Actually here for plot, somehow.
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I was a little worried I'd get too used to him. I'm happy to say that is not the case :]
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Wait a Minute... (Guy in Worm with Trouble in Terrorist Town powers)
- Thread starter Phili
- Start date
Chapter 32: In Which Crystal Cleans Up Dave's Mess and Concludes Being an Adult Sucks
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Phili
Not too sore, are you?
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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.
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
Know what you're doing yet?
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Poor crystal is halfway to being a politician. What a horrible time
Chapter 33: Dave's Got a HUUUUUUUUUUUGGE Proposal!
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Phili
Not too sore, are you?
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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:
"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.
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.
- 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.
"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
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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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
Know what you're doing yet?
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Crystal your supposed to be the smart one. If Dave can figure it out you can to
Chapter 34: Committing Superpowered Vandalism That Can't Be Removed.
New
Phili
Not too sore, are you?
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Chapter 34: Committing Superpowered Vandalism That Can't Be Removed.
January 9, 2010, Saturday. Brockton Bay, Protectorate Headquarters 'The Rig'.
"Ahem." Armsmaster coughed and apparently decided to pretend he hadn't heard Crystal say anything.
"As I was saying," Armsmaster began, "I would be happy to contribute to such a project and share my experiences with similar scenarios from when I was working with a group of Tinkers under Hero."
Crystal simply raised an eyebrow at him.
"And I would be willing to contribute general Tinkering tools and perform a portion of the maintenance needed on any such communal Tinkering tools." Armsmaster said after a moment.
Crystal stared harder.
"Ahem." Dragon seemed to take pity on Armsmaster. "I would be happy to find someone that the Guild has vetted Trouble, to help you with legal, financial, and general administrative things you might encounter. Goodness knows wasting time is the easiest way to make an enemy of a Tinker for a good reason, so helping you find someone trustworthy you can employ to help you save so much time will surely help you increase your effectiveness." Dragon said cheerfully through the speakers.
Crystal seemed to relent from whatever she was doing, and nodded once.
"So, you haven't discovered your specialty yet?" Dave asked Kid Win as they walked away from Armsmaster's lab. Crystal had remained behind for a couple minutes to talk with Armsmaster and Dragon about something, probably something boring.
"No, I've been working on a few things, and some of them area easier than others, but I've had trouble with a lot of things, and nothing really seems to click, you know?" Kid Win replied.
"Not really." Dave shrugged. "But, I was thinking, Laserdream showed me this Earth Aleph show from a few years ago, and in it, there's a bit where a group of monks have to identify a super special person as a child, when not even the child is aware of being said super special person. So, they bring out a bunch of special toys and see which toys each child is drawn to, and they identify the super special child because he is drawn to four specific toys that represent his future powers." Dave explained.
"So, I was thinking," Dave continued, "that a Tinker could probably do something similar to identify their specialty. Grab a whole bunch of toys and set them out, and see which ones their power draws them to the most. Ideally it would be things that can be assembled in some way or that have moving parts, but a large enough variety of toys would probably work regardless. Some nerf guns, little toy catapults, paint sets, action figures, legos, Playdough, toy boats, remote controlled cars, boats, planes, and helicopters, toy walkie talkies, et cetera. See which ones your power draws you to and which ones give you inspiration, and figure out what they have in common. Remote controlled things could indicate a signal specialty or a vehicle specialty, catapults and nerf guns could be a projectile specialty, boats and rubber ducks could be an aquatic specialty, paint sets could be a visual specialty, or a camouflage or chemical specialty, et cetera. If needed, you could consult other people and see what they think whatever you are drawn to has in common with each other, I'm sure Armsmaster will have some insight, and the Protectorate members with more experience will probably have also worked with a few Tinkers over the years and will be able to help you figure it out based on what you are drawn to." Dave explained his idea.
"Huh… Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea." Kid Win mused. "It's a pretty cheap way to figure things out without wasting a large chunk of my Tinkering budget."
"There we go, that's the spirit!" Dave patted Kid Win on the back. "And if you still have trouble figuring it out, you can ask the PRT to set up like a 5-minute meeting with a Thinker to help you figure it out in exchange for a couple hundred dollars or something. I don't actually know how much that kind of thing would cost, but I'm sure there are Thinkers out there who would be willing to use their powers to get a couple hundred dollars for five minutes' worth of work. Assuming they can correctly deduce your specialty anyways, though if they are the right kind of Thinker and are given the data from what you were drawn to and what you built with the toy thing, they should be able to figure it out." Dave shrugged. "You might want to leave that as a last resort though; it seems unlikely that would actually be necessary."
"Huh, yeah, that could work too." Kid Win said. "Thanks, I was kind of worried I wouldn't be able to figure out my specialty any time soon, so having a plan to work on figuring it out is actually really nice."
"No problem, assuming the big Tinker base project goes through, I hope I'll get to see you there and we can work on some stuff together." Dave replied.
"Yeah, yeah, I think that would be nice." Kid Win smiled.
After a moment of silence as they walked down the hallway, Crystal caught up to them.
"Hey boys," she greeted. "Talk about anything interesting?"
"Yes actually," Kid Win nodded. "Trouble was giving me advice on how to find my Tinker specialty. Apparently, he had an idea from some sort of Aleph show you introduced to him."
"Oh, which one?" Crystal asked.
"Avatar," Dave answered. "The way the monks discovered Aang was the Avatar by showing a bunch of toys to all the kids and he picked the ones that symbolized the Avatar elements or something. It made me think of just putting a ton of toys of a large variety in front of a Tinker, and seeing what they are drawn to by their power to determine what their specialty is." Dave outlined his thoughts on the matter.
"Huh, I've never heard of anyone trying that." Crystal commented. "If it works, you can probably use that to get a lot of good will from the PRT by having a method to help them identify Tinker specialties. Make sure you tell my mom about this; you can get a lot from the PRT and Protectorate if this method works. If it does work, the PRT will absolutely use it as a way to try to get more Tinkers to join by saying that they can help Tinkers find their specialties."
"That seems a little cynical." Kid Win frowned. "I'm sure they would ask for permission first." He added.
Dave and Crystal stared at him.
"I'm… not gonna touch that." Crystal decided after a moment. "You can explain to the other Wards what the plan is and what we said and listen to their opinions on the subject. I'm sure at least some of them will be happy to explain things to you."
Kid Win looked doubtful that there was anything to explain, but he would learn. He had only been part of the government for a short time at this point after all; he hadn't even had his Wards debut yet, so it was understandable to Crystal and Dave that he didn't quite understand how shameless the world of adults was.
"Oh, here looks like a good spot." Dave said as they passed through another hallway, this one just outside the Wards lounge.
"A good spot for what?" Kid Win asked.
Dave answered by using a power he had discovered recently, though he was pretty sure he had had since he woke up on January first.
An image appeared where he was looking at, right next to the door to the Ward's lounge, along with a fake-sounding spray can sound effect. The image was of a Slugma, with the caption: Slugma Balls.
Image:
It doesn't have the word 'Slugma' at the top of the image though, only the 'Slugma Balls' at the bottom. This link is to a video at the second it is showing the actual image that is Dave's Spray: https://youtu.be/acn57YA4-C8?t=573 that is at the 9:33 mark if the time thing doesn't work for some reason.
Dave looked at it, giggled, and walked away.
"They're never going to be able to remove that." He told Crystal as they kept walking.
Crystal Pelham
"Ugh, that was exhausting." Crystal said to her mother and aunt as they flew back to the Pellham house from the Rig. Dave had simply teleported back to his house, saying he was going to buy a few things like cheap jars and some paintbrushes to make some proof-of-concept items for his Tinkering.
"It surely wasn't that bad." Carol replied. "You weren't the one dealing with Vista's… problems and trying to relabel a Nazi's power ratings to get Victor labeled as a human Master without mentioning any unfortunate comparisons. Just about the only pleasant part was getting an agreement to have a Ward occasionally help Amy out at the hospital to be an extra person to guard her and the Health Stations, and even that was a little annoying."
"No, that does sound terrible," Crystal admitted. "But speaking of Masters, there's two new Wards I just met."
"Oh dear," came the voice of Crystal's mother.
"Yup, one of them was a Tinker who hasn't found his specialty, though Dave thought of a way that might solve that. The other one was also a 'Tinker' and was the most suspicious guy I've ever seen." She rolled her eyes and started describing the situation of the new 'Tinker' as they flew home, including that she rather easily got concessions from Armsmaster for Dave's project by bringing the subject up until he had to get rescued by Dragon. She also mentioned that his 'Tinker specialty' sounded incredibly similar to Vicky's 'Shaker' powers. She didn't actually say the quotations for Shaker out loud though, she wasn't nearly brave enough to say that to her aunt's face.
Crap, am I going to have to dance around that too now every time this new Ward comes up? Ugh. Wait… am I going to have to keep an eye on Vicky too now? I have no idea how their powers will interact, and this is a textbook case of two powers that could have a strange power interaction. Fuck, now I have to keep an eye on two emotion-based power wielders. Do I try to introduce them to each other in a controlled setting? Or do I just get the heck out and let them interact naturally? Do I warn Vicky that her power might act weird around this Gallant guy?
Ughhh, being an adult SUCKS. I'll just tell mom about all this and my worries over a poor power interaction between Gallant and Vicky after we get home. Then telling aunt Carol about it can be HER problem, and I can recruit Eric to keep an eye on Vicky at school. I can't trust Amy to keep an eye on Vicky, because Vicky has the poor girl wrapped around her finger like a piece of string. Fine, I have a plan, now I just need to carry it out.
Author's Note: Another short chapter done. Crystal socially mugs (blackmails) Armsmaster, Dragon has to socially rescue her meat husbando, and Kid Win gets some advice from Dave based on a cartoon he saw a few days ago. Truly, cartoons and anime are the key to saving Earth Bet. Also, can I just say… Dragon is such a cinnamon roll. I just fucking love her.
Crystal realizes she is going to have to dance around how similar Vicky and Gallant's emotional powers are, but for now is resigned to needing to keep an eye on Gallant. She also realizes her Parahuman studies classes are coming in handy, but resulting in more responsibility as she spots more things that could carry risks because of it.
This story won't focus too much on the Vicky/Dean stuff, which will be happening in the background so I thought I'd mention a bit of what's going on here. I decided to have Dean get his powers a little bit later than he did in canon to explain why he took so long to join the Wards, given his armor was made by Kid Win to sell the 'totally a Tinker' story. So now, he was still present when Vicky triggered, and his power still refused to turn off when she triggered, resulting in her getting her emotional aura stuff, but they haven't actually met yet. Dean took so long to join the Wards because his family was reluctant to actually let him join, even though Dean—being a genuinely good guy—wanted to do the right thing and sign up and be a hero from the get-go.
I don't have a particular problem with the Vicky/Dean ship itself, but it clearly doesn't actually work in canon, and my take on things is that Dean's power not turning off when Vicky triggered caused a sort-of almost-cluster trigger, resulting in a very minor version of the kiss/kill dynamic thing that Cluster Triggers have, thus their immunities to each-others power, and their constant getting together and breaking up thing. I just consider their relationship deeply unhealthy because of how power-based it is; even if my understanding is that part of the reason they keep getting back together is because they both like that they can't manipulate the other person with their emotional powers (either directly or through seeing their emotions), which to me indicates they aren't actually that compatible.
Either way, detective Crystal is on the case! Against her will! To protect her little cousin from any dastardly deeds!
Oh yes, and we also see one of Dave's powers he has had since the very beginning! The Steam spray! I searched and searched and searched, but I genuinely couldn't find an exact copy of Kirsty's spray on the internet. It should not be that hard to find a simple picture of Slugma with just the caption 'Slugma balls', but here we are. I had to settle for the lesser version I ended up putting in the chapter itself, which is just sad. Maybe Kirsty made her spray herself? But it's a simple enough picture that I still find it hard to believe nobody ever made an image that was effectively identical.
Next chapter, it's a new day, and we get to see someone I'm sure many of you are looking forward to, and I'm quite excited to see as well. In addition, when we meet them, Dave will be feeling particularly like a… white knight in shining armor, shall we say.
January 9, 2010, Saturday. Brockton Bay, Protectorate Headquarters 'The Rig'.
"Ahem." Armsmaster coughed and apparently decided to pretend he hadn't heard Crystal say anything.
"As I was saying," Armsmaster began, "I would be happy to contribute to such a project and share my experiences with similar scenarios from when I was working with a group of Tinkers under Hero."
Crystal simply raised an eyebrow at him.
"And I would be willing to contribute general Tinkering tools and perform a portion of the maintenance needed on any such communal Tinkering tools." Armsmaster said after a moment.
Crystal stared harder.
"Ahem." Dragon seemed to take pity on Armsmaster. "I would be happy to find someone that the Guild has vetted Trouble, to help you with legal, financial, and general administrative things you might encounter. Goodness knows wasting time is the easiest way to make an enemy of a Tinker for a good reason, so helping you find someone trustworthy you can employ to help you save so much time will surely help you increase your effectiveness." Dragon said cheerfully through the speakers.
Crystal seemed to relent from whatever she was doing, and nodded once.
"So, you haven't discovered your specialty yet?" Dave asked Kid Win as they walked away from Armsmaster's lab. Crystal had remained behind for a couple minutes to talk with Armsmaster and Dragon about something, probably something boring.
"No, I've been working on a few things, and some of them area easier than others, but I've had trouble with a lot of things, and nothing really seems to click, you know?" Kid Win replied.
"Not really." Dave shrugged. "But, I was thinking, Laserdream showed me this Earth Aleph show from a few years ago, and in it, there's a bit where a group of monks have to identify a super special person as a child, when not even the child is aware of being said super special person. So, they bring out a bunch of special toys and see which toys each child is drawn to, and they identify the super special child because he is drawn to four specific toys that represent his future powers." Dave explained.
"So, I was thinking," Dave continued, "that a Tinker could probably do something similar to identify their specialty. Grab a whole bunch of toys and set them out, and see which ones their power draws them to the most. Ideally it would be things that can be assembled in some way or that have moving parts, but a large enough variety of toys would probably work regardless. Some nerf guns, little toy catapults, paint sets, action figures, legos, Playdough, toy boats, remote controlled cars, boats, planes, and helicopters, toy walkie talkies, et cetera. See which ones your power draws you to and which ones give you inspiration, and figure out what they have in common. Remote controlled things could indicate a signal specialty or a vehicle specialty, catapults and nerf guns could be a projectile specialty, boats and rubber ducks could be an aquatic specialty, paint sets could be a visual specialty, or a camouflage or chemical specialty, et cetera. If needed, you could consult other people and see what they think whatever you are drawn to has in common with each other, I'm sure Armsmaster will have some insight, and the Protectorate members with more experience will probably have also worked with a few Tinkers over the years and will be able to help you figure it out based on what you are drawn to." Dave explained his idea.
"Huh… Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea." Kid Win mused. "It's a pretty cheap way to figure things out without wasting a large chunk of my Tinkering budget."
"There we go, that's the spirit!" Dave patted Kid Win on the back. "And if you still have trouble figuring it out, you can ask the PRT to set up like a 5-minute meeting with a Thinker to help you figure it out in exchange for a couple hundred dollars or something. I don't actually know how much that kind of thing would cost, but I'm sure there are Thinkers out there who would be willing to use their powers to get a couple hundred dollars for five minutes' worth of work. Assuming they can correctly deduce your specialty anyways, though if they are the right kind of Thinker and are given the data from what you were drawn to and what you built with the toy thing, they should be able to figure it out." Dave shrugged. "You might want to leave that as a last resort though; it seems unlikely that would actually be necessary."
"Huh, yeah, that could work too." Kid Win said. "Thanks, I was kind of worried I wouldn't be able to figure out my specialty any time soon, so having a plan to work on figuring it out is actually really nice."
"No problem, assuming the big Tinker base project goes through, I hope I'll get to see you there and we can work on some stuff together." Dave replied.
"Yeah, yeah, I think that would be nice." Kid Win smiled.
After a moment of silence as they walked down the hallway, Crystal caught up to them.
"Hey boys," she greeted. "Talk about anything interesting?"
"Yes actually," Kid Win nodded. "Trouble was giving me advice on how to find my Tinker specialty. Apparently, he had an idea from some sort of Aleph show you introduced to him."
"Oh, which one?" Crystal asked.
"Avatar," Dave answered. "The way the monks discovered Aang was the Avatar by showing a bunch of toys to all the kids and he picked the ones that symbolized the Avatar elements or something. It made me think of just putting a ton of toys of a large variety in front of a Tinker, and seeing what they are drawn to by their power to determine what their specialty is." Dave outlined his thoughts on the matter.
"Huh, I've never heard of anyone trying that." Crystal commented. "If it works, you can probably use that to get a lot of good will from the PRT by having a method to help them identify Tinker specialties. Make sure you tell my mom about this; you can get a lot from the PRT and Protectorate if this method works. If it does work, the PRT will absolutely use it as a way to try to get more Tinkers to join by saying that they can help Tinkers find their specialties."
"That seems a little cynical." Kid Win frowned. "I'm sure they would ask for permission first." He added.
Dave and Crystal stared at him.
"I'm… not gonna touch that." Crystal decided after a moment. "You can explain to the other Wards what the plan is and what we said and listen to their opinions on the subject. I'm sure at least some of them will be happy to explain things to you."
Kid Win looked doubtful that there was anything to explain, but he would learn. He had only been part of the government for a short time at this point after all; he hadn't even had his Wards debut yet, so it was understandable to Crystal and Dave that he didn't quite understand how shameless the world of adults was.
"Oh, here looks like a good spot." Dave said as they passed through another hallway, this one just outside the Wards lounge.
"A good spot for what?" Kid Win asked.
Dave answered by using a power he had discovered recently, though he was pretty sure he had had since he woke up on January first.
An image appeared where he was looking at, right next to the door to the Ward's lounge, along with a fake-sounding spray can sound effect. The image was of a Slugma, with the caption: Slugma Balls.
Image:
Dave looked at it, giggled, and walked away.
"They're never going to be able to remove that." He told Crystal as they kept walking.
Crystal Pelham
"Ugh, that was exhausting." Crystal said to her mother and aunt as they flew back to the Pellham house from the Rig. Dave had simply teleported back to his house, saying he was going to buy a few things like cheap jars and some paintbrushes to make some proof-of-concept items for his Tinkering.
"It surely wasn't that bad." Carol replied. "You weren't the one dealing with Vista's… problems and trying to relabel a Nazi's power ratings to get Victor labeled as a human Master without mentioning any unfortunate comparisons. Just about the only pleasant part was getting an agreement to have a Ward occasionally help Amy out at the hospital to be an extra person to guard her and the Health Stations, and even that was a little annoying."
"No, that does sound terrible," Crystal admitted. "But speaking of Masters, there's two new Wards I just met."
"Oh dear," came the voice of Crystal's mother.
"Yup, one of them was a Tinker who hasn't found his specialty, though Dave thought of a way that might solve that. The other one was also a 'Tinker' and was the most suspicious guy I've ever seen." She rolled her eyes and started describing the situation of the new 'Tinker' as they flew home, including that she rather easily got concessions from Armsmaster for Dave's project by bringing the subject up until he had to get rescued by Dragon. She also mentioned that his 'Tinker specialty' sounded incredibly similar to Vicky's 'Shaker' powers. She didn't actually say the quotations for Shaker out loud though, she wasn't nearly brave enough to say that to her aunt's face.
Crap, am I going to have to dance around that too now every time this new Ward comes up? Ugh. Wait… am I going to have to keep an eye on Vicky too now? I have no idea how their powers will interact, and this is a textbook case of two powers that could have a strange power interaction. Fuck, now I have to keep an eye on two emotion-based power wielders. Do I try to introduce them to each other in a controlled setting? Or do I just get the heck out and let them interact naturally? Do I warn Vicky that her power might act weird around this Gallant guy?
Ughhh, being an adult SUCKS. I'll just tell mom about all this and my worries over a poor power interaction between Gallant and Vicky after we get home. Then telling aunt Carol about it can be HER problem, and I can recruit Eric to keep an eye on Vicky at school. I can't trust Amy to keep an eye on Vicky, because Vicky has the poor girl wrapped around her finger like a piece of string. Fine, I have a plan, now I just need to carry it out.
Author's Note: Another short chapter done. Crystal socially mugs (blackmails) Armsmaster, Dragon has to socially rescue her meat husbando, and Kid Win gets some advice from Dave based on a cartoon he saw a few days ago. Truly, cartoons and anime are the key to saving Earth Bet. Also, can I just say… Dragon is such a cinnamon roll. I just fucking love her.
Crystal realizes she is going to have to dance around how similar Vicky and Gallant's emotional powers are, but for now is resigned to needing to keep an eye on Gallant. She also realizes her Parahuman studies classes are coming in handy, but resulting in more responsibility as she spots more things that could carry risks because of it.
This story won't focus too much on the Vicky/Dean stuff, which will be happening in the background so I thought I'd mention a bit of what's going on here. I decided to have Dean get his powers a little bit later than he did in canon to explain why he took so long to join the Wards, given his armor was made by Kid Win to sell the 'totally a Tinker' story. So now, he was still present when Vicky triggered, and his power still refused to turn off when she triggered, resulting in her getting her emotional aura stuff, but they haven't actually met yet. Dean took so long to join the Wards because his family was reluctant to actually let him join, even though Dean—being a genuinely good guy—wanted to do the right thing and sign up and be a hero from the get-go.
I don't have a particular problem with the Vicky/Dean ship itself, but it clearly doesn't actually work in canon, and my take on things is that Dean's power not turning off when Vicky triggered caused a sort-of almost-cluster trigger, resulting in a very minor version of the kiss/kill dynamic thing that Cluster Triggers have, thus their immunities to each-others power, and their constant getting together and breaking up thing. I just consider their relationship deeply unhealthy because of how power-based it is; even if my understanding is that part of the reason they keep getting back together is because they both like that they can't manipulate the other person with their emotional powers (either directly or through seeing their emotions), which to me indicates they aren't actually that compatible.
Either way, detective Crystal is on the case! Against her will! To protect her little cousin from any dastardly deeds!
Oh yes, and we also see one of Dave's powers he has had since the very beginning! The Steam spray! I searched and searched and searched, but I genuinely couldn't find an exact copy of Kirsty's spray on the internet. It should not be that hard to find a simple picture of Slugma with just the caption 'Slugma balls', but here we are. I had to settle for the lesser version I ended up putting in the chapter itself, which is just sad. Maybe Kirsty made her spray herself? But it's a simple enough picture that I still find it hard to believe nobody ever made an image that was effectively identical.
Next chapter, it's a new day, and we get to see someone I'm sure many of you are looking forward to, and I'm quite excited to see as well. In addition, when we meet them, Dave will be feeling particularly like a… white knight in shining armor, shall we say.
SpaceWhale
Know what you're doing yet?
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If Vicky and Dean have a weird power interaction guess that explains why they keep breaking up and getting back together.
Or their just teenagers being teenagers. You can never know
Or their just teenagers being teenagers. You can never know
DracHoward
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Yknow, this is kinda smart idea to identify a Tinker's specialty, using toys that mesh well with the Tinker.
In regards to your writing, i do enjoy most of it, my only issue is the very long dialogue like the one you write Dave talking about toys. If youre open to suggestions, you can either split the dialogue to 2 to 3 segments, or you have the dialogue cut off with an action. Let me write an example
"So, I was thinking," Dave continued, "that a Tinker could probably do something similar to identify their specialty. Grab a whole bunch of toys and set them out, and see which ones their power draws them to the most. Ideally it would be things that can be assembled in some way or that have moving parts, but a large enough variety of toys would probably work regardless."
Dave started forming signs with his hands, indicating a type of toy he can think of at the moment "Some nerf guns, little toy catapults, paint sets, action figures, legos, Playdough, toy boats, remote controlled cars, boats, planes, and helicopters, toy walkie talkies, et cetera. See which ones your power draws you to and which ones give you inspiration, and figure out what they have in common. Remote controlled things could indicate a signal specialty or a vehicle specialty, catapults and nerf guns could be a projectile specialty, boats and rubber ducks could be an aquatic specialty, paint sets could be a visual specialty, or a camouflage or chemical specialty, et cetera."
He looked back at where they left off Armsmaster " If needed, you could consult other people and see what they think whatever you are drawn to has in common with each other, I'm sure Armsmaster will have some insight, and the Protectorate members with more experience will probably have also worked with a few Tinkers over the years and will be able to help you figure it out based on what you are drawn to." Dave explained his idea.
if you think otherwise, then thats fine by me imo. The story is enjoyable enough and i apologize if i offended you if I do
"So, I was thinking," Dave continued, "that a Tinker could probably do something similar to identify their specialty. Grab a whole bunch of toys and set them out, and see which ones their power draws them to the most. Ideally it would be things that can be assembled in some way or that have moving parts, but a large enough variety of toys would probably work regardless."
Dave started forming signs with his hands, indicating a type of toy he can think of at the moment "Some nerf guns, little toy catapults, paint sets, action figures, legos, Playdough, toy boats, remote controlled cars, boats, planes, and helicopters, toy walkie talkies, et cetera. See which ones your power draws you to and which ones give you inspiration, and figure out what they have in common. Remote controlled things could indicate a signal specialty or a vehicle specialty, catapults and nerf guns could be a projectile specialty, boats and rubber ducks could be an aquatic specialty, paint sets could be a visual specialty, or a camouflage or chemical specialty, et cetera."
He looked back at where they left off Armsmaster " If needed, you could consult other people and see what they think whatever you are drawn to has in common with each other, I'm sure Armsmaster will have some insight, and the Protectorate members with more experience will probably have also worked with a few Tinkers over the years and will be able to help you figure it out based on what you are drawn to." Dave explained his idea.
if you think otherwise, then thats fine by me imo. The story is enjoyable enough and i apologize if i offended you if I do
Phili
Not too sore, are you?
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Nah, this is fine, I'm always happy to receive advice. I do see what you mean there as well. I'll probably start doing something along the lines of what you suggested actually.
DracHoward
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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You're welcome, glad i can help
Also, at first i was sad that the latest xhapters are short, but then i was happy to see that yoh are actually building a backlog of chapters so im fine with that.