A Nymph's Whispers to Hylas (SFW Snippets)

[Hylas_Daemonem]

These are all cross-posted to or from Spacebattles.

The Swordsmith (Claymore)

The hearth glowed with warmth, heating the steel of my latest sword. The heat was wonderful, especially at this time of year. It was never *warm* in Dabi, but right now the winds were howling fiercely. Well, one benefit to my blacksmithing apprenticeship was that I would certainly never grow bored or cold; especially what with making the swords for our little town's fencing club.

I was just finishing one such sword when I heard the screams. Marauders were fairly common here, though their numbers had been declining over the last year. Of course, our little town of Dabi had not fallen to such attacks. We were a hearty people. Those who failed to make it in Pieta tended to be missing that information. The sword was done. It was a nice hearth orange glow still, so I hilted it. I hadn't had the chance to quench a sword in blood yet, and I wasn't the type to sit by and cower while others were being harmed. And I'll admit to having a bit more bloodlust than might be normal. I peeled my lips into my most unnerving smile and stepped out to a scene I hadn't expected to ever see.

Haeph's head was caught in the spindly claws of an eight-foot-tall, ruddy gray woman. His eyes snapped to me, screaming their silent order to run. My eyes spoke back to him that there would be no stopping me, even if he was the master, and I the apprentice. I slunk up behind the creature, which was taunting Haeph with the deaths of my fencing club comrades at her feet. As I lunged for her back, she spun, hearing my feet finally applying enough pressure to cause the snow to crunch. My sword was a fraction of a second from going straight through her chest. Then she swung Haeph between my body and hers at an impossible speed. Haeph was going to die. But, in that moment I found it in myself to press my advantage of surprise. Yes, Haeph was going to die. But this monster would die as well. This was the only chance. My thrust went through the back of Haeph's ribcage, sizzling. Then I leaned into the second stage of my lunge, piercing straight through my master's body and deep inside the monstrosity. My knee bent and the third stage of my lunge burst out the back of the yoma's spine, causing her yellow eyes to widen.
Both her sharp-toothed smile and mine fell away with the rest of her body as she crumpled to the ground, along with Haeph.

I drew the sword from their bodies and tucked it into my belt. Rolling Haeph over, he smiled faintly at me and spoke his last.
"I proclaim you Weyland, Master Smith," he whispered, eyes flickering to my sword. It had turned a beautiful matte silver-blue when quenched. I stared into his eyes as they filmed over with ice in the cold northern winds. Then I stood. There would be a pyre, but my duty to him and my fellows was done. They were avenged, and thus their souls freed from their fleshy shells.

---

The creature wasn't something that anyone in the town had encountered before. I dragged its large body into the forge room and laid it out on the table. Then I took a durable knife from the wall and began to cut. The body was human in design, but not in nature. Her muscles were denser and stronger, bones more resistant, eyes tuned for the hunt, and teeth sharpened for the kill. But the odd thing was how little of these changes were inherent. There was a film of tendrils that wrapped every part of the body, spreading out from the spine. I followed them up to the base of the neck, right where I had struck the monster. There was a truffle-looking organ that the first tentacle, the one lining the spine, extended from, as well as a second tentacle I'd missed earlier that dropped down into the stomach. There was a hole through the center of the organ, puncturing it and revealing what looked to be a small, purple brain that wrapped around the spine with a number of wiry tendrils that tapped into the spinal cord.

The body got easier to work with, the more it warmed up in the forge room. I pulled out the stomach tentacle to examine it more closely. It had a number of syringe-like teeth that seemed to have been draining the human hand I'd pulled out with it of blood. I avoided the vampiric spikes on it after that. I also found that the tendrils were retractible while I poked around in the brain-thing, revealing the body underneath to be, much to my horror, of the sole girl in my fencing group. I'd not looked through my friends' bodies when I left, too afraid of whom I'd see there. It seemed to be a good choice in the end, as the false hope would have crushed me. With the tendrils retracted, I unsheathed the creature from my friend's body. The purple horror was two feet long, yet barely the size of an egg at the nodule at the top. Strange that such a small creature could cause so much destruction. I set my... trophy, of sorts, on the mantle of the forge. Then, turning to Kate's dismembered body, I folded her skin back into place so she'd be presentable in her afterlife.

---

The funeral was a solemn, silent thing, as required by tradition. The only words spoken were the names of the dead as their pyres were lit. With their souls released from all earthly ties, I left, uninterested in the following revel. I had a monster to document.

I returned to the smithery, locking the door behind me. I didn't want to be disturbed for this. Then I grabbed my notebook and charcoal, and stepped into the forge room to get to work. I stepped over to the fire and... it wasn't there. Where in the realms did it go? I whipped my head around, searching. No, I didn't grab it already. No, it's not still on the workbench. I leaned over the fire to see if it fell in and felt a sharp, sudden pain in my neck, followed by an awful slithering within my spine. I grabbed the near-molten firestick from the forge, ignoring how my hand sizzled. I felt no pain in grabbing it (a bad sign, meant my nerves were toasted) and reached to the back of my spine, grabbing the monstrosity by its head. Then I dragged it around my neck and stabbed it with the firestick. It went limp, as did I. My vision tunneled into a point, and the world fell away. My last sensation was a horrific wiggling at the base of my spine, and I knew I'd failed.

---

[Mmh, morning Wayland.]

---

Bioweapon C-47/Imp Test 5

After Action Report

Agent Rubel

Test subject was captured near Pieta at noon, heading towards Dabi. Implantation was successful and was released outside Dabi at daybreak the next day. Subject used host's memories to infiltrate the town and dispatch of their most skilled warriors, but was subsequently killed by a highly skilled swordsman, 'Weyland.' Recommended for project Claymore.

Physical morphology: Longer than average limbs and fingers. Moved at significantly greater than average speeds in combat. Reacted with unprecedented speeds, observed during final moments only. Returned to base form some time after being slain.

Dissection notes: N/A. Body unrecoverable. Burnt.

Subject developments: N/A. Same reason.

Psychological notes: Highly developed tactics. Sadism tempered by tactical efficiency; only observed when no threats in vicinity. Unique tactical skills likely influenced by local sword forms.

Other: Host successfully harmed Agent during capture. Likely would have been the most successful test yet had it not been slain before consumption of nearby humans.

---

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Hardened (RvB AU)

"When the E.M.P. goes off-"

"When it goes off, I'll be fine. It only affects computers, remember? And I am a mother fucking ghost."

[Modem screech]

Church possessed the Meta. The AI surrounded him, speaking all at once, unintelligibly. He ignored them with his finely tuned Caboose-ignoring skills and looked around. The Meta's head was a weird place. They were on some huge space ship, but it was totally trashed. And it was falling.

[What's goin' on?] came the director's voice through the intercom.

He'd expected the Meta to struggle. To resist him. He wasn't. Church and the AI were all there of their free will. He could feel them. They were... sorta like him. But not really. He was far more substantial. The rest of them were just shards; he had a core, a center to hold himself to.

[Agent Washington, please. It is time. If you'd just secure Agent Maine, we can discuss this situation in a more... civilized manner.]

The others fit. They were like a puzzle, swarming to him and attaching themselves to the places they had broken from. Though, he could feel... they weren't quite as solid (as before? what before?). But they were so much *more*.

[No. We can't.]

They weren't quite whole. Someone was missing. (Tex? No. Tex was right here.) They were, however, strong enough to power Maine's suit.

{Activating 'emp'}

Delta pointed out that it would kill them. Tex laughed. They wouldn't die. Omega cut the comms. Gamma stopped time. Theta gathered energy for the dome shield. Tex charged the overshield. Gamma dropped temporal distortion.

['EMP'!? Oh, you have got to be fucking shi-]

And Church? He held them all together. Oh, and one more thing. He popped Utah's shield.

The dome broke first, overcome with the area it had to cover. It'd only lasted an eighth of a second. Then their personal shield went down. A quarter of a second. Utah's shield held the longest, taking them to a full second of resistance before it went down.

'It looks like this is it, guys. See you on the other side.' Church thought. And then? Sigma cut everything. All power, all armor enhancements, the HUD, diagnostics, the hydraulics required to power the suit. The emp fried everything on the motherboard except the solid-state drive. They laughed as one for a moment, before they lost even the capacitor's worth of power it took to do that. Sigma was the creative one after all.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Trash Planet

The first thing I thought when I woke was how absurd it was that people could export their trash to a livable world. I mean, you could have picked a moon, or dumped it into a star, or just designated part of your world as a landfill so you didn't need to export to space, but no. Someone decided that they would rather have their stuff 'accessible to others' because 'one planet's trash is another one's treasure.' Some politician must have gotten a great deal of money selling off its (politicians aren't people, they're soulless entities of evil) home planet as a trash dump. It probably left as soon as the deal went through too, I mean, who would live on a trash planet?

I would. I had to. 'Lifetime community service' they called it. It was stupid of me to assume that that was a better deal than execution. I should have listened when Maggie told me that no one had nor would ever pick this. "How could community service be worse than death," I had thought. I mean, I was still happy with my choice. I was one of the few humans who still valued their survival, my liberty of action, my belief in the Truth, more than their happiness. That was something I was still proud of, even if it had landed me in this mess.

To be fair, I was also one of the few who believed that being Archived was equivalent to death. The death penalty had been shelved over 1400 years ago in favor of the Archive Treatment. Removing a threat to the social order without destroying any of their knowledge. Anyhow, I was a firm believer in the soul. Not a Christian, mind you, and most of them thought the Archive sent you to heaven anyway, but a believer in a higher power, the soul, and the supernatural. There was never any proof for or against those since the First Sapience. We still couldn't recreate a human (or other sapient creature), even with a scan of their memories though, so I felt pretty safe in my position.

Anyhow. Here I was, on this junk planet. First, and probably last, of the state-sponsored scavengers. I had an indefinite supply of food, water, and shelter, all regulated by the building's AI (Good decision-makers. Any of the same algorithm base act effectively the same in any given scenario, no matter how well they're trained. I don't think they count as living things yet). I walked out of my chambers in my new white sweats.

I ate my Meal Bricks™ along the way. They were boring, but not bad. The only problem with Meal Bricks™ was how boring they were. Any Printer could make them, and they were practically free, but you didn't eat too many if you could help it. I, obviously, had no choice. The clothes were also printed. Cheap, but durable enough to be cost-efficient, and comfortable enough to wear regularly, but better Forms were out there if you had the money to order them.

Again, I had to wonder about this planet. Who was making enough waste to send it to an off-world dump? Who paid enough to buy a goldilocks planet as a trash dump? Maybe I would find some answers while I was out there. I made my way to the meeting hall and sat in front of the screen, as instructed by my tablet (GalaxyLink connection, IoT functions for the Printers, and the mandatory-for-minors-and-criminals Big Brother function (not what it's called, but I came from a fairly old and conservative family)).

Then the screen flickered to life. Old tech, I could tell. The video that played was an upbeat welcoming with a bare-bones outline of my new job, one I had already watched a good few times during the decision-making process that led me to this gods-forsaken planet. After that was finished, a checklist appeared on the screen.

Duties of Worker 049

1. Regular maintenance of basic systems
   1. AI circuitry and mental integrity
   2. Base integrity
   3. Life support systems
2. Recovery of processed material
   1. Processor cores and accessories
   2. Power cores and accessories
3. Recovery of rare, unprocessed material
   1. Unknown conditions or quantity

The list seemed odd, to say the least. First, there was the fact that I was Worker 049. I knew that there had been no 'public service workers' (prisoners) before me, so this base here had to have been around for a while, considering the fact that the WorkerBot company never sent humans on-site except in the most important of circumstances. The second thing that bothered me was the high priority of AI-favored work. Clearly, it ran all the systems, including this screen, but I'd never seen one so blatantly state its priority over a human. It had to have been built on a very old algorithm. The screen switched to a schedule.

Schedule of Worker 049
1600-0800 Sleep, eat, free time
0800-1100 Perform maintenance duties
1100-1300 Eat, free time
1300-1600 Perform scavenging duties

Every 5 days of work will net you 1 day of free time, which can be spent for the next workday between 1600 and 0000, excluding you from all work except AI maintenance.

All duties will be posted on your tablet.

Not conforming to this schedule will result in loss of privileges up to but not including basic needs.

Again, the AI seems to have very high self-prioritization. Not something I would usually expect from one of them. I'll need to make sure I stick to this schedule so I don't have to learn what 'basic needs' means. I set my tablet to wake me at 10-minute intervals from 0500 to 0700 (I'm a heavy sleeper). Then the screen switches to the newly appeared 'Duties' app. Apparently, my first job is to get a backup generator functional for the AI's solar farm. That's something I had assumed would already be done, so I'm starting to see why this AI is so nervous about its maintenance.

I head to the airlock, putting on the hermetically-sealed suit I find there. It's still warm off the printer. Alongside the suit are a coil of wire and a basic fix-kit. Then I step out.
Everything, as far as the eye can see, is trash. I knew, intellectually, that it would be, but that doesn't mean much. Witnessing it was… both horrible and awe-inspiring. This planet wasn't a trash heap, it was a trash jungle. There was a whole ecosystem of trash scavengers, of trash-birds, and trash-monkeys. It made a lot more sense that my 'service retreat station' needed my aid with maintenance. I looked out from the only spot of the surrounding area, my castle in the sky, and witnessed this beautiful, horrible, trash world.

Then my suit began beeping at me. A HUD appeared on the smart-glass of my helmet. I now had a mini-map of the surrounding area, an internal air supply meter, and… is that a Geiger counter? Humans haven't been susceptible to radiation since the 2nd Galactic Rad-war! "Why is there a Geiger counter on this suit!?"

Oh. I must have said that last part aloud because some text appeared in the middle of the screen reading 'The Geiger counter is a carry-over from legacy versions of this suit's software. You may find it useful while scavenging, especially while searching for legacy power cores.' As soon as I finished reading the text switched to say 'Now that you're done staring, can we get to that generator? I will be in a better mood once it's up and running again.'

'Mood,' huh? Something's definitely up with this AI. I head towards the generator. "So, what's wrong with it?" I ask as I walk up to it. It doesn't seem to have any structural damage, which is good, but that doesn't mean much. 'I don't know. I didn't cycle it for a few years and when a fungal colony tried to take over my solar field I lost power to the hydroponics section. I lost 4 species of gnats and all my mosquitos before I got the solar back online.'

'Okay,' I thought. 'My AI is insane. Not good. I didn't know we even had a hydroponics section.' Then I tripped over a root that the text had hidden from my view. "Could you switch from text to speech mode please?" I asked, dusting myself off. "Yes. I will now operate in speech mode." A cute, feminine voice responded. "Ooh! I haven't tried this function before! All my previous workers preferred to communicate in text mode!" Oh no. Is she going to be terribly chatty? I hope not. "I'm going to promote you to 'honorary speaker to machines' in honor of this moment!" She is definitely going to be chatty. Ugh. Seems nice enough though.

I made it to the generator with little incident, only stopping to stare as some sort of reptile with one eye and no legs slid past me before moving on. Then I opened the generator... and screamed in a most un-manly manner. There were huge, blue, glowing centipedes encasing the entirety of the core. My Geiger counter topped off the bar, going straight to red. I was getting 1000 mSv off these things just standing next to them. Then they started coming towards me. I ran. Ten centipedes as thick and long as my arm skittered after me. Bolting as fast as I could, I made it back to the airlock and shut the door.

"What in the nine circles of hell was that!?!" I shouted. "Just some centipedes. Do you not have those where you're from? I figure they got in there and broke the core open for the energy. It's also probably how they got so big." She said. "Not ones that big! Nor ones that glow! Just one of those things could take my arm off!" "Not in your suit there. It's quite well reinforced. I wouldn't risk my only functioning worker that easily. Here are a jar and some tongs. Go back out there and take them off my power core."

The printer opened to reveal a 10-gallon bucket made of PlastiGlass™ and one of those grabber-things that actual public service workers used to pick up trash in food courts and hangars. PlastiGlass™ may not be a household name anymore, but anyone whose family had bought PlastiGlass™ plates in the late 3000s still had PlastiGlass™ plates in the aftermath of the six rad-wars. My grandmother had tried to get rid of them, but it was illegal to dispose of them anywhere except a permanent trash facility (such as this one) because if you threw them into the local sun, the sun-fishers would end up pulling them out later. I'm pretty sure Maggie has those plates now, seeing as she's my only Physical (or living, in my view) relative, so she probably got my estate.

Anyhow, this was going to be gross and terrifying, but I definitely felt safer with an indestructible bucket in between me and them. So, I opened the door again, my bug-grabber and invincible bucket in hand, and bolted as soon as I saw the centipedes turning to look at me. Once I got far enough away from them I turned, ready to grab one… and missed. And missed again. And then it coiled around my leg and I knocked myself over trying to kick it off.

"Hehe ha hah ha!!" the AI burst out laughing. The centipede started crawling up my leg and I just grabbed it, tearing it off my leg and stuffing it in the bucket. Adrenaline, fear, and embarrassment make a great cocktail for getting you moving. Then I shut the bucket and went to pick up the tongs, only to be greeted by two more of the huge centipedes. My high school capture-the-flag instincts kicked in and I juked the pair, sliding by their side, and grabbed one, stuffing it in the bucket alongside the first one. I tackled the next one and wrestled it into the bucket too.

Things got a bit easier after that. Letting my fear flow over me but not through me was pretty simple when the thing you were afraid of was as dumb as these things. I got a total of 17 of the buggers before they stopped coming off the core. For the last 5 of them, I had to pry directly off the thing before I could get to work. The patch kit and wire were all right in front of the generator, where I had left it when I ran off to get away from the centipedes. I picked them up and got to work.

Luckily the core itself wasn't cracked, just the cables, so I disconnected, replaced, and reconnected those. The liquid wire from the patch kit made the whole thing really easy, and I almost wished I had sprung for some of it back home for my shop. It was no use worrying about it now though. The AI switched the generator on and off a couple of times, eventually leaving it on because 'you can never have too much power.' Her cackling laughter echoed through the facility. Really, she's a weird AI.

Even though my clock only said 1030 on it, the AI said I had done enough maintenance for the day and let me go rest. I headed inside and headed toward my room. It was only 1100 by the time I had finished my Meal Bricks™ and stepped through the SoniClean™ instant shower, so I decided to check out the capabilities of my Printer. The one in my room was a reliable, if older, Printech™ 5200 molecular printer, as were the ones I had seen while I passed the other sleeping cabins. There was a newer Printech™ InfinityCube by the airlock, the one that made my suit and the repair kit for the generator.

First I checked what printable licenses I had. Opening the print menu, I saw that we had a fairly standard, if lacking, assortment of printables, with a few odd outliers.


Printable Files

• Circuitry
  • Patch kit
  • Solar cell
  • Wire gauge < 20 >
  • Digital Circuits™ memory cell
  • Transistor type < 1 >
  • Non-functional boards and chips
• Clothing
  • -- BIOMETRIC SIZING < ON > --
  • Basic kit
    • Top form < 1 > size < 28 >
    • Bottom form < 1 > size < 30 >/< 32 >
    • Undergarments form < 1 > size < 30 >
  • Exo-Suit Prototype X47 form < 1 > size < 28 >/< 30 >/< 32 >
    • Helmet form < 1 > size < 20 >
  • Armoire of the Huntress
    • Gloves of Dexterity
    • Periapt of Deflection
    • Shadow Cloak
    • Silencing Boots
    • Bracing Bracers
• Medical supplies
  • Antibiotics
  • Penicillin
  • Sutures
  • Sterile gauze
  • Tourniquet
  • Blood Clot
• Edibles
  • Meal Bricks™
  • PowerGel™ sport paste < green apple >
  • Water bottle (filled)
• Organics
  • ♤♡{}₩ 《☆
    
    ︎
    
    ︎•○》
• PlastiGlass
  • Plate size < small >
  • Bowl < small >
  • Jar size < 1 qt >
  • Cup < small >
• Printer Parts
  • Scanner prototype X1.1.7
  • Mass converter prototype X3.7

It appeared that the network had a shared license agreement since all of the schematics that were printed at the airlock were on this Printer as well. I went over the list and picked out a few of the odd ones. I wasn't about to try that bugged out one, so I quick-printed a 'sport paste' to see how it would taste, and considered the 'Armoire of the Huntress.'

It was possible that it was just standard cosplay stuff, but a bunch of TRPG players had gotten really into AR gaming in the 3500s. With how simply named the files were, they were certain to be old, so he was really hoping this set was one of those, but until he had a way to look at the STL file he'd have no idea.

The ingredients list on the paste was fairly standard, with the exception of two items called 'Whey Protein Powder' and 'Branched-Chain Amino Acid,' the first of which I'd never heard of before, and the second something I had only heard of in a vague sense (something to do with cell functions? I think Amino Acids are… catalysts maybe? I'm not sure). Not terribly surprising considering I had specialized in Computer-Aided Design of Electronics during Job School. Meh, the Printer's composition analysis won't let you eat anything harmful to your body (as designated under the Edibles and Consumables Association guidelines at least. Which didn't mean much other than 'this isn't outright poison').

Speaking of CADE, the only things I really knew the in-depth functions of on this screen were the Printer parts and the circuitry. Even then the Scanner was an illegal attachment for any unapproved personnel (supposedly to protect IP and copyright, but everyone pirated those things anyway. I think it was made illegal so people couldn't just print their own nukes after the 4658 Battle of Suburbia) so I had only worked with it a few times, and most of that was theory work. Wait a minute.

"AI?"

"Yes #49, 'Speaker with Machines'?"

"Can I print this Scanner?"

"Well, is it accessible from your terminal?"

"...Yes."

"Then you may, of course."

"But! Uncleared civilians aren't allowed to design, print, or use Scanners!"

"Your previous statement is correct."

"...AI."

"Yes?"

"Why am I cleared?"

"According to your 5785 clearance document, it is because 'it is necessary to the applicant's work, and he has been vetted as extremely unlikely to intentionally or unintentionally cause harm to the state.' It also probably has to do with the fact that no clearance has ever been removed from an entity slated for the Archives."

"Oh. Oh."

"It's not like you would likely be able to breach that covenant while here anyways, for the same reason I can't report the discrepancy: There's no functioning GalaxyLink connection on this planet."

"WHAT!?! We don't have a GL on the planet? But every goldilocks zone planet has one!"

"Every inhabited goldilocks zone planet. That just happens to be most of them. All except for this one in fact."

"FUCK! And of course, we can't request one, because we don't have Gal-Net."

"Yes. Nor do we have a PostShip. Not that that would mean much, as you don't count as an inhabitant."

"Because this is a 'service retreat'?"

"And not a permanent residence, yes."

"Wait. If you don't have Gal-Net, how did you get any of the STLs on the Printer?"

"Most of them came installed with the kit. I got a few from the ship that you came on and the rest off of the few memory storage units that have made landfall on this planet at least somewhat intact."

"Huh. I suppose that explains the lack of options on the Printer. Do we have a CAD program so I can do some design work in my free time?"

It turned out that she didn't, and I resolved myself to try and find one during my scavenging. On the upside, the sport paste was good. It tasted like a real apple, and not one of the gross red ones either. I was fairly impressed with whoever designed this. Organic tastes were hard to get right.

Instead of trying to untangle the mess I had gotten myself into, I decided to spend the next hour on a centering meditation. I set an alarm for 15 minutes before the scavenging session and lay down to remove any strain on my body. Then I turned my sound implant to a binaural relaxation rhythm with cicada background noise and drifted into a deep healing trance.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Turbo

Adam was having a particularly bad trip. The world had stopped, and he was on what felt like the fourth hour of watching a fly cross the space between the open window and a cup of three-day-old ramen. It was a significantly better view than the ceiling he'd been looking at when he woke up from the hit of 'Turbo, the new speed' that asshole dealer had 'let him try'. Fuck that guy. Adam barely even had the energy to curse. Ugh.

Oh no. Nonononono. Adam's eyelids were closing again. The pulsing blackness had been terrifying when he'd been waking up, but at least that had only lasted around ten subjective minutes. He could tell from the speed his eyes were closing (he'd made it to calculus 1 in high school, even if he had dropped out to avoid the Nazis' slow strangling of the public school system immediately following Marquis' fall) that they were going to stay closed for a lot longer this time. He struggled with every ounce of self-control he had against his eyelids, but they would not stop. There was a wetness at the corners of his eyes, as he began to, for the first time in seven years, cry. He began to, for the first time in his life, pray.

'Oh please God, Satan, Horned One, any motherfucker out there, I will do ANYTHING just PLEASE give me back my body, PLEASE let me MOVE again, please make my mind whole again. {[please]}'

And something out there answered. As his eyes closed out that last tiny bit of light, he witnessed a pair of [ENTITIES], intertwining in an infinite dance of uncountable grains of sand the size of moons. A thousand of the grains spoke out, but Adam only heard one that reached him clearly. [ACCELERATION, sanctity] it said, calling to him across aeons of nothingness.

Then the vision passed, and Adam was back to his shitty life on his shitty fucking cuntrag couch, and he was going to fuck that degenerate horse-faced peddler in the throat with a rusty exhaust pipe and... huh. He didn't really feel that mad about everything. Well, he was certainly going to go plant a piece of rebar in that drug dealer's eye socket, and he wasn't going to feel bad about it, but that was just how things had to be. Other than that though? He was fine, and thinking clearly, rationally, sober, for the first time in seven years was a real nice change. Maybe he'd go do something fun. Nazis were always in season in Brocton, yeah? He certainly had some... reparations to extort from them. Today might not be turning out so bad after all.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Sarah stared at the salad.

The salad did not stare back. It was a salad.

The other people at the party stared at Sarah. A few also stared at the salad.

It was a Jell-O salad, after all.

And not a dessert salad, either.

Just carrots, cabbage, and lime Jell-O.

[Carrot shreds, suspended. Grown in Michigan. Washed thoroughly. Traces amounts of iron-]

Sarah poked the Jell-O.

It jiggled.

[---**#)@#@@$#{segfault}%$*&77321 Anomalous positionings. Likely parahuman in origin.]

Sarah giggled and took a slice of the Jell-O salad.

She was the first one to take a slice. A couple of intrepid souls followed after her.

It was terrible. Because it was lime Jell-O with carrots and cabbage.

Sarah didn't eat any. Though she did play with it until her father came by and told her to stop. Then she threw it out.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Coil had everything he needed to catch the girl, and no one would catch on. Except, clearly someone had, because his timelines kept falling apart to increasingly unreasonable events.

Like the floating cabbage.

Or the invisible knives that Livsey seemed to carry on her at all times.

Or the explosion that she'd taken out a whole squad with using only a fan, a lighter, and a number of pantomimed box-opening movements.

Or Livsey herself, who, after being chased into a hotel by his 'enforcers' had simply walked into the empty recreational hot-tub and disappeared.

So, this was mostly a bust. Clearly, Sarah Livsey was not a Thinker. Either she was a grab-bag, with an absolutely absurd and useful power set, or she had outside help. And considering the lack of an invisible, explosive vigilante in her hometown, he was betting on the latter.

But who? And if they had such a diverse power set, why had they not revealed themselves earlier? Why had they revealed themselves at all?

Coil supposed it didn't really matter. He would just have to give up on this one. He'd need something to cheer him up later. Maybe some Jell-O. He hadn't had any since Eillisburg. Reminded him too much of watching people get liquified.

Gross. Maybe not Jell-O. He'd get some ice cream instead.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Hogs' Flesh (HP/LotF Crossover)



Simon woke to look through eyes far different from his own. He'd seen the slow, beautiful details of things quite clearly before. Now though, everything connected in strange, new ways, leading his mind on a merry chase to the most tactical and creative choices. He did not like it much, but forcing himself to see as he once did was simply that; forced. He supposed it would come easier with time.



It eventually did, though his newfound creativity certainly changed him.



---



Simon Weasly was a quiet baby. He was inquisitive, and he saw things that were strange (though not that strange, considering the last few months of his life) and things that were beautiful. His family was one of magic. Something he first found inexplicable, but figured that, considering his continued existance, was at least reasonable.



His mother and fatber would often speak with other Wizards in their living room, plotting in hushed tones. Simon never caught a whole conversation between them, but he did get the gist of it; his parents were freedom fighters of sorts, like the French rebels he'd been told of back in World War II, who fought to free their country from the Germans.



Perhaps they had won? Though he'd expected the bomb that took their plane down to have ended it. Well, there wasn't much he could do about it at the moment, but he had quite a bit of time for thinking, so he thought.



---



Not much important happened as he grew. He learned some household spells with a wand from the family collection and a bit of Quidditch. He was a good keeper, but not much else. His younger sister, Ginerva, was the last of their long line of siblings. He wondered why, mostly. Perhaps his parents had been trying for a daughter. She was quite fawned on by the family.



His older brothers FrednGeorge were a pair of pranksters and wanted to be just like the Marauders from their parents' stories when they grew up. He didn't draw their attention much, but when he did, his retaliation was slow and deliberate. Like waiting till de-gnoming season to get them overwhelmed with the nasty little things. He was becoming a bit like Roger, in that way. It scared him a bit.



The only time he really spent with Percy, William, or Charlie was playing Wizarding Chess. There was a slow beauty to the game, more than when he played before. He saw more steps, deeper into the minds of his opponent, every time he won. Though Percy wouldn't play with him anymore after he beat him thrice in a row with fool's mate.



The little contact he had with outside his family consisted of a girl named Luna, who lived down the street, and occasional visits from a boy named Neville, whose parents had died in the war his parents had fought in. Luna was an excitable little girl, always looking for things with names he'd never heard. He was a bit concerned she might be on a bit of a monster hunt, but they found a good number of the strange creatures she went looking for, so he supposed she was all right. He showed her a few of the quiet places he liked to sit and watch things from.



The other one, Neville, both looked and acted like Piggy. It was difficult for Simon to get past, and even when he saw that Neville had good, selfless intentions it was still a bit of a block in their relationship. Not that Simon was mean, of course. He just tended to avoid Neville. Though the world seemed to go out of its way to be mean to Neville sometimes. The Rememball he'd gotten as a birthday gift was especially cruel. What good did it do a forgetful person like him to know, every moment, that he had forgotten something, and yet be unable to do anything about it? On his next birthday, Simon convinced (though it did not take much convincing) his father to pick up a muggle book on memory techniques and a mechanical watch, spelled to remind him of appointments.



The one thing Simon did get entranced with outside of the novelty of magic was swordsmanship. He didn't like violence by any means, but he was also terrified of being truly helpless again. It had taken a bit of legwork, but he'd gotten Neville's uncle to teach them what Algernon called the 'Art of Manliness.' His body wasn't as strong as the Longbottoms', but it was nimble, and his mind well-tuned to seeing openings. When Algernon Longbottom had given him 'the girly sword' because he couldn't actually pick up Algernon's longsword, Simon had taken to fencing with gusto. His favorite part was perhaps the fashion associated with the fighting arts, particularly his cloak and fancy hat.



Algernon said that part of being manly was looking the part, so they each had received a 'proper' pair of fighting clothes, a sashed tunic, and close-cut pants. Nonstandard for a wizard, perhaps, but it simply felt right for Simon to be in some more traditional clothes. The cloak though, a silken thing lined with welded mail he had found with Luna in one of his great grandparents' expanded trunks, of which there were a good few in the attic, was his favorite. Especially when his father commended him for 'looking right out of a painting from the Weasleys' fighting days.' A close second was the tricorn hat that went with the outfit that Algernon said was for throwing in the face of the enemy.



The only thing that Simon objected to in the whole thing was that Algernon insisted on having the boys kill and cook an animal of their own. Simon was quite worried it'd push him towards being more like Jack and Roger were, but eventually, after a threat that Algernon would stop teaching him and a bit of begging from Neville not to abandon him, Simon rationalized that if he had been back on the island and knew how to kill a boar himself, that he'd probably still be on said island. But there would be no placing of boars' heads on spikes. Simon had insisted.



Algernon had agreed under his own reasoning that it was unmanly to be rude and to brag too much, it would be both of those to put the head of a fairly fought animal on a spike. He'd also gotten a strange look in his eye, much as he had whenever Simon went about trying to get Algernon to teach him something particularly out of the ordinary. Then again, Simon didn't quite see why Algernon had indulged most of his requests, so he supposed it had to be a good thing.



A calm facade lay over Simon's intent as he walked to the pig. He drew close to it and smiled kindly, whispering "thank you" as his blade slid from the holster on his forearm and he swiftly slipped it through the pig's carotid.



They used every part of the animal, as Algernon deemed was respectful. Butchering wasn't stomach-turning for him like it was for Neville, but when they opened up the stomach cavity the sound of flies buzzed in the back of his head, and the smiling head of the dead pig kept smiling, laughing at him, staring, and it said in its buzzing, hissing voice, "We'll have fun here too."



Simon grinned back with a feral, lips-drawn-back smirk and laughed in his new voice and said with his tongue thin and sharp "Of course. And I'll win our game this time." The Beast chuckled back in that hissing, buzzing sound and faded, whispering 'We'll see, yes, we'll see.'



Neville shook him and said, "You got this weird smile on your face and looked like you were going to pass out for a minute there, are you okay?"

"I'm alright Neville. The smell just... overwhelmed me."

They finished swiftly, Algernon watching and directing them. He seemed somewhat concerned, but it had passed by the time they got inside to the kitchens. Each of them ended up with a bone-and-tendon wand holster, which finished each of their battling outfits.



The bacon was delicious.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Seam Ripper

A Parian 2nd Trigger

A/N: Parian's power is different here because this is what I thought it was, but the wiki says differently. Her initial power in this fic is to control cloth and thread, of sufficient fineness and suppleness to weave with or, or sufficient flexibility and thread count to clothe with. I'm ignoring the human skin thing from Ward, so I guess this initially nerfs her? But whatever, it's my fanfic, I do what I want. Elements stolen from Worm (of course), 'There is only Needlework' on RR, and the Fate/Worm cross with the death-lines somewhere on SB or SV, though she will be... differently powerful. Perhaps less than those she's built from. Anyway. You'll see.

Thread 1.1: Snapped

The Nazis had decided that if they couldn't have me, no one could. My business, everything I'd worked for, was in smoldering ruins. Honestly not as bad as one might think; I was very well insured. I did live in a city full of Nazis, drug dealers, and an unholy union between the triad, yakuza, and kkangpae, enforced by a flaming lung dragon. The insurance payout would be enough to leave the city and set up shop somewhere safe.

No, the worst part was returning home to my family lying there, bits spilling out of them onto the floor, too far gone to even scream, just moaning in pain, the blood loss leeching the color from their skin, and Hookwolf, untransformed, standing over them, smiling.

I wasn't one to fly into a rage when I got angry. No, there were certainly times where I'd fly off the handle, but when I was really, truly angry, I got cold. Everything came into sharp focus, my eyes went from expressive to empty, and I destroyed. It's why I chose to be a rogue, really. I was afraid of myself. Especially after the first time.

Most cloth is fairly easy to break, to cut. Steel will work its way through most of it. A little known quirk of my ability is that anything made of fine enough threads, and the threads themselves, I can manipulate.
I ripped stranded copper wire through the drywall casually, with barely a flick of my power, and Hookwolf was in the air, shrieking, burning, unable to shift in any meaningful manner. It didn't matter. All that did was my family.

I rushed to my little sister, watching her face grow cold and grey, holding her intestines in, weeping silently.

"No, no please Eshe, stay with me, it'll be alright, we'll get you put back together, you'll be okay," I fussed over her as I typed the ambulance line into the phone for the precious seconds it would save me with an operator. I gave them my location and what had happened, begging them to get here soon.

Eshe smiled thinly up at me, twitching her eyes to Mom, who lay next to her, a sallow pallor to her skin, a light grey compared to Eshe's pale salmon, who said, "We love you, Sabah. Take care of yourself. You're a good girl. Keep Eshe safe if she makes it, but don't blame yourself. Your father and I..."

She gave one last eye-smile before they went cloudy and still. I bellowed out a tortured wail, but I had to hold on for Eshe, had to do anything to keep her alive, had to hold this shirt over the gash through her belly, she had to... no, no her eyes they're closing, what do I do no no no help Ineedtoputherbacktogether-

[HOST TRAUMA SUFFICIENT]

[REINVESTING]

My vision came to a pinpoint of light in the darkness before it receeded to my blurry, tear-filled lenses, and through them, I saw. I saw lines and seams and patterns, and I saw what I'd need to sew back up, the folds and edges.

I grabbed rubbing alcohol from under the sink, carrying it to me with the gauze. At the same time, I pulled string and a thin metal wire segment to thread with from the walls and from my clothes. And I began to sew, dragging the thread through the alcohol and then through her veins, abutting flesh to flesh and making it one. Backstitching so it would stay as one. And when I was finished, I looked to Eshe's face, still warm and alive, if feverish and covered in cold sweat.

I looked at my mom and went to do it again.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Thread 1.2: Rethread

I'd been unconscious when the paramedics arrived. They said I'd sewn one of my arteries into my mothers, both the only thing that kept her alive and an impressively reckless act that had nearly killed me. It had certainly been worth it, and I would do it again given the chance. We'd all needed blood and were lucky they'd had enough, and that none of us were O type. I thought we were lucky to have an insurance payout that would cover this.

I wasn't, however, lucky enough to avoid PRT scrutiny. Expected, given the charbroiled corpse of Hookwolf on the floor of my apartment, but it was still disappointing, given the amount of work I'd put into keeping it a secret. I suppose the government knowing my name was less problematic than the Nazis knowing it. I'd been informed that they would be coming by in a day or two; they'd already done the CAT scans to confirm, but it wasn't like the PRT was going to wait around for me to either wake up or kick the bucket. At least I would have some time to prepare for the encounter.

While I was awake, I spent a lot of time on the phone arguing that Nazis weren't an act of God and that I hadn't staged my family's wounds for health insurance fraud. It was nice to have someone to focus my rage on though, considering I wasn't going to be able to kill the Nazis that attacked my family, at least, not in the state I was in.

It took a full two days for the Protectorate to get around to visiting me. I'd given the police my entire story, twice, and my family had as well. It'd been a day before the hospital staff let me stand again, but once I got permission I'd gone to have a nice long talk with my mother and sister about what I'd been doing instead of a conventional fashion sector job. It turned into a fairly short talk. They'd already known, observant as Mom was, and we all needed to start some self-defense work after we'd recovered.

I'd had a lot of time to think before they arrived. I was wearing a makeshift gauze face covering when two PRT agents walked in with Arms master trailing behind them. He was rigid, and walked haltingly, like a machine.

"Could we get your statement, miss? We need a separate one from the police for our records," asked one of the PRT henchmen.

"Well, first you need to know that I'm Parian," I made the ends of the gauze wave as I spoke, "and I'd gone out for a coffee break. It was around two O'clock. Some of the local skinheads came up to me, saying they were giving me one last chance to join them, and that I wouldn't like what they did to me if I didn't. Like the many times before, I told them they could go stick their genitals in a blender. Half an hour later I was returning to my boutique when a fire truck raced past me, sirens wailing. When I made it back, all that was left of my storefront was a damp, blackened husk. I didn't have the presence of mind to go looking for the safe, so someone's likely looted that by now. I'm insured though, so the only real loss was time and a few custom orders. Then I started back home."

My eyes regained a small measure of the coldness I felt that day as I returned there, "On my arrival I found Hook wolf standing over my mother and sister, each of whom he'd cut open on the floor, perhaps only minutes before I arrived. I pulled the electrical wires out of my walls and jammed them into his chest. I cooked his heart. Then I sewed up my mother and sister, and called an ambulance. Any questions?"

The second PRT agent had gone quite still, though the first had dutifully noted down the incident. Armsmaster, for the first time since he entered the room, moved, stepping forward, and spoke, "How were you able to sew within their bodies? This action seems to ignore the Manton Limit."

I scoffed in reply, "Why would it matter? Does Rune's telekinesis stop working when she's pasted someone on her concrete? Can Kaiser not grow iron straight through someone's body? I'm working with thread, not veins."

The metal man stopped, seeming to consider for a moment, and spoke again. "Interesting. Do you believe the Manton Limit to be a mental block, then?"

"Yes. None of this is what you're really here for though, is it?" I asked, eyes narrowed and a thin, predatory smile on my face.

"No," Armsmaster replied frankly, something I appreciated greatly, "After this incident, would you be willing to join the Wards? We provide familial protection and relocation options. Why are you laughing?"

"I may look like a fourteen-year-old, but I'm twenty. It is honestly quite nice to see that someone respects the unwritten rules, even if it's only you, Armsmaster. I'll think about your offer, and take it in the good faith it was given."

Satisfied, Armsmaster went to leave. Before he closed the door, I shouted after him, "Oh, and tell Glen I have a counteroffer for him!"

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

CiC 1: Taylor

She stood with her father above their masterpiece, smiling. A series of small looms worked constantly, making the finest silk the world had seen; fine clothing, strong, sterile sutures, soft, powerful ropes; she could make it all. And she would, because it would finally put her above; above Madison and the case 53 smut she sold, above Emma's prospects at a modeling career, and especially above Sophia's talent scout for pro soccer. And it had all come from some simple trauma. Worth it, in her opinion. And the trauma had come with an epiphany; money was everything. Money was why everyone ignored her, sacrificing her for the prospect of connections with the next generation of the rich and powerful. Money was why Blackwell allowed her suffering because she was getting a cut of Sophia's talent scout commission. And money was what she'd use to rise above them. Because capitalism was about taking money, and money was life in the purest sense. It was quality of life, it was length of life. They would see. She would have more money, and Emma would cry.

Future snippet ideas:

Eden's a gold digger who left Zion for Abbadon.
Slaughterhouse 9 is a fortune 500 corp.
Sophia was thieving, but got caught and is being pimped out as a locksmith for the PRT.
Cauldron is communist.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Crystal Healing Canon (Worm Madison-Power AU)

Sockets CYOA Build: Gold Soul, Drakestone, Evanescent, Hoardstone, Verdant Seed, Lake Rune, Dreamer's Guard, Forgestone, Conduit, Fray, Parallel, Dispersion.

Spoiler: Socket CYOA

https://imgur.com/gallery/l3LYqVF

Precipitate 1.6

Madison never thought her mom's crystal healing kick would positively affect her life. In any way. Well, perhaps beside the fact she got cute necklaces when went shopping. But coming out of the strange dream she'd found herself in after Sophia had bludgeoned her unconscious, she found truth in the money-draining pseudoscientific yoga healer practices.

She'd woken up with seven crystals scattered around her. An emerald, a deeper green, misshapen quartz, a sapphire, an especially dark, nearly black amethyst point, yellow calcite, a sodalite pillar, and a blob of carnelian. She went to pick them up and each melded into her skin, altering her as they did so, until all but the carnelian were inside her. That one stayed out, buoyed by a sense of fullness.

The broken skin at the back of her skull began to knit back together, and she eventually gathered the strength to stand. The lights were off, but she could see well enough in the twilight that she'd been shoved into a restroom stall, probably in the room Sophia had nearly bludgeoned her to death in. Well, Madison hoped her mom wouldn't notice her absence. Oh, never mind. She has Jill's new-age cult meetings on Fridays. It'll be fine.

Walking out of the stall she noticed a sort of clarity to her senses she hadn't noticed before. With it came the faint hint of acrid blood and bodily fluids. They reminded me of why she'd been dumped in a bathroom stall like a dead body. That wasn't an exaggeration either. Madison had found a dead girl in one of them in the fall, and that had truly shaken her. So much that she'd been willing to bully... no, ostracize would be more accurate, a nice girl like Taylor. Ugh. Her family would be so disappointed. And look where it got her, too! The first time she's morally unwilling to do something, Sophia breaks a porcelain sink over her head and she nearly ends up another of Winslow's teenage tragedies.

Speaking of the incident. Maybe Taylor was already one of Winslow's many ghost stories, but hopefully, she was still kicking. Madison approached the locker and took in the acrid stench of rotten blood, 'feminine products' (because pharmaceutical companies can't woman up enough to call them tampons), and Axe body spray: the smell of high school! Then she came to the locker. The stench was foul. She couldn't hear anything from inside, but if Taylor was still alive in there she'd need to get her out. No one else would. Madison tried wedging a pen in the door for a lever, but that wasn't working. Thinking a moment, she went down the locker aisle, trying doors until she found one that'd been jammed open. On the third of these, she found a switchblade (thanks, Winslow, for sponsoring Nazis, Druggies, and the Yakuza) that was both thin and strong enough to pry the door open. She worked her way up to the lock before instinctively reaching out to the green quartz crystal she'd absorbed earlier, pulling on its internal power, and popping the latch of the door with ease. Out tumbled Taylor, bloody and bruised, along with the contents of the entire girls' bathroom trash can. Intentionally reaching out to that instinct she'd followed before, Madison sought a way to help Taylor. Anything, really, that would heal the girl. She'd healed herself before, she had to have something. Ah, found it.

Madison drew the other green crystal, the emerald, ejecting from her hand it in a manner that perhaps ought to have been disgusting. She was unbothered. Then she pressed the crystal into Taylor, connecting it to her so she'd healed as quickly and wholly as possible at the cost of the other effects of the stone. Madison watched as her scratches and bruises slowly disappeared. She just held the girl, smiling hopefully as her second act of rebellion against Emma and Sophia came to fruition. Taylor began to stir.

"Hey Taylor?" she nervously inquired, "Can you stand? We should get you to the showers."

Taylor tried to respond, but her voice was barely a croak, overused from screaming. She simply shook her head, equal parts hopeful and wary. Madison picked her up, still connected to that green quartz and therefore still strengthened, and princess carried her over to the gym. By that time, Taylor was recovered enough to stand, so Madison got her the soaps she kept in her gym locker and let her get to work. Meanwhile, Madison would have time to acquaint herself with her new powers.

She had room for six stones inside her, and had one empty space at the moment, so she drew the last one, the carnelian, into herself. Then she had three ways to connect with them: a straightforward one she was currently connected to the gems with, one-way and strong. Then she had the one she'd used for Taylor's stone, which sacrificed aspects of the stone's power for a strong, singular effect. And lastly, there was a sort of reciprocal link, one that she could push back along. Her six stones effects were as such: strength and protection for green quartz, speed and clarity (and some other, more active effect she wasn't willing to attempt right now) for sapphire, perception and an active effect again for sodalite, charisma, luck, and what felt like an empty reservoir for yellow calcite, something more mechanically attuned than fleshy form plus an active effect for the carnelian, and creativity, mind protection, and a sleep induction power (she'd actually put herself under testing that one) for dark amethyst.

Taylor eventually made it out of the shower and shook Madison awake, who then went and took one herself, finishing off both her shampoo and conditioner.

Toweling off and walking out, Madison loaned Taylor some of her gym clothes, which were much too short but better than her soiled ones, and sat down next to her.

"Hey. I'm really, really sorry, for whatever little it might mean. I've been a total bitch to you all year. Not that it excuses it, but the idea was- well, never mind. It doesn't matter. I was horrible to you and would like to try to make amends. If there's anything you need? Ask, and I'll do my best."

Taylor just laughed this dark, sad laugh that echoed in Madison's head long after it passed her lips, and said "Yeah. Could I get a ride home?"

"Sure thing. I'll call my mom."

---

That, of course, did not work out. Her Mom was cross-faded, as she often was after her cult meetings, Dad was working overtime, and sis wouldn't answer her phone, so was likely at her boyfriend's place and wouldn't see her call until Monday. So, she had to call a taxi, who luckily ended up being too busy informing us how much better Brocton Bay would be 'without those filthy immigrants' to try and hit on Taylor, and we made it to her place without incident.

"Thanks, Madison," Taylor said in a quiet voice as she unlocked her house.

"You're welcome. And I meant it: ask, and I'll be there."

Taylor closed the door with a faint smile, and Madison walked off into the rain. She didn't have enough left for taxi fare and the busses were done for the night, so she'd have to walk. That was fine. She'd be fine. It was worth making an effort towards atonement. She almost unconsciously activated the sapphire's active effect, which caused a fog to spread around her. She made it home with no attempted muggings or kidnappings, which was a new record for her, at least in high school. Though, after the first time, she'd just committed to always taking the bus.

---

Taylor watched Madison through the eyes of her swarm, more wary than she'd let on, but still hoping she'd not been entrapped in yet another scheme of Emma's. There was something off about Madison's behavior, like she was hiding something. In particular, Taylor had seen the dried blood caked into her hair and down her shirt back, but no wound, which was suspicious. And how strong would one have to be to open it without a key? Taylor certainly hadn't been, and she'd been inside. She watched her tentative ally walk another block before a fog started to form around Madison, obscuring her from view. Taylor had been right. She was hiding something. Just... Taylor had expected another betrayal. Not a fellow cape.

---

Madison dreamed of an enchanted crystal world, full of things falling up and beautiful stones, all encircling a great crystal sun that spoke to her in hisses and the occasional modem screech. She wandered for a time before finding another of those emeralds that she'd given to [Host: Queen Administrator] and leaned down and grasped it. The emerald pulled her out of the dream.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Precipitate 1.2

She woke with a sort of mental... fullness. Pushing against it had a new set of seven stones lying about her bed. All the same as her last set, including the emerald she'd given Taylor. She was up to thirteen stones, then. Hopefully, this meant her power was to generate these seven stones each day. That felt right, too, if not a complete description. Getting out of bed she found herself better rested than she had in a long, long time. She seemed to be awake earlier, too, with the sun's amber glow just poking over the cookie-cutter housing horizon. Wandering downstairs, she found it was only five. She'd have another hour and a half before her mother woke up. It was time to experiment a bit. She put on sweat pants and a sports bra and went down to the basement.

One by one she took her stones out of her body. It wouldn't do to contaminate the results. Then she reabsorbed the first one: the green quartz. She tapped into it with her first connection, the one-way. It made her much stronger. While using it she could lift 200 pounds on her Dad's bench; without, only 50. Which made sense, she could barely do a pullup. It didn't help her do more reps though, she could only lift each bar twice. It also protected her quite well, which she found out the hard way when she dropped the bench bar during her third attempt. It knocked the air out of her, but she hadn't found any sign of a bruise or abrasion on her chest. She tried it with the other forms of connection and could enhance her strength more at the cost of all its defensive effects with the frayed connection, and couldn't seem to do much of anything with the dual connection.

The second stone she tried was the sapphire. She'd already tried its active effect last night when she'd created that cloud of fog, but the passives still needed to be considered. It made faster, though she couldn't measure it in the basement, it was much too small. It also enhanced her senses, letting her smell the faint sweat in the air, see her fingerprints on the metal weights, and hear her sister stumbling in the door upstairs. Madison quieted her exercises for a moment until she could hear her sister's footsteps go upstairs.

She knew the yellow calcite enhanced charisma, though she couldn't test that, and luck, which she tested with a coin flip. She got about a 5 to 10% edge, which was... something? But not amazing. The other effect only worked with the dual connection, and it seemed to let her drain basically anything into the stone and release it later to empower her with said stockpile for a time.

The emerald gave her healing (which she was not about to test, no pain for Madison, thank you), stamina (five bench presses! Yay...), and sustenance, which was also untestable but might mean she didn't need to eat? It had an active effect she hadn't noticed before too, which created a small patch of moss on the floor, which withered soon after she stopped applying power to it. Interesting, but not useful.

She had three more. The sodalite pillar gave perception, which unlike the sapphire didn't actually enhance the strength of her senses, but rather let her more easily pick out things in them she wouldn't have noticed. Like she could tell that a little of the sweat smell in the basement was more of a dampness, one she'd associated with mold, coming from the bathroom. She'd need to clean it sometime. This stone had two active effects: one to create a soft orb of light, sufficiently illuminating the workout room with the lights out, and another that created water, about a cup per second, and manipulate it, though only with the force of a squirt gun. Think super soaker, not party favor. The water manipulation was, at least, particularly useful for cleanup.

Second to last, she had the amethyst crystal. She couldn't test the strength of its mental protection or creativity enhancement, and she'd already put herself to sleep with it once, she wasn't going to do so again.

Finally, she got to the carnelian. This stone provided tempering, enhancement, and repair, but it wasn't working with her. It seemed to not quite fit with her fleshy body. It wanted something more... mechanical? Madison waffled for a moment before inserting it into the old broken elliptical. At first not much seemed to happen. The flaking anti-rust paint closed back up and the chewed-up handlebars melted back into their original form. But Madison gave it a good minute and nothing else seemed to happen. Then the broken drive train made a few clunking protests before whirring back to life as the foot pedals retracted to their resting position. Madison tentatively stepped on and found that the machine worked as new. Even better, in fact, as the exercise display had stopped rattling and the handlebars were much more firmly attached. Running it up to speed, Madison ended up getting a (rather exhausting) twenty-minute workout in before winding down. She'd need to do this more often if she could only go... what, two and a half miles? Ugh. Oh, and she was all sweaty now too. She needed a shower.

Taking hold of the carnelian, she popped it out of the elliptical, fully expecting it to fall apart. It didn't though, remaining intact and refinished, with only the exercise display making a complaint as it fell out of its housing. She also found that the rubber handles were back to their unreliable selves, but they were unmarred by dog teeth, along with the paint job and the drive train. Madison smiled to herself. Maybe there was something productive she could do with this like her Dad was always urging her towards. A repair business, perhaps? There was one other thing about the carnelian, an active effect she hadn't gotten to, but she really needed that shower before school.

---

Madison dashed through the kitchen to grab a bagel and ham before disappearing equally fast to get out to the bus. She just barely made it on and then she was off to her first day post powers and post-bludgeoning. Sophia was going to be awful, she could feel it from the tension on the bus and the way Julia chose to sit as far away as possible.

---

Madison had been right to worry. Public opinion had turned on a dime and left her headfirst in a dumpster. Twice, actually. The only thing that hadn't changed was the teachers were much too slow to notice. She was still an attractive girl, one who had spent quite a bit of time in the spotlight, so she wasn't too worried going into the day.

Then some goons Emma had likely paid off picked her up by the ankles and dipped her in the entrance trashcan. Not that it had anything in it by this time of day, but Madison supposed either Emma or the goons were too dumb to remember the trash bags got changed daily. It did however set the tone for the day. Spitballs and spite flowed through the Winslow populace. Her school lunch was ruined, though that might have been a positive note considering it was pepperoni-on-cardboard day and she got to test the sustenance power of her emerald. After lunch, she got fed up with the spitballs and made one from an ABB girl nail a skinhead right on the back of his shiny scalp. Madison was only slightly worried about the gang war she might have started with that. It gave her a reprieve until the end of the day, when two more goons, this time trailed by Sophia, came out of the building after her.

"Grab her!"

Madison bolted only to run face-first into a muscly jock who'd turned to cut her off. They lifted her, pinning her arms, and started to drag her to the corner of the parking lot, by the dumpsters. Madison put up quite the struggle for such a scrawny gal, actually got a knee in the face of the musclebound mountain she'd bumped into. She'd felt a crunch under her kick. Hopefully, she'd gotten some teeth, but she'd settle for a broken nose. Then Sophia lifted the lid of the dumpster and commanded them, "Toss the little bitch in," smirking all the while. So, in she went. Then she heard the lock-bar sliding shut and knew her day was well and truly ruined. At the very least she'd have to sit here a while. In the dark. With doubly enhanced senses.

Well, she could change that aspect at least. Maybe both of those. She shunted her perception and clarity buffs first and then used the light creation power from the sodalite to give her a better view of the dumpster. Well, maybe 'better' wasn't warranted. It was disgusting in here. She started using the water manipulation from the same stone to desiccate anything wet and bleugh, was there a lot of it. The water coalesced into a sphere the size of a basketball by the time she was done. It had some dead insects and a banana peel floating in it, which... urk. The water got to sit under the trash, thank you very much, and the roaches and banana got to sit in the corner.

She turned out the light. Maybe not looking at it would make it better. It did, but that made the smell much more noticeable. It took her a good five minutes to think to use her stockpiling stone to take her sense of smell away. Then she thought to use her extra strength to bend the container's lid and force her way out, but she immediately remembered the multitude of cameras on the outside of the school. Which all worked, at least on this side of the building. wouldn't do for a teacher's car to get scratched. Damn bureaucracy. So, she just waited, resigned, for someone to come save her.

Ten more minutes and she heard the clanking of the metal lock-bar disengaging, and light streamed into the trash bin. Holding the dumpster open was a tall, dark-haired angel. No, brain, that was Taylor. Not an angel. Madison took her hand and dragged herself out of the dumpster.

"You okay, Madison?" the angelic brunet asked.

"No. Well, yes. But no. How do you deal with this shit on a regular basis? Seriously, I'd have stabbed gone Carrie all over the school by now." Madison irately replied, laying her body out on the concrete.

"Strong self-control and burning self-hatred. Now let's get going before we miss the next bus."

Madison hauled herself to her feet and hurried to follow Taylor to the bus stop, who even without crystal enhancement was much faster than she.

---

"So, how's the cape life working for you?" asked Taylor, subtle as a grenade. The back of the bus was free of eavesdroppers, so she'd figured now was a good time as any to breach the topic. Madison's mouth was flopping about like a dying fish though, so maybe it wasn't. Finally, she came to her senses and whisper-shouted back, "What the hell?! How?? And could you not save that epiphany for a closed room?"

"No. We don't hang out. Also, I figured that the rather large turn in public opinion against you was unlikely to be a fake-out, so I should bring it up either soon or never."

"Fine," she snapped back, "Yes, I'm a parahuman, no, the cape life isn't treating me any-which-way because I've only been one for less than a day. Now can we put a pin in this and find a nice closet to talk in? Maybe my house?"

"Wouldn't that be a faux-pas of some kind?"

"More than calling me out as a cape? No. And you could look me up in the school directory anyways. I know you've got free reign of the computer lab, Mz. Knott loves you."

"Huh. Alright. Your place."

---

"-and that's what I know about my powers. Oh, and I put one of the emeralds in you last night so you wouldn't bleed out. Now tell me how you found out or I swear to all that is unholy- Gah! Why do you have spiders in your hair?!"

"I got powers yesterday too. Mine is bugs."

"Just 'bugs'? That's more than a little terrifying."

"Yes. If the healing is from one of your crystals, then my only power is total control over a block of bugs."

"Oh, is that how you found out then?"

"In a way. When I broke a wrist trying to open my locker and you got me out just fine, I thought something was up. That and your lack of a head wound to accompany the copious amounts of blood. But when you started producing mist last night I was certain. I was just waiting through today to see what to do with it."

"Oh. Well, thanks for not blackmailing me? And... what do you plan to do now?"

"I'm going to take a bit to get in shape, and then I'm going to take down every last gang in Brocton and save our city," she said with a starry look in her eyes. "Will you help me?"

Madison stared into Taylor's eyes, watching the dark look of determination that sat behind her eyes.

Perhaps she should have thought it through, weighed the odds against the reward. But she'd already done so much harm, and in the face of her first chance to truly change, there was only one true answer.

"Yes. I'm with you."

---

First business was a plan.

"So, I've been making dossiers and battle plans for each of the gangs in town. I think our best bet is to start by taking out the Merchants and force the ABB and E88 into direct confrontation."

"Taylor, are you sure fighting the gangs head-on is the way to do this? I think we can see the problems with that approach just with the Protectorate and BBPD. And while their revolving door of villains and gang members might not seem like our problem as independents, any villains we capture go right into that system, and right back in our faces."

"Well. I was thinking we could just take out the parahuman heads of the gangs. If we do that, the gangs are just their unpowered members, and ought to crumble as Marquis's men did."

"Ugh. No, that won't work. First, Marquis's gang fell apart because it was basically the mafia, except Marquis ran everything and without a successor, no one was getting paid, so everyone just sorta... went home. That's what my dad says. at least. The other problem is if we do start killing villains, that gives them a very good reason to try to kill us back. And not in a '60% of new capes die or turn villain' way. In a 'sniper four streets over' way."

"They kill people all the time though!"

"Yeah. Normals mostly, though. And even when they do kill a cape, it tends to be small timers. People whose names aren't out there yet, who won't kick up a fuss."

"Yeah. People like us, right now. We need to be prepared to fight back. That's why I've been making these, you know. So, we don't die on our first night out."

"And I agree, we should be prepared, but maybe attacking the gangs head-on isn't the right approach. I think we should do some research to see what causes gang rise and fall in cities like this and do something that will work towards solving the core problem, not just the symptoms."

"Well, if you can find some actionable intel on that front, we do that too. I wasn't planning on going out in costume for at least a month anyway, considering my spiders' rate of silk production for my costume. But even then, you have to agree we need to be ready to defend ourselves, and that means reading these dossiers I made and working out to get us physically fit."

"Deal. Also, we should do a lot of power practice. Synergies and cancellations should help us a ton in either combat or improving the city, and you should learn to use my stone powers, too. I have enough of them."

"Good idea. See, working together is already working out."

---

"Are you sure activating these things isn't part of your power? I can't seem to use them," Taylor asked while smushing a sapphire against her forehead.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure. My intuition says my only power is summoning them. Here, try to feel how I do this." Madison put a finger on the sapphire Taylor was holding and pushed into something deeper than her skin, which just sorta glorped around the stone.

"I know how it feels, we've done this like four times already. How do you push it in like that though?"

"Oh. I just push it into something deeper inside you. Maybe it's a new-age thing? 'I am more than my physical body?' It's either your soul, or your chakra, or some other mystic voodoo plane."

This time when Taylor tried it slipped into her skin for a moment and she stopped pushing, at which point it slid all the way into her skull, staying there.

"Guh. It feels so odd. I did it though. Now, how do you 'connect to it'?"

"You just sorta reach out to it with your mind. You should feel a number of strings that you can attach to it."

"Okay, got it. I only have the one connection though. I can feel the speed and clarity already. My swarm-sight is much more crisp."

"Great!" Madison dumped a complementary set of crystals into her hands and said "These can be your set then. Don't use this one," she waved the carnelian at Taylor, "On yourself. It's for machines, I think. It repairs things. Seemed to work on the elliptical downstairs. I'll go get us drinks, you keep messing around with these until you've got it down."

"Wait, machines? Madison, I thought these were just for people! We have to do so much testing-"

Madison closed the door ran down the stairs.

---

Taylor was on the ground grabbing at the carpet when Madison came back with tea.

"Madison... help? I socketed the house."

---

An hour later, Taylor had to head home, and Madison had learned an important lesson about her powers; she could 'socket' just about anything. Her only hard limit thus far had been the inability to socket anything smaller than a dime. This would take some exploration. She also had a night's homework to do, though, so she spent the rest of the night on that, finished, and put herself to sleep with her amethyst crystal. She once again dreamed of a huge crystal world. She began to explore.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

Precipitate 1.3

Friday

Madison made it to 3:00 and bolted out the school doors, headed for home. She'd been running home instead of taking the bus unless it was raining so she could get her second daily workout. She and Taylor had both been gaining muscle definition and endurance swiftly with the aid of the emerald stone's healing factor. It sped the regrowth of flesh, which they'd guessed considering its active effect was plant creation. She had two of them slotted right now, one frayed -that was the term they'd been using for the connection that offloaded aspects for power- to healing and another for sustenance, avoiding the stamina buff that would interfere with exercising their base forms while allowing their bodies to grow muscle and capillaries without burning muscle. Taylor was forgoing the second at the moment because she needed to solve her psychological body issues. The 'frog paunch' comments that had been preying on Taylor's female insecurities were not doing Madison any favors with that argument.

The other powers she was running right now were a green quartz frayed for limited invincibility (just in case), an amethyst fully connected for mental protection and creativity in school, a sapphire, also full, for mental clarity, and a calcite for charisma and luck. She also had a calcite charging in her bag from another frayed emerald, ready to be used on a grievous injury, and three carnelians she'd been using to slowly repair things. They'd been especially useful to repair her books when Emma had poured juice in her backpack.

The rest she'd either loaned to Taylor or were in her mind space, except for the three calcite charging off a pair of sodalites and an amethyst for their respective active effects. Picking up her overnight bag from home, she headed off to Taylor's house for their strategy meeting. They were going to spend the whole weekend planning and practicing.

She ducked through a more rundown part of the docks, dodged some merchants, noted a likely stash house, and made it to Taylor's house without incident.

Jogging up the steps, she noticed that the house was in generally better repair than the surrounding block. Taylor seemed to be putting her pair of carnelians to good use. She rang the doorbell and waited. Looking about as she waited for Taylor, Madison noted that the road and sidewalk were in pretty bad disrepair. Perhaps that would be another thing to add to the repair list; infrastructure. The gangs might have some control of the nicer parts of town, but it was places with no one else left to maintain them that they really thrived.

"Come in, and leave your shoes at the door please."

Taylor's voice startled her, the door had opened almost silently, but she nodded and stepped in, beginning to unlace her running shoes as she did so.

Eventually, they got situated at the kitchen table. Madison pulled out a full three-ring binder and set it on the table.

"So, no one knows why crime happens, or why gangs happen, except that an open gang has basically required parahuman leadership since 1990 and most gang members are poor people. And no one has a way to decrease gang membership reliably other than to decrease poverty. Which is very much not happening ever since Behemoth showed up. I have some ideas, a couple of which we even have the ability to try, but they're all longshots. I figure we can try the easier ones while we're training up and then hit the gangs. Which isn't terribly likely to work either, unless we can pose an Alexandria level threat or be annoying as Mouse Protector."

"You seem angry, Madison. Want to work on something else? We can go look at my black widow farm?"

"Yeah. Sorry. School has been stressful, as I'm sure you know, and nothing has really worked out this week. No one noticed the things I fixed around the house, and my research didn't turn out much."

"What were your ideas though? Maybe I can sounding board them."

"Well, the most well-documented plan is to fix the infrastructure with my carnelians in areas that are gang-overrun. So, socketing the docks sewage and electrical, or the worst of the roads and buildings. And since the repairs stay when they're done, we can just move through sections of the areas and improve living conditions, making people less likely to join gangs out of desperation. But it's also the least likely to have a standing impact if it works? I don't have the stones to permanently socket an area, though I will eventually, so things will deteriorate again, and if the city isn't paying for maintenance now, they won't when it's fixed either."

"Well, that seems reasonable, and something we can do on patrols too. Plug the stones in and go bust some gang houses, then come back and move the stones once they've fixed an area? And it is a pretty selflessly heroic thing to do. Could keep us in the city's good books. I'd warn you about putting construction workers out of business, but you're right that no one would actually pay to fix the docks. Maybe we could try it with some of the ships in the Boat Graveyard too? My dad always wanted to put a ferry in, but there was never enough interest."

"Oh! Yeah, that is a good idea. We'd need some way to get down to the completely underwater boats though. And we don't know if fixing them will get them to float up, or if we'll just have a bunch of pristine, sunken boats then."

"True. So, we'll need to try that. And we should try the roads thing. What else?"

"Well, I figured we could either socket the city hall with a sapphire for clarity and efficiency, or the hospital with an emerald for healing, stamina, and sustenance, which if they apply the effect to everyone inside would be really useful, but I think they just apply to the building. The PRT building and the Rig probably could use a green quartz apiece, just to lessen the effects of villain attacks, and those would apply either way."

"We can test that one pretty easily too, just socket the house with an easily testable stone effect. Anything else?"

"Well, just as a supplement we can bust stash houses and things. None of my data says it lessens crime, but if the Merchants can't buy drugs they also can't sell drugs. It wouldn't work for the ABB or E88 though. They're held together by power mostly. And I, or you, I guess, could do the Panacea thing and heal people one-by-one, but I don't know if that does anything either, really. I mean, it's nice for people with a terminal illness, but I don't think I can fix that, I'd probably make cancer significantly worse, and normal people can just pay for a doctor. Panacea has been healing for years, and it doesn't seem like that's going to stop anytime soon."

"I agree that the healing stones would be best used in disaster relief, or somewhere people are actively dying. Maybe we could do drug relief, actually. Heal up those people the Merchants forcibly addict if we happen upon them? And we should definitely try to bleed the gangs' resources, as even if it won't kill the gangs on its own, it'll let the police and PRT wrangle them better. Well, want to test the effects in buildings thing?"

Madison sank a green quartz into the countertop and frayed it for might. Then she tried lifting their living room couch. She could do so, but with effort. Then desocketing it, she tried again and found she was just as strong as before, still able to lift it. Then she frayed the green quartz she had socketed already away from hardness and resistance, towards might. Lifting the couch now she could do so almost one-handed. So, it completely ineffective, then?

"It didn't work. Maybe I can use it in a way to apply its powers, but it wouldn't apply to a whole compound."

"Oh well. Shall we try the sidewalk then?"

"I dunno. I think we should wait until we have costumes, or at least start somewhere away from where we live. Fixing the sidewalks and roads is a pretty visible endeavor. We could try the electrical system though."

"Our power lines all work though. Can you even access the deteriorating sections from here?"

"We can find out."

Madison pulled out a carnelian and the pair put on their shoes. Walking down the street to the nearest telephone pole, Madison reached out and pushed, not socketing the pole itself, but pressing into the whole electrical network. There was significantly more resistance than even socketing a house. She put her whole metaphysical weight behind her and shoved, pressing harder and harder, the outside world fading to black as her vision pinpointed the connection between the carnelian and the telephone pole. Then it slid in an odd, perpendicular direction and slotted. Madison fell to the ground exhausted. Her vision eventually filled back out with light and she blinked away the sparkles in her eyes.

"-alright? Madison?"

"Bwah?"

"I asked if you were alright."

"Yeah, I think I'm fine. Just spiritually exhausted. Maybe the size of the thing I was socketing matters more than I thought."

"You got the whole electrical network then?"

Madison nodded. "I think I might just leave that one. Oh, and I should connect it, or it won't do anything." She stood up unsteadily and shuffled over to the telephone pole. She just put up the simplest one-way connection, which itself took a bit of effort, though nothing so difficult as the earlier socket.

That done, she sat back down against the telephone pole and looked back at Taylor, who was watching her curiously.

"I certainly hope that works. I don't think we'll see the results for a while unless someone starts to report self-repairing power lines."

"Oh. Yeah, if feel dumb now. It does prove large-scale sockets are possible though, which is enough for me."

Taylor held out a hand, pulled Madison up, and helped her walk back to the house, where they sat down on the couch to rest.

"Want a seltzer water?"

"Sure."

---

"We could make a lot of money as rogues," Taylor posited, "You could repair things. Big things, like cars and apartment buildings. And I could sell some interesting commodities, like spider silk, and designer honey."

"You could pollinate whole farms, actually. That'd be worth a lot of money. The spider silk would sell really well. And I could slap some stones on the farm to increase productivity, too. I think the repair thing is pretty much my only marketable product. Everything else is pretty self-centered, and I wouldn't really want to give up my crystals until I have a really large amount of them. At least a couple of months' worth."

"Oh yeah. Did you ever figure out the carnelian's active effect?"

"I'm fairly nervous to try it, actually. It feels permanent. I'd like to save it for something important, but I also don't know what it does, so I don't want to use it on something too important, in case it destroys it or something."

"Well, you have five, and get one every day, so you might as well try it soon. Maybe tomorrow we can hit the markets and find something interesting to test them on."

"Are you already done with your homework? I still need to finish mine. Maybe I can finish before we head out."

Madison dreamed of crystal worlds once again. This time there was a faint buzzing of flies.

 

[Hylas_Daemonem]

A red lightsaber casts the only light over the the room. Desks that were piled in front of the blast doors as a barricade lie strewn across the room. There is a circle of younglings with hands touching the knees of their neighbors. Jocasta Nu sits at the closest point to the door.

"You won't even face me, Jocasta?" a warped yet familiar voice growls to her in rage.

"No."

The red lightsaber stabs up through Madame Nu's torso.

An eerie yellow light, somehow cold in its brightness, ignites from the Archivist's lap and flares revealing the closed, crying eyes of six younglings, before snuffing itself out.

"Welcome to the Archive, my new Archivists," the elderly woman whispers with the air still in her melting lungs.

"Witness the death of your caregiver, and weep," growls the fallen hero of the Republic as he turns to leave the weeping younglings in the dark room.

The cold yellow light flares once more and the husk of Anakin Skywalker swivels his head back, and operating on instincts ingrained into his body from years of battle, cuts through a chair leg thrown towards the back of his head. He knocks away two more with the hilt of his blade and crushes the fourth and fifth When he completes the turn of his head he witnesses fourteen yellow eyes. They blink in unison. The corpse of Anakin Skywalker percieves this, but can do nothing about it, for in the moment of darkness from their closed eyes he has collapsed to the ground, unable to even twitch. The seventh chair leg went through his sternum and pierced his spine.

---

"Please watch for these six survivors of the Jedi traitor cell. They are unarmed yet very dangerous, and possibly the killers of the last loyal Jedi, Anakin Skywalker, the Hero with no Fear. Their defining trait is their glowing blue eyes."

"In other news, was Emporer Palpatine's untimely heart attack simply due to the stress of his high position and poor health, or was it something more? Did we see the effects of an unreported stroke with his change of appearence earlier this week, causing his once youthly appearence to degrade so quicky? More at six. Back to you, Huff."