Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[GiftofLove]

Forget your silly hand holding, I'm waiting for a hug.

Like seriously, Lisa needs one bad. I'm also starting to think Alexandria needs to give one, too.

 

[Slayer Anderson]

I'm going to bet...

...invasion from another dimension.

Also, it really pisses me off how so many characters in Worm over-think their problems. Especially the fucking Thinkers. God damnit, the Thinkers need to come with a mandatory off-switch.

 

[Clandistine1]

Also, it really pisses me off how so many characters in Worm over-think their problems. Especially the fucking Thinkers. God damnit, the Thinkers need to come with a mandatory off-switch.

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Isn't that the whole point of thinkers like Lisa? To not have an off switch?

 

[dasstan]

"Of course," I agreed with Martinez, barely giving him more than a tenth of my overall mental attention. "How Minerva behaves toward the various Directors is always important to document for future Thinker study." Analysis that won't work because of our regular use of our interaction, same reason that Gaea and Khepri were functionally immune to our Thinkers, even Contessa.

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*pats self on back*

It must really suck to have been a highly reliable thinker before Pantheon, compared to now.

 

[Sheaman3773]

All I ever had to worry about was assembling stuffed animals, and I could never do more than one.

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Huh?

Parian had given life to three stuffed animals that lumbered around Leviathan. A stuffed goat stepped forward, and sidewalk cracked under a hoof of patchwork leather and corduroy. A bipedal tiger grabbed at an unlit streetlight, unrooted it, and charged Leviathan like a knight with a lance couched in one armpit. The third, an octopus, ran interference, disrupting Leviathan's afterimages before they could strike capes and wrapping tentacles around Leviathan's limbs if he tried to break away. Parian was gathering more cloth from the other side of a smashed display window, drawing it together into a crude quadruped shape, moving a series of needles and threads through the air in an uncanny unison that reminded me of my control over my spiders.

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That's all I'll ever be, isn't it? The one who profits from the hard work of others, instead of on my own accomplishments? Fuck, I really am perfect for management.

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Not gonna lie, I rolled my eyes pretty hard at this part.

And since Pantheon didn't do that utterly asinine bullshit the Protectorate did in sending Tinkers out on patrolling for supervillains, we were dedicated entirely to our jobs. Which meant we'd see exponentially more productivity from ours.
...
Sure, the Passengers contributed to the phenomena, but Tinkers were perfectly content with not being in the direct line of fire most of the time.

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I guess you're ignoring the WoG explicitly denying this.

We want to lead the multiverse in terms of scientific and artistic accomplishments." DisgustHurtAnger. "And frankly, in my experience, too much emphasis on sports accomplishes the exact opposite of that."

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I started to comment on this, and then saw that you did it in the chapter itself.

ConcernSupportAcceptanceRequest.
...
DistasteSchadenfreudeGuilt.

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Don't think we haven't noticed the Taylia emotions getting longer and/or more complex.

"Turns out, there's a reason my power doesn't track things with an average of three brain cells each. That's on the list of things I will never try again."

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B/c of the WoG that her shard put a cap on the lower end of things, as well as the higher end? Well, that is a more obscure one.

"I think I speak for all of us when I say 'what a bitch'," GL said after a couple seconds. There were no objections.

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Speaking as someone who didn't have to drop everything they were planning to do for the day on the whim of another, that kind of thing is important, similarly to how fire or hurricane drills are important.

...assuming she didn't do it just to screw with Accord.

No, I couldn't imagine Costa-Brown would not be friends with her.

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Double negative that appears unintended.


Why yes, I did just catch up after a while, how could you tell?

 

[Leonidas333]

I'm going to bet...

...invasion from another dimension.

Also, it really pisses me off how so many characters in Worm over-think their problems. Especially the fucking Thinkers. God damnit, the Thinkers need to come with a mandatory off-switch.

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I'm going to bet fucked up power interaction.

 

[The Shadowmind]

Is Lisa still the original Lisa, or has the backup tech been used on her yet? The only event where she could of died at I think was the Tohu/Bohu fight, but I don't remember if she kicked the bucket then.

 

[Peanuckle]

I kinda agree with Lisa's interpretation. The people are functionally identical, but function isn't everything. The person who died was a separate existence from the person walking around now. And that's sad, because Taylor is dead. Now Taylor is walking around, pretending to be Taylor while dating Amelia who is pretending to be Amelia...

There's really nothing to do about it, though. Scion overwhelms all other concerns.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 348- Sabah


I cringed as we we stood there watching Beth's pixie army. The tiny creatures were ruthless, needlessly brutal nightmares, as if they felt the need to compensate for their small size in sheer viciousness. Spears the size of sewing needles stabbed into the eyes of the gunmen. Bursts of energy used to set hair or clothes on fire. The pixies stopped long enough to cut their fingers off. Those speaking over their radios received even worse treatment, as the creatures used their imitations of magic to force open their mouths and attack their tongues until they couldn't be used.


Our Tinker tech vision and hearing enhancers left very little to the imagination. We could watch and hear the battle as if we were standing in the middle of it. Screams of terror, complete with a sequence of subtitles for those screaming in Spanish. We were spared too much of the visual, as the broken bodies of the guards were left behind in favor of those still offering resistance inside. This morning, if I was told I would feel this much pity for drug dealers, I wouldn't have believed it.


"I... I can't really control my powers any better than that," Beth stated to us. Her voice was one of quiet horror. Her words an apology, a plea for us to forgive her for the cruelty going on in front of us, fear that we would hate her. I placed a hand on her shoulder, to try and comfort her what little I could as she stared forward at the pain her power was inflicting. "It's all I can do to ensure they won't kill anyone."


"Lizardtail, you will be able to heal them, correct?" Citrine asked, glancing at her other companion.


"Shouldn't be a problem," he responded. "They're still alive, even if some are probably deep in shock right now."


"Worst case scenario, we can contact Gaea for help," I offered.


"May I ask why they're so," Citrine paused to find a word.


"Horrific beyond all reason?" Beth offered quietly after a minute. Even through the pair of suits, I could tell she was shaking as she refused to take her eyes off the battlefield, watching every atrocity the pixies were inflicting to those people who had committed the most grievous crime their little minds could comprehend. That of being an enemy of their goddess.


"Honestly, I've seen worse," Citrine responded casually. "I was curious about how oddly thorough they are in their methods. They clearly have a logic to their attacks, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand what it is."


"Mind if I?" I asked Beth. She nodded after a moment. "Her summons are mostly autonomous, but not really intelligent. Sort of like small AIs. They view everything through a fairy tale filter. The guns are seen as 'sorcerous weapons', and the radios they understand as some kind of summoning stone. That's why they attack that way, to stop the enemy from using their magic to fight back."


"Why don't they attack the equipment?" The one in the blue-green costume asked.


"Because my stupid power thinks magic items are more valuable than human lives," Beth answered, her voice bitter and pained. "That's how fantasy stories work. Entire armies can be destroyed without remorse or pity, as if one stupid trinket makes all those deaths worth the cost. It doesn't even matter what the magic item does, the magical equivalent of a personal cloaking device is worth more than thousands of nameless peasants. I can't believe I ever thought those stories were good."


A series of small explosions echoed the inside of the building.


"They're using Tinker tech grenades," Citrine stated, sounding more confused than anything. "Synth must have perfected a safe bomb of some sort. Either that, or they're getting really desperate in there. Will those be effective against your summons?"


"Yes," Beth answered through gritted teeth. "I've lost about ten percent of them already. My power... isn't very intelligent. They won't adapt in time to save themselves. Maybe ten more minutes until it's up to the rest of you to finish the job."


I squeezed her shoulder with my hand, hard enough that she'd feel it through her armor. Which meant enough force that it would have broken her shoulder if she was unarmored. Beth trembled again, as more of her pixies died in the onslaught. Right now, she'd be breathing a combination of Tinker designed chemicals to allow her to keep stable and ignore the pain her power caused. She'll be bedridden for the rest of the week, maybe longer, when this is over.


There was a time when I hated how weak my power seemed to be, how silly it was to send stuffed animals into battle. A weak power that meant I could never be taken seriously as a hero. I'd learned how stupid that was, how much worse it could be. There were ugly, painful powers out there. Some were hard to control, like Dubstep. Some came with a price that hurt their owners, like Elle. And some were so dangerous that using them meant you were choosing to risk the lives of your targets, like Lily. Beth was the only one I knew afflicted with all the above.


"Dubstep, Clotho, we move forward, secure the entrance. Othello, Genius Loci, you stay here to protect Anima until we know their device is safe for you." Citrine commanded. "Is there anything we can do to improve your summons' chances inside?"


"Not really," Beth replied. "Maybe something that boosts their energy attacks... if they hit harder, their victims will go down faster. Maybe they won't feel the need to mutilate the fallen so thoroughly." She didn't sound hopeful about that possibility.


"You hear that, Jacklight?" Citrine asked.


"Can do, Citrine," he responded. "Just as soon as you get me a way around the barricade."


"Already working on it," she responded, already taking off toward the entrance. "I've never seen anything like this before. ETA around ten minutes."


I followed her reluctantly. I wanted to stay behind and comfort Beth, help her through the physical and emotional hell. But the sooner we completed this mission, the sooner we could get her somewhere to recover. And the more pixies survived, the faster she could recover. The best thing I could do to help her right now would require leaving her.


The building itself wasn't that big- I'd seen larger gas stations. Which hid the part where it went at least six stories deep down into the mountain below. There was always the worrying possibility of escape tunnels, and no way for us to know if they existed or not. But if Minerva went through this much effort on this mission already, I was certain she'd consulted Dinah about the odds. So I'd just have to trust that what we were doing was fated to work out.


My armor told me that, by some stroke of luck, one of the men had gone unnoticed by the pixie army. I fired a small burst into the wooden crate he took shelter inside and tugged with my power, splintering it and pulling him out by his clothes. He screamed and fought against the bindings that were his clothes, crying like a terrified child rather than a man that was obviously older than I was.


Citrine actually backhanded him. "Look at me, coward," she spat the words. There was more to that than just her trying to get information. She was honestly angry at the man, disgusted by him. Not the scariest behavior I'd seen in capes. Maybe something to do with her Trigger?


He whimpered, and I dropped my control on his clothes. <Please don't kill me! I just work here! Take the drugs and money, it's all yours!>


My suit didn't think he was lying, so when Citrine kicked him, I had to speak up. "That's enough!" I insisted. "We have powerful Thinkers on our side, we don't need to resort to torture to get information."


Citrine looked toward me, then back to the terrified man. "Fine," she relented, but she didn't stop staring down our captive. We waited mostly in silence, the only noises were the weak cries and moans of those the pixies had maimed around us, and the occasional bursts of noise from deeper in the underground complex.


The ground shuddered. For a brief moment, I thought it was an earthquake, but my armor's instruments flashed warnings of a localized explosion beneath us. I took flight immediately, but wasn't nearly fast enough. A thousand screaming voices erupted around me as the ground splintered, tendrils of rainbow light pouring from the cracks and engulfing the area. Thousands of hands and faces scattered across the mass seemingly at random, crawling their way across the landscape.


A powerful set of jaws clamped down on my leg while making a noise somewhere between a growl and a cry of pain. A new pair of arms sprouted from the eyes of the face, digging into my suit. Armor that had been tested against Alexandria's strength was torn, exposing my leg. Dozens of alerts flashed across my HUD, letting me know my armor was being critically damaged or destroyed pretty much everywhere at once by the grasping limbs.


I was pulled into the writhing mass of limbs and facial features that covered the landscape below.


======================


A/N- Poor Beth... if only she were a psychotic masochist with a love of overacting... then she'd be able to enjoy her powers...

And if Dethklok were here, Beth's power would be worth of an album.

 

[cosoco]

I did understand that Lisa had her faults... brash and argumentative, confrontational and frustrating, manipulative and emotional. No, I couldn't imagine Costa-Brown would not be friends with her.

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This seems like it contradicts the previous part.

I'm going to bet that the impact was caused by one of the defenders.

Edit: Well, that happened.

 

[Leonidas333]

Amelia, Ch 348- Sabah


The ground shuddered. For a brief moment, I thought it was an earthquake, but my armor's instruments flashed warnings of a localized explosion beneath us. I took flight immediately, but wasn't nearly fast enough. A thousand screaming voices erupted around me as the ground splintered, tendrils of rainbow light pouring from the cracks and engulfing the area. Thousands of hands and faces scattered across the mass seemingly at random, crawling their way across the landscape.


A powerful set of jaws clamped down on my leg while making a noise somewhere between a growl and a cry of pain. A new pair of arms sprouted from the eyes of the face, digging into my suit. Armor that had been tested against Alexandria's strength was torn, exposing my leg. Dozens of alerts flashed across my HUD, letting me know my armor was being critically damaged or destroyed pretty much everywhere at once by the grasping limbs.


I was pulled into the writhing mass of limbs and facial features that covered the landscape below.

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It all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down.
So yeah, chemical tinker made some orange tang.

 

[dasstan]

We hav powerful Thinkers on our side

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Have.

A powerful set of jaws clamped down on my leg while making a noise somewhere between a growl and a cry of pain. A new pair of arms sprouted from the eyes of the face, digging into my suit. Armor that had been tested against Alexandria's strength was torn, exposing my leg. Dozens of alerts flashed across my HUD, letting me know my armor was being critically damaged or destroyed pretty much everywhere at once by the grasping limbs.


I was pulled into the writhing mass of limbs and facial features that covered the landscape below.

Click to shrink...

What the shit. Was someone doing trigger experiments of their own? Or Echidna 2.0? Or something completely different?

 

[RocjawCypher]

I kinda agree with Lisa's interpretation. The people are functionally identical, but function isn't everything. The person who died was a separate existence from the person walking around now. And that's sad, because Taylor is dead. Now Taylor is walking around, pretending to be Taylor while dating Amelia who is pretending to be Amelia...

There's really nothing to do about it, though. Scion overwhelms all other concerns.

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To me, something like this has always been a ymmv moment. In my opinion tho, if you operate on the "No Souls" principle something like this doesn't really matter, because everything that makes them "them" was copied over. In that case they are the same person, diffrent molecules or not.
"Insert factoid about all cells being replaced every couple days Here."

If you operate on the "Souls are a Thing" principle, it matters how you think souls work. My personal headcannon is that if you die and immediately get revived in a different body your soul just gets yanked back into your new body. If someone clones you, your soul gets streched between the two until you become different people, at which point it splits into two different souls. Doesn't mean murdering yourself/being murdered is good for your soul though. (Or that you have the missing memories)

P.S.
Anyone played No Souls? It's like dark souls, where you start off the game dead but then it turns out souls aren't a thing so you spend the rest of the game watching your body decay in third person.

 

[The Shadowmind]

Hello Grue?

 

[pepperjack]

I realize this probably ain't it, but Garden o' Limbs in a Worm context always makes me think Eden.

 

[Gear]

Did the Elite just summon some kind of Cthulu?

 

[Slayer Anderson]

...I'm suddenly reminded of the H.P. Lovecraft story, 'The Dunwich Horror.'

I wonder why.

 

[sephlington]

So, I think we've found whatever was blocking the cross-dimensional viewing tech.

I have to say, it sounds kinda like overkill for a bit of privacy.

 

[Hexed999]

20 bucks says that this thing is the Elite's attempt to create an Endbringer

 

[Ame]

Odd question for you TanaNari. Since i wound up loosing track a little over a month ago and need to re-read everything do you happen to have say a pdf or similar critter for reading offline?

 

[TanaNari]

I have a really ugly .txt file that contains all my first drafts?

 

[Snake/Eater]

Well this mission literally went FUBAR faster then you can say "Panacea Quest"... my god what were the Elite doing?making super Lsd.

 

[Coruscant Knave]

Based on the multitudes and coloration, I feel like it is something to do with the fairy summons. At first I thought it was power-interaction from Jacklight, but it doesn't seem like he started yet.

 

[Swingline#57]

I was pulled into the writhing mass of limbs and facial features that covered the landscape below.

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Welp. Probably time to make another Sabah clone, because I'm reasonably sure she's about to die horribly and messily within the next 5 seconds.

 

[pepperjack]

Welp. Probably time to make another Sabah clone, because I'm reasonably sure she's about to die horribly and messily within the next 5 seconds.

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...or this could be the start of a beautiful friendship?

You don't know, Swingline. You don't know.


//flees, crying

 

[VaporDeagle]

How the hell does a drug bust become something like this.

It's like everyone secretly placed Chulthu as a backup plan or something.

EDIT:

I can't believe this took me a while to figure it out.

The phrase "I have seen enough Hentai to know where this is going." seemed to describe this situation rather perfectly.

 

[dasstan]

I have a really ugly .txt file that contains all my first drafts?

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It's beautiful on the inside.

Welp. Probably time to make another Sabah clone, because I'm reasonably sure she's about to die horribly and messily within the next 5 seconds.

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Makes me wonder about what the standard backup procedure is. A week? Has she missed any updates? It would kind of suck if the poor girl was brought back still thinking that she's single.

How the hell does a drug bust become something like this.

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It's all Minerva's fault. Again.

 

[Automatonation]

Synthetic accidentally made Lsd or shrooms for shards. Anima's pixies are high as balls.

 

[Daunmi]

It's like everyone secretly placed Chulthu as a backup plan or something.

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"Alright people, we need a backup plan."
"We're up against Pantheon."
"... Cthulhu it is then."

 

[TanaNari]

Omake? Xmas in July party

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This is beautiful. Probably won't happen. But beautiful.

This is a ongoing fanfic, I had no idea where will it take the story to and I'm scared.

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DARKEST FIXFIC!!!

I should just relief my stress by writing out lesbian smut fic or something.

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I'm getting to it, honest!

Lisa/Becky hand holding smut.

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... This will be what my fic is forever remembered for, won't it?

"Alright people, we need a backup plan."
"We're up against Pantheon."
"... Cthulhu it is then."

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One of my new favorite quotes ever.