Earning Her Stripes (Worm AU fanfic)

[Barbaric_Bob]

And butcher fifteen? Sixteen? Managed to get the entire gang arrested in less than a single night, the others will NEVER let her live it down

 

[Avernus]

Heh, screwed over by arrogance; if March!Butcher hadn't been so high on "I'm invincible!" nailing her like that would have been far harder. It's awful hard to grab somebody with a teleport power if they actually try to stay away from you after all.

Kind of ironic given that her original success in wounding Monochrome was because the latter thought she was invincible.

 

[Ack]

Earning Her Stripes

Part Forty-One: Long Term Solutions

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Monochrome

"Okay," said Madison. "That's done. But …"

She looked down at Butcher, who was leaning hard to see around the suit, then sighed and wrapped her other gauntlet right around the villain's head. Butcher struggled, raking at the metal with her nails and screaming muffled obscenities, but to no avail. I was mildly impressed by her command of invective, but given that I'd grown up around Dockworkers, not overly so.

"But she's only prevented from teleporting, yeah," I agreed. "How are we going to deal with the rest of her powers without her running off and grabbing a bunch of hostages to force us to take that collar off her?"

"I'd be concerned about your sudden insight into the villainous mindset, but I was thinking exactly the same thing." Madison's tone took on a faux-thoughtful aspect. "Do you think Director Piggot would object a lot if I just pulled this one's arms and legs off and stuffed her in a crate until we're done?"

"Tempting," I allowed. I wasn't totally joking; I had actually felt like doing something similar, once I found out what March had been up to. "But she'd probably be forced to take notice."

"What if we just broke a few bones? They heal, right?" Her grasp on Butcher's arm shifted, and a large metallic thumb pressed on the elbow joint. I heard a grunt from Butcher, cut short, that may have been pain.

I rolled my eyes. "Not even that. It would be classified as 'mistreatment of a prisoner,' and they'd probably make us let her go or something." I couldn't help noticing that since Madison had gotten her Tinker abilities, her mindset had definitely shifted toward brute-force solutions, even when she was joking. I figured it was a power thing. When all you've got is a hammer, et cetera.

"Fine." I got the distinct impression that she'd just rolled her eyes. "Be a spoilsport then. See if I care. So, how are we gonna keep Miss Edgy McEdgelord from wrecking people, and things, until we can lock her down? Keep in mind before everything goes to shit, I did offer a perfectly workable solution."

That was when the idea occurred to me. I held up a finger while it was sorting itself out, then I nodded to myself once I'd roughed out the main aspects. "I think I know how." Clicking my radio button, I added, "Firebird, I'm gonna need the loan of a disc for a bit."

"Copy that. Be with you in a minute."

"Awesome." But I still needed something else. As I looked around, I saw a parking sign that looked like just the thing. It took no effort at all to pull the metal pipe up out of the concrete it was set into (the trick was to reinforce it and twist it free of its seating first), then I started to bend and shape it, using my own head as a model.

In reality, it only took about thirty seconds before Armsmaster's overbuilt cycle (and after associating with Madison, I knew what the term really meant) swept around the corner, with Emma riding on the back. They pulled up alongside us and Emma jumped off. Armsmaster climbed off the bike next, and I got the impression he was eyeing Butcher dubiously.

"First, why is she not using her powers? Second, why have you destroyed that sign?"

I took note of the fact that he'd asked the questions in a tone that was more curious than censorious. "Good steel stops dimensional shenanigans, and I'm pretty sure that includes being able to see someone's vital organs through solid matter." I'd figured that one out when Butcher called Madison a 'son of a bitch,' evidently taking her for a guy inside the suit. "And this here's for the disc I'm borrowing from Firebird."

Such was the teamwork and trust between us that Emma didn't even question me. She just unclipped the left-hand disc from her wrist and handed it over. "Okay," she said. "I'll admit that I'm definitely curious about what you need it for."

"Thanks. You'll see in a sec." I took the disc and slid it into the framework I'd made, crimping the metal to keep the good steel in place. Then I took it over to where Madison still held Butcher by the head and arm.

Butcher hadn't stopped struggling or swearing and was doing her best to pry Madison's hand off her head, one finger at a time. Unfortunately for her, even when she managed to move one finger (which was pretty damn impressive by itself) she couldn't keep it off while she worked on the next finger.

Taking hold of her free hand, I pulled it down next to her; as strong as she was, her resistance meant nothing to me. I wanted her hand to move, and it moved. Then I motioned for Emma and Armsmaster to stand behind Madison and nodded toward where Madison had Butcher's head in her hand. "Okay, you can take your hand away now."

Once her head was clear, Butcher glared at me, her hair disarranged and her eyes full of fury. "And you! As soon as I get out of this—"

The rest was cut off as my field deployed automatically, locking me away from the world. That didn't matter; I knew what I needed to do. Lifting up the frame, I slid it down over Butcher's head; my vision and hearing returned as soon as the disc cut off her view of me.

Once it was in place, I used a judicious crimping of metal to make sure it wouldn't come off any time soon, then looked at her thoughtfully. "Does that look close enough to her face to you?"

The whole idea of the frame was to pin the disc to her face so that she wouldn't be able to see anyone, and therefore be unable to harm them with her powers. It wasn't supposed to be a perfect solution, just one that would hold her long enough. I didn't want her being able to hurt innocents—or my fellow heroes—simply by swivelling her eyes sideways.

"Let me check." Armsmaster stepped to the side and waved his gauntleted hand through the space next to Butcher's head. A moment later, he jerked it back with a full-body wince. "Yes, yes, she can still use her powers."

"I will kill you all," growled Butcher from behind the disc. "Or you can kill me. I win, either way."

I spared a glance to where Armsmaster was taking his gauntlet off. The skin of the hand underneath was reddened, but not bleeding. Okay, good. Not an emergency, then.

"There's a lot we can do to you that won't kill you." Madison's tone was implacable. "I was joking before, but if you keep that shit up, you're going to take away the softer options, just saying."

I looked the disc over. It was curved back slightly on all sides, but it needed to be flat to her face for this to really block her peripheral vision. "Hold her arms."

"You got it."

"Wait," Armsmaster said as he pulled his gauntlet back on. "What are you going to do?"

"This." I grabbed the back of Butcher's head with my left hand, and put my right palm in the middle of the disc. Then I pushed, very carefully. I didn't want to crush her skull like a pomegranate, after all, no matter how much she'd earned it.

Her nose, however, was another matter altogether.

I felt the cartilage crunch just before she let out another grunt of pain, and I twisted the metal holding the disc onto her face so it was nice and tight. It was also pressing hard on her freshly broken nose, but I found that I honestly didn't give a damn.

Butcher had a different opinion on the matter. "Moth'r'fuck'r!" she managed from behind the disc. "You d'd th't 'n p'rp'se!"

"Yeah, I did." It wasn't like I cared enough to hide it. "You'd do worse to me if you could. This is me making sure you can't do it to anyone until we can work out a better counter."

"Monochrome …" Armsmaster didn't quite sound like he was warning me, but nor did he sound happy about what I was doing.

Madison stepped in before I could speak. "What the hell do you want out of us? Butcher's the equivalent of an armed IED, and she will kill as many people as she can if she gets the chance. We're your only chance to shut her down before things get worse. If you tie our hands now and she gets free, any damage she does is on you."

"I do understand." His tone was strained. "But if she can get in front of a public defender and level a charge of being tortured once in custody, that's going to make things very problematic for the Director." And, he didn't have to say, the Director would make her displeasure known to all involved; specifically, Armsmaster and us.

Emma sighed. "We both know the only reason she doesn't have a kill order is because of that bullshit power she has. I've spoken to people in the legal system who are very firmly of the opinion that if she even tries to bring a case like this, it'll get tossed with prejudice. So, with all due respect, we'll take the chance."

"So, what are you going to do?" He gestured at Butcher. "You can't exactly keep her like that forever. She'll need to have her nose set at some point, not to mention eating. And the moment her hands are free, she will be pulling that contraption off her head."

Butcher interjected with something that sounded like, "Fucking right," but I couldn't be sure. The disc interfered with her speech quite a bit; I wondered if I'd damaged her sinuses at the same time. Not that I really cared, but it was something to consider.

"Oh, we're aware," Madison agreed. "So, I'm gonna build something to fix the problem before she can do that. It won't deal with all of her powers, but it will definitely remove the worst threats."

"How are you going to do that?" Armsmaster tilted his head. "Negating several powers at once usually requires an extremely versatile device. Your creations, overall, do one thing extremely well, but are less effective on the versatility side of things."

The battlesuit tilted its head to one side. "I'd be offended if you weren't correct," Madison allowed. "But as the one thing this is going to do is 'fuck up Butcher's day', it's all good."

I could hear the frown in Armsmaster's voice. "You didn't answer my question as to how you're going to do that."

Madison chuckled, the vocal modulator transmitting the amusement across quite well. "You'll see."

She tapped her foot on the ground twice, the signal that she was about to take off. I jumped up onto one shoulder, while Emma leaped up and used Armsmaster's bike as a springboard to make it onto the other. Before Armsmaster could voice any further protest, her thrusters had cut in and we were powering skyward.

<><>​

Grue

Brian was beginning to wonder if running to the PRT to get away from Butcher had been the smartest play after all. Since entering the building, they hadn't quite been placed under arrest, but they were in a room with a guard at the door, and nobody important had dropped by to talk to them. Paranoia spiking, he looked around for gas vents or other ways the PRT could surreptitiously knock them out but couldn't find any.

Of course, that could be because the PRT were better at hiding things than he was at finding them.

Rachel had been allowed to keep her dogs with her, which was good. Someone in the PRT had probably figured that this was a non-negotiable point, so they'd just set the requirements that the canines needed to remain dog-sized and dog-shaped for the duration of their stay. It didn't stop her from being antsy about the rest of her dogs, but she hadn't gotten too aggressive about it quite yet.

Alec was also twitchy, mainly because he didn't have a gaming console to work out his excess energy on. Lisa had spent most of the time talking in muted tones to Aisha. Brian tried to focus on being happy that they were getting along instead of trying to kill each other, as opposed to being worried about what plots they were inevitably hatching, though he wasn't entirely successful.

When the huge screen at the far end of the room flared to life, it came as a relief to break the tension. Alec had already investigated it and speculated on how awesome it would make the gaming experience, but as there had been no way to make this actually happen, he'd gone back to idly spinning around and around on his chair.

The picture on the screen was just as sharp and clear as Alec had predicted, though as it showed Director Piggot's image, it still left a lot to be desired. "Good afternoon," the Director said, quite clearly looking at them via hidden cameras. The surround-sound was damn good too; she could easily have been in the room with them. "I have good news and bad news for you."

Brian was about to ask for the bad news first, on the principle of getting it out of the way, but Alec got in ahead of him. "What's the good news?"

Piggot's expression creased slightly, suggesting a potential smile. "You will be pleased to hear that your plan worked. Butcher is in custody, and the Teeth have been captured as well. I'm coordinating with the BBPD to corral the non-powered members of the gang as we speak."

"Whoa, okay." Brian had been expecting something a lot more ambiguous than that. "How did you capture Butcher? Especially with March's powers involved?"

The suggestion of amusement left Director Piggot's expression. "I didn't say she was in our custody, just that she was in custody. The Real Thing have her, and they say they're going to neutralise most of her offensive capability. Do you have any idea how that could be done?"

"Well, maybe … no. But what if … no. Crap." Lisa's shoulders slumped. From the expression on her face, she desperately wanted to be the one to answer that question, but she just didn't have enough data to come up with a workable solution. Along with Alec and Aisha, Brian was clueless and he knew it, while Rachel just didn't seem to care.

Piggot's eyes seemed to flick from point to point, as though looking at each of them in turn, before she nodded. "I see. Well, now for the bad news."

"What, that wasn't it?" blurted Aisha.

"No, it wasn't." Piggot gave another grim smile. "The bad news is that your four associates are specifically responsible for Butcher receiving a problematic power-up, and they've since willingly delivered themselves into our hands. We were indeed prepared to protect you against her if it came to that, but if the Real Thing continue to be as ridiculously effective as they have been in the past, such protection would no longer be necessary. Which, you may have already figured out, flips the entire paradigm on its head."

"Wait, what?" protested Brian. "No. We were leaving town. If Butcher hadn't come after us, we would've been gone! It's because of us that she's been captured!"

"And it's because of you that she's exponentially more dangerous than ever before." Piggot's tone was relentless. "Swings and roundabouts. One fortuitous turn of events does not excuse a whole array of criminal activity, and I'm not even counting the robbery spree on the gang stash houses over the last day or so."

Aisha chose to jump into the conversation again. "Hey, it wasn't their money anyway. Is it still robbery if you're stealing from a thief?"

The Director didn't hesitate. "Yes. It really is."

Lisa sat up straighter. "If you were going to arrest us, you would've done it already. So, you want something else from us. You just wanted us to squirm a little before you pulled the big reveal."

Piggot's expression twitched, souring slightly. "Ever the Thinker, Tattletale. Yes, I have a proposition for you."

Brian glanced at the others, then back at the screen. No troopers brandishing guns had burst into the room … yet. "We're listening."

The Director took a deep breath. "If history is any guide, Brockton Bay is facing a villain incursion to fill the gap left by the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB. I've been applying the screws one turn at a time to make it less and less attractive for criminal gang activity, but there's still wiggle room for people to come in and try to establish themselves. Between gang clashes, going up against my troopers and Protectorate capes, and violent crime in general, people are going to get hurt. I'd really rather cut it off at the knees before any of them get properly established."

"And that's where we come in." Lisa didn't sound thrilled at having made this deduction.

"What do you mean, that's where we come in?" Rachel, unlike Lisa, was definitely not on the same page as the Director. "The fuck is she talking about?"

Brian thought he knew. "Director, it sounds to me like you want us to work for you behind the scenes, causing enough problems for these villains that they choose to leave town of their own accord."

"That's precisely what I would be asking of you." Piggot folded her hands in front of her on the desk. "It's a task to which you would be exceptionally well suited."

Now that it was out in the open, Brian wasn't quite sure which way to go on it. He glanced at Lisa, and his heart sank. The expression on her face told him that she was seriously thinking about it, which almost certainly meant they'd be going along with the idea.

"You've got to be shitting me." Rachel looked around at everyone else. "None of you is thinking about doing it … right?"

Lisa stirred, raising her head. "If we agreed to do it, there would be conditions. Guaranteed immunity to prosecution for all past crimes, for starters. A signed contract. And we'd all have to agree on it."

Brian was already thinking about security for himself and Aisha. Working directly for the PRT would have to look good on his record for CPS, right?

"I know what my condition is." Alec raised a finger (fortunately not the middle one). "And it's totally non-negotiable."

Oh, shit. Shoving his dreams aside, Brian tensed. What idiocy is he going to come out with? From the look on Lisa's face, she was similarly worried.

"I'm listening." Director Piggot may as well have been presiding over a board meeting of high-flying executives, for all the concern she showed. She hadn't even flinched at the 'guaranteed immunity to prosecution' requirement.

"I get to go head-to-head against Armsmaster in Battlemaster: In Extremis, and I get to keep a recording of the game for bragging rights." Alec sat back in his chair, looking pleased with himself.

Brian blinked. Lisa blinked. Even the Director blinked.

"I … that can be arranged." Piggot collected herself, and Brian got the impression that the game would take place if the Director had to hold Armsmaster at gunpoint to do it. "Is that your only condition?"

That broke the spell. "If we're doing this, then I totally got a condition," Rachel grunted.

"Yes, Hellhound?" The Director even managed to sound polite about it.

Rachel glared at the image on the screen. "I'm Bitch, not fuckin' Hellhound. And I want all the stray dogs in the city. And someplace to keep 'em. And money to feed 'em and keep 'em vaccinated and clean up their shit. Can you do that?"

The Director paused for a moment. "So … you want to run the dog pound, is that it?"

Lisa cleared her throat. "Not quite. Bitch would be in total control of the operation. No second-guessing or overriding her on any part of it. You'd have to get rid of anyone who might think they know more about dogs than she does, because if you don't, she definitely will. Also, no more putting dogs down just to free up room." She looked over at Rachel. "That sound about right?"

Grudgingly, Rachel nodded. "Yeah, what she said. All the dogs, and I run the show."

Now Piggot was making notes. "I believe there are a few markers I can pull in with the mayor's office. This can be achieved. Next condition?"

Brian lifted his chin. "Well, my sister and I …"

<><>​

Blockade's Workshop

Taylor

The building was large and airy, which was good, because molten metal generated a metric ton of heat. From what I could tell, it had previously been some kind of warehouse, but bore the distinctive signs of having been reinforced and secured by Madison's tech. Emma had told me about the early days when the Merchants had literally been able to force their way in through the wall; this was, in every way, a totally different proposition.

Madison, now out of the armour, finished what she was doing with the forge and turned to face Emma and me, where we held Butcher between us. "I'm going to need to take a mould of her upper face."

This was potentially the most dangerous part of the situation. Butcher's eyes weren't inherently dangerous—no laser vision or blaster beams, here—but if she got a clear line of sight on Emma or Madison, she could do them severe damage in the time it took for me to shut her down again without killing her. And if I were dealing with her eyes, someone else would have to watch her hands, which were even more deadly again.

Madison's description of her as an armed IED was nothing less than the truth. There were numerous ways she could hurt the unwary, and a single slip could allow her to cause untold damage. Worse, she wanted to kill us all, and we couldn't do the same to her.

"Okay," I said after a little thought. "I got this." I glanced at Emma. "Or rather, Blockade suits up, you got this, and I got you."

Emma's head came up as she figured out the plan. It was weird that we were more in tune than we'd ever been before we got powers. "That should work, yeah."

Madison nodded and gestured at a bowl of off-grey gunk sitting on a nearby table. "The stuff's right there. It'll set in five minutes, but it needs to be undisturbed until then." She headed for the Mark 2 suit. "Give me thirty seconds to suit up, and we'll be ready to roll."

"Gloves?" asked Emma, looking at her hands then glancing at me.

"Probably a good idea to take them off, yeah," I agreed.

Once her hands were bare—it was usually easier to wash stuff like that off skin than out of cloth—Emma took up the bowl. In the meantime, Madison had ensconced herself within the suit, and I'd carefully unbent some of the framework that held the disc in place. Emma came over to stand in front of Butcher, and I reached past the murderous teenager to take her by the arm, while maintaining a careful grasp of both Butcher's wrists in my other hand.

"Okay," Emma said. "Ready?"

"Wait." I looked at the gunk. "If she's standing upright, it'll just slide off her face, yeah?"

"Shit, yeah. It's not that sticky."

"Okay, then." I moved Butcher over next to the table, then tapped her gently behind the knees so that she fell backward with a muffled yelp. Carefully, I guided her down so her shoulders were supported by the table, and I still had a good grip on her wrists. "Blockade, can you hold her head still?"

"Sure thing." Madison tromped over and waited until I had hold of Emma's arm, using my power to reinforce her, then carefully slid the frame holding the disc off Butcher's head. Reaching down, she took hold of Butcher's head between one massive finger and thumb, effectively immobilising it.

I had made a mess of Butcher's nose, and the front of her face seemed bruised in general, but this was nothing to what she'd done to many innocents, so I figured a little turnabout was fair play. She glowered up at me—my eyesight and hearing blinked out a few times—then turned her attention to Emma when I didn't react. "I'm going to kill you," she promised. "You're gonna die screaming."

"Anything?" I asked after a moment.

"Kind of an irritating itch," Emma reported. "No … wait … now I'm really pissed off. But I can handle it." She sounded mildly annoyed, like Dad after a frustrating day at the Association.

"Why the fuck aren't you screaming and dying?" shrieked Butcher. "I know I'm using the powers right this time!"

Emma reached out and grabbed Butcher's nose; with a wrenching crack, she reset it. "Because we're just that good. Now, hold still." Holding the bowl in one arm, she scooped up a large handful of the gunk and prepared to apply it. "Oh, and you might want to close your eyes."

No matter how Butcher struggled and protested, it was to no avail; Madison's suit was in the ton-weight range as far as strength was concerned, and she had leverage on her side. Me, I was just 'strength: yes,' whether there was leverage involved or not. The gunk went onto Butcher's face, covering her from mid-forehead down to the bridge of her nose, filling her eye sockets from top to bottom and side to side.

Five minutes later, following Madison's instructions, we lifted away the now-solid cast and carefully placed it to one side. Butcher unfortunately lost her eyebrows and eyelashes in the process (for an unflinching mass murderer, she certainly put up a fuss about it), but that was a minor price to pay.

With the disc back over her face (we didn't need to re-break her nose, so long as she didn't pull anything) it was just a matter of waiting for Madison to use the cast to create a mould, which she did with expert ease. One short pour of good steel later, followed by the attachment of a much more elegant framework (so sue me, I'd been pressed for time and materials), and we had a form-fitting blindfold for Butcher to wear. Once Madison also put together a pair of good steel cuffs with hand covers, we were in business.

"Nice," Emma observed as she replaced the borrowed disc on her bracer. "Can't teleport, can't see to use her ranged powers, can't power things up to explode."

Madison nodded. "That's the general idea, yes."

The downside of refining Butcher's restraints was, of course, that she could now speak unimpeded. "You realise, you can't keep me like this forever. Once I get out of wherever you assholes put me, I'm gonna come looking for you. If you die, I win. If I die, I still win." As she spoke, she wrenched uselessly at the cuffs that secured her arms firmly behind her back. They clanked gently, but nothing else happened.

I glanced over at Madison. "Still time to make a gag for her before we take her back to Director Piggot, just saying."

She snorted. "Didn't say I wasn't thinking about it."



End of Part Forty-One

 

[Therandomestpersons]

"I … that can be arranged." Piggot collected herself, and Brian got the impression that the game would take place if the Director had to hold Armsmaster at gunpoint to do it. "Is that your only condition?"

Click to shrink...

Armsmaster: So run it by me again, why do I need to do this?
Piggot: it was literally his only condition that you play the game against him, and that he can record it. "For bragging rights" according to him.
Armsmaster: …was it included that he has to win the game?
Piggot: He didn't specifically say that, no.
AM: …Was a date specified?

 

[twilightwanderer]

Me, I was just 'strength: yes'

Click to shrink...

More like 'physics: optional'

 

[Avernus]

More of March's arrogance making her act stupid (it fits her personality yes, but still...) She's ignoring that if she dies and someone else becomes Butcher she won't be in the driver's seat even as much as she is now; she'll just be one "voice" among many. But even more so she's ignoring that with a little imagination and ruthlessness she's not all that hard to neutralize once captured in the first place - as both canon and Blockade's comments demonstrate. But even with Blockade's heavy-handed comments she's still throwing out pronouncements about how she'll kill them all as soon as she gets the chance and that death won't stop her instead of not announcing how dangerous she is to the people who've' captured her.

Her ego and narcissism won't let her consider that she's basically arguing hard for her captors to inflict something on her that exemplifies the phrase "you'd be surprised what you can live through". Not surprising of course, even before getting Butchered we saw that she'd never consider that her actions might have consequences or that other people have agency. So she'd never consider that she's basically arguing for them to do something like permanently blind her and stick her in a Good Steel box somewhere. Now, I don't expect anything like that to actually happen, it wouldn't really fit the tone of the story; but in a darker story she'd get to find out that law enforcement and "heroes" are quite capable of being every bit as ruthless as her when they feel the need.

 

[Ack]

More of March's arrogance making her act stupid (it fits her personality yes, but still...) She's ignoring that if she dies and someone else becomes Butcher she won't be in the driver's seat even as much as she is now; she'll just be one "voice" among many. But even more so she's ignoring that with a little imagination and ruthlessness she's not all that hard to neutralize once captured in the first place - as both canon and Blockade's comments demonstrate. But even with Blockade's heavy-handed comments she's still throwing out pronouncements about how she'll kill them all as soon as she gets the chance and that death won't stop her instead of not announcing how dangerous she is to the people who've' captured her.

Her ego and narcissism won't let her consider that she's basically arguing hard for her captors to inflict something on her that exemplifies the phrase "you'd be surprised what you can live through". Not surprising of course, even before getting Butchered we saw that she'd never consider that her actions might have consequences or that other people have agency. So she'd never consider that she's basically arguing for them to do something like permanently blind her and stick her in a Good Steel box somewhere. Now, I don't expect anything like that to actually happen, it wouldn't really fit the tone of the story; but in a darker story she'd get to find out that law enforcement and "heroes" are quite capable of being every bit as ruthless as her when they feel the need.

Click to shrink...

She's arrogant enough to believe that even if she dies, she'll still be capable of taking over the driver's seat again.

As far as she's concerned, the others haven't because they aren't her.

 

[Barbaric_Bob]

if only there was a biotinker somewhere that could turn her into an undying vegetable blob and then drop her into a real steal orb into the mariana trench

 

[TheCuriousGuest]

So... All Armsmaster needs to do is 'agree' to play a game at some point in the future, once he's got an efficient plan and minimized his required actions?

Shame they don't remove her tongue to prevent her assaulting their ears.
Hopefully they just permanently sedate her and/or perform some brain surgery to de-power her.

 

[Avernus]

Hopefully they just permanently sedate her and/or perform some brain surgery to de-power her.

Click to shrink...

The latter likely wouldn't work, her Shard would just count that as death and transfer to some other Parahuman. The former on the other hand might work.

She's arrogant enough to believe that even if she dies, she'll still be capable of taking over the driver's seat again.

As far as she's concerned, the others haven't because they aren't her.

Click to shrink...

That fits given that she was arrogant enough to court getting Butchered in the first place. If ego had gravity she'd be a black hole of self absorption.

 

[Ack]

Earning Her Stripes

Part Forty-Two: Meanwhile …

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Uber

"Holy shit, have you heard about this?" Leet looked up from where he'd been browsing PHO. "Says here, Butcher's been sighted in the Bay."

"You're shitting me." Brendan's interest in schooling the trash-talking little shit on the other side of the screen abruptly waned. His thoughts went immediately to his bug-out bag, then he started wondering if Leet had kept his up to date. "Maybe it's time we got out of town."

"Maybe." Leet jumped up from the chair, sending it rolling backward. "Or maybe we make it so she leaves town before she fucks everything up." There was a manic energy in his voice that Brendan had heard before; it had never turned out well.

"What did you have in mind?" That was always a good question to ask when it came to Leet. Sometimes, when he heard his own ideas coming out of his mouth he would slow his roll; other times, Brendan had to do it for him. And once in a while, he needed to be reminded that he'd already done something like whatever he was proposing. "And what game are we going to be working from?"

Leet shook his head. "Nope, no game." He put up his finger before Brendan could interject. "This isn't a game thing, or even something we can put on the show. It's pure self-defence. If we can chase Butcher away before she gets settled, we're gold. Otherwise, we'd always be looking over our shoulders."

"I think it's a bad idea." Brendan weathered Leet's look of betrayal with the same ease he'd done it every other time. "Best case, you accidentally kill her and you become Butcher. Worst case, she somehow figures out that you're fucking with her, and she kills us."

"The fuck?" Leet managed to say those two words with such emphasis from his body language and hand movements that his meaning still would've been understandable by someone who was blind, deaf and entirely ignorant of the English language. "You're not listening, dude. Best case is, we chase her the fuck out of Brockton Bay. I'm not gonna, like, hit her with an eighteen-wheeler or shit like that. It'll just be small stuff, like walking into doors and tripping over her own feet."

"And how are you even going to do that?" Leet had come up with some stupid plans in the past, but they'd always been based around one of his inventions. Brendan figured that said as much about the inventions as they did about Leet himself. "Zap her with a bad-luck ray?"

"Well, yeah, actually." Leet eyed Brendan suspiciously. "Have you been reading my notes or something?"

"Yeah, like I'd even touch them. Half the time they're either radioactive or contaminated with something that doesn't exist on the periodic table, and the other half the time they're about as legible as … wait." Brendan's brain finally caught up with what he'd just heard his buddy say. "Bad luck ray? Really? How fucking stupid of an idea is that?"

"It could work. You know, maybe." When Leet was being defensive, he hunched his shoulders, almost folding in on himself, and today was no exception. "I've never done one before, that's for certain."

"Yeah, because it's a stupid idea. If it's even possible." Brendan paused; he didn't actually like yelling at Leet. Maybe it was a better idea to guide him into realising that it was a bad idea, a little bit at a time. "Okay, fine, let's assume it's possible. What made you think of it, anyway?"

Leet hesitated, then glanced at Brendan. Apparently finding some kind of encouragement there, his closed-in stance opened up a little. "Um … I was actually reading the capefics on PHO, and there was one where we were kinda heroic, and I made a bad luck gun and a good luck gun, and we wrecked the Slaughterhouse Nine with them. So, um, I was thinking that maybe I could make it work in real life …?"

Brendan ran his hands through his hair, trying to figure out exactly what to say in response to that. Capefics bear zero resemblance to how powers actually work, you colossal moron! came to mind, but he was actively trying not to sound too harsh, so he did his best to tone it down a little … or a lot. "Okay, so do you have any idea how to make this work? And will it use a principle you've already used?"

His heart sank when Leet brightened. "I'm pretty sure I do, yeah. And no, I've never done a luck effect. Plus, we'll be able to use it from right here in the base, so we don't have to go near her."

"Well, that's definitely a bonus." It was more than that. The more Brendan thought about it, the more he considered it to be the keystone aspect of the whole stupid idea. If Leet could employ his ill-conceived venture out of sight and out of mind, they could get it over and done with, and clean up the inevitable flaming wreckage afterward without anyone (especially Butcher) being the wiser.

Sometimes, he wondered if the reason Director Piggot and the local PRT had never mobilised to capture and incarcerate them was due to the entertainment value of the after-action reports of their many (many) screwups.

"Well, it's mainly because we aren't going to be targeting her now," Leet continued, warming to his theme. "She's already here, and she's probably got a base set up and everything. I want to make things inconvenient to her from the moment she gets here, so she just gives up in disgust."

"Wait." The dark foreboding that usually hung over Brendan when Leet was about to try something particularly ill-advised came back in full force, and it even brought friends along for company. "Attacking her then? Like, time manipulation? Didn't you swear to me on bended knee that you weren't going to do that anymore? Especially after what happened between Uber-3 and Leet-9?"

"Dude. We agreed never to bring that up again. Anyway, nothing's going to happen like that." Leet rolled his eyes, apparently going for carefree nonchalance, though the fact that he'd crossed his fingers for luck didn't escape Brendan. "Anyway, this isn't about generating alternate timelines. It's about directing an attack back through time. You know, using the thing I worked up for the ChronoCop episode we never actually worked out how to do."

"Yeah, well, that's because you couldn't figure out how to get the time-folder small enough to fit into a gun. Pity, though. It would've been cool." Brendan paused, pulling his mind away from his appreciation of the classic game. "Wait, you never trashed it after that, uh, thing we never talk about?"

"Like I said, it doesn't generate alternate timelines. Plus, once I make something, it's made. If I'd trashed it, I'd never be able to rebuild it. So, I just put it away." Leet headed over to a set of cupboards and started rifling through them. "Judge Dredd helmet … Spartan rifle … Ghostbusters ghost trap … come on, where is it?"

"Ghost trap? We never did a Ghostbusters episode, did we?" Brendan picked up the black and yellow striped device and examined it. It looked like some of Leet's better work, too.

"Nah, I think Leet-6 left it behind when he went back to his home alternate. He said to never open it, but wouldn't tell me why." Leet opened a different cupboard door and kept searching. "Ah-ha! There you are, you sneaky little rascal! Come to papa."

Well, shit. He found it. Brendan's initial hope, that Leet's perennial lack of organisation would kill this idea aborning, had been categorically shot in the back of the head and buried in a shallow grave. Not unlike the fate he foresaw the two of them suffering if this idiotic venture went anywhere nearly as badly as had happened in the past.

"So, uh … how exactly are we going to do this?" He knew exactly what he was letting himself in for by making the inquiry, but he had to keep himself in the loop somehow. Otherwise, the bad shit that was currently chugging down the track toward them like the juggernaut of doom—all acceleration, no brakes—was going to catch him in the back of the neck at the worst possible moment. If he could see it coming, he figured, he'd have half a chance of ducking and covering at the right moment, and maybe even dragging Leet out of the line of fire too.

Well, it was a plan, even if it wasn't a great one. Or even a good one.

"Okay, so here's the dealio." Leet gestured with the hand that wasn't holding the time-folder. "Building this into a gun is no longer necessary. Besides, I need to design the luck reservoir, as well as the filter and projector. Which reminds me. Are you okay with me tapping you for bad luck?"

"Me?" Brendan frowned, entirely unsure as to where Leet was going with this. "Why do you think I've got any bad luck? Seriously?"

"Dude. Don't play dumb." The look Leet gave Brendan said quite clearly, 'we both know what I'm talking about'. "The number of times my inventions have crashed and burned, there's got to be a serious source of bad luck in my vicinity. Process of elimination says it's you."

What? Brendan had heard the phrase 'could not believe my ears' before, but now he was living it. If either of them was afflicted with bad luck, it was Leet. How could his buddy not see that? "You're pulling my chain, dude. You honestly think it's down to me?"

"Well, who else could it be? Anyway, we're getting off track." Leet hustled over to the pile of disassembled parts that he'd salvaged from the last dozen or so fiascos. "Time to put your talent to good use for once. As soon as I build the luck siphon and the reservoir, I'll start tapping you for bad luck while I finish up the console and integrate the time-folder into it. Think you can hold still long enough to let that happen?"

"But—" Brendan cut off his own protest, and thought fast. It was totally an embarrassment, sure, to be thought of as a source of bad luck when anyone with half a brain could see what was really going on. But if he was correct, and Leet was just shit at what he did, then the bad luck projector would do exactly jack and shit once it was turned on. Which meant they would be safe from not only Butcher's wrath, but also any actual malfunction from the device. After all, if it didn't work, then it couldn't explode … right? "… okay, yeah, hook me up."

"Ar-right!" Leet set to work with a will. Sparks flew as he soldered the smaller components, then welded the larger ones. To Brendan's dubious eye, the 'luck siphon' that he assembled seemed to include a number of parts strongly reminiscent of the vacuum cleaner that had mysteriously vanished a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, when a Tinker was involved, any disappearance of electronic equipment was to be treated more as a suspicious circumstance than a mysterious event.

"How intrusive is this going to be?" Brendan asked, fully aware that it was something he probably should have checked on before agreeing to being the subject of the 'luck siphon'. "Because if it involves inserting it into a body cavity, I'm out."

"Nah, nah." Leet put the final touches on the device, then turned to him. "Here, just point the open end toward yourself. If it's within a few inches, it should suck up the bad luck just fine." He offered it to Brendan, who noted that (among other things) there were now lines of LEDs running up and down the length of the tube joining it to what he gathered (from context) was the reservoir. When Leet pressed a switch, it began to warble softly, with undertones and overtones that raised the hair on the back of Brendan's neck … or maybe that was just his presentiment of doom kicking into high gear. "Okay, get to collecting that bad luck."

Accepting it gingerly, Brendan eyed the aperture. "How will I know how much bad luck it's collected? And what happens once it's full?" He didn't believe for a second that bad luck was something that could be simply collected. However, it was evident to him that the siphon was determined to grab something, and he'd experienced enough explosions as a direct result of Leet's tech underperforming (and sometimes overperforming) that these questions were absolutely essential to ask up front. Usually from a safe distance.

Leet gestured toward a dial set in the side of the reservoir. "Oh, it'll beep and shut itself off. If it doesn't, just hit the red button there. Or was it the green one?" He frowned, looking from one to the other. "I know I was building in an emergency dump system, in case the bad luck concentration got too high. Or was that the pull-handle there?"

Peering closely at the dial, Brendan saw that the needle was quivering far to the left of the scale. Instead of numbers, there were instead words and phrases to mark (he figured) how much bad luck had been gathered.

THAT'S ODD

OH DAMN

SERIOUSLY?

YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME

WHAT THE HELL?

OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE

JESUS CHRIST, NOT AGAIN

FUUUUUUUUUCK!

Click to shrink...

It hadn't quite gotten up to 'That's odd' yet, even when he gave the siphon an experimental wave over himself, so he figured it was safe to relax for the moment. If the cockamamie contraption failed even to charge itself with whatever it considered to be bad luck, maybe Leet would give up on the idea of attacking Butcher. Not getting in her way, and keeping his head down, seemed a vastly wiser choice than pointing some of Leet's tech at her and suffering the consequences of either success or failure.

Among other things, Brendan hadn't forgotten that the Butcher had the ability to shoot around obstacles to hit her enemies dead centre, ten times out of ten. He was good at what he did—he'd be the first to admit that—but she had him beat in that regard, by a solid country mile. Not to mention the other downside of fighting her: if she was killed, her killer became the new Butcher. It was theoretically possible to beat her without killing her, but nobody had managed that yet, and he certainly had no idea how to do it.

"One of these days, you're gonna have to start writing notes for this stuff." He wasn't quite sure how many times Leet's tech had malfunctioned due to its hapless inventor pressing a bunch of buttons in precisely the wrong order, but it had to be more than a few. Of course, sometimes it just blew up because it had apparently gotten bored with being in one piece, but there wasn't much Brendan could do about that.

"Sorry, dude. No can do. If I stop to write stuff down, I lose my train of thought." Leet shrugged and went back to the construction of the other half of the bad luck contraption. This was what he'd called the filter and projector, the latter of which incorporated the time-folder. To Brendan's vague relief, it looked solid and non-portable, which meant they probably weren't going to be lugging it out of the base and going in pursuit of Butcher with it. There were lots of blinking lights on it, though, as well as a large screen.

Brendan held Leet in the highest regard—there were no bro's like gaming bro's—but he couldn't resist rolling his eyes at that. Might actually improve your stuff if you did lose your train of thought from time to time. It certainly couldn't make it worse.

"Actually," he ventured as a thought occurred to him. "Why do you never set up a camera where you could replay the footage and remind yourself what buttons did what?" It would certainly bypass a lot of the fiascos (and lost eyebrows) that they'd undergone of late.

Leet turned and gave him a long-suffering look. "Now why didn't I think of that? Hell, we've got the Snitch to watch over my shoulder and all. I could even give a colour commentary to make sure I didn't forget anything." He threw a baleful glance across the workshop to where their little hover-cam sat in its charging cradle.

Now Brendan knew he was missing something. "So why don't you?" If there was a good reason, he sure as hell didn't know what it was.

Leet sighed expressively. "Because when I do that, even if I can't see the camera, malfunction rates go way up. It's like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle or something. I even tried with cameras that turned on at random, so I didn't know they were operating. But no matter what I tried, it was always the same. If the process was recorded, something went fucky with it. So, I stopped trying." He turned back to the luck filter and set to work once more. The tension in his shoulders matched the bitterness in his tone, so Brendan decided not to pursue the matter any further.

When the device in his hand didn't seem about to blow up, short out or otherwise pose a risk to life and limb, he left off passing it over himself and waved it around in the air experimentally. Nothing much happened until he chanced to direct it Leet's way, whereupon the needle jumped and started to rise. Blinking, he pointed it back at himself, and the needle stopped again. Aimed at Leet once more, it caused the needle to rise again.

You're shitting me. Is this the reason his tech fails on the flimsiest excuse? He's actually afflicted with bad luck? It's really a thing?

By now, the needle was past 'Oh, damn' and heading for 'Seriously?', and didn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. Brendan was torn between equal and opposite urges: on the one hand, he kinda wanted to see what happened once the reservoir was filled with whatever the siphon was drawing away from Leet; on the other, he wasn't sure that he really wanted to. The third option was to tell Leet exactly who it was drawing 'bad luck' from, but that would probably just serve to piss his buddy off and cause a scene, and he didn't want to do that at all.

Self-preservation vied with the urge for entertainment, and entertainment won out.

"Uh, so what were you going to do with the bad luck anyway, once you got it? I mean, exactly?" He made sure to keep his tone light, so Leet would take it as simply making conversation, rather than an interrogation. "Hit her with a huge burst of it all at once, have a meteorite land on her or something?"

"I was thinking that at first, but then I decided to go a different way." Fully back in the groove now, Leet kept working even as he answered the question. "I'll start tuning it backward in time, hitting her with random bits of bad luck here and there."

"Right, right." Brendan kept experimenting with the gently warbling device, waving it around in the air, then at himself, then back toward Leet. Whenever it was pointed directly at the Tinker, the LEDs rippled faster and the needle rose on the dial, passing by 'You have to be kidding me' and 'What the hell?' as he watched.

"Nearly done here," Leet reported, his voice muffled as he was head and shoulders inside the cabinet enclosing the luck filter and projector. "How's it going with your bad luck?"

"Oh, it's pulling it in hand over fist." Brendan kept his tone level, while he thanked his lucky stars that there were no cameras to see him hovering the end of the siphon about two inches off Leet's butt. At this range, the needle was closing in on the red-printed 'Fuuuuuuuuuck!' at a ferocious rate of knots. "It'll be full up real soon."

"Oh, good. I knew there was a reason my stuff kept failing." Just as Leet edged backward out of the cabinet, there was a beep from the luck reservoir.

Brendan hastily turned the siphon so it stuck straight up in the air, well away from both of them, so by the time Leet turned around, there was no proof of what he'd been doing. "Yeah, totally. No idea why I didn't see it before."

"Well, you were too close to the problem, weren't you?" Leet puzzled over the luck reservoir for a few moments, then gingerly pressed the green button. The warble changed note, and Brendan got ready to duck and cover. But nothing else happened, so he allowed himself to relax a little.

"Yeah, probably. So, what happens now?" Brendan handed the siphon back to Leet, and watched as the Tinker disconnected the head from it, then plugged the hose into the side of the cabinet that housed the filter and projector. "What else do we have to do?"

Leet shrugged. "Nothing. Now we fire this bad boy up, and start inflicting bad luck on Butcher." He flipped a row of switches, and a bunch of vertical light displays lit up, starting at red but transforming to green one after the other. "Luck filtration up and running. Everything looks good."

Brendan wondered what 'luck filtration' actually did, but wasn't inclined to ask. "How are you going to actually target Butcher?" was what he said instead. That was also a valid question, as far as he was concerned.

"Oh, uh, I got a photo of her. Once I let the guidance computer have a look at it, it'll pinpoint her anywhere within twenty miles. To make it easier, I'll calibrate it so it only locks onto capes." Leet tapped buttons, turned knobs, and pushed sliders. "And there we go! It's got a lock. So I'll warm up the time-folder, turn it back just an hour or so, and zap her with a ranging shot. Just a teensy bit of bad luck."

"Sounds like a plan." Brendan moved closer, interested in seeing how this would go. He watched as Leet fiddled with the controls, and the time-date stamp on the top corner of the screen rolled backward.

"Okay, then. Let's do this thing." Leet drew a deep breath and let out a gusty sigh, revealing that he was a lot tenser than he'd been letting on. He pressed in a button, then manipulated a couple of controls; in another moment, a picture sprang up on the screen, showing Butcher pacing across a paved area, with people all around her. Brendan recognised them as unpowered members of her gang, the Teeth. "I'll just give her a touch of clumsiness …" A knob turned gently under his fingers, and the warbling of the luck reservoir ramped up slightly.

And then the view swivelled, and Brendan saw the costumed woman coming at Butcher, sword reaching out for her. "Oh shit! Cut it off! Abort!"

"Wh—" Leet began, but Brendan was already acting. He'd seen how Leet had focused the projector in on Butcher; knocking his buddy's hands aside, he twisted the knob and slammed the slider all the way to its stop. Leet pushed him back. "What are you doing? Are you nuts?" But it was too late: the image on the screen had already flickered and changed.

Brendan outweighed Leet by several dozen pounds, but the shove forced him back a step anyway, and his elbow connected with one of the buttons on the reservoir. A sharp buzzer sounded, and the warble went to ultrasonic after passing through a sonic phase that felt like it was shredding Brendan's eardrums. The next thing that happened was a sharp pop inside the console, and a very familiar plume of smoke began to rise in the air.

"I had to do it." Brendan gestured at the now-dead screen. "She was in a fight against another cape." He hadn't actually recognised the costume, but it had to be one, with a military uniform and a rabbit mask involved. "If the other cape killed her and you were responsible, you'd be Butcher now."

"Oh. Yeah." Leet grimaced as he prised off a panel. "Yup, thought so. Time-folder's screwed, and the bad luck projector's slagged as well. So much for that." He looked over at the reservoir. "And you managed to hit the emergency dump just after you broke lock on her and fixed it on some poor random asshole in Brockton Bay. So, they got all the bad luck in the world, in one big hit."

"Shit." Brendan actually felt bad about that, then he remembered what Leet had said before. "And it was calibrated to only lock onto capes?"

Leet's eyes opened wider as he processed the ramifications of that. "Yeah. Yeah, it was."

There was no way in hell they were ever going to be mentioning this on their show, not after fucking over some random cape so badly. "Any idea who it was?"

"All I know is what I saw on the screen, just before the projector blew." Leet gestured at the console, then mimed an explosion. "A fuck-off big chunk of concrete, going right through someone's house."

Brendan blinked. "Huh. How do you think it managed that?" Every way he tried to figure it out, he ran into a solid blank.

Leet shrugged, looking just as much in the dark as Brendan was. "Fucked if I know."

And not another word was spoken about it.



End of Part Forty-Two

 

[Melody2006]

Huh.... so that's how coil got f***** over.

 

[Pheonix_Fired]

That... Makes SO much sense! Get FUCKED COIL!!!!! HAHAHAHA!!!!

 

[Therandomestpersons]

So that's at least twice now that Coil has been fucked over by the powers of probability manipulation. Comedic.