As Armsmaster pulled into the street where Lung's body lay frozen I approached, my burned body covered by a blanket I pulled from my Bag of Holding and messed up enough to look like I had found it on the streets. He stopped his motorcycle and stepped off, immediately pointing his halberd at me.
"Identify yourself."
"It's me, Armasmaster, Shard." I held my hands up showing my burned arms. "The fight destroyed most of my costume and I'd rather keep both my face and my boobs private."
Armsmaster took in what I said then lowered his weapon. "It's good to see you, what happened here? I got a report of parahuman activity and came as soon as I could." He knelt down next to Lung, the sensors in his headwear probably feeding him information. I wanted to take a look at his armor, I could probably learn so much. "The energy here is similar to the area where Browbeat was assaulted."
"Yeah, the metal girl was here," And technically still was depending on how you defined the self. "And she wasn't alone."
"Trainwreck again? If she's joined up with the new Merchants that could complicate our responses to them."
I shook my head. "No, it was those thieves. The Undersiders." I saw his mouth twist into a slightly deeper grimace. "I'm not sure if they were together as a team, they didn't seem the most familiar around each other, but at the very least they were teaming up for the night. They also called her by name, Tin Girl." I gestured towards Lung. "I came across Lung saying he was going after the Undersiders, and I couldn't just let them fight and hurt anybody unlucky enough to be caught in the middle. At least I could try to keep the fight contained, not worth Lung's while."
The tinker in blue nodded. "Good call." He touched Lung and seemed genuinely confused when the body frozen in space-time moved. "This is different to her previous use of powers. Only Lung himself is frozen." He turned to me. "Did they give any indication how long Lung will be trapped like this?"
I shook my head. Technically it was until I decided to let him go, but I couldn't exactly say that outloud.
Armsmaster swore under his breath. "I need to call this in. The moment this goes away we have a ramped up Lung who was just in the middle of a fight. We have to get him somewhere that can at least try to contain him once he's out." He activated some sort of comm I couldn't see and started calling for backup. "Will you be healed up by tomorrow?" I would be healed up as soon as I could get to some dirt.
"I'll be healed enough. Why?"
"I need a full debrief about what happened here. Stop by the Protectorate headquarters anytime tomorrow. I'm going to be there all day dealing with this. Get home, gather your thoughts, and try to think of any relevant information you can remember." His voice somehow became even more serious than it usually was. "The Undersiders just took out the head of one of the biggest gangs in Brockton. They've just risen in our list of priorities."
I thought about what happened the last time I had taken out the head of one of the biggest gangs in Brockton. Something big was coming, I was sure of it.
Let's Play
The Undersiders went a decent amount of distance before Bitch called her dogs to a halt and they dismounted in an abandoned lot. Cameron, or Tin Girl as she was starting to enjoy being called, got off as well and watched with both awe and disgust as the dogs began to lose skin and muscle until all that was left were three regular and adorable dogs. Cameron almost instinctively moved to pet them, she had always dreamed of petting a dog since she saw one on the tv, but was stopped by Tattletale putting an arm out in front of her and shaking her head.
"Don't. Easiest way to get on Bitch's bad side. You can ask, but don't do it randomly or without warning." The metal girl nodded, taking the advice into mind.
"Bitch," She started, "can I pet the dogs?"
The girl in question just turned to Cameron and even through the mask she could tell she was being judged. "No." Then she went to her dogs and began assisting in getting them out of the biosludge they were emerging from.
"Ouch." Regent did an over exaggerated wince.
"Thank you again for the help." The leader of the Undersiders stepped up and offered her a handshake. "I had no idea the boss had other capes on his payroll. Guess it was our lucky day."
"Yeah well…" Cameron felt unsure of what to say. Coil had mentioned that the Undersiders didn't know who he was, and so to only refer to him as the boss and not mention his criminal empire. That was perfectly fine with Cameron, but she also wasn't a big fan of keeping secrets from her allies. "You're welcome."
"Do you have a place to sleep tonight?" Grue asked. "Because if not you can crash at our place. We'd need to confirm with the boss that you're who you say you are, but once that clears we can start heading over there."
Cameron turned and saw the others grabbing bags that must have been placed here earlier and changing into civilian clothes. This must be one of many stopping points that they had, to go back to civilian identities and get the heat off of them. "Yeah, sleepover sounds fun."
Tattletale was already on her phone speaking to somebody, most likely Coil if Cameron's intuition was good for anything outside of fighting.
"Yeah, metal skin, acts like a lost puppy, can freeze gang lords in time and space? This is definitely her." She looked over at Grue and gave a thumbs up. "We got away safely, and Lung is definitely out of the picture…" Cameron stopped focusing on that conversation and instead turned her attention back to Grue.
"I don't suppose you guys have some spare clothes? I kind of draw a lot of attention when I show skin." She looked down at her smooth metallic body, completely uncovered for the world to see.
"For sure, for sure. We make sure to keep spares here. I've got an extra large hoodie that'll cover you up."
Cameron smiled. She had beaten Lung, she made new friends, and now she was going to get to wear clothes for the first time.
Let's Play
A quick stop at a local park got rid of my injuries, and a less quick but much more disgusting tearing session got rid of the last remains of my melted costume from my skin. So as Cameron was entering the abandoned Redmond Welding building, also now known to me as the base of the Undersiders, I was quietly sneaking back into my house.
"Taylor." And apparently superpowers were useless against dads who were worried about their daughter. "Are you okay? I got your note."
"Yeah, I'm fine." I smiled at my dad who, from what I could tell, had gotten up not that long after I had left. "Sorry I had to leave so suddenly, I got some time sensitive information from Cameron." I stepped further into the house, so dad could see I wasn't injured. He knew I could heal, but it would still put him at ease.
"Right, Cameron." Dad still couldn't fully get his head around the creation of Cameron. To him it was just me pretending to be somebody else, not realizing the depths to which I had sunk to in order to create a fully functional puppet personality. "I'm still not happy." And now that safety was confirmed he was moving onto parental anger. "I know being a hero is important, and that you're saving people, but I put in hard limits on how often I wanted you going out as Shard and when you could do it. I'm already bending these rules for Cameron, but sneaking out in the middle of the night?" He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "What have our lives become?" He sat back down in his chair. "Were you safe out there?"
"Yes." I lied. "As safe as I could be doing what I do. Besides, I'm pretty much immortal. I don't think there's anybody in this city that could do any lasting damage to me, much less kill me." Especially now that Lung is gone.
Unfortunately that didn't have the reaction I was hoping for and he just sunk deeper into his chair. "That doesn't make me feel better. Just…" He paused, trying to figure out what it was he was feeling. "Just go to your room. I'm taking the win that you're back safe.
I hesitated in my motion to go upstairs, and decided to take a quick detour to hug my dad. "Thank dad, really. I love you."
"Love you too Taylor. Now actually go to your room, it's late and we might as well try and get some sleep before we have to wake up. Or I guess I do. You can just do whatever you do all night instead of sleeping now."
Mostly just surfing the internet for new information to add to my collection. "Got it. Night dad."
Once I was in my room I collapsed onto my bed. Glory Girl was probably going to be pissed when she found out I had gone out to fight Lung when I was supposed to be resting. She was definitely going to be pissed that I fought Lung without her. As I contemplated that I contemplated my system.
I had been percolating about the message I got after rolling Just Fireball.
Congratulations!You have acquired:
1 Power from each category
Half of the powers necessary to gain the tier 2 power questYou are officially over halfway through your journey to reach tier 2 power! As a result the tier 0 pity system will be removed. Excess Loose SP will now be converted into PSP at a rate of 10/1.
I had no idea what PSP was. The SP was most likely the same as usual, Shard Points. So P Shard Points. The only previous variation of SP I saw before was Loose SP. I called up my character sheet and it hadn't changed form last time I checked it. SP Cap and Loose SP were still the only SP related things on it.
If it was a 10 to 1 conversion then I only had .3 PSP. Would I get a full explanation once I got a full point? Or would I first need to unlock whatever system it was associated with to add it to my character sheet? Wait. My mind brought up information I had long since moved to the back of my mind.
Party SystemNo hero can truly work alone. With the Party System unlocked you can now invite parahumans you have completed the unlock quests for to your party.
When a parahuman has entered your party you will gain access to an upgrade menu. There you can spend SP to boost your party members abilities, however the boost cannot exceed the highest tier you have access to.
I hadn't used the Party System, but I did have it. The description made mention of spending SP on my party, could PSP be Party Shard Points? If so, that was another part of the system I wasn't going to be using. Even if I was starting to trust Glory Girl with more of myself it just wasn't a good idea. It would be too suspicious if Glory Girl suddenly powered up after hanging out with me.
So I shoved the party system screen away and pulled up my others. The ones I had gotten from fighting Lung. The first one was pretty obvious.
Defeated LungCalculating Rewards Based on ContributionGained:
10000 EXP
+2 Loose SP
1 Cape Power Roll
Lung was one of the strongest parahumans on the east coast, probably only comparable to the likes of Legend or the Butcher. If anybody was worth 10000 experience I didn't know who was. Plus another Brute power. Maybe I could get real superstrength this time. My strength was lagging far behind my durability and speed. Or maybe a healing factor that wasn't cobbled together from almost a dozen disparate powers.
I then pulled up the second screen, the one I didn't fully understand.
Quest Complete! Gotta Fight Them AllRewards:
2000 EXP
2 Loose SP
1 Power Roll
I pulled up the requirements for that quest.
Gotta Fight Them AllFight and survive against one cape from each of the four major gangs in Brockton Bay.Asian Bad BoysEmpire 88Coil's OrganizationArcher's Bridge MerchantsNote, this quest is locked into gangs that exist at the moment of its creation. If one of the above gangs dissolves before you fight a member you will fail the quest.Rewards:
2000 EXP
2 Loose SP
1 Power Roll
I had fought all of the Merchants, Hookwolf and his goons at that dog fighting ring, and Lung and Oni Lee tonight. I hadn't fought any of Coil's capes though. Unless…
I ran through every fight I'd been in since the quest began. Mush, Skidmark, Squealer, Cricket, Stormtiger, Hookwolf, Cassiterite, Lizardtail, Citrine, Trainwreck, Lung, and Oni Lee.
Of them all, the only ones not associated with a previously existing gang on the mission list were the ones I fought a few days ago at the Boat Graveyard. My mind came to two conclusions.
Coil was secretly also Accord and the show at the Graveyard was some big misdirection, or Trainwreck was working for Coil. The moment I started thinking along the second option things began to click into place. Trainwreck's operation was the first job Coil had sent Cameron on that wasn't small time. This one had actual repercussions on the state of the city, it was also high risk which ran counter to Coil's desire to build up Cameron's experience. He had done the same tonight to save his parahuman assets from being taken out, and the Ambassadors getting their hands on those guns would have spelled the end for Trainwreck.
That made six parahumans in this city that belonged to Coil, minimum. He could still have more unknown parahuman assets the same way Trainwreck wasn't connected to Coil, or the Undersiders, or Tin Girl. The entire city thought that he was the weakest of the gangs in terms of fielding capes, but he was actually now comparable to the Empire. He was controlling so much from behind the scenes. The Undersiders struck at the ABB, enough to weaken them and get them to commit troops to going after them. That in turn would allow Trainwreck and his new gang to cement their new domination over the northside without any trouble. That doubled Coil's effective territory, and Trainwreck could strike at Coil's enemies and he would receive no retaliation downtown, and vice versa.
Coil was chosen for me to infiltrate for a variety of reasons, but it was also supposed to be easy. He was the weakest gang leader, he didn't have parahuman assets, he controlled the smallest amount of territory.
Instead I stumbled onto what felt like the makings of a great conspiracy.
My focus began to drift over to Cameron.
The girl was on the couch of her lodgings for the night talking with Grue, or Brian as he said to be called. Alec and Rachel had crashed, but Brian had said he was too wired to sleep and Lisa was on the phone with the boss.
"So yeah, it's not really shapeshifting, or at least nothing that easy, but I can change my proportions by moving where my metal mass is. I have to do it all manually and configure any changes to make sure they don't just make me unable to move." Cameron was explaining her 'combat form' to her new friend.
"Damn, I don't know if I'd be able to handle a power like that. I have my hands full worrying about my enemy, if my own power needed that much managing, forget about it. You're impressive." Cameron giggled at the complement.
"Brian!" Lisa called from the other room. "Need you for a second."
"Be right back." And he left Cameron to her own devices. She just slouched deeper into the couch. It was softer than the chair in her motel room. Quickly enough Brian came back followed by Lisa.
"So, Cameron," Brian started. "You really impressed us tonight, with both Oni Lee and Lung." Cameron perked up, starting to see where she hoped this conversation was going. "We've been looking for a fifth member for a while, some extra muscle for when Rachel isn't enough, but nothing has been a good fit."
"And when I spoke with the boss he said he'd been thinking about putting you with us for a while." Lisa said.
The rest of the conversation faded into the background as Tattletale's words to Cameron sank in. They were a lie. My powers confirmed that. And it wasn't a white lie either; not something said to make recruitment easier. No, that was a cover story. Coil had told Tattletale something, something about why he wanted Cameron on the team with her.
On the team with Tattletale, the 'mind reader'. Was Coil getting suspicious? Was this just him checking Cameron's loyalty? I couldn't tell. Something I could tell though was that I was on the right track. Cameron wasn't being put on the Undersiders to help them; she was brought on to be closer to Tattletale.
"Oh my god of course I'd like to join!" Cameron nearly shouted in excitement.
"It isn't official yet, we'll need to talk with the other two, but after tonight I doubt they could say no." Brian said with a smile.
As Cameron shook hands with Grue I had a large amount of focus on Tattletale. She was a Thinker, and a powerful one if she could play at mind reading as well as she did earlier this night.
My own Thinker abilities were almost all powered by synergies. I guess it was time to see just how powerful they could be.
This was now a battle, Thinker v Thinker, with Cameron in the middle as both my weapon and her target.
Let the games begin.
Name: Taylor Anne HebertGolden Human LVL 15SP Cap11Loose SP7Tier 1 Powers(24)Mover(1)Shaker(3)Brute(3)Breaker(2)Master(3)Tinker(2)Blaster(1)Thinker(1)Striker(1)Changer(3)Trump(3)Stranger(1)Tier 0 Powers(79)Synergy Powers(27)Power Upgrades(6)Power Roll AvailablePower Roll Available
April 11th
A.N.
So due to a mix of work, visiting a friend outside of the country for my birthday, several amazing new movies coming out, getting back into the show Blindspot, and just not having the mental ability to write I literally typed this whole chapter right before posting it. So as a result not much really happened except for after action reports and some thoughts by Taylor. I'll also probably do another shorter chapter next time, doing the rolls available to Taylor and setting up the next arc better. Since it'll be shorter I will try to get it done in one week instead of two. Thank you so much for reading!
I'll probably be more active this time in the replies(as if I'm not already overly active there) since I am way too tired to put my thought process for characters and actions at four in the morning.
Fuck no." Was Rachel's simple response to Brian bringing up Cameron joining them full time.
The entire team was around what Cameron could best describe as a dining room table but probably fell short of that descriptor in many ways. The important thing though was that Cameron and all the Undersiders were sitting around it for a morning, or really an early afternoon considering how late they all slept in, meeting.
"This isn't a discussion." Brian said forcefully. "Lisa spoke to the boss and he wants her on the team."
"It's a good call," Lisa interjected, "She's the complete package; strength, stealth, a pretty much all or nothing attack."
"Thanks." Cameron said as she was thankful that metal didn't blush.
"I don't give a shit, we don't need her." Rachel seemed to honest to god be growling.
"I'm sure Lung would argue with that." Cameron said, defending herself.
"You little!" Rachel started to lunge at Cameron but Brian quickly reacted and slammed her head down into the table with a thud. Lisa and Alec both immediately stood up and moved away from the table as Rachel's dogs began barking loudly in warning.
"Rachel!" Brian shouted, and Rachel quickly gave her dogs the command to stand down. "I thought I fucking told you to calm down. I hate it when you make me do this." The girl in question struggled but Brian redoubled his grip and slammed her back down when she tried to get back up. "No! Cameron saved our asses last night and handed us the win against Lung. She's on the team, end of discussion."
"Fine." Rachel relented and Brian let her go. "I'm heading out. Welcome to the team." And with that she pushed her way out of the room.
Brian sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "That could have gone better."
"You're telling me." Alec said. "I think I'll just say I'm good with the new girl and leave it at that." He then sat back again and went back to his breakfast.
"Don't worry about Rachel." Lisa said. "She'll be over it by the time she gets back. She's just not happy about having to split takes from now on."
"Takes?" Cameron asked, not really knowing what that was.
"You know?" Brian started, "What we get from our jobs?"
"Oh!" Cameron realized what was going on. "You mean money. I kind of forgot I'm supposed to get that." She rubbed the back of her head apologetically.
"How the hell do you forget about money?" Alec said around a bite of poptarts.
Cameron just shrugged. "Never used it before. I don't need to eat or sleep, and I guess I don't really do…stuff." The metal girl made a vague gesture with her hands and started to pick at the oversized hoodie that Brian gave her that she was still wearing. "This is the only thing I've ever owned."
"Sick. Very zen of you" Was his response.
"Well Lisa can get you set up with some bank accounts so if you figure out there's anything you do want to spend your money on you can just get it." Brian shot her a smile.
"Speaking of, I should probably get on that. Unlike most of our friends here I'm going to have to build you an entirely new identity to get an account." The Thinker grumbled. "Piece of advice Cameron, never become the only person competent to do something or people will ask you to do it non stop." Cameron laughed at her exaggerated tone.
"And I should go too." Alec said, polishing off his poptart. "Those drugs won't do themselves.
And with that Brian and Cameron were alone at the dining table.
"Thanks." The girl started. "For sticking up to me with Rachel. That was kind of awesome." Nobody had ever done that for Cameron before.
"Hey, you're on the team now, which means I have your back."
"And Rachel? Shouldn't you have also had her back against me? I wasn't on the team yet."
Brian let out an embarrassed laugh. "Honestly sometimes I wish we could just cut her loose from the team. She's a bit of a liability; both out there and in here. The boss chose her for the team though and she's kind of our big hitter."
Cameron couldn't disagree there. Those dogs were absolute beasts. "That just makes me even happier that you stood up for me. Risked getting your heavy hitter mad." She added a teasing lilt to her voice.
"Anytime. You're a big hitter too though. Lung is now out of the picture, permanently. Permanently right?"
The metal girl nodded. "Yeah, or at least until I let him become unfrozen."
"Now that is impressive. Honestly between the metal stuff and the freezing you should leave some powers for the rest of us."
"The way I see it being made of metal is just my body, my actual 'power' is freezing stuff in space and time."
"Huh. I didn't think about it that way. You're actually the first Case 53 I've ever met, like really met." Brian said. "Do you ever wish you were human?" He blurted out and then began to panic. "You don't have to answer that! And if it's a super offensive question, sorry I asked it."
Cameron just laughed. "Don't worry, it's fine. I've never really wanted to be human. I mean it would be useful but I'm me, happy the way I am. The thing I wish I could change though was the memories." Cameron's voice became slightly detached. "When I woke up in the woods I was all alone, didn't know a single thing about who I was or where the hell I ended up. I must have wandered for hours, not knowing if I was the only person alive in the whole world. Then…" She began to choke up. "Then that guy with the truck gave me a ride and the instant I saw him I had this realization that I was alone. That there weren't communities of metal people that I could go to, or a metal family that missed their daughter. I was alone and singular in my existence. At least if I had memories I could understand why, but as it is I'm just…alone."
Cameron felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Brian looking right into her eyes. "Not alone now. You're an Undersider now."
"Thanks." She said softly.
They continued to just talk for maybe half an hour before Brian said he had to check back in on his apartment.
"See you when I get back?" He asked.
"Probably. I might go out, explore the city." At his look she elaborated. "I like to people watch so I just sort of…goop around the city. Or I'll sneak into a movie theater or the library. Don't worry, I know how to not be seen." Brian seemed mollified and a little after he left Cameron put her new hoodie in her room, and if having her own room in a secret hideout wasn't a thrill she didn't know what was, and left herself.
She initially stuck to the sewers before emerging randomly in the Docks.
And I then set the Cameron thought pattern to believe she was wandering the city and allowed the body to fade into motes of light. I was cutting it a little close today, giving myself half an hour of time between ending my tenth clone and the reset on the timer.
I had planned it all out though this weekend when I purposefully used all of my clones at once. I would get the reset partway though lunch period and have the rest of lunch and my study hall after to get back to school.
I just had to wait twenty seven minutes and fifty eight seconds to make a clone to go back to the Undersider's base and then head back to school myself. To pass the time I situated myself on top of a nearby roof, pulled my lunch out of my Bag of Holding and pulled up the system.
Quest Complete! A Place of my OwnRewards:
3000 EXP
4 Loose SP
With Cameron officially a member of the Undersiders she had been placed in one of the branches of Coil's Organization. Branches which I now suspect also included Trainwreck's new Merchants. And now that part 3 of the quest chain was complete,
From Inside the House Part 4: Light the MatchUse information gained from infiltrating Coil's Organization to disrupt one of his operations.Rewards:
5000 EXP
+1 SP Cap
Part 4 was here. Interesting wording on the quest though. Information gained from infiltrating Coil. I had a pretty good idea that Trainwreck was working for Coil but I figured out using the strange omniscience the system seemed to have, not from Cameron. So would taking out Trainwreck work to disrupt an operation?
I could try and take him down and find out, but knowing he was working for Coil was also a boon, letting me get information on the big fish based on how Trainwreck was making moves. I was going to have to think that one over with Glory Girl and Madison.
With that delayed I also pulled up my Power Rolls. One general and one specifically for the Brute category. It only cost 4 SP for me to get my rolls to max and at this point, even with no more free Tier 0 powers, I didn't see a reason not to go full throttle as often as I could. I had what I believed were the top of the Tier 0 Synergy Powers with Mental Computer, Comprehension, and Golden Body and none of the powers I could purchase alone had much utility I might need.
So a full 15 SP Brute roll to start it off it was.
1d65=31=Neuromorphic Reflex
Brute/Thinker: Neuromorphic ReflexCost: 6 SPYour body instinctively reconfigures itself in the moment, engaging every available muscle in perfect coordination whenever you perform a physical action. Whether you're throwing a punch, scaling a wall, or even just walking, your entire musculature activates as a single, unified system. Like a seasoned fighter who punches with their hips, shoulders, and core without thinking, your body does this automatically, all the time, for every action.
Not only does it draw on every muscle, it also instinctively brings your full weight to bear. Every motion becomes a whole-body act, leveraging not just your strength but the total mass of everything you're carrying—including your own bodyweight and any gear—channeled seamlessly into each action.
In addition, your musculature adapts on the fly to match the physical demands of your actions. Sprinting? Your muscles immediately behave like those of a trained sprinter—fast-twitch dominant, explosive, light. Shifting to a lift? Your muscle fibres reorient to resemble those of a powerlifter—denser, slower, built for brute strength.
These changes don't add or remove mass; they instantaneously alter the nature of your existing muscles to best serve the current motion.
Layered over this is a constant, internal nudge—an intuitive mental sensation that adapts with your intent. When learning a new physical skill, it corrects errors, reinforcing better technique and speeding up your learning curve drastically. When performing a familiar task, it shifts to refine: helping you minimise wasted movement, optimise timing, and extract maximum force from every action with the least effort.
Now that was a force multiplier if I ever heard of one. My body's musculature was already dense and highly refined, now I was essentially taking those high quality ingredients with a high performance vehicle and providing it with the programming it needed to streamline any process. I paused for a moment. That metaphor had gotten away from me very quickly. Regardless just hopping up and down on toes I could feel my body switching around internally to make sure everything from jump height to fatigue was optimized.
For a second I paused and waited for more powers but remembered that instead my wasted SP was being channeled into PSP. If my math was correct, which it was, I now had at least 1 PSP in the bank.
Now I just had to decide what category I would use for my other Power Roll.
1d7=3=Tinker
I decided to just go with Tinker this time. I already had a nearly complete lab space, one that could adapt to just about any potential specialization I got, plus I was debuting as a Tinker soon and once I actually used my power armor in action I was going to have way more data to process for upgrades, upgrades that would be much easier if I had some sort of dedicated specialty.
Four more loose SP to bump up the cap to its max and I rolled the dice.
1d120=36=Encryption
Tinker/Thinker: EncryptionCost: 6 SPWith this power, you possess the remarkable ability to safeguard information, unravel ciphers, and more, while also granting you the capacity to black box any device, rendering it impervious to reverse engineering and preserving its inner workings as an impenetrable enigma to others.
Well that was disappointing. I could think of a thousand things to do with this power, many of which were beyond useful, none of them involved my Tinker plans. Any and all data I kept was all stored in a completely different dimension, and while I would be black boxing my Tinkertech it was more precaution than anything.
3|\|6|_|5|-| Motherfucker, Do You Speak It!?Cost: Cypher+EncryptionWhen you speak, you can choose to disguise your speech under layers of coded words and ciphers that you have created, while letting the people you address your speech towards be able to understand and replicate this speech. For example, when you say 'Let's flank them', while your allies will understand you, anybody listening in might hear the complete opposite, in reverse, and in morse code within the same timespan of you speaking.
You and the people who learn your codes will not suffer any disorientation when speaking in code, and will find encrypting messages into this code as instinctive as speaking their native language. However, the people you share your code with cannot do the same towards others, meaning that if they're with strangers they'll just be speaking without anybody understanding.
Oh! That was very useful though. Thoughts flew through my head of coded speech. It was useful if I would ever have to convey information through Cameron to one of my allies when I wasn't around. The synergy power also seemed to work in reverse, my already immense ability to crack codes was now enough that I could probably crack any cipher without the need of a key. Something that I couldn't even really believe was possible but that was the beauty of superpowers.
At this point my main consciousness was informed by one of my offshoots that thirty minutes had passed and I had my full set of ten clones ready to go. I summoned a spare body and had her shift into Cameron form. It would never get any less weird to see myself transform like that. I manually piloted the body away from me a decent distance and then placed my thoughtform inside it.
Cameron would now sneak into a movie and then return to the Undersiders when it was done. I began to move to head back to school but paused.
When I first told dad about my cloning powers he told me that I wasn't allowed to send a clone to school unless it was to protect myself, and that he would think of it as finding out I had skipped school if I did. The thing was I had already broken a much worse rule when I snuck out to fight Lung last night and after not doing anything over the weekend except for the explosive finale I wanted to stretch my legs, give my new Brute power a test run.
Plus I wasn't actually playing truant, my consciousness, as real as the one I designated the 'main', would still be in school doing whatever I had to do. My perfect attendance would be kept safe.
With a thought I created a second clone and as she/I went back to school I switched into my hero outfit.
Name: Taylor Anne HebertPerfect Body LVL 15SP Cap11Loose SP3Tier 1 Powers(26)Mover(1)Shaker(3)Brute(4)Breaker(2)Master(3)Tinker(3)Blaster(1)Thinker(1)Striker(1)Changer(3)Trump(3)Stranger(1)Tier 0 Powers(79)Synergy Powers(28)Power Upgrades(6)
April 11th
A.N.
This is about half of the chapter I actually wanted to write. However it is late, my week has been annoyingly busy, and also I did enjoy what I did write. I'll probably do a non Sunday update in the next few days or so with the second half. I guess you can think of the last two and this upcoming chapter as just some mini chapters while I reorient my life.
Now for the chapter itself I think maybe the thing that most people will latch onto is Brian physically assaulting Rachel. The thing is…that's what he does in Worm. During the first confrontation between Rachel and Taylor where Rachel attacks her Brian decks Rachel and I lifted some of his dialogue straight from that. I love Undersiders as family but at least early on they are dysfunctional at best.
I also dove into the created psyche of Cameron, and what it might actually feel like to just wake up alone. I'm sure there's no repercussions to making something that's first thought is loneliness.
The powers rolled were slightly disappointing in context of the past few rolls, but I personally really like them and the Brute power is one of the more interesting ones to me.
Next chapter is a conversation with another Undersider, the debrief with Armsmaster, Madison and Vicky being brought into the loop about the weekend, and finally a cliffhanger involving one of everybody's favorite station of canon.