First Telkan [Worm/First Contact Crossover Fanfic]

[Ack]

[A/N 1: This is a fanfiction crossover between First Contact, an ongoing novel on Reddit by Ralts_Bloodthorne and Worm, a webnovel by Wildbow. I make no claim to either property. This is merely a fun look at what happens when two worlds interact for the first time.]

[A/N 2: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

[A/N 3: I will follow the canon of both stories as closely as I can. If I find something that canon does not cover, I will make stuff up. If canon then refutes me, I will revise. Do not bother me with fanon; corrections require citations.]

[A/N 4: I welcome criticism of my works, but if you tell me that something is wrong, I also expect an explanation of what is wrong, and a suggestion of how to fix it. Note that I do not promise to follow any given suggestion.]

[A/N 5: Initial chapter of First Contact can be found here. First chapter with Vuxten in it can be found here.]

 

[Ack]

Introduction: First Contact

Vuxten had to admit, human-made 'easy chairs' were definitely what he would class as superior technology. As he leaned back in his, allowing it to adjust to his form, he could hear the broodcarriers singing to the podlings in the next room. The sound was soothing on a level even he could not define; broodcarriers were, as one prominent Terran commentator had said (not without a touch of awe) made of peace and love. Merely spending time in their presence helped leach away some of the underlying tension from the worst of the fighting, and allowed him to face the memories of each of his fallen comrades. And the podlings were a joy to behold, getting bigger and more mischievous every day.

The door-chime sounded, disturbing his reverie. He activated his implant, only to find that Brentili'ik had gotten there first. Framed in the door-cam was a familiar figure. He brought the easy-chair to an upright position and stood up, just as Brentili'ik entered the room, an irritated look on her face. "No," she said out loud and over the implant as well.

"It's Tran-Due-Ill," Vuxten said to her. "If he's here, it must be important." He knew why she didn't want him to open the door; she'd just gotten him healthy again. The fight against the Dweller under the mountain had taken far too much out of him, had nearly killed him. Only the enhanced armour granted him by Bellona had saved him when the explosion blew the side out of the mountain, and even that had barely been enough.

It was only due to Tran-Due-Ill, 471, General Trucker (now sporting a little more metal), Ekret and Old Iron Feathers that he'd survived at all. He now had a small piece of warsteel, scorched and cracked, granted him by Trucker after the decommissioning of Cry Little Sister. The big Terran had decided that he'd earned it; it helped, sometimes, to hold it and rub his hand-pads over the evidence of how much damage the tank had gone through to win the war. Stricken as she was, she had not fallen, had carried out her last duty to the end.

"If he's here, it's because of Gal-And-Dell," Brentili'ik said. "Something's gone wrong, and she wants you to help." She went to him and put her arms around him. "It's something dangerous, because there's no other reason she needs you."

"I can always say no," he assured her.

"But you won't." Her tone was resigned rather than angry. "Why can't the world just let us have our time together?"

He rubbed her gently on the spot on her back that she liked. "You know what the Terrans like to say about the universe." It will laugh as it takes away what you love the most.

"Yes, I know. But I don't have to like it." She didn't resist as he pulled away and went to the door.

It opened to reveal Tran-Due-Ill standing there patiently. The High Elf wore his usual woodland garb and silvery armour, with a wickedly sharp sword sheathed at his waist—Vuxten had seen similar blades slice through warsteel—and an intricate-looking bow slung over his shoulder. "Greetings, Lord Vuxten, and to your lady wife as well," Tran-Due-Ill said, executing a sweeping bow. "May we enter your home?"

"We?" asked Vuxten, then saw 471 as the foot-high green mantid scrambled up onto Tran-Due-Ill's shoulder. Okay, this was definitely serious. "Yes, come on in."

He half-expected Brentili'ik to blow up when she saw Vuxten's longtime partner, but she instead relaxed slightly. "Oh, good," she murmured. "You're here, at least." 471 had visited from time to time during Vuxten's convalescence; checking over their household appliances and Vuxten's own prosthetics, engaging in frenetic games of tag-me-out with the podlings, and occasionally falling asleep on top of one or another of the broodcarriers (much to their bemusement).

471 flashed her a cautiously reassuring icon, then jumped over to the top of Vuxten's easy chair where he settled down, gesturing with a bladearm toward Tran-Due-Ill. Now that Vuxten looked more closely, the High Elf appeared more careworn, with scars and lines on his face that had not been there before.

"There is evil afoot in the land," Tran-Due-Ill began. Knowing this was just how they spoke, neither Vuxten nor Brentili'ik interrupted him. "The Elven Queen Gal-And-Dell exerts her influence over all the land and all the sea, except for one small part, in a small town to the south and east of here. Three of my kind who have entered this area have not returned; of all else, they entered, searched, and left empty-handed. The spying eyes of the Mad Arch-Angel Terrasol, far above, see nothing. And yet, creatures large and small creep out to wreak their mischief on those around and about."

"So send soldiers in," Brentili'ik said bluntly. "Terrasol has left them to protect us. Allow them to do their job."

"This has been done, Lady Brentili'ik," Tran-Due-Ill said with a small bow in her direction. "They entered and searched, and found nothing, not even the remains of my fellow Elves." He nodded toward Vuxten. "There stands the greatest warrior in all of Telkan. It is to him that the world speaks, and passes on its closest secrets. If the Dwellerspawn lurks within, he is the one who will draw it from its lair."

Brentili'ik's expression hardened. "And if I simply authorised a nuclear strike?"

"It might not work," Vuxten said carefully. "Toward the end of the war, they were becoming more and more resistant to our munitions, even nuclear ordnance. Without a direct penetrator, there's a good chance that whatever it is will survive."

"And if it's killed three Wood Elves, it's dissected them and learned their secrets," Brentili'ik noted. "Which makes it very dangerous indeed." She sighed. "Well, though I hate to admit it, there's one thing those monsters never learned how to counter." Stepping back into her husband's embrace, she leaned into him. "Just promise me one thing."

"What's that?" He held her close.

Her voice was low and deadly. "When you kill it, make it hurt."

****

The shoulder-mounted grenade launcher thumped off three rounds, but Vuxten was already on the move. Sprinting up the mound of rubble, he rolled over the top as the explosions went off, decapitating the thirty-foot-long snake-thing that had been trying to ingest him. On his shoulder, the warsteel-armoured 471 popped up and fired off a spread of micro-missiles at a dog-sized creature that was trying to sneak up on them. The missiles detonated it in mid-leap, chitin pinging off his armour.

His creation engine read out as 25% heat, 13% slush. He was good for the moment, manufacturing more grenades for the launcher. The readout on his helmet HUD showed Tran-Due-Ill moving up on his six but hanging back, as they'd arranged.

A small piece of rubble moved half an inch, and his eyes narrowed; reaching out, he wrapped his gauntleted hand around a piece of protruding rebar. The slightest quiver against the sensitive part of his palm verified his suspicions.

"Vuxten here. I've got ground vibration. Something big's coming my way."

"There's nothing on sensors." That showed up as a Major Chambers in the Terran contingent five miles away, doubt in his voice.

"Sir, I've been in the jungle with Vuxten. If he says something's coming, something's coming." He recognised the icon that popped up then. Captain Clynes was a full-conversion cyborg, and a good officer to work with.

"Very well, Vuxten. How big are we talking?" Chambers was all business now.

471 flashed up an image of a giant roach wearing huge fluffy slippers and Vuxten blinked to acknowledge it. "471 and I both think it's large, maybe as large as a tank, but it's got advanced stealth systems, including vibration damping." He paused as a wave of foreign emotion passed over him, and the last pieces of the puzzle dropped into place. "It's a brain coral, sir. A mobile brain coral and birthing chamber. That's how it keeps evading you. It never stays in one place."

"I copy, Vuxten." Chambers was quiet for a moment. "We need more data. Satellite overwatch is giving us nothing for that area. If you can get us a location, we can hit it from a distance. Can do?"

"Can do, sir." Vuxten racked his magac rifle and engaged the minimal stealth systems that had been built into his suit. 471 clicked --ride or die-- then flashed up an image of a small rodent wearing Telkan combat gear sneaking up to put a bell around the neck of a huge cartoon purrboi.

As Vuxten eased through a gap between two chunks of rubble, his rear-view HUD noted Tran-Due-Ill moving closer. He waved the High Elf to his side, and they moved on. Each of them knew the stakes; there were no false steps.

The next street seemed clear, if Vuxten discounted several large craters marring the road surface. No pillbugs bulked into sight. He rapidly flicked through several vision options and found nothing. Inside his helmet, his whiskers twitched. Despite the evidence of his eyes and sensors, he knew something was there.

Tran-Due-Ill touched his shoulder and pointed upward. Vuxten looked, squinting to zoom in with his cybernetic eye. Temporarily clear of the clouds of smoke and dust, the night sky above was clear. Stars twinkled here and there … but several of them shifted from side to side, smearing slightly.

Oh. Oh shit. Advanced active camouflage.

It wasn't totally over the top of them, but it was very close by. Vuxten gave the High Elf the 'withdraw' signal, just as he felt the tiny vibration through his feet that time. It was big, but it had long legs like a spider. And one of those legs had come down very close to them. Within yards, if he had to guess.

Once Tran-Due-Ill was about ten yards back and almost out of sight, Vuxten started back himself. 471, clad in his own warsteel armour, flashed up an image of a human wearing a ridiculous cloth mask over his eyes, with a bag bearing an ancient symbol for currency, sneaking past a snoring householder.

Step by careful step, he began to retreat as well.

And then he heard the almost subliminal rising hum of an organic weapons system powering up, behind him. The icon for "RUN" flashed in his HUD. From a standing start, he broke into a sprint. At the same time, 471 opened the radio channel for him.

"Danger close, danger close, fire on my position!" Vuxten called. "Tango up high, I say again, tango up high!" His shoulder guns, pointing backward and up, opened up on the monstrous creature while his launchers went to rapid fire, reloading as fast as the nanoforge could supply the ammunition. He left it to 471 to call the shots; he was moving as fast as he could through the maze of rubble left by the collapsed building, springing from one foothold to another with all the power that his armour could supply him. Flares and chaff burst out in a cloud all around him as 471 did his best to spoof the enemy's aim.

Several of the rockets splashed fire against empty air, and the others corrected aim to hit the same point, blinking the active-camouflage field off and on again. A howling storm of exotic energies descended around Vuxten as the gigantic organism returned fire. Clinging to his back, 471 alerted him to potential hits which he dived aside from, ignoring the bits of rubble that clattered against their armour.

And then the incoming fire arrived, and things got even more chaotic. They'd had time to line up everything they could throw at this thing. They didn't know what it was using for battlescreens and what would get through, so it was 'just shoot the thing' time.

In the midst of all this, Vuxten ran, dived, jumped, rolled, dodged …

… and was hit by a purple-edged beam that caused him, 471, and two tons of rubble to simply vanish.

A tenth of a second later, just as it realised it was shooting at the wrong target, the incoming fire figured out the frequency of its battlescreens, then punched through into the brain coral and the highly-unstable chemicals it was using to sustain its weapons fire. An uncontrolled reaction then took place, and things got very noisy.

When the smoke cleared, all that remained was a crater and a lot of bug guts.

****

Five Hours Later

"Where. Is. My. Husband?"

Like Vuxten, Brentili'ik was a Telkan. She stood a shade under four feet tall and looked not unlike an anthropomorphic fox, albeit with a wider muzzle, larger eyes, and flat, plant-eating teeth. Her pelt was a dappling of gold, black and white, and her short tail curled up behind her to show her displeasure. She also wore the uniform of a Planetary Director, which meant she outranked virtually everyone else in the solar system. Anyone she didn't outrank was staying back out of the way; this was her show.

Less than two years before, she'd been a humble cleaner, who wouldn't have dared speak out of turn to a soldier or anyone in authority. Now she was someone in authority, and she had questions to ask. If they didn't like the tone of her voice, that was their problem.

"Ah, Director Brentili'ik, what happened to your husband is a unique situation. In fact, we've got some good news and some bad news."

Her large, mobile ears twitched as she turned toward the human scientist who'd spoken. "That's more promising than simply bad news. What's the good news?"

"We believe he's still alive," the scientist said, then hastened to cover his own tracks. "Or at least, the beam didn't kill him."

Brentili'ik gestured for him to continue. "And the bad news?"

"It sent him elsewhere, but we're not sure where exactly." The human, who was a Major in his own right, grimaced at the wrinkle that formed on the brow of the diminutive Telkan woman. "As far as we can tell, the beam was designed to suck things into jumpspace and spit them out within a couple of lightseconds of travel. But that's not what happened."

"How do you know?" she asked.

"Because he had a green mantid with him. 471's a crazy little dude, but he knows one end of a wrench from the other. That little guy could've made over Vuxten's suit into a self-contained spacecraft and we'd not only know where they were by now, but they'd be coming back under their own power. So he's not in local space. But the beam couldn't have shot him farther under normal conditions. However, there was a lot of energy flying around that could have heterodyned the beam, so it could've theoretically punched him up further into the bands than anyone's gone. What happens when you get that high, where you go to, is anyone's guess. Nobody's ever come back from that."

For a herbivore, Brentili'ik's stare was particularly predatory. "I suggest you endeavour to find out, and then bring my husband back. Our podlings need their father, and our broodcarriers call out his name in their sleep. Cost is no obstacle." Turning, she strode away, her security warborgs falling into step alongside her.

"Yes, ma'am." The scientists, galvanised into action, went back to the task of analysing from the battlefield recordings exactly what had happened to the beam, and thus the missing Lieutenant Vuxten and 471, at the instant that they'd disappeared.

Project: Find Vuxten had just taken a huge jump in priority but even with the resources of an entire planetary government at their disposal, it would not be an easy task.

****

In Another Iteration of Reality

"Whoa!" Along with two tons of plascrete and other debris and a foot-high armoured mantid, Vuxten burst out through a tear in space. He rolled, came to his feet, unracked his magac rifle and used graviton-spikes from his boots to anchor himself while he swivelled his helmet, seeking targets for his onboard ordnance. The tear in space neatly closed up again, leaving Vuxten with ringing ears and nothing to shoot at. He tabbed a piece of gum and chewed on it while he scanned around again. The plascrete steamed gently, as did his armour; from the looks of it, everything organic had been scoured off both of them from the passage through … wherever that had been.

"471, you seeing this?"

The mantid clicked an affirmative, keeping his own lookout atop Vuxten's helmet with a micro-missile launcher. Vuxten could see in his helmet HUD that the little greenie was mapping the local area and comparing it to where they'd just been. He could also see that there were no real points of correlation. The buildings were all intact, if dilapidated, but they looked … old. Like a colony that had been built using lowtech methods and hadn't upgraded to the latest building materials. Electrical lights glared from overhead poles.

"Where are we?"

471 didn't have an answer. He flashed up an icon of a hero steadfastly looking over the cityscape from atop a tall building, then kept mapping. A tiny drone popped out of the nanoforge on Vuxten's armour and zoomed skyward, connected to Vuxten's systems by a whisker-laser. No sense in letting everyone know they were here, until they found out where 'here' was.

"Good idea," Vuxten agreed, and headed for an alley. Leaping up to the wall, he used the graviton-spikes as anchors to jump to a higher viewpoint. Two leaps later, he was on the rooftop. It didn't help ease his confusion.

The city spread out in all directions. There were no rising clouds of dust or smoke. Radiation count was minimal; strictly background. A distant siren sounded, but there was no gunfire, no explosions. Even the gravity felt subtly different. The drone was feeding him a city map that showed him where he was. The trouble was, it didn't match any city in his databanks.

471 nudged his helmet around to the right. Bringing the rifle up, he turned and looked. A half-moon was just rising at what his armour agreed was approximately ninety degrees to magnetic north. It was a big satellite, with markings …

"471, check starmaps. I think I know where we are."

It was ridiculous. It was impossible. But unless someone had gone so far as to rebuild their planet's satellite to a particular pattern, there could be no other place. He and Brentili'ik had watched too many old Terran movies with their broodcarriers and podlings to mistake it. She enjoyed the romantic ones, and he just enjoyed being with her. With his family.

While 471 worked, the drone turning its sensors skyward and checking the star patterns against known starmaps, he squinted to zoom in toward the darkened half of the moon. If he was right, he'd be picking up the pinpoints of the domed city lights about … now.

That was strange. There were no lights to be seen. He could see the darkened half, lit by planetshine, but there was no evidence of any settlement on the satellite. A chill worked its way down his back, and he chewed the gum a little harder.

--starmaps weird-- 471 clicked out. The mantid projected a series of constellations on Vuxten's HUD. --starmaps here--. Then he switched to a subtly different one. --northern hemisphere terra--.

Vuxten frowned and flicked back and forth between them. They were almost identical, but a few of the stars changed relative position almost imperceptibly from one image to the next. "Okay. That is weird." He knew how astrogation worked, and how starmaps didn't change from one location on a planet to another.

They'd taught him a lot since he'd become an officer.

What it didn't explain was why the stars above didn't quite match his databanks for Terra. There was always the possibility that he was in a simulation, though for what reason he didn't know. Well, there was one way to find out. "Okay, you got me. Good one. End simulation."

Nothing happened.

Okay, either it's not a simulation or there's a reason they're keeping me in it. Best to assume it's real for the moment.

His armour wasn't detecting anything dangerous outside so he popped his faceplate to take a breath of the local air. It smelled … like a city. The faint tang of internal-combustion engine hydrocarbon pollution, dust, hot metal. There was an answer here, somewhere. He was alive, and 471 was with him. They'd been together during the worst of the fighting, and they'd come through against what had seemed to be impossible odds at the time. He'd figure out what was going on, and how to get back home.

--got it-- clicked 471, then the mantid flashed up a series of emojis that indicated 'you are not going to believe this shit'.

"Okay, what is it?" He closed his faceplate again, and hunkered down, magac rifle still in his hands. "Where are we?"

Deep down, he thought he already knew, but getting confirmation was always good.

The two starmaps flicked back and forth a couple of times, then one shifted to fit over the other. A readout showed up in the corner of the image. As the starfield moved to fit, digits rolled over. He watched them, his mouth going dry despite the gum. When they finished, he had to blink twice to take in the readout. -13,000 Years, ±1,700.

"Double-check that," he said, keeping his voice steady. "See if you can link us into local communications. There's got to be a time clock somewhere."

--roger roger-- The starmaps went away, but the number remained. Vuxten stood up again, looking around at the city with new eyes. Thirteen thousand years ago, Terra had been on the verge of making it into space. So many things hadn't happened yet. The ecological collapse. The Great Glassing. The rebuilding. All the wars.

He owed Terra everything. What he was now, what he had, was only because Terran soldiers had seen some potential in a bunch of so-called 'neo-sapient' menial workers being drafted into an ad hoc security force by uncaring Lanaktallan Overseers. It was only because of them that he and his family had survived the madness that followed. That his species had survived it.

And now he was on their birthworld, before everything happened.

They helped me. I can't leave without helping them. Warn them of the Mantid Overqueen treachery, at least. Tell them where the Lanaktallans are, and what they're doing. Give them a heads-up on the Precursor machines and the bio-war fleets. Even the Mar-gites. Anything that will save a few Terran lives.

Raising his faceplate and standing up again, he looked skyward. He didn't even know where his home star was from Terra, or if it was visible from the planet's surface. He'd have to look that up.

But right now, he had three steps to follow.

Number one: survive.

Number two: figure out a way to get home again, whether by travelling to Telkan and going into stasis until he woke up thirteen thousand years in the future, or figuring a way back through the hole in space.

Number three: work out how to offer as much support as he could without disrupting the timeline before he left.

Everything else was just detail.


End of Part One

 

[Simonbob]

Number one: survive.

Number two: figure out a way to get home again, whether by travelling to Telkan and going into stasis until he woke up eight thousand years in the future, or figuring a way back through the hole in space.

Number three: work out how to offer as much support as he could without disrupting the timeline before he left.

Everything else was just detail.

Click to shrink...

Seems reasonable.

Does he have detailed historical files, so he'll be able to tell it's not his past?


Or is it?

 

[Ack]

Seems reasonable.

Does he have detailed historical files, so he'll be able to tell it's not his past?


Or is it?

Click to shrink...

Oh, he'll figure it out sooner or later.

He's from the 98th century. Earth has literally been glassed from orbit (about 6 or 7 thousand years ago by his timeline) and then rebuilt from scratch. Certain aspects got ... confused. For instance, Australia is now far more dangerous, and the Pacific Northwest now has an indigenous species of tree-climbing blue-ringed octopus (which hunts woolly snails).

Superhero LARPers in his day and age have actual powers. This may cause amusing misunderstandings.

 

[Pyro Hawk]

Oh, he'll figure it out sooner or later.

He's from the 98th century. Earth has literally been glassed from orbit (about 6 or 7 thousand years ago by his timeline) and then rebuilt from scratch. Certain aspects got ... confused. For instance, Australia is now far more dangerous, and the Pacific Northwest now has an indigenous species of tree-climbing blue-ringed octopus (which hunts woolly snails).

Superhero LARPers in his day and age have actual powers. This may cause amusing misunderstandings.

Click to shrink...

And let us absolutely not forget the fact that when Humanity did the impossible (according to everyone else at least) and fixed a glassed planet that along with such things as making a 'few' mistakes in regards to what the native ecosystems were like, they also had some problems in regards to rebuilding the cultures of the lost nations.

Admittedly, the problems in regards to determining what the natural ecosystems were supposed to be weren't helped by the fact that the ecological collapse mentioned? Either there were multiple or the ongoing ecological collapse was made much worse when some eco-terrorists got their hands on 'We have the technology' level bioweapons. Including such things as 'make vines able to punch through 'Might as well be magical' level superscience armour materials' and 'build new ecosystems from the ground up that make deathworlds look nice' organism design and creation capabilities. Or in simpler terms: The reason why Australia is so dangerous isn't just because when they rebuilt the global ecosystem from the Glassing they had to rely on records that weren't the best at labelling what was truth, fiction, meme and truth-but-artificially inserted.

As I mentioned above, there were also those problems in regards to what the native cultures were like. America, or Burgertopia as I think it's called is hilarious. We don't currently know what Japan and other places are like but I suspect them to be just as highly entertaining and strange.

As for why things are so ridiculous when they should have been able to sort out something more sensible from the confused records they have, there is a case of the majority going 'I know it's impossible for it to have been like this, but it's too cool to not do it' I believe was mentioned as happening.

Oh, and I love that land octopus of the Ambassador's. Definitely looking forward to where you take this cross-over.

 

[Ack]

And let us absolutely not forget the fact that when Humanity did the impossible (according to everyone else at least) and fixed a glassed planet that along with such things as making a 'few' mistakes in regards to what the native ecosystems were like, they also had some problems in regards to rebuilding the cultures of the lost nations.

Admittedly, the problems in regards to determining what the natural ecosystems were supposed to be weren't helped by the fact that the ecological collapse mentioned? Either there were multiple or the ongoing ecological collapse was made much worse when some eco-terrorists got their hands on 'We have the technology' level bioweapons. Including such things as 'make vines able to punch through 'Might as well be magical' level superscience armour materials' and 'build new ecosystems from the ground up that make deathworlds look nice' organism design and creation capabilities. Or in simpler terms: The reason why Australia is so dangerous isn't just because when they rebuilt the global ecosystem from the Glassing they had to rely on records that weren't the best at labelling what was truth, fiction, meme and truth-but-artificially inserted.

As I mentioned above, there were also those problems in regards to what the native cultures were like. America, or Burgertopia as I think it's called is hilarious. We don't currently know what Japan and other places are like but I suspect them to be just as highly entertaining and strange.

As for why things are so ridiculous when they should have been able to sort out something more sensible from the confused records they have, there is a case of the majority going 'I know it's impossible for it to have been like this, but it's too cool to not do it' I believe was mentioned as happening.

Oh, and I love that land octopus of the Ambassador's. Definitely looking forward to where you take this cross-over.

Click to shrink...

America is now the Burger Kingdom. Russia is Vodkaville (if I recall correctly).

And yes, the common saying is, "I know it's bullshit, but I love it so I choose to believe it."

 

[nick012000]

So, the moment he runs into a natural trigger cape and tells them about his origin, their shard will note that he's a potential threat to the cycle and alert Scion. I wonder how Scion would react? Maybe he'd just attach a shard to him to monitor him and intervene if necessary.

 

[Ack]

So, the moment he runs into a natural trigger cape and tells them about his origin, their shard will note that he's a potential threat to the cycle and alert Scion. I wonder how Scion would react? Maybe he'd just attach a shard to him to monitor him and intervene if necessary.

Click to shrink...

Is this sort of thing canon?

If he went back to his time & place with a shard attached, 1) they'd probably notice, and 2) they'd hunt the damn thing down and obliterate it.

And 3) they'd go back to Bet and start Precursor War 3.

But he's unlikely to ever have a natural trigger.

Because he's been there and kicked ass. On his first deployment, the city he was in had five nukes dropped in it, and he survived.

 

[nick012000]

Is this sort of thing canon?

Click to shrink...

It's canon that Scion actively acts against threats to the cycle. It's why he personally destroyed all the nuclear arsenals of the Earth and turned a Tinker who posed a threat into a body horror Tinker controlled by his shard. It's plausible that the shards would notice a genuine alien turning up and notify Scion, and that he'd take action if he judged the alien to pose a threat to the Cycle.

If he went back to his time & place with a shard attached, 1) they'd probably notice, and 2) they'd hunt the damn thing down and obliterate it.

And 3) they'd go back to Bet and start Precursor War 3.

Click to shrink...

I'm unfamiliar with the crossover setting, so I'll take your word for it. The shard world is a pretty strange place, though, from what we've seen of it in Ward. It's quite possible they'd have difficulty navigating it, or pinning down which giant crystal is the one connected to him.

But he's unlikely to ever have a natural trigger.

Because he's been there and kicked ass. On his first deployment, the city he was in had five nukes dropped in it, and he survived.

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure that Scion can induce "triggers". He gave one guy on an airplane powers when he first turned up, IIRC. He just refrains from doing so, because it'd produce suboptimal results in the data gathering - less trauma-induced conflict that way. Even before a trigger event occurred, though, a shard connected to him would still be connected to his brain and transmitting data back to the shard network (and thus Scion).

Of course, each shard is its own person, and it's entirely possible for them to start working at cross-purposes with Scion - the Queen Administrator, for instance, was directly responsible for orchestrating his death in canon, after Taylor gave up control to it and became Khepri.

 

[Pyro Hawk]

It's why he personally destroyed all the nuclear arsenals of the Earth

Click to shrink...

I'm almost certain that this is fanon. In fact, I think that it's canon that when Behemoth hit one of China's cities, they hit him with nukes and that's why no one else does anything like that to the Endbringers. It didn't work, and just made things worse.

Now, I'm pretty sure that Scion would intervene if someone decided that they'd nuke the world... But as long as it does not significantly endanger global populations, Scion's more likely to just swing by and clean up the radiation afterwards so it doesn't stay a problem. It's just 'extreme conditions testing'.

 

[nick012000]

I'm almost certain that this is fanon. In fact, I think that it's canon that when Behemoth hit one of China's cities, they hit him with nukes and that's why no one else does anything like that to the Endbringers. It didn't work, and just made things worse.

Click to shrink...

I don't think it is. Here's the Word of God on the subject, archived on Spacebattles.

 

[Ack]

It's canon that Scion actively acts against threats to the cycle. It's why he personally destroyed all the nuclear arsenals of the Earth and turned a Tinker who posed a threat into a body horror Tinker controlled by his shard. It's plausible that the shards would notice a genuine alien turning up and notify Scion, and that he'd take action if he judged the alien to pose a threat to the Cycle.

Click to shrink...

Here's the thing.

If Scion left him alone, there's no danger.

If Scion inserted a shard in his head, there's PLENTY danger.

Terrans work on one basic, inviolable principle.

"Do not fuck with us."

When Earth was glassed from orbit, Terrans went after the race responsible, reduced them to 1% of their original population and then (after about 400 years of being forced to live at Industrial Revolution level tech) were asked if they'd like to rejoin the galactic community and not be dicks anymore.

And that's them being restrained.

I'm unfamiliar with the crossover setting, so I'll take your word for it. The shard world is a pretty strange place, though, from what we've seen of it in Ward. It's quite possible they'd have difficulty navigating it, or pinning down which giant crystal is the one connected to him.

Click to shrink...

You're assuming they'd stop at one.

See, Terrans have actually dealt with continent-sized invaders from space that want to fuck with humanity and its allied races before. It didn't go well ... for the invaders.

They're also good at going through all the various sub-levels of reality that exist.

I'm pretty sure that Scion can induce "triggers". He gave one guy on an airplane powers when he first turned up, IIRC. He just refrains from doing so, because it'd produce suboptimal results in the data gathering - less trauma-induced conflict that way. Even before a trigger event occurred, though, a shard connected to him would still be connected to his brain and transmitting data back to the shard network (and thus Scion).

Click to shrink...

That was Andrew Hawke, aka Vikare. He was on a ship. He also made physical contact with Scion.

Of course, each shard is its own person, and it's entirely possible for them to start working at cross-purposes with Scion - the Queen Administrator, for instance, was directly responsible for orchestrating his death in canon, after Taylor gave up control to it and became Khepri.

Click to shrink...

Shards are also supposed to pick and choose their hosts for whoever will give the most conflict. If the host literally ignores the power and can deal with all his conflict without ever using the shard, I'm pretty sure the shard would go elsewhere.

 

[Ack]

First Telkan

Part Two: Encounters

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


A moment later, 471 clicked --got it-- and a time/date display popped up in Vuxten's HUD. The first thing he noted was the local time; 2123, as he'd gotten used to the military display. The next he noted was the date, which came across as Friday, January 28. He knew of Terran days of the week, though he wasn't sure of the naming protocol. Each of them ended in 'day', which was useful. January, he was reasonably sure, was a Terran month name. Those were more obscure than the weekday names, and didn't end in 'month', which made them slightly confusing.

A query of his databanks brought up a Terran calendar display, and he frowned as he realised that the months not only had odd names, but they had uneven lengths as well. Still, it wasn't like he was going to need to worry about which month was which. Unless 417 could construct a really good hard-light camouflage system for the suit, his chances of masquerading as one of the locals was minimal to zero.

The drone sent him a warning ping, and he checked the HUD to see that there were two lifesigns closing on his six o'clock, three hundred yards out. Reflexively, he closed the suit's faceplate and crouched, the black suit making him just one shadow among many.

As he did so, 471 moved the drone over a little so it had a slightly better view of the two newcomers, and zoomed a camera lens in on them. One was dressed all in black, with a matching cloak, on a rooftop on the other side of the road. The other wore what Vuxten's HUD identified as powered armour equivalent to light second-rate SAR equipment though he didn't think much of the red and gold colour scheme, or the fact that it didn't seem to have built-in flight systems, much less a way to protect the wearer from environmental hazards. Interestingly enough, the flight problem had been overcome with the use of a small elongated board which was gliding silently through the air. The drone's scanners indicated that there was a graviton effect of sorts there, but it was very oddly tuned.

Three things occurred to him at the same time. First, the two newcomers seemed to be adolescents at best. They were nowhere near the size and heft of the Terrans he'd trained with and fought alongside. Second, he wasn't at all sure that armour of the type he was seeing right there had even existed this far back in Terran history. Like the board, the suit was returning some very odd scanner data to the drone. And third … the adolescent female Terran who was running along the rooftop was about to leap out over a hundred-foot gap, and he could tell she wasn't running nearly fast enough to clear the distance to the next rooftop. At any moment, he expected her to slow down, to come to a halt.

She didn't.

Instead, she accelerated (not by enough) and leaped … then 471 clicked out a very rude word as the scan data coming back from her (small electronic items only) devolved to meaningless hash. As far as Vuxten could see, she dissolved into a shadow form which almost seemed to glide across the intervening distance. When the immaterial form reached the next rooftop, it reverted to the adolescent Terran once more.

"Ah." His sound baffling was on, so there was no way they could hear him (or so he hoped). "I think I know what's going on." The fact that the adolescent male had a visor that obscured his features, and the female was wearing a mask that featured a stern-looking adult Terran woman—though Vuxten had seen scarier—had clued him in. "These are 'superhero LARPers'."

The podlings and broodcarriers had discovered some of the more hilarious LARPer Tri-Vid channels, and he and Brentili'ik had glanced at the shows occasionally. Personally, he'd found it difficult to understand how they could take it so seriously, but she'd pointed out that a certain subset of adults of all ages never gave up the urge to play make-believe. While he still didn't quite understand it, he chose to let it go rather than argue with her. They had better things to do with their time together.

However, this explanation opened up a whole new query. Specifically, how they'd managed to fake the starfield to mimic a thirteen thousand year time gap. Reminded, he checked the time/date readout 471 had put there. He'd had no reason to keep up with the local date on Terra so he didn't know if this readout was accurate, but the year …

He blinked twice, and read it again. It didn't change. Two thousand and eleven. About the median point of the thirteen-thousand-years-and-change estimation that 471 had come up with, but still … one of these two conclusions has to be wrong, and I don't know which one it is.

Looking around, even as the two costumed adolescents came closer, he examined the architecture and even the building materials with a closer eye. Everything was oldtech; he wasn't even picking up embedded circuitry or hardlight structures. If this was a superhero LARPer playground, they had gone all-out on it. The only problem was … how had they faked the moon and other celestial objects? Terrans were the galaxy's champion for looking at a problem and deciding how to make it stop being a problem, usually with the application of serious violence, but even they weren't up to moving entire stars around.

At least, as far as he knew.

471 seemed to have come up with the same conclusion, because he flashed the icon for negation in Vuxten's helmet. --nothing makes sense-- he clicked out, displaying a cartoon image of a frustrated-looking green mantid beating on a recalcitrant computer processor with a hammer as large as it was.

While Vuxten had been considering revealing himself to the two youngsters, he decided to hold back awhile until he'd gained a more thorough understanding of where (and possibly when) he was. So he stayed down, waiting for the two youngsters to pass on by.

"Hey, that's weird." It was the human boy who spoke, the image from the drone putting him almost opposite Vuxten. "Stalker, check down there."

"What's weird?" His counterpart's voice was sharper, sounding irritated. "Oh, wow. Someone dumped some rocks in the street. Quick, call the rock police."

"They're not just rocks," the adolescent on the flying board said, spiralling down to investigate the chunk of rubble that had arrived with Vuxten and 471. "That's been shaped. It looks like it might've come from a building."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." The girl leaped off the building and did that shadow-transformation thing again. Vuxten wasn't sure what to think of that. He was ready to believe there was tech out there that let someone become shadowy—Terrans were almost suicidally ingenious if they had to be—even if he'd never heard of it. He was just extremely dubious about giving access to such tech to an adolescent with what sounded like temper issues.

When the girl reformed at street level, she kept talking, as though continuing a conversation. "So someone knocked a chunk off a building. Big fat hairy deal. We live in a city with Lung, Hookwolf, Fenja, Menja and goddamn Purity. Rubble in the street after a cape fight is a way of life. Get over it, Win. It's not a clue to anything."

Now Vuxten had names for both of them. The male was called Win, and the female Stalker. The names were definitely appropriate, but they didn't fit with any of the established characters in the LARPer shows he'd seen. "See if you can access their information net and find out if they've got a leaderboard for points. It'll tell us who the top player is in the area, so we can go to them and avoid disrupting their show too much."

If he hadn't already disrupted it, just by being in the field of play. He was actually a little concerned that nobody had lit up his comms yet, demanding to know what he was doing there. The LARPers seemed to take this sort of thing seriously.

--roger roger-- clicked 471. Data started streaming down the side of Vuxten's HUD.

"No, see, it's not just rubble." Win's voice was earnest, as he crouched beside the rubble with the board floating in midair beside him, playing some kind of sensor over the heap of plascrete. Stalker was standing back, arms folded, as if irritated with the whole deal. "Do you see any bits missing off any buildings around?"

"Doesn't mean anything." Her tone was dismissive. "Some Tinker probably had a teleporter malfunction. Ten bucks says Leet's pulling some shit. You know what he's like."

The drone's sensors weren't as good as the ones in Vuxten's helmet, so he eased to the edge of the roof and peered over. His threat-analysis software immediately picked out compressed-gas-powered hand weapons on the girl, and some kind of energy pistol on the boy. It then tried to run an analysis on the suit, and threw up a number of anomalous results.

"Yeah, no, but this here's not ordinary concrete, or even brickwork. It's a building material as far ahead of concrete than concrete is over mud brick." Win ran the scanner over the plascrete, leaning in intently. "This is the kind of stuff they built the Ellisburg wall out of, as close I can see. Maybe it's more advanced. I can't tell."

"So, Tinker built. Got it." Vuxten would've bet that Stalker was rolling her eyes. He'd seen Terran women do the same when they spoke with that tone of voice. "Did the tinker maybe sign his work? Leave a forwarding address?"

"No, but there's this really weird background radiation that my scanner can barely pick up." Win turned a few dials and pressed a few buttons. "It's not something I've ever seen before, so I can't begin to analyse it."

"Well, that's helpful," snarked Stalker. "Radioactive Tinker concrete. Don't blame me if—hey, what was that?"

Pulling back slowly, so as not to cause a noticeable flicker of motion, Vuxten cursed to himself. Over and over and over, he'd learned that Terrans somehow knew when they were being watched. He'd never been able to sneak up on his instructors in combat exercises. The drone feed told him that Stalker was crossing the street, heading for the building he was standing on top of. Can she get up here? He decided to assume she could.

"What was what?" asked Win, not turning around.

"Something on top of that building over there," she snapped. "Got a feeling someone was watching us." She gathered herself, as if to jump.

"Wait up, I'm coming with." Turning, Win stepped onto his board and began to rise into the air. More worryingly, he pulled one of his energy pistols—the drone noted he had two—from its holster.

Vuxten was beginning to wonder if this wasn't some kind of indy offshoot. None of the names Stalker had mentioned, or even the names the pair were using, were familiar to him from the LARPer channels. That being the case, they might not recognise him as a non-player and from what he'd seen, the LARPers played full-contact. His initial reaction, to evade until he'd figured things out, was looking more and more like a good idea.

As Stalker went into her shadow form and jumped up the side of the building, he headed for the far side of the rooftop at a fast trot, the sound of his footsteps minimised by the audio baffling. At the same time, he started a flashbang grenade printing in the nanoforge in case he needed to discourage pursuit more energetically. The last thing he wanted to do was engage in potentially lethal combat with Terran children, even highly augmented ones who thought they were just playing a game. That would not end well, in any sense of the phrase.

I need to find whoever's in charge. But first I have to disengage here.

He made it to the far side and went over the edge just a few seconds before Stalker made it on top of the roof. Anchoring himself to the side of the wall with graviton-spikes from his boots, he leaped outward to the next building over. Two more jumps and a rebound, and he was around the corner and out of sight of that rooftop.

She didn't seem to be following when he checked next. The stern-woman mask didn't show any of her real expression, but the abruptness of her movements bespoke the irritation that she felt. And even if it hadn't, her tone would have. "Damn it," she muttered, the drone picking up her words easily. "I was so sure." She turned to Win, who had just crested the edge of the roof. "Hey, you got a gizmo that'll see if there was anyone up here?"

"What, apart from you?" he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he tapped the side of his headpiece. "Infrared and heat-sensing show nothing. Only your footprints." He paused. "Oh, wait a second. Your suspect left behind a clue to his identity."

Half a block away, Vuxten tensed. What had he left behind?

"What?" asked Stalker. "Where?"

Landing on the rooftop and bending down, Win came up with an avian feather pinched between two fingers. Vuxten had noted them earlier but ignored them as being irrelevant to the situation. Now, Win smirked as he showed it to Stalker. "From the evidence, the suspect is ten to twelve inches tall—"

"Oh, shut the fuck up." Stalker slapped the feather from Win's hand.

Win chuckled. "Sure you don't want to track him down and interrogate him? Charge him with loitering on a rooftop? Cooing without a licence?" He made an odd birdlike noise with his mouth.

She held up her clenched fist. "I will hit you."

"Fine. I'll drop it." He chuckled. "Just be glad it wasn't Clock out here with you. The 'stool pigeon' jokes would've been thick and fast."

"I'm glad I'm not on patrol with Clock, full stop. There's nothing going on around here. Let's get back to base."

Base. That held possibilities. If he could locate what they used as a base of operations, he could present himself there and exit their game while causing minimal disruption. And then he could get transportation back to Telkan. Brentili'ik and the broodcarriers and podlings will be so worried.

The anomalous starfield still bothered him, but he was coming around more and more to the idea that this was an extremely elaborate simulation of pre-Glassing Terra. Because Terrans did things like that.

"Wait a moment," said Win. "Before we go, I need to call in a report about that rubble."

"Oh, god, really?" Stalker shook her hooded head. "I haven't got time for this crap. See you back there." Taking off running, she turned to shadow and glided to the next building.

"Stalker!" Win sighed and face-palmed; or rather, visor-gauntleted. "Every damn time. Fine. Be that way." He touched something on the side of his head, and suddenly Vuxten could hear a comms carrier wave. "Kid Win to Console."

"Console here, Kid. What's up?" It sounded like another male.

"I just wanted to report some rubble on the road, down on Blakeslee Street between Hammond and Carter. Could be a traffic hazard. Also, might be tinkertech construction. Do we know anyone who's a materials tinker?"

"I … actually don't know. I'd have to look that one up. Okay, rubble is logged. Did you see what put it there?"

"No, it was there when we found it. Also, warn the crews to take care when handling it. Some sort of residual background radiation. My gear couldn't isolate or identify it."

There was a sigh over the comms. "Another day in Brockton Bay. Okay, hazard identification logged and sent. Anything else?"

"No, that's it. We're heading in now. Kid Win, out."

"Copy. Console out."

Stepping onto his board once more, the adolescent calling himself Kid Win (which Vuxten supposed made more sense than just 'Win') set out after the now-distant Stalker. The drone followed on, and Vuxten paused to think about his next move.

--got something you want to see-- clicked 471. --not leaderboard. something else.--

"Sure, put it up." If it gave him more information about what was going on, all the better.

But just as the text began to scroll up his HUD, he heard a noise. Specifically, a cry of pain or distress. Terrans had deeper voices than Telkans, but he was still fairly sure this was a female of the species. It didn't matter that this was most likely a set-up scenario where a 'hero' could drop in and save the 'victim'; his experiences over the last year and more had made it impossible to stand back when someone needed help. If some LARPer got their nose out of joint (that was a wonderful Terran phrase) because he jumped in first, then tough.

Taking a run-up along the alley, he leaped and used the graviton spikes to kick off one wall then the other, using the analysis software to narrow down the origin of the sound. On the fly, he wet-printed a second drone and sent it up to pinpoint matters further, and to warn him of any incoming problems.

Rebounding around a corner, he saw what was going on. Half a dozen (or 'a paw and a thumb') adult Terran males, all wearing clothing with similar insignia, were closing in on two unarmed civilians, one of whom was female. Vuxten presumed she was the one who had cried out. His HUD outlined weapons being carried by the aggressors, including a metal chain, two short blades and two traditional Terran weapons that he'd been told were called 'Louisville Sluggers'. The sixth man didn't have a weapon in hand, but the HUD outlined a short-barrelled handgun tucked into his pants. That was something he would have to keep an eye on.

As Vuxten came closer, still jumping from wall to wall, he noted that the male victim had a cut on his arm, blood oozing between the hand he had clamped over it. The young woman was trying to support him, and cowering back from the attackers at the same time.

He'd seen enough. Gauging his trajectory, he kicked off a metal frame attached to the wall. As the ground rushed up at him, he drew his cutting bar, but didn't power it up. Made of warsteel, it would work just fine as a baton. None of the Terrans had any implants his sensors could detect, and he didn't want to hurt anyone unnecessarily.

One of the knife wielders was a little too close to where he wanted to land, so he swung downward hard with the bar at the blade as he hit the ground. Smacked hard from its owner's hand, the knife skittered away across the alley floor as the Terrans stared at the Telkan who had appeared in their midst. It was the kneeling pose that warborgs used for psychological effect, and it seemed to do the same here.

Slowly, he stood up, not taking his eyes from them. "Back off. First and last warning." Normally, he wouldn't be giving any warnings at all … but these were Terrans.

"Fuck, where did he come from?"

"Jesus, it's a kid tinker!"

"Your mom know you're out, you little shit?"

"Hey! That was my fuckin' knife!"

He kept his weight on his toes, paying more attention to body language than to the spoken words. They weren't backing off. In fact, they were psyching themselves up to charge at him en masse. He would still win, but injuries would be unavoidable. To them, not him. And hurting Terrans, even ones playing as criminals, was not in his game plan.

One of them stepped forward, swinging the metal chain. Out it lashed, and Vuxten moved back half a step so that it wrapped around the cutting bar he held. The aggressors laughed and yelled, until he thumbed the power switch. It burst into noisy life and the warsteel blades emerged from the housing, sending sparks flying everywhere and dropping the chain onto the ground in several sections. He didn't waste the moment, moving forward and elbowing the chain-owner in the solar plexus. The man dropped, and he darted into the group, swinging the cutting bar fast and accurately.

The two Louisville Sluggers provided no real resistance to the high-speed warsteel teeth. The one with the handgun managed to pull it out, and 471 blew it apart with a single shot from his micro-rifle. They stared at Vuxten as he turned off the cutting bar, the useless stubs of the weapons smoking gently in their hands. There was one left with a knife; when both he and 471 turned to look in that direction, the Terran opened his hand and dropped the weapon, raising both hands shoulder high.

"Good decision," Vuxten said, then pointed with the cutting bar at the far side of the alleyway. "All of you. On your knees. Facing the wall. Hands behind your heads."

One of them waved his hand at 471. "Wha—what the hell's that?"

"He's a tinker, dumbass," said another one as 471 flashed a rude icon at him. "Hey, you said you'd let us go."

"You didn't back off when I told you to." Vuxten gestured with the cutting bar. "That changed your options. On your knees. Now."

The snap of command in his voice had most of them obeying before rational thought kicked in. The one who'd had the pistol tried to make a break for it, but Vuxten was on him before he'd gotten five yards. He swept the idiot's legs from under him, printed a set of plascuffs while he had him down, and secured his hands behind his back. Then he dragged the Terran back by the ankle to where the couple were watching 471 keep the other five covered from the top of an overfull metal container of what was looked like organic trash.

With them all lined up, he went along the line, removing secondary weapons as his sensors picked them up and printing out more plascuffs to secure their wrists and ankles. Then he turned to the couple, who were being attended to by the green mantid. 471 wasn't a member of the medical caste, but he had a few tricks for battlefield first aid, and the male of the pair was staring at the sealant now keeping his cut closed.

"Are you two all right?" asked Vuxten, moving up to them. "Are you able to call law enforcement?" Thankfully, he'd caught himself before he called it LawSec, which would've sounded strange.

"Uh, yeah," said the male Terran. "Thanks a lot. I mean … wow. You saved us. That was amazing. And your little bug droid's pretty cool too."

471 tilted his body in disbelief, flashing a series of emoticons which added up to 'oh, you did not just say that'. Vuxten could understand his irritation. Even digitals didn't like being called 'androids', any more than biologicals liked being called 'meatbags'. There were historical issues with the term.

"471's not a digital sentient," Vuxten pointed out. "He's a green mantid, and he's my partner."

The Terrans looked at each other, then back at Vuxten. "Green … mantid?" asked the woman.

"What's a digital sentient?" asked the man, almost at the same time.

Vuxten began to suspect he'd said too much. Either that, or the Terrans were absolutely dedicated to the script. Stepping closer, he lowered his voice. "Listen, we're not supposed to be here. How do we exit this scenario?"

There was a long moment of silence, then the man asked carefully, "Scenario?"

A slow trickle of icewater began to form in Vuxten's stomach. Over the last year he'd spent a lot of time with Terrans, in and out of training, and he liked to think he was beginning to understand them. If he was reading these ones at all accurately, they weren't aware that they were bit-part players in a superhero LARP. And whatever else Terrans did, they wouldn't do this to innocents who had no idea what was going on.

Time to get back to basics, he decided. Indicating the men he'd secured, he asked, "Why were they attacking you?" Robbery, as he understood things, was the most usual motive.

That got him a disbelieving laugh from the woman. "Are you blind?" She pointed to the six men. "They're Empire Eighty-Eight! We're black! They don't need a reason!"

Which made no sense whatsoever to Vuxten. Yes, some Terrans had differing levels of melanin in their skin. Telkan fur varied from individual to individual, but that meant nothing. The couple had skin that was significantly darker than the men he and 471 had dealt with, certainly. And the clothing and body art on the six prisoners possessed points of similarity … but that didn't explain why.

"Ah, of course," he said, lying through his teeth. "Would you like me to wait while you contact law enforcement?"

"Yes, please." As if drained by her brief tirade, the woman rubbed her arms in a way not unlike a Treana'ad cleaning its bladearms. "I'm worried there might be more around."

"There are none within three blocks that I'm aware of," he said helpfully. "But I can wait anyway."

The woman took a comm unit out of her purse, reminding Vuxten that people here didn't seem to have implants. It looked on the clunky side, but it worked well enough. While she spoke to the 'police', he called up the information 471 had located for him earlier, and skimmed through it.

The ParaHumans Online site was … bizarre. It referred to superheroes, or 'capes', regularly, but the tone was ridiculously consistent. Nobody referred to points or leaderboards, except a villain notoriety chart that didn't quite seem to be what he was looking for. The names of the two he had encountered earlier came up easily with word searches, and there were articles about them. Stalker, it appeared, was known better by the name 'Shadow Stalker', which fit. She and Kid Win were members of the 'Wards', an adolescent subset of the 'Protectorate', which were government-sponsored superheroes.

Which didn't fit the understanding Vuxten had of the whole LARPing system at all. Neither did the articles 471 had found, detailing the history of how 'parahumans' had shaped the world. The further back it went, the more confused Vuxten got. If he were to believe this, the entire planet had been playing this one session day and night, week after week, year after year, for thirty years. People had died, sometimes in their thousands. Cities had been destroyed. Landmasses had been driven under water.

He could understand the death toll and the wholesale destruction of cities. The Precursors had done just that when they declared war on his species. He knew, implicitly, what 'total war' meant. But superhero LARPing was about costumed silliness with characters that everyone knew and understood. People didn't die in it.

A Klark could fly and punch a giant robot into orbit, while lesser heroes each had their own distinctive costumes that the podlings could point out and claim as favourites, no matter which LARPing group was playing them. What he was seeing here simply did not fit this pattern. The names weren't the same, and the costumes weren't the same.

Where am I, and what's going on here?


End of Part Two

 

[ContemplativeWyrm]

I am enjoying this way too much, having just caught up to first contact! If I may request Moar please!

 

[Ack]

I am enjoying this way too much, having just caught up to first contact! If I may request Moar please!

Click to shrink...

Moar will happen.

 

[Kitty S. Lillian]

Well, this got me to read First Contact (Ralts_Bloodthorne's. Not the only HFY story by that name). Damn good. Now if only Ack had Ralts_Bloodthorne's ridiculous update pace…

 

[Ack]

Well, this got me to read First Contact (Ralts_Bloodthorne's. Not the only HFY story by that name). Damn good. Now if only Ack had Ralts_Bloodthorne's ridiculous update pace…

Click to shrink...

I'm still not sure how he does it.

Well, actually, I could do it, but I keep getting distracted.

 

[Scopas]

Holy shit, an Ack crossover with FC! Oh, happy day, happy day!

 

[Prince Charon]

The more he finds out about what's actually going on, the more disturbed he's going to be.