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

[Phili]

Chapter 48: 'Soul Mate Road Trip' Sounds Like A Song Title

January 15, 2010, Friday. Brockton Bay, Protectorate HQ.



Dave arrived at the Protectorate Headquarters via teleportation in his Solid Snake form, and appeared in his designated teleportation closet. He had been offered a larger room after they found a better spot for a teleportation chamber, but he had declined because a teleportation closet was funnier than a teleportation chamber. Armsmaster had shrugged and said they were going to work on a larger room for the planned Teleportation Hub anyways, so he was free to have his own little closet.

For now, he walked out to meet Miss Militia at the parking lot, right next to the forcefield road that led to the city, where they would then make their way to New York.

"Hello Trouble." Miss Militia greeted him from in front of her motorcycle.

"Hey Miss Militia," he greeted back. "So are we taking your motorcycle?" He asked.

Miss Militia moved to shake her head, then paused, remembering the things Trouble had said at their first meeting, then actually shook her head. "No, we're going to take a PRT van." She said instead of addressing the idea of them riding her motorcycle together.

"Aww, I was hoping we could race." Dave admitted.

"Race? Did your power offer you a vehicle of some sort?" Miss Militia asked curiously.

"Yes actually," Dave confirmed, before taking out a pistol to show off to her.

"That's a gun." Miss Militia told him patiently, before double-checking with her power and finding she couldn't copy this particular gun, so it apparently had something unusual about it. She wondered if it perhaps had some sort of propelling effect using recoil that Trouble could combine with his flight from his jetpack that would otherwise be slower than a car.

"No, this is an airboat summoner!" Dave told her proudly, before demonstrating by shooting the ground nearby with it, making a small, one-seater airboat appear.

"We can take this instead if you want," he said enticingly. "You would need to ride on my lap though." He added.

Miss Militia actually considered it for a few moments, before shaking her head in refusal. "I'm afraid we wouldn't make very good time if we took the water route to New York. I don't think airboats travel particularly fast on the ocean either, and might be at risk of capsizing outside the calmer waters of the bay."

In other words, she WOULD do it if it weren't for those factors? Dave thought to himself.

"I didn't mean over the water." He clarified, before climbing into the airboat seat and beginning to 'drive' it around the parking lot in circles. "As you can see, this operates perfectly well on land!" He patted his lap.

"How fast does it go on land?" She asked consideringly.

"Eh, a maximum of like 80 miles per hour." Dave answered.

"And, do you have a license to drive it on land?" She asked with one of her signature eye-smiles.

"Uhhh," Dave answered intelligently, before giving up on a clever response and sadly getting out of his airboat. "It has other features," he tried.

"Like?" Miss Militia asked, apparently willing to indulge him in at least bragging about his new vehicle, though he couldn't tell if she was still considering using it.

"Well, it works similar to some of my other items, so once someone is 'using' it, they can't be removed against their will except by dying," he began. "And they are immune to things that could be considered 'physics damage' while in it. A baby in the driver's seat of that could fall from Earth's orbit without a seatbelt or any safety equipment and land on solid concrete and be completely unharmed… as long as the baby didn't use the 'leave' function to no longer be considered 'piloting' it anyways."

"The airboat itself is indestructible," he added after a moment. "And it goes the same speed on both water and land, and has no care of things like terrain or hydroplaning or driving on a pile of nails or caltrops."

"It has a 'physics mode' where it will interact with other things normally, but when it isn't in physics mode, it could hit someone at maximum speed and it would at most push them instead of actually harming them. It would still kill someone even in 'non-physics' mode if it landed on them from above though." He continued thoughtfully.

"Oh," he perked up, "also, it's mostly idiot-proof! The controls are mental and instinctive, you just decide which way you want to go and how fast as well as how far to turn, and it will do it."

"So… really, there's no logical need for a license or permit or anything right?" He gave her a winning smile.

Miss Militia looked from him, to the airboat, to her motorcycle, to the boring PRT van, back to him, before sighing. "You can ride in the sidecar for my motorcycle." She said at last.

"Wooh! Soul mate road trip!" Dave cheered, making Miss Militia flush slightly behind her bandana covering her cheeks. "You can have the airboat if you want." He told her.

When she made to refuse he insisted, "Think of it as part of a down-payment for helping Foxy, while also improving the effectiveness of a local Hero in case you need to chase down any villains, this way you can cut directly across the bay over the water in an emergency, and perhaps get to a scene slightly faster." He said, appealing to her desire to help people.

"I'll give more to the Protectorate and PRT if you agree." He said as a finishing blow, directly tying her acceptance into more stuff for her friend and coworkers, as well as the PRT at large. Naturally, he would do it anyways of course, and he knew that Miss Militia knew that, but given how his power worked, it was better to get the people he was close to used to receiving gifts, and of his current friends and acquaintances, Miss Militia was the most reluctant to receive gifts by far.

"Fine," she agreed slightly exasperatedly, but with a small eye-smile as well, so he took it as a good sign that he hadn't been too pushy.

After he got into the sidecar of her motorcycle and put on a helmet with a radio that would let him easily talk to her over the wind, she said something into her radio, and the forcefield bridge appeared to let them into the city itself, and off they went.

---

Dave was rather fascinated to see how incredibly well-received Miss Militia's motorcycle was among civilians as they drove through Brockton Bay.

Apparently, Brockton natives could tell based on how fast, or in this case slow, Miss Militia was going (though Miss Militia also said when he asked that she had a siren as well that she used when she was on her way to a fight or a crime scene), that there was no urgent matters or terrible circumstances that led to her being on her motorcycle and driving through the city.

Thus, the Brockton natives felt comfortable waving and occasionally cheering or shouting a comment of gratitude for her hard work when her motorcycle passed, and tourists seemed to take their cue from the locals and took lots of pictures.

"Huh," Dave said suddenly as they began to leave the city. "I guess those pictures will probably be considered my official cape debut."

"Haven't you already been doing hospital work though?" Miss Militia asked curiously.

"Yes, but at first I did those in my Scyther form to develop the power you suggested to make attacks nonlethal—which worked by the way, I can now make it so any attack I make will not kill someone, though it can still injure them. I've only done two hospital visits in this form, which is what I decided to be my standard 'Cape form,' because it looks human and that has a lot of advantages but it also is extraordinarily well camouflaged, and the person it is based off of is thematically fitting for many of my powers." Dave explained.

"Anyways, only two visits in this form means only certain people that have been in the right hospital at the right time in the past few days know I exist, now that a large number of tourists have taken pictures of me, I will be identified for my hospital work within the day, and probably have a wiki page within the week." Dave finished.

"I'm sorry, it didn't even occur to me that you hadn't had a 'proper' cape debut," Miss Militia apologized. "I hope I didn't ruin any plans."

"Nah, you're fine." Dave waved off her concerns. "I didn't have any sort of grand debut plans. With my powers, I am going to get noticed eventually, and while I'm aware PR is one of the most important parts of being a hero—after all, you can hardly save someone that doesn't trust you—I figured Lady Photon's deal with letting the Protectorate help me with my image would cover that while I got started as a hero."

"Oh, well it's good I didn't ruin any plans, I'll talk to the Image department later to see what we can do for giving you a more 'official' debut. You can sign on as a proper Independent Hero too as soon as we get that non-lethality power of yours tested." She gave him a bright eye-smile. Really, those eye-smiles must have been her real superpower, Dave had no idea how she managed to get so much expression out of them.

"By the way," she added, "who is the person you said this was based off of?" She asked curiously.

"Oh, he is a guy called Solid Snake, he is the main character of a video game series from Earth Aleph called 'Metal Gear Solid.'" Dave answered briefly.

"As I said, the camouflage makes this one of my most advantageous forms aside from the smaller ones, and I decided the advantages of 'camo' and 'looking human' were greater than the advantages of 'being small' and 'being cute'. I might make my Pikachu form be a sort of alternate hero persona though, something that can visit sick kids at hospitals and handle low-level crooks and hurt their dignity by beating them up as a tiny adorable mouse based on an Aleph cartoon."

"Hmm," Miss Militia hummed, seemingly still latching onto the idea of Solid Snake. "Do you think the Wards would like to play those Metal Gear Solid games you mentioned? They have game consoles in the Wards lounge, but Clockblocker occasionally complains about a lack of variety in games, particularly games that don't involve Capes in some way."

Dave thought about it. "I don't know the rest of the Wards all that well, but Vista would probably like it. It's got guns and conspiracies and giant robots and cyborgs and terrorists. Vista seems to like more 'adult' and 'mature' stuff, so she'd probably appreciate it. I bet Kid Win would like it because it has lots of things that could inspire him as a Tinker."

Then he shrugged, forgetting that Miss Militia had her eyes on the road and couldn't actually see him shrugging. "But I don't know what sort of games they have already, and I haven't actually played the games myself, given I am only two weeks old in terms of memories and all, plus how busy I've been. I can say Shielder was the one who showed me the series after he recognized who this form was, so apparently he enjoyed it."

"I see, I'll look into it," Miss Militia said. "They need more ways to have fun and be kids, and most of them are too proud or too independent to ask for things in terms of entertainment, so things that will let them enjoy their childhood a little longer are always things I like to be on the lookout for." Miss Militia said, truly proving why PHO labeled her a 'Cape Mom', along with Lady Photon, though notably PHO had not labeled Brandish as a 'Cape Mom'.











Author's Note: So begins the trip to New York. Honestly, I didn't like this chapter too much, Dave kinda came across as a bit of an asshole that wouldn't take a no or a 'let me think about it' at face value from a prospective romantic partner.

Note from just before posting: Having reread this chapter now, I like this current version a lot better, so I must have done a good job on my early editing to remove the pushy asshole-ness, which is good because being a pushy asshole is out of character for Dave. Back to original author's note after this sentence.

Now, as much as I love Miss Militia, unless a whole bunch of readers are desperately shipping her with Dave, I'm probably going to let up on the jokes from her being Dave's soul mate from the Romantic role.

Honestly, if Dave had actually looked like Solid Snake, and was anywhere from mid-20s to mid-40s in age, he and Miss Militia probably would have genuinely started dating by now. It wouldn't have gone anywhere very quickly, as Miss Militia strikes me as the type to be rather slow and steady in her relationships, since she is a rather rational person who isn't led by her emotions very easily.

Note: There was more here, but I'm moving it to the Behind the Scenes 3 because it got rather long and somewhat off-topic. If you are interested in the romance stuff and want to know my plans there, check that out when it comes out.

 

[Phili]

Chapter 49: WELCOME TO NEW YOIK!

January 15, 2010, Friday. New York City.



They were just entering New York when Miss Militia got a call on her radio from the local Protectorate.

"Yes? Oh. Yes, I can help. I understand. I can get there within a couple minutes permitting traffic. Okay, I'm heading there now."

She turned to Dave, who could hear gunshots now and was looking at her curiously. "There's an attack, a cell of the Teeth is trying to enter New York, and we're quite close, though apparently a visiting Independent is also going to help. The Protectorate is on its way anyways, so we just need to delay them."

Dave nodded. "I understand, I'll go fly ahead to avoid traffic, this is the moment that has been calling me!" And jumped out of his sidecar and flew towards the gunshots with his jetpack.

Miss Militia shook her head at the eagerness, but kept driving her motorcycle anyways. "I'm sure it'll be fine, he's powerful and skilled and the Butcher isn't present. What's the worst that could happen?"

---

Gary Stuart

Gary was a simple man. He went to work at a normal office job in the day, and went home at night to his loving wife and child. He liked watching football and eating hot dogs, and had never once wondered what was actually in a hot dog or thought about the head injuries involved in actually playing football. Really, he was a perfectly standard American.

So, when his boss sent him from Brockton Bay to New York city on a business trip, he had no problem agreeing. After all, going on a business trip to a nearby city was a perfectly normal thing for a business man to do.

So, why…

"AHHAHAHAHAHA!"

Why…

"SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT!"

"Why is New York so weird?" He whimpered in his car, as the 'battle' unfolded in front of him, between a bunch of weird edgy furries and a giant rat.

"I knew they got big, but I thought the New York rat thing was an exaggeration!" He cried out.

The giant rat laughed and shot an automatic gun of some kind at the edgy furries, and just tanked the bullets they fired into it.

"WELCOME TO NEW YOIK!" The rat shouted in an oddly pleasant female voice, but with the strongest New York accent he had ever head, as evidenced by the way it—it? She? It said 'New Yoik' instead of 'New York'.

"I want to go home," he whimpered from beneath the dashboard of his car.

Then, the giant rat made odd sounds as it began jumping around to get closer to the edgy furries. "Isn't that the jump noise from that Aleph game my son likes? The one about the Italian plumber? Didn't he call it Mario or something?" Gary wondered absently as he peeked over the steering wheel to see if it was safe to come out.

Then he saw something that gave him hope.

"Mouse Protector!" Someone nearby shouted.

He had thought Mouse Protector had become an Independent hero in Atlanta or something, but he would take any experienced hero over this insanity.

"That's right!" Mouse Protector cried. "It's me! Protector of mice and rodents of all kinds!"

Oh no. Gary thought with a growing sense of horror.

"You edgy furries are going to stop shooting that rat RIGHT NOW, or else you're gonna get it!" She shouted and waved her sword, confirming his fears.

I think I'm going to have a fear of rats after this. He thought with slight queasiness.

---

Dave finished off the weirdos in bone costumes, apparently called 'the Teeth'.

The woman, who he could identify on sight as a true comrade, had been a little bit hypocritical by calling them furries, but he supposed that was probably part of the humor. He ignored the fact that he literally looked like a giant rat himself.

The last of the unpowered mooks, along with the actual furry, a guy who had turned into some sort of large dog thing and screamed at him before getting shot in the face, were sent groaning on the floor in pain and injury by his 'False False Swipe' AKA 'Swipe' bullets when Mouse Protector arrived.

"Oh," she said with disappointment. "You already got them. You couldn't leave a little for me?" She complained as she sheathed her sword, before bringing it back out suddenly. "No wait, who are you? Are you a friend, or A FOE!?" She shouted dramatically.

"Hi! I'm Trouble!" Dave introduced himself, still in his Boba voice, as he shrank down to a perfectly normal New York sized rat, about the size of a person, albeit still bipedal and reached out a hand to shake.

"Oh, I'm Mouse Protector!" She happily shook his hand.

"I know, I'm a big fan." Dave admitted.

"So, what's your plan for all these bozos?" She asked, subtly keeping an eye on him in case he had actually been a villain that just took exception to the Teeth's presence.

"Oh, I'm just gonna wait for either Miss Militia or the local Protectorate to arrive and take them into custody, then I'll offer to heal them so I don't get… in trouble." He gave her finger guns at the last part, earning him a high five for the joke on his name after Mouse Protector relaxed from hearing her friend was on her way.

"Ooh! You know Millie?" Mouse Protector asked.

"Millie?" Dave asked. "You mean Miss Militia?"

"Yeah," Mouse Protector nodded. "I gave her a bunch of options for affectionate nicknames, and that was the one she objected to least! Millie comes from the Militia part of her name, you see?"

At that point, Miss Militia herself arrived on her motorcycle, and took in the unpowered members of the Teeth, along with the big-time furry Dave still didn't know the name of, all littering the ground with their unconscious bodies.

"MILLIE!" Mouse Protector shouted, before suddenly teleporting over to Miss Militia to give her a hug, trapping her arms against her sides and rubbing their cheeks together affectionately.

"Ow, Mouse Protector stop!" Miss Militia said. "Your helmet's ear keep hitting my head when you do that." She complained. "And I told you not to call me Milllie!" She added on. "It sounds too much like a real name; someone could get hurt if villains assume that is my actual name and go looking for people with that name to try to get to me."

"Aww, you're still as serious and paranoid as ever!" Mouse Protector nearly cooed at seeing how little her friend had changed. "Nobody is that stupid."

"It clearly shows that you haven't been to Brockton Bay." Miss Militia grumbled. "Otherwise, you would not be able to say that with a straight face."

Dave nodded seriously. "I once got challenged to a stupid contest in Brockton Bay." He said, before sadly continuing. "If you count the entire organization of the guy who challenged me, I lost."

"What organization was that?" Mouse Protectorate asked curiously.

"The Protectorate." Dave answered, making Miss Militia wince, while her friend burst out laughing, before teleporting to his side.

"You see my fellow rodent friend," she put an arm around his shoulder. "There's a reason why I left the Protectorate, and it ain't cause of how smart they are." She winked at him cheekily.

"They didn't give their Shaker 9 anything to defend herself with." He told her, "Not even a stick, let alone a taser, pepper spray, or a foam gun."

"They didn't change that huh?" She asked rhetorically. "Yeah, they could get weird about that in my day too. If something wasn't part of your image, you better believe you weren't gonna get your hands on it." She shook her head.

When Dave was about to correct her on the extent of his grievance with the whole scenario, Miss Militia coughed to interrupt. "Ahem, perhaps we should take these people to the PRT so we can get to your testing on time?" She suggested.

Dave looked around with confusion. "I thought we were waiting for the PRT though? We can't exactly pile them all onto your motorcycle. Unless you wanted to take the airboat, were fine with me tying them on so they all dragged along behind us, and changed your mind about wanting to be in my lap of course."

Moues Protector let out a noise of interest at this information.

"Oh? Riding in her lap? Is that why you and Chevy didn't work out? Do tell." She said, teleporting and leaning against Miss Militia, looking up at her, eagerly waiting for the juicy gossip.

"There was no riding in laps." Miss Militia answered primly. "I was referring to the PRT vans over there." She pointed, and sure enough, they were rolling up as she spoke, Dave just hadn't been able to actually see them from his angle.

"Oh, okay. I don't really know the procedure for this kind of thing, so I'll follow your lead." Dave happily deferred to the two more experienced women.

"I too, don't really know the procedure for this sort of thing!" Mouse Protector happily said. "So it's going to brie all up to you to do the work Millie!"

"Breeh?" Dave began looking around for a snazzily dressed bipedal sheep, possibly with the face of a dolphin.

"She likes cheese puns." Miss Militia explained shortly.

"Oh, so I shouldn't turn into Breeh?" Dave asked for clarification. "Because I found Shaun the sheep, but I haven't found the other sheep yet, and Dio would just be asking for trouble in this day and age."

"Oh, so you are a Changer!" Mouse Protector said. "I thought so, but I didn't want to be rude. In this case, you're fine just the way you are!" She teleported over to Dave and gave him a big hug. "I finally have a giant rat friend and I'm never letting go!" She said, looking up at him from where she was hugging him.

From this close, it was even more obvious just how short Mouse Protector was. It was enough to make one wonder if she decided on the 'mouse' theme because of her height. The few clips of episodes of Mouse Protector and the Protectorate Pals he had seen online didn't really show how short she really was, which was amusing considering how 'larger than life' she was as one of the more famous Capes in the country due to her TV show.

"So!" Mouse Protector teleported over to Miss Militia, appearing in a piggyback position on Miss Militia's back. "You and Armsy didn't work out I take it? I thought with the way you talked about him that you were going to ask him out any day."

"I never considered asking Armsmaster out." Miss Militia answered with a sigh. "I talk about him with respect, because I respect him, you should consider trying it sometime." She said with a side eye towards the shorter woman on her back.

"So it wasn't due to any… tendencies?" Mouse Protector asked curiously, moving her face even closer to Miss Militia's and showing she truly had never heard of a strange thing like personal space.

"What?" Miss Militia asked with confusion. "I—no? What are you talking about?"

"Actually," Dave interrupted, getting a grateful look from Miss Militia. "Armsmaster has ascended beyond us mere mortals and has achieved the ultimate feat."

Mouse Protector looked over with interest, and moved her head on top of Miss Militia's so she could rest her jaw on Miss Militia's hair.

"He obtained the legendary 'Canadian girlfriend,'" Dave said dramatically. "It's even more impressive when one considers that Canada is actually a myth, making him someone that has attained a real-life mythical girlfriend."

"Wow!" Mouse Protector had stars in her eyes at the news. "I thought he was secretly a robot! He got a special lady-friend from the Land Beyond?!"

Dave nodded solemnly. "Yes, the only people that haven't realized yet that they are dating are the two in question." He told her, making her burst out in laughter.

"That, I can believe easily." She nodded, before holding her jaw after it collided with Miss Militia's head when she made the nodding motion. "Ow. You didn't see that! I'm full of dignity and stuff!"

Dave saluted loyally to the protector of his fellow rodents, just as the local PRT agents made their way through the traffic and wrecked pieces of rubble the giant dog-thing had made before Dave arrived.

"Thank you for your help." One of the agents said to Miss Militia, before nodding to Mouse Protector in recognition.

"If you could come with us," a different agent said while some of the others began to load the Teeth mooks and animal-dude into the vans and spray them with containment foam, "then we can debrief at the PRT and take you over to the Protectorate right afterwards."

Miss Militia nodded. "I'll take my motorcycle and Trouble will be in the sidecar, we'll be right behind you. I'm sure Mouse Protector can make her own way there."

The agent nodded, while Mouse Protector at first gave a betrayed look, then a mischievous smile came over her face and she saluted.

Miss Militia handled a few more details with the agent, like what the heck was wrong with the Teeth mooks that they weren't responding but were somehow alive despite their wounds (she simply said it was due to a power, and the rest would need to be in the debrief), then turned around to her motorcycle and her face fell flat.

"Come on, we're waiting!" Mouse Protector said from her spot in Dave's lap in the sidecar. "Chop chop! You're keeping the nice agents waiting."

"Was chop chop a cheese pun?" Dave asked. "Like, chopping cheese to make bigger pieces than slices would be?"

"Eh," Mouse Protector wiggled her hand as Miss Militia made her way back to her motorcycle with a sigh. "A little. It's not my best work, but I try to make my puns pretty understandable, they're no gouda if hearing them just confuses people instead of making them laugh, smile or groan, you know? So sometimes, I slip in little ones like those where they're not really puns, but they aren't the word choice I would normally use…" she began to lecture Dave on the subtle art of puns and communication as Miss Militia began driving her motorcycle behind the PRT vans.

As much as the Mouse-Protector-on-Trouble's lap thing irked her for safety reasons, Miss Militia knew her friends would both be able to easily handle a crash, and complaining about it would just make Mouse Protector lean into the subject even more. Though, she was looking forward to seeing the results of her little reverse-prank on her friend, when Trouble finally revealed he was male after Mouse Protector's assumptions due to his rat form's voice. She smiled slightly at the thought of Mouse Protector's expression when that happened.







Author's Note: And thus, we arrive in New York. I've been waiting to reenact that bit of that episode since the story started. If you didn't catch it, it was the opening of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YWZ4HaWDXw&list=PL3XZNMGhpynMPHPVeoaQZZn_LT_DYbgho&index=57 The voice that Gary heard was Boba's because as far as Dave is concerned all rats sound like Boba, so that is what his voice-imitation power the Protectorate testers discovered latches onto when he uses that skin. He can still talk in his normal voice of course though.

Yes, Dave changed to Boba's rat skin because it was New York, then ate the Mario Mushroom so he could tank the bullets of the Teeth while preventing them from going after civilians by being a large and loud distraction that could hurt them. It was actually a tactically thought-out move, despite what Gary thinks.

Gary Stuart's name is based on a mix of Gary as in Gary's Mod and Gary as in Gary Stu, the fanfiction trope, though he has no real relevance or relation to either. We will see more of him eventually, he is sort of the ultimate straight-man background character (straight man as in the comedy thing, though I suppose he is an adult male human that is heterosexual as well). Poor guy visits New York for the first time from his home in Brockton, and now thinks Brockton is actually calm in comparison because he's certainly never seen any rats that large at home.

Also, we see someone I'm sure a few of you have been excited to see, though I don't know how many of you were expecting it, Mouse Protector! For those wondering how she teleported to Dave during their conversation, she marked him when they shook hands; it was part of why she shook hands with him even though she wasn't certain he was heroic yet, so that she could mark him for teleportation.

I couldn't find out where she was located before the whole Murder Rat thing, so I made it so Gary thought but wasn't certain that it was Atlanta. If anyone actually knows, or has a good reasoning for why she would have set up in a specific place, let me know and I'll make that canon for this story! Otherwise, I'll probably look up large cities in Wisconsin for where she actually went (because Wisconsin is the cheese state if anyone isn't aware. Cheese and beer are the things Wisconsin is known for. Wikipedia for Wisconsin Cheese is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_cheese But to give you an idea if you don't want to look into the whole thing, in 2024, Wisconsin alone was responsible for 25.2% of the USA's entire cheese production). First person to tell me her canon location (after she became an Independent hero), or if there was none, then whoever gives the best argument for why she should be based in a certain place gets a Burrito Point.

Also, note that at this point, Mouse Protector believes Dave is female because he has been using Boba's voice and remained in rat form, and Trouble is a gender-ambiguous name. So now, she thinks that the reason Miss Militia and Chevalier (who she called Chevy) stopped dating is because Miss Militia was a lesbian.

Now, you may be wondering, 'Why didn't the New York Protectorate handle the Teeth themselves? They don't have a staff problem like Brockton Bay, they can certainly handle the Teeth, why even bother telling Miss Militia?"

Well, the Protectorate could and would have handled it, but they knew Miss Militia was entering the city, and they wanted the Teeth down, contained, or distracted as fast as possible, because the Teeth will happily kill civilians just for fun, so if Miss Militia happened to be closer to the Teeth than any of their own people and sending her first could prevent even a single civilian death by have called her in, they would take that as a win. The PRT and Protectorate staff at New York are consistently good people, unlike Brockton where they are filled with moles and plants from the various gangs; so they were happy to take a small hit to their city pride by asking an 'outsider' for help if it let them save people. It helped that Miss Militia was an inaugural Ward who was under Legend at one point though.

 

[BlueCladOne]

It begins...

Or maybe I should say "continues", because I'm not sure you can actually double the chaos, only spread it.

Of course, I'd love to be proven wrong.

 

[MythicalFanficGod]

Thanks for the chapter~

After checking out that intro on YouTube, I can definitely see the resemblence to what you did here, and it really puts into perspective what the 'giant bipedal rat' looked like, and makes the scene all the more entertaining.

I'm really liking Rat-Dave and Mouse Protector's interactions, I get the feeling this won't be the last time they team up to create all sorts of 'Trouble', for the local gangs and PRT alike.

 

[Phili]

Chapter 50: A Nice Friendly Debrief.

January 15, 2010, Friday. New York City, PRT Headquarters.



The New York PRT Headquarters was rather nice all things considered. It was clean, the air was filtered to eliminate the distinct New York smell (which was not a pleasant smell), there was some calming music in the lobby, plenty of people manning the various desks and answering phone calls, there were guards at regular points throughout the building, and the coffee machine was both fantastic and looked absurdly expensive.

There was more to it of course, but even the garage they had followed the vans into was one of multiple, and had a large number of other vans, as well as multiple other vehicles for a variety of situations. The various troopers and staff members didn't even blink an eye at Dave's rat form, let alone harass any of them.

The whole thing made a rather distinct contrast to Crystal's stories of the Brockton Bay PRT Headquarters. Honestly, this place was even nicer than the Protectorate Headquarters, and that was a superhero base with a forcefield!

Dave, Miss Militia, and Mouse Protector made their way to a rather nice meeting room, where one of the agents that had arrived on the scene, along with a man in a labcoat and a woman in a suit, were just entering when they arrived.

"Ah, please," the woman waved them in ahead of her.

"So," the woman said as they sat down and she pulled out a laptop, "I'm Christine Reyes, I'll be heading this debrief."

"You are all free to take some of the coffee from over there," she pointed to the back of the room where there was a coffee machine with sugar, cinnamon, cream packets, and a small refrigerator next to it. "I'll be recording this as usual, mainly for analysis purposes, nothing unusual, standard procedure, I'm sure this won't take long and we can all be on our way, though let me know if you need anything while we are still here." She said with a friendly smile.

The man in the labcoat spoke next. "I'm Doctor Maurice Hughes, I'm here for whatever is wrong with the Teeth members you brought in." He gave them each a short nod.

Finally, the trooper-agent-guy-dude spoke. "I'm Agent Kyle Hill; I'm here as the leader of the deployed agents on the scene."

"So, are we all ready to get started?" Chrstine asked, to nods all around. "Great."

"So, to begin with, you are the Form G-6 hero Trouble correct?" She asked Dave.

Dave gave a helpless look of puppy-rat eyes to Miss Militia, who sighed and stepped in. "Yes, that is correct, Trouble is marked as a hero according to Form G-6, as 'not yet an Independent but expected to be pending further circumstances'."

Christine nodded in understanding, "I get it, those forms and the weirder designations can be confusing and easily forgettable. Would you mind changing to your 'standard hero form' please? It's part of the standard procedure with Changers and Breakers." She said apologetically.

Dave shrugged, transformed from a large rat (really, a Rodent Of Unusual Size, or ROUS) into Solid Snake, and said "Sure," in his normal voice, no longer sounding like Boba with a New York accent.

Mouse Protector screamed.

"Huh, I don't normally get that reaction to this form, that's usually reserved for some of the other ones." Dave said as he looked down at himself.

"You're a MAN!" Mouse Protector said, pointing her finger dramatically at Dave.

"I mean, I like to think so?" Dave said confusedly.

"But, but, you can't be a man!" Mouse Protector immediately (metaphorically) shoved her entire foot so deep into her mouth she would be gagging if it wasn't a metaphor.

"Excuse me?" Miss Militia said with a faux-offended tone. The three PRT staff members were also shooting Mouse Protector unfriendly looks at that comment. Meanwhile Dave looked at his crotch and chest with a confused expression, wondering what could have led Mouse Protector to that conclusion.

"YOU!" Mouse Protector changed her pointing from Dave to Miss Militia. "YOU KNEW EXACTLY WHAT WAS HAPPENING!"

"I did," Miss Militia said, with a small amount of smugness, but nowhere approaching Lisa levels.

"But, but," Mouse Protector seemed to notice the angry looks from the PRT staff members at this point. "OH, I didn't mean it that way, calm down. You heard the rat form's voice! I had just gotten attached to the idea that Millie here didn't like my teasing about her and Chevy back in the Wards days because she was a lesbian the whole time, and I was going to apologize for making her uncomfortable!"

That seemed to get a sheepish expression from all three staff members, who probably felt slightly guilty about jumping to conclusions for one of the inaugural Wards, who famously worked under Legend.

"Honestly," Mouse Protector huffed indignantly. "I'm a shipper, not a monster. I had never heard of Trouble before, the rat form had no visible gender and had a female voice, what was I supposed to think?" She complained. "Especially when someone," she glared at Miss Militia, "deliberately let me wallow in ignorance!" She said with her eyes beginning to tear up slightly.

Just as Miss Militia was beginning to feel bad for her little trick, Mouse Protector teleported over to her and hugged her. "I'm so proud of you!" Mouse Protector wailed dramatically as she gripped onto Miss Militia's shirt. "I didn't think you had it in you!" Mouse Protector wiped a crocodile tear from the corner of her eye.

"Ahem," Christine's originally sheepish look straightened out as she remembered just what Mouse Protector was known for and realized she had never been offended in the first place. "If we can get back to the topic at hand?"

Thus, the debriefing got started in a more official capacity.

---

After Miss Militia and Agent Kyle Hill gave their reports on the start, it was Dave's turn.

"So, I heard Miss Militia's conversation about the Teeth and flew with my Jetpack to follow the sound of gunshots. Then, I found the weird bone-costume people I assumed were Teeth fighting some guy that summoned things that looked like dominoes. I didn't know who he was, but I figured he might be a local hero or a rogue, and even if he was a villain he probably wasn't as big of a problem as the Teeth, so I shouted out a warning to him that I was incoming." Dave began.

"And how did he fight?" Christine asked.

"Well, he summoned floating domino-things that were about as tall as he was, and seemed to telekinetically control them, and used them to block things like bullets and knock around the Teeth mooks." Dave answered. "I didn't get to see much because he ran away after I drew the Teeth's attention, and I let him because I had no idea who he was."

"It was almost certainly the not-so-creatively-named Domino, who is a villainous Cape, a member of the local branch of the Elite. He's not a huge problem because the local branch of the Elite is the least violent one." Christine said. "It would have been nice to have captured him, but given you had no reasonable way of even knowing he existed beforehand, it's perfectly understandable you didn't try to capture him. He was less important than the Teeth anyways. Do go on."

"Well, he seemed a bit startled by my presence and escaped while the Teeth were distracted by me; he summoned one of his Domino things and jumped on it and flew away on it after making a few others to surround himself with in a sort-of box." Dave continued his recounting.

"Then, I decided I should probably soak up the attention of the Teeth, so I ate a mushroom to grow giant and let out some dramatic lines and laughter to grab and keep their attention while being able to tank all their bullets." Dave said.

"Then, I just sort-of shot them all with my non-lethality power on. By the way doctor, that power will be how they are alive. They can still be healed, and I don't mind doing so if you have a way to restrain them." He continued.

"Hmm," Christine said, "I'll need to take another look at your file, and update it if needed, I wasn't aware of a 'non-lethality power.'" Then she muttered under her breath "Or a mushroom-induced gigantism power."

"That was why Trouble was registered the way he was." Miss Militia gave her input. "He was going to register as an Independent hero after he manifested better non-lethal measures than before, which is why we went with the G-6 form; the waiting for the manifestation of better non-lethal measures was the 'pending further circumstances' part."

"Right," Christine nodded, "and how did you handle Animos?"

"Is that the powered guy that turned into the big dog-thing?" Dave asked, to which Christine simply nodded.

"I just shot him? I mean, granted, I shot him a lot, but his dog-thing form really wasn't that durable." Dave said.

"Did you somehow dodge his sonic screams?" Agent Kyle asked after it was clear Dave had finished his story.

"Those things? I mean no, but they didn't exactly do a lot of damage to me either. Really, they were more annoying than anything else." Dave answered.

"Animos's screams are a Trump effect, and disable the powers of Parahumans they hit." Christine said plainly before they could end up talking in circles around each other.

"Oh, huh. Neat I suppose." Dave said, before noticing everyone looking at him. "What?"

"We wanted to know how you retained your powers, assuming you didn't shrink back to normal size and lose your changer ability and guns while you were hit of course." Christine said.

"Oh, no, I have no idea why or how they didn't affect me." Dave said happily. "I suppose I have been told I have some resistance to certain Parahuman powers before, but that was mostly Striker and Master effects." Dave added after a moment with a shrug.

"Yes, I see in your file you're here for comprehensive potential Master resistance testing. Some capes like Alexandria are resistant to a large chunk of Master effects, though I'm not aware of any that are resistant to all Master effects, unless of course Eidolon picked a suite of Master-resistance powers or something." Christine said after looking at her laptop for a moment.

"I'm adding a note to your file for now that says you may have a resistance to Strikers and some Trump effects, but we would need more time to set up a full set of tests for Trump or Striker effects. I'm also adding a note to your Master-resistance testing to test for possible resistance to Sleeper. Any possible countermeasures are something we try to look into, and while it's hard to know for certain without actually exposing someone to his storm, we do have some equipment we can use to get an idea of whether you might be able to resist it." Christine finished as she types out some things on her laptop.

"Now, where were we?" She asked.

Dave shrugged. "That was about it really, I shot Animos and the unpowered mooks a bunch while I was able to tank their attacks, then after they were unconscious from their injuries, Mouse Protector showed up, followed shortly by Miss Militia then the PRT agents."

"Great," Christine nodded. "Then, we'll just go over a little bit more, then in about five minutes, you'll be free to go with Doctor Hughes to heal up the Teeth after we restrain them, then we'll handle them from there, Animos specifically will be going to the Birdcage."

"What are you going to do when Animo escapes on the way there though?" Dave asked with interest.

"What?" Christine was confused. "Do you know something about a pending attack?"

"No, but I've looked into it since I became a hero, and in Brockton Bay, Hookwolf alone has escaped two separate Birdcage transports. I think I read something about him originally being from New York City actually. Anyways, it's very well known that sending someone to the birdcage just results in them being broken out by their friends before they even get halfway there." Dave answered.

Christine, Kyle, and Maurice all looked disturbed upon hearing this, and turned to each other in confusion, before turning to Miss Militia for an explanation.

"Well, it is true Hookwolf has been successfully captured twice and been broken out of his Birdcage transport both times, but it isn't as if we are totally helpless in Brockton." Miss Militia looked slightly embarrassed by the subject. "We did put away Marquis and kick out the Teeth and the Nine after all. It's just that Marquis didn't have any other Capes in his organization, and the PRT is understaffed and filled with moles and security leaks because they can't get any funding or resources, and the Protectorate is straight up outnumbered by the Empire 88, the local Nazis that Hookwolf is a part of."

"Actually," Miss Militia added thoughtfully, "the Nazis make Brockton Bay probably the only place in the United States post-legend where Mouse Protector's earlier implications could have actually gotten someone killed. Well, that kind of thing has gotten people killed there, but that just proves my point." Mouse Protector looked rather guilty upon hearing this information.

Christine looked rather frazzled at all this unexpected information. "So, he was just making an attempt at dark humor with the Birdcage thing?" She asked.

"No," Dave clarified, "I genuinely didn't know Birdcage transports ever actually got to their destinations while other members of the organization the Birdcage-bound were active. I assume based on the context of our conversation that this isn't the case but…" he shrugged. "I haven't had much time to research things outside the city, so I've only learned about the local norms so far because of, you know." He tapped the side of his head, getting an understanding nod from Christine at the reminder his file stated he had amnesia, and confused looks from Agent Kyle and Maurice.

"It's above your clearance level," she told them plainly, making them both sit back in their seats with resigned nods, knowing they wouldn't be satisfying their curiosity. "Well, we got a little sidetracked, but let's finish this up and you can heal the Teeth members and go ahead to your testing, and Mouse Protector, you will be free to do whatever you were planning to do as well."

"Oh, I've got plans." Mouse Protector said, before teleporting into Miss Militia's lap, earning a sigh from the other woman. "I'm following my friend around to catch up!" She said brightly.















Author's Note: This chapter had my most extreme wish-fulfilment and living vicariously through a character in it. Can you guess what it was?

It was Mouse Protector getting the chance to clarify what she meant after shoving her foot in her mouth.

I have a tendency to (metaphorically) shove my foot so far into my mouth, I start deepthroating my knee. Combined with some instinctive politeness and it caused some problems for me in High School, because I would get interrupted by a teacher starting class at unfortunate moments, resulting in little gems like "Nazis are great!" and "Pedophilia is fine!" and a thing I don't think I'm allowed to say on QQ; and then I would get glared at by the teacher if I tried to defend my honor and clarify what I meant before getting cut off at an unfortunate point, because I would be interrupting them when I tried to defend myself.

Of course, if I, like Mouse Protector did, had gotten to finish what I was saying, it would have been things like "Pedophilia is fine between a seventeen and an eighteen-year-old who's birthdays are two days apart, for example. Two days later it would be fine, and two days earlier it would be fine, but people freak out for no reason during that one day when one is under eighteen and the other is over eighteen." And "Nazis are great for philosophy! They are something you can point to whenever someone makes an overly optimistic generalization about humanity or says something about Cultural Relativism being a good thing and you don't want to go into the Aztecs or the Dahomey because whoever you are talking to won't necessarily know what you are talking about."

Other people's wish fulfillment fantasy is a 150-member harem of hotties, mine is getting to finish my sentences and being able to communicate clearly.

Now, for the chapter itself, Animos was a somewhat random pick, though I did choose the Teeth to be the source of the conflict because of their cell system meaning it was possible to encounter only a few at a time, them being active in New York, and them being brutal enough that the PRT would be fine with calling Miss Militia to let her know about the problem.

I didn't actually realize until I was writing that his scream-thing means the PRT is going to notice that Parahuman-canceling Trumps don't work on Dave. Woops? Not really an actual woops, otherwise I would have just taken advantage of the backlog to use the time to rewrite that, it's fine if they find out now. It actually ended up being a rather neat and organic way for the locals (as in Earth Bet Natives) to realize that Dave has that sort of 'Trumped the Trump' effect.

I used a name generator for the first time this chapter to generate names for Christine, Maurice, and Kyle (including their last names). I didn't end up actually using any of the names it gave me, but it was a good launching point for coming up with my own names instead of just mindlessly blanking as I had been when I first realized I needed three original names.

The bit where they started talking about Brockton just sort of appeared out of nowhere for me. I thought about cutting it, but it felt unnatural to cut something that came about as organically as it did, even if I'm not too happy with the contents of that part of the conversation itself. That bit of conversation won't do much, if anything, for a long time, but it could plant the seeds for some things in the future. All the characters at that part of the conversation are thinking a lot more than what they are saying, except for Dave who genuinely didn't realize the Birdcage sentencing wasn't just a formality because his research said it hadn't been successfully done in the Bay since Marquis's era.

 

[BlueCladOne]

Yeah... I really hate that most people no longer see interrupting people as horribly rude like they used to. I thought it was annoying to wait when I was a kid, but it now seems that everyone has the maturity of kid me. Which is "part of what you said sounds wrong, and must be corrected immediately."

 

[Phili]

Chapter 51: Let The Testing, BEGIN!

January 15, 2010, Friday. New York City, Protectorate Headquarters, a few blocks away from the PRT Headquarters.



After departing the PRT headquarters, Dave, Miss Militia, and Mouse Protector arrived at the Protectorate Headquarters a few blocks away shortly after, where they were greeted by a Cape.

"Hi!" She greeted, "I'm Prism, it's good to meet you all." She said. She was a tall, muscular, blonde woman, probably about Dave's age, wearing a skintight costume decorated with some crystals and a couple of rainbow patterns.

Dave perked up at hearing that. "Oh, Prism you say?" He asked. "I have a friend named Crystal, also known as the public Cape Laserdream, is there any connection or interesting power interactions there?" He asked curiously.

"Ah, no, I'm afraid not," Prism said. "Despite the name, my power doesn't have anything to do with glass or light, I can make clones of myself and fuse with them to get a power boost. I have heard of her though," she added when she saw Dave's disappointment.

"Bunter, one of our local Protectorate heroes, is a 'drinking buddy' with Flashbang, and he mentions the other members of New Wave enough that I am somewhat familiar with all of them by osmosis." She explained. "Though, I hadn't ever made the mental connection between 'Prism' and 'Crystal,' or 'Prism' and 'Laserdream.'" She admitted.

"Ah, fair enough." He said. "So, do you know how the testing stuff works?" He asked upon seeing Miss Militia and Mouse Protector go off to a corner to catch up some more.

"Not really, I'm neither a Tinker nor a Thinker, so it's a bit beyond me," Prism said humbly. "But, I can set up some of it while we wait for Dragon to arrive. She should be here any minute, barring unforeseen circumstances of course. We'll be using a testing room with roof access so she can land one of her larger suits directly into the room. We can do most of the testing ourselves, but she is bringing some extra testing equipment with her to be more in-depth since she was coming anyways, so she sent a message ahead that she is bringing a larger suit to carry all the extra equipment."

With that said, she began to lead the way to an elevator, Dave following closely behind her to not get lost in the rather massive building, and Miss Militia and Mouse Protector ambling behind, presumably familiar with the building already from their Ward days.

The elevator, which was both surprisingly big and surprisingly fancy, took them up to the highest level (aside from the roof), and let them out into a hallway, which Prism led them down to a room with 'Testing and Analysis' in large letters marked on a sign that hung on the door. Presumably another sign saying something else would be hung on the door when and if the room was being used for something else.

Prism swiped a key card in the card reader next to the door, which then beeped and unlocked the door, and she let them all in.

It was a large room with a high ceiling, and lots of fancy equipment and machines scattered throughout it, with a large open patch in the middle of the room and several chairs and tables off to the side where most of the machines were located. Notably, all of the machines were on wheels, indicating this room probably wasn't their permanent home.

"So, while we wait for Dragon, I am versed well enough in some of these to get you started on the testing." Prism said before pressing some buttons on one of the machines. "While this one is warming up, I need Mouse Protector and Miss Militia to sign these forms as witnesses."

Mouse Protector groaned. "Ugh, this is another reason I left." She complained. "This unrelenting obsession the government has with paperwork." She said before looking at what had been handed to her.

"Blah blah blah, yada yada, wait, this is Master-resistance testing?" She focused on that part, making Miss Militia look at her confusedly.

"Yes?" Miss Militia said. "We mentioned it at the debrief at the PRT that Trouble was brought here because we didn't have the equipment for Master-Resistance testing, and he didn't want to go all the way to Canada for the Guild to test him."

"Oh, so that means…" Mouse Protector trailed off, "Hey newbie, you planning on going to the Endbringer Fights?" She asked.

Dave gave her a confused look. "I mean, yes? I'm immortal, I come back to life after I die with full continuity of consciousness. There isn't really any reason for me not to go. I don't have much to contribute yet in terms of offense, but I can feel that I've got some things I can look into for that, and I've got three methods of healing already, along with a few other things that make me quite good at things like Search and Rescue, and my immortality means I can be a decent distraction at a critical moment if something is worth potentially losing ten minutes of me on Search and Rescue."

He shrugged. He wasn't exactly sure how the Simurgh's precognition worked, or if it was able to communicate whatever it saw to the other two Endbringers, but he figured it was better to not mention all the things he had available before his first Endbringer fight just in case. He had quite a few plans after all, though he hadn't thought of anything with what he currently had available that was likely to actually hurt an Endbringer.

"Fine, this kind of testing needs three witness signatures because of it being… you know, Master testing right?" Mouse Protector asked as she started filling out her form. "It's been a while since I had to do one of these. So, who's the third witness? And remind me what this 'Standby Actor' thing is?"

When Prism looked at her with disappointment, Mouse Protector huffed. "It's been almost a decade since I did one of these things, give me a break, sheesh."

"I am the third witness," Prism clarified, holding up her own form she had already filled out. "Dragon is the primary test-giver and can't sign as a witness, but I'm only an 'assistant' as far as the paperwork is concerned, so I can both help out with the testing and sign as a witness. The 'Standby Actor' is just a powerful enough Parahuman that is, as the name suggests, 'Standing By, in case they need to Act.' That meaning, if something goes wrong with the testing, it will be the duty of the Standby Actors to handle the situation, whatever that may be. In this case, all three of us are Standby Actors as well as witnesses. With Dragon being the one administering it, it is largely a formality, but you never know when there is going to be a weird power interaction that warrants extra Capes to handle a situation."

"Oh, right right, yeah I remember now." Mouse Protector waved off further explanation. "You don't need to impress me girlie, I quit the Protectorate, and if you're in charge of this, then Legend clearly intends to put you in charge of something, maybe a future leader of a Protectorate location or something." Mouse Protector offered a compliment, making Prism perk up.

"You really think so?" Prism asked, somewhat shyly, a little of her formal and official façade breaking down from a compliment from one of the inaugural Wards.

Mouse Protector nodded. "Sure, you're being groomed, if you will, for a higher position." She said, teleporting a comb into her hand and holding it up. "Eh? Eh?" She wiggled the comb expectantly, hoping for either a laugh or a groan at the pun.

Miss Militia knew exactly how to handle her friend. "Just ignore the comb pun thing," she told Prism. "I'm sure you're doing fine, and her original compliment was sincere, it wasn't just set up for the comb thing, she only thought of the comb-groom connection after she finished her first compliment."

"Millie!" Mouse Protector whined. "Don't reveal all my secrets to the little one!"

Miss Militia raised an eyebrow at that. "You, are calling her 'the little one'?" She asked doubtfully.

"Yup yup," Mouse Protector held her conversational ground, "she's a downright midget compared to me! See?" She teleported on top of Prism's shoulders.

"I'm like five feet taller than her!" Mouse Protector claimed.

Prism robotically turned her head up. "I have never been so glad a costume used pants instead of a skirt." She deadpanned.

"Oh?" Mouse Protector said slyly, deftly using her power-granted balance to balance on a single foot on Prism's shoulder to bring her face down closer to Prism's and asked "Then why did you look up so eagerly?"

"Morbid curiosity." Prism said, still deadpanning.

Mouse Protector snickered, "Okay, that one was pretty good. You can take a little teasing, you have steady enough nerves not to panic when I teleported onto your shoulders," Mouse Protector teleported over to a chair near Miss Militia, already in a sitting position. "You have my cheesewheel of approval if anyone asks for it." Mouse Protector said, leaning back and folding her hands behind her head.

"I'm sorry about her." Miss Militia apologized on behalf of her friend. "She really can be a bit much, but she does mostly mean well. Even when she's being an annoying pain in the neck, she doesn't mean badly."

"Hey! I resemble that remark!" Mouse Protector complained, before looking up. "Ooh, ceiling's opening! Neat!"

And indeed, the ceiling was opening, and everyone looked up to watch. Even Dave, who had been left in the corner with the first testing machine hooked up to him so he couldn't leave to join the conversation craned his neck up to see.

The ceiling split down the middle, with each half retracting into the side, fulling opening after about thirty seconds, only for a giant quadrupedal suit, well over 14 feet long, to slowly fly down through where the ceiling used to be to touch down in the middle of the floor. It was notably carrying a great many large metal containers that it was handling rather carefully.

"Well, there's Dragon." Mouse Protector said irreverently.

"Indeed," came Dragon's rather gentle voice. "I am here. I'm sorry it took so long, there was an issue I had to deal with on the way here."

"No worries!" Dave called out from his corner. "I've just been chilling and the ladies have been chatting."

"I see you've already gotten hooked up to the first one. Let me just set these down and get ready." Dragon said in response.

After the massive suit unloaded the metal containers it had been holding, it went still for a moment, before opening up, and an eight-foot tall, distinctly female-looking suit stepped out from the larger one.

Mouse Protector looked at it and drooled slightly before wolf-whistling. "Step on me mommy." She said without a hint of shame.

"Wha—excuse me?" Dragon's confused voice came through.

"Oh! If that's an option, me too please!" Dave said helpfully from his corner. He had seen something about this on the internet the other day while he was looking into Narwhal; as someone known to the public as one of Narwhal's closest friends, Dragon could probably help him figure out what the deal with that was right?

"What!?" Dragon's suit looked down at itself then back up at the four people staring at it. "What?" She repeated.

Mouse Protector strutted over to the suit, and placed a single finger over where the suit's belly button would be, before looking up at the 'face' of the suit that was nearly three feet taller than her, though the sizable 'breasts' got slightly in the way. "I said," she repeated. "Step. On. Me. Mommy." Mouse Protector said with an emphasis on each word, before smiling. "Please." She added with a self-satisfied nod.









Author's Note: Here we are, what we actually came to New York for. For those unaware, Prism and Bunter are both canon characters because I don't want to make up too many original Capes, though I will probably have to eventually. Domino, the Elite guy mentioned in the last chapter was an Original Character, who I based somewhat on Rune's powers, though naturally they both have their advantages and disadvantages in reality. (For example Domino just has to rely on his projections, but Rune can use any materials she gets her hands on, so if she worked with a Tinker who could make really strong materials, she could significantly increase her battle capabilities)

If you missed it, Prism's wiki page is here: https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Prism

Bunter is mentioned here: https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/New_York#The_Protectorate at the bottom of that list, but he doesn't have his own wiki page (I only even know his gender because of the citation: https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/New_York#cite_note-44 )

Now, I'm sure some of you have noticed that Dave hasn't used everything he has available to him so far, and I hope the bit about Endbringers explained that a bit. Dave is deliberately keeping a lot of things in reserve for a variety of reasons, that being one of them. If he doesn't use something, it doesn't mean I just forgot about it! (It could very well actually mean that though, if Dave has an ability or item and you want to see more of it, or think I might have forgotten about it, say so in a comment in case I actually did forget.)

Now, we got a bit more of Mouse Protector's shenanigans here. I tried to show that she is an experienced hero, who was one of the inaugural Wards, and gets a lot of respect for that and her capabilities; but also that she did decide to leave the Protectorate and go her own way to be an Independent hero, and that she can be considered annoying by even her allies sometimes. I think of her a bit like someone with heavy ADHD, who leans into it and doesn't take any medication for it, which leads to a bit of impulsiveness because she has ideas and might decide to do or say things before she can actually think them through, sometimes annoying or offending people unintentionally.

She also, according to her wiki page, was known for her sometimes rather vulgar remarks when she was a Ward. Now logically, this is over 10 years after she was a Ward, so I didn't lean too heavily on that, but I tried to convey that sort of tone while indicating she has chilled out a little bit.

 

[BlueCladOne]

It makes sense that she's decided that lame jokes land better without egregious profanity while still being generally irreverent.

 

[Phili]

Chapter 52: What Do You Call It When the Butterfly Effect Happens, But The Butterfly In Question Is Fucking Mothra?

January 15, 2010, Friday. New York City, Protectorate Headquarters.



After Mouse Protector was dragged from the room by an irate Miss Militia, the testing itself began. Dragon seemed remarkably keen to ignore everything that had just happened, though she did whisper to Prism to ask if her suit really conveyed that sort of feeling, and demonstrated the utility of it by popping open one of the 'breasts' to show the analysis equipment contained within, and explained that she had just put a bunch of equipment in the places where breasts would be in order to give the suit a more human feel, which had benefits like calming down panicked civilians.

Prism, who was also a remarkably tall and muscular attractive woman, just like Dragon's suit appeared to be, stated that she thought it was fine, and that it was probably Mouse Protector being Mouse Protector.

"Ahem." Dragon coughed. "We can't do some of the testing until the other two get back so we have all three 'Standby Actors' present, but we can do this one." She said, indicating the machine Dave was already hooked up to.

She looked over that machine, before giving a nod of approval to Prism for setting everything up properly—who preened slightly at the praise from the legendary Dragon—and pressed a button to turn it on.

"This one is just getting as much of your baseline as we can before we do the other ones. The other tests will involve various Tinkertech made specifically for this type of Master-Resistance testing, to –as you might guess—test your resistance to various Master effects. It covers a variety of emotion-manipulation, hypnotism, pheromones, nerve control, sensory control, direct body puppeteering, etc. At very minor levels. It's akin to an allergy test where the patient is exposed to extremely tiny samples on small parts of their skin which are then examined very closely to see if they reacted at all without actually risking causing any harm." Dragon explained.

"As you can imagine," she continued, "not many people want to actually go through with these, but we heavily encourage anyone that we suspect might be resistant to certain types of S-Class threats to go through with one of these." She said, dancing around mentioning the Simurgh.

"Not many people are actually allowed to administer these tests," Dragon added while the machine continued its scans and she started setting up some of the other machines, including the ones she brought and a couple of gadgets that had been stored inside one of her suit's 'breasts.' The machines she had brought were set up nearby, but the breast-gadgets were plugged into her suit and pointed at Dave.

"I'm one of the few people allowed to. Armsmaster can as well of course, though he doesn't have the equipment needed to do one in Brockton Bay, because there simply aren't enough of the kinds of Human Masters to warrant this equipment there." Dragon said, as Miss Militia and Mouse Protector re-entered the room.

"Huh?" Dave made a confused noise. "What about Victor?" He asked.

"What about Victor?" Dragon asked back, also confused.

"Who's Victor?" Prism asked, with Mouse Protector also looking on in confusion.

"Oh!" Dave happily began to explain. "He's one of the members of the Empire 88, the local Neo-Nazi gang that outnumbers the Protectorate in terms of Capes. He can absorb the 'skills' of anyone nearby into himself, taking away their 'skills' and gaining those skills himself. I say 'skills' with quotation marks, because he can take things like critical-thinking, impulse control, problem-solving skills, straight up knowledge, etc." Dave began.

"According to my analysis from one of my supporting Thinker powers, he is lovers with another member of the Empire 88, Othala, who is a Trump and around 16 years old. The obvious conclusion being, the Empire found a power-granting Trump, sent in Victor to Master her by draining her intelligence and using his many, many doctorates worth of knowledge on psychology to manipulate her into being a loyal little Nazi. And presumably Victor was 'paid' by the Empire in the form of getting a sixteen-year-old girl to have sex with." Dave began explaining, to Prism's horror.

---

"So," Dave finished, "last I knew, Lady Photon and Brandish were asking the PRT and Protectorate to relabel Victor as a Human Master, because he had only been marked as a Thinker before, despite occasionally leaving 'examples' of people that were nearly brain-dead after he completely drained them."

"How did that result in a Thinker rating and not a Master rating then?" Prism asked with confusion.

Dave shrugged. "According to my research, the Brockton PRT is famously corrupt—" He began, before being interrupted by Miss Militia's sudden unrelated coughing fit.

"The Brockton PRT is—" he began again, when Miss Militia began coughing again, giving Dave an unimpressed look.

"Are you okay Miss Militia?" Dave asked with concern. "I can heal you if you want?"

"No you can't." Dragon said. "You need to avoid using any powers at the moment until we are done with the testing." She clarified.

Miss Militia turned to Prism and said "The Power classifications are originally made for the purposes of telling the PRT Troopers quickly what they need to expect, it originated at the PRT department here in New York as an unofficial shorthand actually." She began to avoid Dave's 'helpful explanation' that would need her to defend things she didn't particularly want to defend.

"So," Miss Militia continued. "Victor's ability isn't particularly fast-acting, a Trooper is at no significant risk—as far as we can tell—of losing their skills and abilities by being in his presence unless they were captured. He is a risk as an extremely trained marksman, melee combatant, information specialist, PR specialist, money launderer, etc. though, thus the Thinker rating."

Prism took that in, before nodding slowly. "You said he is getting a human Master label though?" She asked Dave for clarification.

Dave nodded in confirmation. "Last I was aware, yes, that's what Lady Photon told me at least. She said that she pushed that through after the meeting to discuss what to do about the fact that one of the other local Nazis, Hookwolf, tried to and almost succeeded in killing a Shaker 9 preteen Ward because she had no defensive equipment given to her whatsoever!" He confirmed cheerily.

---

The testing went on and on for several hours after that.

The found that Dave was, like Alexandria, immune to the Simurgh's scream, though that was the only time anyone ever directly mentioned the Simurgh, which was probably an indication of just how thoroughly traumatized the Simurgh had them, though in fairness the Simurgh's last attack had been in the US and less than a full month ago.

Likewise, he was fully immune to (Parahuman) emotional manipulation (good ol' fashioned human emotional manipulation worked fine). He was resistant to Master effects that worked through Striker powers, which he theorized was due to what Amy noticed about his skin and the parts of his body near the exterior being made up of 'not-biology', which Amy herself had theorized was related to his Changer ability.

Dragon also said he was probably immune to Sleeper's storm, but not enough was really known about it to be certain so she didn't recommend him signing up as a responder for Sleeper causing trouble without thinking it through further.

Interestingly, the testing found that a Striker Power (assuming he didn't have other resistances to whatever the exact power was), would work properly if it took effect deep enough in his body. However, Dragon said he simply did not need to worry about this, because of his body being indestructible (even if he still 'took damage', the body itself could not be damaged, aside from spewing blood when hit hard enough), that meant that a Striker Power could not be activated by penetrating his skin-defenses with a needle for example; instead it would need a Striker-power to be attached to something that was phased inside his body to overcome his resistance, at which point he was better off just worrying about what the Striker power did through the skin-resistance.

The testing also found that he was highly resistant to visual hypnotic and pheromone-based Master effects, but not immune to either. He had no resistance to Master effects that worked on his nervous system directly, though if they required skin contact his Striker-resistance would kick in and they would be less effective.

Of course, Human Masters whose abilities worked specifically through the nervous system were extraordinarily rare, and Prism was only able to name a single one off the top of her head, that being Hijack, one of Heartbreaker's children that had disappeared a while back. She did assure him however, that he was immune to Heartbreaker himself and the majority of Heartbreaker's other known children.

At this point, he asked, "Oh, should I just go kill Heartbreaker then?" He said with a tilted head.

"NO!" Dragon, Miss Militia, Prism, and Mouse Protector all shouted at him.

"He has many, many failsafes of many important people in Canada, and some in the United States, that are effectively Deadmen's switches for him, and if he were to die, they could cause untold amounts of chaos." Prism explained, making Dave tilt his head the other way.

"Okay, but… what about whatever is being done to make that not happen? After whatever programs and efforts to make those do as little damage as possible are complete, then should I kill him?" He asked.

There was an awkward silence at that.

"Wow, that's pretty pathetic." Dave said after a moment and it was clear what the silence meant. "No wonder people have no faith in heroes. Between that and Brockton's whole thing, I'm kinda shocked the villains aren't considered to be winning."

There was more awkward silence at that.

"Oh come on!" Dave griped, and banged his head against the table.

"For fucks sake. Am I going to be the responsible one? ME?" Dave asked.

The ladies all looked somewhat shameful at that, which was even more impressive consider Dragon's suit had no moving parts on the face and Miss Militia had covered the lower part of her face entirely. "I'm sorry Trouble." Dragon said sincerely. "It should not fall on new heroes to try to handle what the old heroes have failed to fixed."

Dave waved her off before she could begin a Lady Photon-level speech. "No, no, it's not on any of you. Prism is young enough it's obviously not her responsibility; Miss Militia has to deal with Brockton being Brockton; Mouse Protector is more of a morale hero, which she does very well, she is an inspiration to many people through all walks of life and brings hope and joy to many hearts; and Dragon handles S-Class Threats, Endbringers, Containment Foam, PRT technology, the Birdcage, gets constantly harassed by the Dragon Slayers, has to deal with normal Tinker time constraints, and probably a bunch of other things that I'm not aware of." He listed off.

He sighed. "I'm just going to have to be more… aggressive? Less cooperative? More mercenary? Something like that with heroes in general until I can successfully get the cats herded into place and do my own thing."

"Dragon, any chance you can contact Toybox to offer them a place as part of our little project?" He asked, seemingly changing track. "We can probably make the base itself much faster with help from Big Rig, and I can work on some stuff to get rid of Heartbreaker's Master effects if I could get an opportunity to work with Cranial."

Dragon sighed. "As much as I would like to Trouble, I cannot help you contact them. If you built up some credibility as a 'real' Tinker, that is aside from your 'items' that you just appear, then you appealed to the higher levels of the PRT and the Guild, and successfully got permission to work with Toybox, then I could help, but otherwise, my hands are simply tied." She said helplessly.

"Well," Dave sighed, before noticing a lot of people had been sighing lately, then just sighed again because it was kind of fun, "I'll go with that for now, but I suppose the powerful people of the world will get a bit more motivation after you get that helper sent my way to help me with paperwork, legal stuff, and contacting people." He said with a small amount of optimism.

"In the meantime, I can give them a bit of a kick in the ass to motivate people to actually work with me," he decided, before turning to Prism consideringly.

"Hmmm…" He hummed thoughtfully, staring intensely at her, using all of his 'experience' at deducing someone's true alignment as he did so.

Then promptly gave up, and decided he would just deal with her himself if she decided to use the opportunity she was about to get for evil purposes.

"Alright, I've come to a decision!" He announced, before taking out a soda bottle with the word Stamina on the side of it. "It's TOY TIME!" He exclaimed.

"Dragon, since you came in person, could you drink this please?" He requested. "It is part of the gift I mentioned to you yesterday when we spoke on the phone, and part of why I wanted you here in person." He explained.

"Umm…" Dragon said, at a loss for words, "I uhh, you shouldn't have!" She said awkwardly.

"Are you offering her some sort of weird Viagra knock-off?" Mouse Protector asked bluntly upon seeing 'Stamina' written on the side of the bottle.

"No, I'm sure Dragon is quite vigorous already, I wouldn't do that to poor Armsmaster." He said, making Dragon cough, Miss Militia hide a smile, and Prism and Mouse Protector gain an interested gleam in their eyes at the juicy gossip.

"Anyways, Dragon, I would like you to drink this." Dave repeated his request, holding the bottle up to her.

"Um… I, um." Dragon stammered.

Miss Militia stepped in to rescue her. "Trouble, Dragon is agoraphobic, it's unkind to ask that she exit that suit in front of us, she might not even be in her costume, and that suit could be very difficult to exit as well."

Dave startled at that, "Oh, uh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause you any discomfort Dragon, which one is agoraphobia again?" he asked. "That's not the fear of men, is it?"

"No," Dragon said, seemingly regaining her bearings. "It's a general fear of public and exposed places, thus," she gestured at herself, "the suits."

"I see, if we leave, could you drink it, then we come back and you give me the bottle back?" Dave asked, making Dragon consider the idea.

"Won't you tell me what it's supposed to do first?" She asked.

Dave shook his head, "No, it's a surprise. This is in part to honor you with being the second ever person to drink this, aside from myself. You truly don't get enough credit and thanks for all the work you do to keep the world spinning." He said sincerely, making Dragon's suit shuffle awkwardly in embarrassment.

"I suppose… could you all leave the room and come back in five minutes?" She requested somewhat shyly.

Prism nodded seriously, "I will lock the door and guard it. You will have complete and total privacy for five minutes, and we will knock and wait for your explicit permission before we re-enter."

---

Dragon

Dragon wasn't sure exactly what this 'Stamina' drink was supposed to do, but she was willing to indulge Trouble this much.

She rather doubted it would do anything, given her unusual nature, but she would have felt bad if she had just thrown it out to give back the empty bottle, and because she needed to give back the empty bottle, she couldn't just keep it to run tests on it or give to someone else after finding out what it did.

As she went through the process of double checking everything in her surroundings to make sure she was in complete and total privacy, she reflected a little. It was a benefit of her nature to do such things simultaneously. She reflected that Trouble had a truly good heart, and it was nice to see heroes like him and Prism that hadn't really been beaten down by the world yet and concluded things couldn't be done or changed.

She briefly enjoyed the feeling of trust, of someone deciding that out of every hero and noble soul in the world, she was the one they wanted to be the first to get whatever this was. Aside from the perfectly reasonable exception of themselves of course.

Satisfied her privacy was complete and overriding the locks on the door and ceiling so nobody else could open them, she opened up her suit to expose the biological computer within. Then raised the soda bottle to figure out exactly what constituted as 'drinking' it to an extent that would let it do whatever it was supposed to do.

---

Dave, Miss Militia, Mouse Protector, and Prism all shuffled back into the room, to see Dragon's suit standing there like before.

"That's extremely impressive." Dragon said immediately, zeroing in on Dave. "This will make a huge difference, I hope you understand how big of a deal this is for me."

"Well, what happened?" Mouse Protector asked curiously.

"It tripled my thinking speed, and my movement speed." Dragon answered simply. "It works through my suits as well due to whatever power interactions make it happen. This means I can Tinker three times faster, consider problems for three times as long, get to emergencies and S-Class threats three times faster…" She trailed off. "It's huge." She said simply.

"It gets better." Dave said, before adding, "hold still please." And pulled out a pistol, which he then shot her suit with.

"There." Dave said, nodding with satisfaction. "That was a Speed Gun, which increases the movement speed of whoever is hit by it by up to five times, though with this version, the recipient can dial down how fast they go anywhere from the full boost to their normal speed. However, this one does not affect thinking speed or reflexes, so someone without the right secondary powers will likely hurt themselves with it. Dragon, being who she is, can handle this, I'm sure." Dave said.

"Also," he added. "They stack multiplicatively, so Dragon is now 15 times as fast in a straight line as she was ten minutes ago." He said it with full Lisa levels of smugness.

Mouse Protector had an eager glint in her eyes. "I have enhanced reflexes!" She said, raising her hand enthusiastically, and jumping up and down slightly.

Dave nodded, "I know, hold still." And shot her with the Speed Gun in her arm.

She immediately began zooming around the room at full speed, and showed it stacked on with her original slightly enhanced speed as well.

"Now," Dave pulled out three more Stamina Perk bottles. "You three can all handle this one because it comes with a reflex and thought-speed boost. I have more toys after this for all four of you, but consider this my incentive to the heroes of the world to get their shit together. If heroes want power boosts, they need to show they can get shit done." He said.











Author's Note: Yay! Testing! Also, re-explaining the Victor stuff to Dragon, Prism, Miss Militia, and Mouse Protector! I'm sure that won't have consequences! And a bunch of other things I'm sure won't have consequences! This is a chapter with a lot happening so this author's note will probably get pretty big as well.

We get a little more repetition of some of the problems of Brockton Bay, this time to Prism, Mouse Protector, and Dragon. While it is important that they all hear these things (and hear them in this manner), I don't want to keep ragging on about all the problems in Brockton Bay, I feel like it just gets repetitive after one or two times it's been said. So, I'll try and just summarize it any time it comes up in the future.

Now, that conversation isn't going to be important immediately, but down the line this will have effects as the dominoes do their thing. Does it count as foreshadowing that I had a character called Domino right before Dave set off a bunch of metaphorical dominoes?

Then we find out a more in-depth explanation of Dave's Striker-resistance and his Master immunities. Hijack/Regent being able to affect him isn't actually for the sake of the plot, it was a decision purely based on logic of how Dave's Master and Striker resistances work. Pretender could also pilot Dave's corpse, but I haven't looked into him to see if he is known or not, but I don't think he is, making Hijack the most famous canon Cape that was a human-Master affecting nervous systems. It's really quite a niche ability to effect people in specifically that way, and was based on the fact that it is non-invasive to Dave as far as Master effects go, making Daf not interfere with it like he would for something like Heartbreaker's or Cherish's abilities of emotion-fuckery.

Also, I've tried my best to show something in the past few chapters that I wanted to ask if anybody noticed, and that is Mouse Protector being very touchy-feely. The way her power works is, she has to mark it by touchy it, so every time she gets an opportunity to touch something she does, because she can either set a mark down and teleport to it in the future, or she can make people paranoid that she is marking things every time she touches something. Did anybody think that might have been why she was so keen to touch Dragon's suit? That was the real reason Miss Militia was angry at her, for marking another hero without explanation or permission.

Oh yes, I decided to leave it up to the reader's imagination exactly what Dragon did to constitute 'drinking' the bottle, but there are a few things she could have done to actually get it to count, even just pouring it into a mouthpiece on the face part of her suit would have counted.

Now, for the big potatoes of the chapter, Dragon and Co getting their speed boosts. I'm sure that won't cause any issues or butterfly effects whatsoever. I'm sure nobody will panic or get at all emotional at this happening. More toys in the next chapter, but for now… well, if you missed it, check out the chapter title of this chapter. For anyone not aware, the Butterfly Effect refers to a saying about how "A butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world", and is about small changes leading to larger changes later on through knock-on effects. Look it up if you're interested, it was coined by a cool math/meteorology dude named Edward Norton Lorenz.