Trump Card (Worm AU) [Complete]

[evildice]

Tattletale's grin had widened. I knew that she knew what I'd just done.

Click to shrink...

Lisa: "My own power clone!"

Taylor: "Now both of us will be perma-virgins!"

 

[pepperjack]

Lisa: "My own power clone!"

Taylor: "Now both of us will be perma-virgins!"

Click to shrink...

They could still get it on so long as Hack Job is in light-spot range.

...

I'm going to pretend I didn't suggest that.

 

[Firedon]

They could still get it on so long as Hack Job is in light-spot range.

...

I'm going to pretend I didn't suggest that.

Click to shrink...

I do believe that little fact could be a mood killer.

 

[doomlord9]

It's a Thinker power ... I think it would work via Alibi's senses too.

Click to shrink...

It would. The misconception about Lisa's power is that it affects her senses, which it does not. If it targeted her senses directly then she would be unable to work with any information she is not directly reading, hearing, or perceiving in some way at that specific time. It targets her memory and works from that, her senses feed into short term memory which is then accessed real-time and hyper-analyzed. It's a fine distinction but memory access means that both short and long term memory are usable, which they are and is Lisa's main advantage, while sensory access is the equivalent of only allowing the last couple seconds of short term memory to be accessed.

If Taylor kept Lisa's power for longer and had tried closing her eyes to cut off the feed, she would have found herself picking apart everything she thought of that tried to use to distract herself. Lisa has no escape even within her own mind, the dark quiet room she uses for migraines is to stop light and sound from making it worse. This does have a small effect of cutting off immediate sensory input as well which would slow down her power some but it's main use is entirely mundane as it's well documented that light and sound are killer on a migraine.

If she saw him, Lisa could analyze Mantellum just fine because his power blocks shard granted senses and her power doesn't give her anything beyond reading her memory, hyper-analyzing it, then feeding her back the results. The only problem is that it does this too fast for her brain to cope with.

Maybe if she was within Mantellum's AoE it would blank her power out entirely if it sees it's targeting of her memories as a shard based sense, but I doubt it. Her shard has a physical landline directly hooked up to her brain so it's less a sensory application and more a direct download/upload method.

---

On a more humorous note, I am disappointed that they didn't get into a feedback loop with each other and have to be smacked out of it after their respective teammates notice that they have been staring at each other without blinking for the last 5 minutes. It was kinda funny at first and they were planning out all of the teasing that could be done but then it just got creepy as it kept going.

Not even a hint that one was starting and they noticed and looked away quickly to prevent it.

So disappointed.

 

[inverted_helix]

If she saw him, Lisa could analyze Mantellum just fine because his power blocks shard granted senses and her power doesn't give her anything beyond reading her memory, hyper-analyzing it, then feeding her back the results. The only problem is that it does this too fast for her brain to cope with.

Maybe if she was within Mantellum's AoE it would blank her power out entirely if it sees it's targeting of her memories as a shard based sense, but I doubt it. Her shard has a physical landline directly hooked up to her brain so it's less a sensory application and more a direct download/upload method.

Click to shrink...

I'm very doubtful on this. Mantellum could defeat PtV, and that really didn't relate to Contessa's senses at all.

 

[doomlord9]

I'm very doubtful on this. Mantellum could defeat PtV, and that really didn't relate to Contessa's senses at all.

Click to shrink...

Not Contessa's senses, the shard's senses. Contessa herself could see him just fine but her shard was giving her a null value while affected by his power. He blocked any extra sensory input beyond the 5 human basic ones. It blocks the shard itself from using it's senses to see him when it scans the world, which is how Worm pre-cog works. The shard does a scan, then extrapolates from there. Mantellum was a blank spot because he prevented the shard itself from seeing him.

Lisa's power only reads her memories, data is filtered through her senses first and then it makes it to the shard so it has one step between them giving a bypass to Mantellum's ability. It's the same way the Endbringer blindspot did not affect Lisa and Mantellum is effective a mobile, squishy Endbringer blindspot. Lisa shard itself was not directly trying to analyze them, which would give a blank return, it was only analyzing what her mundane senses could perceive of them and then feeding her the results from analyzing those memories.

 

[alethiophile]

Yeah, from what we know Lisa doesn't have blindspots, except the mental block on figuring out Entities.

I'm really hoping for Taylor and Lisa to get into the habit of having utterly silent conversations with each other. Also, I'm curious as to what US+Pwnage will end up really doing, without Coil around to drive the plot. Just random thievery?

Also also, what's the timeframe here? Are we still pre-April? Hax obviously had quite a bit less lead time to go out in costume than Skitter did, but it seems she's spent a fair bit of time hanging out with Ü&L.

 

[Ack]

Yeah, from what we know Lisa doesn't have blindspots, except the mental block on figuring out Entities.

I'm really hoping for Taylor and Lisa to get into the habit of having utterly silent conversations with each other. Also, I'm curious as to what US+Pwnage will end up really doing, without Coil around to drive the plot. Just random thievery?

Also also, what's the timeframe here? Are we still pre-April? Hax obviously had quite a bit less lead time to go out in costume than Skitter did, but it seems she's spent a fair bit of time hanging out with Ü&L.

Click to shrink...

I gave the date right there in the story. Twice.

 

[Beyogi]

Well... Regent has taken over Alibi, does that mean he can also take over Taylor, or is he restricted to Alibi? I mean that went mightily fast anyway... I thought he'd normally take half an hour or so to map out a nervous system.

 

[inverted_helix]

Another question is whether Regent's power can be applied to the user.

If Regent took control of Taylor's body, could she use his power on herself to disrupt his control?

 

[Chojomeka]

Well... Regent has taken over Alibi, does that mean he can also take over Taylor, or is he restricted to Alibi? I mean that went mightily fast anyway... I thought he'd normally take half an hour or so to map out a nervous system.

Click to shrink...

He didn't take over Alibi at all, in fact he was just using the twitches to get her moving while 'drugged'.

 

[Beyogi]

He didn't take over Alibi at all, in fact he was just using the twitches to get her moving while 'drugged'.

Click to shrink...

Okay. That guy is seriously skilled if he managed that. I mean holy fuck, manually twitching the right muscles to make her do something like walking. Damn, that's impressive.

 

[Ack]

Okay. That guy is seriously skilled if he managed that. I mean holy fuck, manually twitching the right muscles to make her do something like walking. Damn, that's impressive.

Click to shrink...

Well, she was supposed to be drugged enough to be compliant; he was just adding motion her and there. Or he thought he was; Taylor was smoothing it out so that he actually got away with it.

 

[alethiophile]

Per canon, IIRC, Alec has gross control over which muscles he twitches exactly. His takeover process isn't anything he directly does to the victim, it's him learning their nervous system so he can successfully turn that into fine control.

I'd have no problem believing Alec successfully 'walking' someone with untrained twitches, if they'd been drugged into compliance and so weren't messing things up by trying to move on their own. Presumably with Alibi it was harder, her not having a standard-issue nervous system.

 

[Ack]

Per canon, IIRC, Alec has gross control over which muscles he twitches exactly. His takeover process isn't anything he directly does to the victim, it's him learning their nervous system so he can successfully turn that into fine control.

I'd have no problem believing Alec successfully 'walking' someone with untrained twitches, if they'd been drugged into compliance and so weren't messing things up by trying to move on their own. Presumably with Alibi it was harder, her not having a standard-issue nervous system.

Click to shrink...

And easier, because Taylor was subtly helping.

 

[Ack]

Trump Card

Part Twenty: A Meeting of Minds


With the light-spot back on Tattletale, the inflow of information started up again; I damped it down a little, and used the rest to read their reactions.

Tattletale was bright, interested, intensely curious, the driving force behind the meeting. Grue was reserved, but willing to see how things went. Regent was bored, but he was going along with it because the others were here.

Bitch didn't really want to be here, but she had showed up because it was what everyone else was doing. She wasn't emotionally disconnected, like Regent was – mental trauma in his past, connected to his parents, no, his father – it was more that she just didn't think the same way as everyone else. She didn't think team, she thought pack. And she didn't think cooperation, she thought pecking order. Although she herself didn't even consciously think that way; it was just inherent in the way she spoke and acted. Hurt, abandoned at a young age. Treated badly by not-family. Dislikes people because people hurt her. Doesn't know how to relate to people because she can't parse normal expressions, normal tones of voice. Assumes that she's being lied to or mocked.

Bitch was looking back at me; with a start, I realised that I had been looking in her direction. "What?" she challenged me.

Flicking my light-spot to her, I worked out the proper response. "Nothing," I replied, in a blunt tone; if I dropped my eyes or acted conciliatory, she would see it as weakness, and press harder. While I had no doubt that I could escalate harder and faster than she could, that wasn't what this meeting was all about. "I think we'll work well together."

It wasn't quite a compliment, but it wasn't something she could react badly to; while she was still working it out, I flicked the light-spot back to Tattletale and turned to the group as a whole. "So, you want to work with us, do you?"

"Tattletale says it's a good idea," Grue allowed. Even allowing for the helmet, his voice was deep, with pleasant overtones. He was cautiously interested in the concept; while he had his reservations, possibly due to the boys' long history of spectacular foul-ups, recent events had caused him to review his ideas. He was somewhat curious about me, and the influence I'd had on the pair. He didn't know who I really was, or even that I was younger than him. As a matter of fact, he thought I was an adult, and there was a definite undercurrent of respect there – taught to respect his elders, firm parents, no, a very firm father, a mother he doesn't respect – which made me wonder how he would react when and if I revealed my true age to him. Then I wondered why I was even considering that.

Tattletale grinned, and I wondered if she had been following my thought processes. She hadn't been, I realised, as soon as the thought crossed my mind, but she had a good idea of the direction in which they had been going. She thought that Grue and I would make a good match -

Nope. I shut off that line of inquiry.

"It's a great idea," she insisted, and for just a moment, I thought that she meant the idea of me and Grue, but then my brain caught up. Teaming up. Right. "I mean, you two guys, you've been getting along for a while, but it hasn't been going great for you, has it?"

Can't help deliberately needling them, but being carefully diplomatic at the same time. She wants this to work. She also wants to show people how smart she is.

"It is now," L33t retorted immediately. "Have you seen how many hits we've been getting?"

"Which is my point exactly," Tattletale went on cheerfully. "Any cape can do well on his own, so long as he sticks to his own field of expertise. But take him out of his comfort zone, and he doesn't do so well. I mean, can you imagine, uh, Armsmaster handling diplomatic negotiations with anyone?"

"Only if you wanted a fight," I commented dryly. L33t smirked, and Über chuckled. Regent snickered. I didn't see a reaction from Grue, although I knew he was amused, and Bitch was oblivious.

"Exactly," Tattletale agreed. She's really good at this. We're feeding her the straight lines that she wants. "But if you bring two capes together, they can cover the others' blind spots. Über, you're a Thinker, but you don't have access to equipment. While L33t, you're a Tinker, but you don't have physical backup. You work well together."

"And we work even better with Hax in the team," Über noted. "Because she can mix and match between our powers, build stuff and use skills, and also borrow other peoples' powers when necessary. While using the tech she's built using L33t's powers to give her an edge."

I wasn't sure that I was totally thrilled with Über rattling off my actual power capability, although Tattletale already knew, of course. She caught my eye, and her eyelid shivered in a wink – it's okay, I won't tell them about the armour – then she was talking again.

"You've got it," she told Über, beaming at him. "With Hax on board, you're far greater than the sum of your parts. Now, here's the thing. We've got capabilities that can add to the team, if we choose to join forces. Capabilities that would make our combined efforts that much more effective."

"No-one else tells my dogs what to do," Bitch announced. "They're my dogs."

"Yes, they are," I agreed immediately. She was, of course, very prickly about her domain. She just wants to be left alone. Unfortunately, with her record, in this world, that wasn't about to happen. "I couldn't train them as well as you can, anyway."

Well, I could, but that would require tapping Über's power to build up the requisite level of skill, and then Bitch's power for the sheer visceral understanding of how a dog's mind worked. However, I wasn't about to point this out; I didn't want to give Bitch any more reasons to dislike us, apart from the very fact that we existed.

"I'm pretty sure that we can work together in other ways," Grue noted. "Hax, do you copy powers or borrow them for the duration?"

"Oh, you don't lose them," I assured him. "I just tap into them for the duration. Ask the boys."

"She's right," Über stated. "She's used her power plenty of times around us, and L33t and I haven't noticed any particular loss of capability of our own."

"Okay, what do you see?" asked the black-clad villain. He held out his hand, and pure darkness flowed from it on to the table. I couldn't see through it, couldn't even see any texture. It was like a hole cut out of reality. I flipped the light-spot on to him, and the darkness went transparent, like thin smoke. The flow of data from his power started up once more, although I had 'heard' most of this before.

"I can see it's there," I noted. "But I can see through it, as well. Can you see through this?" I produced some darkness of my own, letting it well out of my upraised finger as I drew a smiley-face in the air with it.

"Yeah," he acknowledged. "Okay, so your darkness works the same as mine. That could be useful."

"I've never seen you skywrite with yours," Regent pointed out idly. "You been holding out on us?"

"Not something I ever thought of needing to do," Grue retorted, then turned to face me again. "You figured that one out pretty quickly."

"It's what I do," I told him. "When I tap into someone's power, I get the user manual along with it."

From the look in Tattletale's eye, she had gotten the implications of that almost immediately. She jerked her chin up and to the side, indicating something … someone higher than her.

Just by looking at one another, we were communicating on a level deeper and wider than speech could cover. What about Coil? she was demanding. She wanted to know how his power worked.

Holding my hand so that she could see, with the thumb and forefinger pressed together, I parted them, with barely a gesture toward the clock on the wall. He can split time.

Her eyebrows went up, and she held two fingers straight for just a second. Only two timelines?

My nod was superficial, and almost unnecessary. I finished off by making a slight scissoring motion with two fingers of my own. He could end whichever timeline he wanted.

Her lips pressed together; irritation. So that's how he did it.

"Yeah," I told her out loud, breaking the spell. "That's how he did it."

"How who did what?" asked L33t. "I swear, girl code gets harder to read every year."

Über glanced between Tattletale and me; he'd picked up on some of what had passed between us, I decided, but not all of it. "Not important," he decided. "So yeah, Hax is interested in seeing how Pwnage and the Undersiders work together, and I have to say, I'm a little curious myself."

"Given that up until Hax joined you guys," Regent drawled, "you were a pair of – mmmph!"

"Oh, sorry," I murmured sweetly. "Did I accidentally cause you to stuff your own hand in your mouth? My control over your power mustn't be as good as I thought it was." As I spoke, I accessed the HUD in my goggles, and locked my armour servos, because I knew what was coming.

Just in time; his eyes narrowed, and my left arm tried to spasm. The armour held me immobile, of course, so I didn't move at all. Frowning, he tried again; my right arm pressed against the inside of the armour, which didn't budge in the slightest. His concentration broke when I shoved his finger up under the edge of his mask, into his nose.

"How the fuck are you doing that?" he grunted as he tried fruitlessly to make me throw myself backward off of my chair. In return, he smacked himself solidly across the side of the head.

"Enough." Grue slapped his hand down on the table. "Regent, behave. Hax, he's had enough."

"If you say so," I agreed readily. "Regent?"

Regent subsided, eyeing me warily; I left the servos locked for the moment, just in case. "How are you doing that?" he demanded again. "I can feel your nerves responding, but you're just not moving."

I let a smile spread across my face, mirrored faithfully by the holocloak. "I have my ways."

Beside him, Tattletale was grinning as well; she knew how I'd done it, of course. "Now that that little pissing contest is over … " she murmured.

"Let's get back to business," I agreed. "No cheap shots, no slanging matches, and nobody uses powers on one another. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Grue stated at once.

"Sure," agreed Tattletale. She and I would both be using her power, of course; that was silently understood between us. Or rather; I couldn't stop her from using her power, and she couldn't stop me from using her power.

With my servos unlocked, I turned to look at Regent along with everyone else; the light-spot was on Tattletale, so I'd get adequate warning if he decided to try it again. Eventually, he nodded, albeit somewhat sullenly. "Still think you pulled off some sort of bullshit, but sure, okay."

"Of course I did," I agreed. "But isn't ninety percent of what capes do bullshit anyway? And yeah, I was making a point. You don't get to abduct teenage girls and get away with it. And your power doesn't work on me, not if I don't want it to. But that's over and done now. Slate's clean. Okay?"

Regent held off from answering until Grue kicked him in the ankle; I couldn't see it, and he controlled his wince, but Tattletale's power filled me in just fine. "All right," he muttered. "I won't do it again."

Über cleared his throat. "Okay then. First order of business. Pwnage has a tradition of using video game themes for our crimes. We'll be wearing themed costumes; if we give you adequate credits in the video, will you be willing to wear costumes to go along with the themes?"

That set them looking at each other. Eventually, Grue spoke up. "If we say no, is that a deal breaker?"

"Not really," L33t assured him. "We'll just program the ball to focus on us rather than include you guys in its footage. You might get a little air time, but not much."

"Yeah, I think I'd prefer that," Regent commented unexpectedly. "In fact, if you could edit me out altogether … "

He's concerned that someone will see it. A parental figure. His father. He got away from his father, and doesn't want to go back. There's abuse there. Abuse with powers. He was forced to trigger. Emotionally distant. Abused with emotion-based powers … Canadian accent … fuck, his father's Heartbreaker.

We do not want Heartbreaker coming looking for his son.

"We can do that," I assured him. "Or at least make sure that you're not identifiable on screen."

He glanced sharply at me. Wondering why I'm being so accommodating now. Wonders how much I know. I gave him my best bland smile.

Tattletale's eyes flickered from Regent to me. She's just realised that I've figured him out. Wondering if it was such a good idea after all to give me access to her powers.

"Just edit him out?" asked Über, glancing at me.

I nodded. "It's for the best." I could feel the beginnings of a headache – Thinker headache – so I flicked the light-spot on to Grue for a moment; the headache eased, and was gone. His power didn't cause problems like that.

Such was the trust between us, Über didn't even argue. "Okay, second order of business. Type of crime we'd be willing to commit together."

I flicked the light-spot back to Tattletale, just as Grue spoke up. "We tend to go for low-profile stuff. We depend – up till now, we've depended on the boss to give us the go-no-go on a job. It's worked well for us."

"Nothing where innocent bystanders are likely to get hurt," Tattletale put in. "That gives us a bad name."

"Not hurting people, I'm good with," I agreed.

"Apart from capes," Regent put in. "Capes are fair game."

"So long as we stick to the unwritten rules," Grue pointed out. "We ignore those, everyone comes down on our heads."

No-one argued; I wasn't quite sure what the unwritten rules were, exactly - Über and L33t hadn't actually discussed any such with me – but I had an idea that I could figure them out from context. Coil had mentioned them when he thought he was talking to Armsmaster.

No going after capes in civilian identity, like what happened to Fleur. No going after the families of capes. Those were reasonably straightforward, but neither of those covered what Grue was talking about. Ah; no going overboard on a cape. Subdue, don't kill. Or do anything else to them once they're helpless. No unmasking or outing them. That fit with what I knew of general cape behaviour. Of course, there were some who ignored such rules, but those were the outliers. Those tended to be the ones too powerful for anyone to really want to screw with, and the ones with kill orders.

"So you guys tend to keep your heads down, while we do the flashy crimes," Über noted. "I think we can actually work with that."

"Yeah, you can draw the official attention," jibed Regent.

"We walked into the PRT building and dropped off a supervillain," I pointed out. "How much more 'official attention' do you want?"

"Yeah, we'll leave that sort of tail-pulling to you," agreed Grue. "You seem to be able to handle it."

"We won't be making a habit of it," I decided, recalling Alexandria's advice. "Otherwise, one of these days, they might decide to make an example of us." Or simply arrest Über and L33t, and take my power base away from me. "So, tail-pulling only if absolutely necessary."

"So, no kidnapping for ransom," mused Tattletale, ticking off points on her fingers. "Con jobs generally take too long. Murder for hire is right out. Extortion and blackmail can go badly wrong at a moment's notice. Which leaves us our old standby. Robbery's a go, yes?"

There were general nods around the table. Stealing stuff – usually money – was the bread and butter of being a supervillain. I still didn't totally like the idea, but banks and places like that were well insured; they could take the hit. And if it let me further my plans, well, I could ignore my objections for a little bit longer.

"You know, it's a pity that you're all well-known criminals," I pointed out idly. "With your powers, you could make awesome rogues, and just rake in the money."

"Really?" asked Grue. "What possible use could my power be in the public sector?"

I shrugged. "Just off the top of my head, if you got yourself the right training, you could repair nuclear reactors for a living. Shutting one of those suckers down costs them millions of dollars at a time. You could walk right in and do manual repairs while the thing's still operational. Charge half a million bucks a pop, and they'd still be lining up to hire you."

Grue leaned back; I could tell from his posture that he was very thoughtful indeed. "Wouldn't work," he decided after a moment. "They wouldn't let a known criminal into a nuclear reactor. They'd think I was there to steal the nuclear material."

"Yeah, like I said, it's a pity and all," I reminded him. "Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Some sort of robbery. It'll have to be a big enough target that we all get a serious profit out of it. Flashy enough that Pwnage has the chance to look good on Youtube. But not so huge that the authorities decide to crack down on us."

"You know something," murmured Tattletale. "I might just have something that fits the bill."

We all looked at her. "Yeah?" asked L33t.

"It's a big score," she replied. "There's room for flashy theatrics. The authorities won't really care all that much. And no innocents will be out of pocket."

"It sounds almost too good to be true," I ventured. "What's the downside?" But I was already figuring that out. Sometimes, Tattletale's power could be a pain, with how fast it could join the dots. And sometimes, it was kind of cool. "It's an illegal operation, isn't it? We're going to rob some criminals."

I caught the barest flash of irritation from her – I had punctured the big setup – but she covered it well, giving the entire table an extremely vulpine grin. "Oh, yeah," she agreed. "Has anyone here heard of the Ruby Dreams casino?"

We looked at one another. I hadn't, but now that she had given us the name, I could extrapolate from that. "I'm guessing … it's an illegal casino … run by one of the gangs … not the Merchants, they have trouble tying their shoelaces on a good day … not by the Empire Eighty-Eight, they would have named it something different … ABB?"

"You want us to rob an ABB casino?" asked L33t. "ABB, as in Lung? As in big scary bastard who turns into a bigger scarier dragon? That ABB?"

"Fuck that," Regent declared. "There's stealing stuff for shits and giggles, but then there's pissing off a guy who can fry you to a crisp and then tear you in half. I'm out."

Tattletale's expression didn't change. "Conservative estimate gives a take of between four and eight hundred thousand, if we hit it when the vault's full."

Regent blinked. "Four to eight? So … fifty to a hundred grand for each of us?"

"That's a conservative estimate, yes."

He shrugged. "Fuck it, I'm in."

"I'm not so sure," Über stated. "We're doing the flashy side of this. Lung's gonna know it was us for sure. What if he decides to come after us for it?"

"And what if he does?" L33t asked lightly. "We have Hax. I'll back Hax against Lung any day."

I turned to give him a reproachful look, or as much of one as I could give with only my lower face 'visible' on the holocloak. "You realise, saying that's a sure fire way to make sure I'll lose."

"You're saying you can't beat him?" asked Grue sharply.

I considered that. "No, with the right preparation, I should be able to." Stun rifle, followed up by armour-assisted beatdown. Maybe a tranquilliser, to make sure he stays down. "What I'm worried about is Oni Lee."

"Oni Lee is a problem," agreed Grue. "You're the Tinker, L33t. Can you whip up something to neutralise him?"

L33t grimaced. "Problem is, I think I might have already put together a teleport jammer. It kind of blew up in my face."

"Not a problem," I assured him. "Once we get back to the base, we can brainstorm about it."

"So wait, Hax can get around L33t's limitations?" blurted Regent. "That's so … so … "

"Hax?" suggested Über with a grin.

Regent rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

Über's grin merely widened.

<><>​

After a brief pause, during which those who were drinking ordered more beverages from the surly waitress, the discussion continued.

"Okay, so how come you never pulled this job before?" asked Über. "With Coil helping you and all."

"We had to wait for the right time," Tattletale told him. "Every other time I suggested it, he said that the time wasn't right."

"And now you don't have Coil, but you've got us," L33t noted. "Think we can do it?"

I looked at Tattletale; she looked at me. We nodded at the same instant. "I think we can manage, yes."

L33t looked at the both of us. "Okay, talking in unison like that? So damn creepy."

"At least they're in agreement," Grue noted. "Okay, so we're doing this?"

"It looks like we're doing this," agreed Über. "L33t? Hax?"

"Sure," agreed L33t. "Let's go kick over the hornet's nest and beat up a dragon."

I grinned; my holocloak showed teeth. "I'm good with this." Stealing from ordinary people, I had qualms about; robbing other criminals, I had none.

"Tattletale?" asked Grue. "Regent? Bitch?"

"I suggested it," Tattletale reminded him. "Of course I'm in."

"Fifty to a hundred grand for an hour or so of work? Sure," agreed Regent.

We all looked at Bitch. She raised her chin defiantly. "So what'll I be doing?"

"Lookout. Backup. Transport." Tattletale's voice was crisp.

"And I get the same share as everyone else?"

"Everyone gets an equal share," I stated flatly.

"Sure, then." Bitch shrugged. "I'll do it."

"Good," agreed Grue. "We're all in. We'll take a few days to do our research, get hold of plans and stuff, and then we can actually decide how to rob this place."

"We'll do the same from our end," I agreed.

We rose; as Grue went to step away from the table, he stumbled slightly, and leaned on his chair for a moment.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked in concern.

"I'm fine," he muttered. He stood up straight, letting go of the chair; however, I could see via Tattletale's power that he was favouring his left side.

"You've been injured," I told him. "Still healing. A month or two?"

"Beginning of December," he replied grudgingly. "Fucking Shadow Stalker."

"Fucking Shadow Stalker," echoed Regent.

That name, of course, got my full attention. "What, did she break a rib – no, that's not a broken rib. That's a wound. She stabbed you with something?"

"Something," agreed Tattletale. "You know how she uses tranquilliser arrows?"

"She doesn't, not always," I realised, as her power fed the information to me. "She uses sharp arrows. She was in the Wards because she got in trouble for using sharp arrows. She was banned from using them, but carried them anyway." I looked at Grue. "And she shot you with one. She was trying to kill you."

"Yeah, my -" he began.

"- power interferes with hers," I went on. I had had access to both Grue's powers and hers; I could easily see exactly that happening. "She doesn't accept it when someone she considers an inferior gets an advantage over her. She's driven to win, because she doesn't accept the possibility of losing. You have an advantage over her with that power interaction, so she's got to beat you in some way. You're her nemesis; she's got to kill you."

My eyes were open wide now; I had known Sophia Hess, or at least I had been in regular contact with her, for well over a year. The pieces had all been there; it was just a matter of slotting them into place. That she would carry sharp arrows, and use them to attempt to kill a villain who posed a perceived threat, I had no doubt. It was all so clear. Everything was so clear.

"Christ almighty," muttered Regent. "It's bad enough having just one Tattletale around."

Tattletale shot him a dirty look, then glanced back at me. "You weren't kidding about having access to the user manual," she observed. You're better at using my power than I expected, she didn't have to say. I thought she was going to say something else, but then she changed the topic. "You know Shadow Stalker. Not just casually."

"I've had ... run-ins with her," I admitted. "We're not friends."

"You know her civilian identity," she realised. "She's been -"

"- kicked out of the Wards," I interrupted, anxious to cut her off there. Some things I did not need to be aired.

"You're kidding," Grue breathed.

"She's not kidding," Tattletale told him. "There was something on PHO ... about her and Alexandria?"

"Alexandria came to town to investigate the problems with Shadow Stalker, and Shadow Stalker is now headed for juvey," I told her flatly. That's all anyone needs to know.

She could read more off of me, I could tell, but after a few moments, she nodded incrementally. Okay, we can play it that way.

I returned the nod, a fraction of an inch. Thank you.

Her grin widened slightly, and her head tilted a few degrees. You know, we're going to have to get together and talk about this, sometime.

My lips compressed a little. Really not comfortable with that idea.

Her eyes widened slightly, and she turned her head just a little, so as to bring one ear toward me. It's best to talk it out with someone who can listen and understand.

I raised my chin slightly. Maybe.

Her grin got that little bit wider. You know I'm right.

"Well, that's good news," she replied briskly, as though the silent conversation had never taken place. "We'll get together in a few days, and pool information about the casino, yeah?"

"Yeah," agreed Über; again, I was pretty sure that he had caught some of the byplay with Tattletale, but not all of it. "We'll do that."

<><>​

As the Undersiders left Somer's Rock, they headed down an alley, with Bitch growing the dogs as she went. We walked in the opposite direction and climbed into the van. I kept the light-spot on Tattletale as long as I could; when the link snapped, it was like a soap bubble popping, and the world went back to its normal drab everyday nature.

"Hey, Hax, you okay?" L33t gave me a concerned look. "You're acting a little spaced out."

"Yeah, I'm fine," I assured him. "I was just enjoying Tattletale's power."

"I could tell," Über told me from the front seat. "You were mainlining it like a Merchant with a fresh key of cocaine."

"I wasn't that bad, was I?" I asked, a little embarrassed.

"Nah," L33t grinned, pulling his helmet off. "I only expected you to want to kidnap her back to the base, is all. Propose marriage to her or something. Anything so you could keep using her power. To be honest, I felt a little rejected." He clasped his hands over the vague location of his heart and conjured up a sniffle.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, guys," I blurted. "I just … it was so incredible … "

Über barked a laugh. "Don't mind him, he's just pulling your leg. So what was it like?"

"Like everywhere you look, it's just an open book begging for you to read it. Sort of like powers are like to me anyway. But it's everything. I could've told you the waitress' star sign if I'd wanted to."

"Well, the way you were rattling on, I was pretty impressed," Über noted. "All that stuff about Shadow Stalker was actually pretty cool. You figured all that out from first principles?"

"Yeah, with her power, it was easy," I agreed.

L33t muffled a snort of laughter; I turned to him. "What?"

"Regent," he chuckled. "I wish I could've seen the look on his face."

"Look, I'm sorry about getting into that with him -"

"No need," Über told me. "He started it. You finished it. And boy, did you finish it."

L33t was laughing out loud now. "F-finger up his n-nose," he gasped helplessly.

"Yeah, not doing that again in a hurry," I decided. "That was kind of gross."

"And when you just went nope on his power," Über recalled. "That was all kinds of awesome. How did you manage that, anyway?"

So I told them about how I had locked the servos in my armour, and L33t laughed harder than ever.

"Nicely done," Über noted. "So, what sort of theme do you think we should go with?"

I grinned. "Oh, I have a few ideas."

<><>​

Lisa flopped on to the sofa and stretched her arms over her head. "So guys, what do you think? Can we work with them?"

"I think so," Brian decided, sitting down carefully; the healing wound was still a little painful when he moved too fast or twisted the wrong way. "It was little eerie with Hax, though."

"Creepy is the word," Alec grumbled. "She picked up on my power faster than I ever did, and I still have no idea how she beat me at it. And the two of you, just staring at each other … I was half expecting you to start making out with her or something."

"No," Lisa retorted. "Just no. It was just … educational. Seeing how my power worked with someone else using it."

"That stuff about Shadow Stalker, that was right on the money," Brian noted. "It makes a lot of sense. I mean, I already knew that she was a psycho, but knowing what's behind it could be useful too."

"So Rachel." Lisa turned to the fourth member of the Undersiders. "What do you think?"

The heavy-set girl looked up from where she was grooming Brutus. "Does it matter? You three are all ga-ga over it. Whatever I say isn't going to make a difference."

"We still want to hear it," Brian told her. "You're a member of this team, too."

Rachel shrugged. "A lot of talking to agree to do what you were already gonna do. Über did most of the talking, but Hax is the one they looked at. She didn't treat me like a retard." She focused on Lisa. "You really think we can do this?"

"Sure," agreed Lisa. "So long as we don't accidentally tip off the ABB in the course of doing our research, we should be able to knock over the place and be well away before reinforcements arrive."

"Fine. I'm good." Rachel went back to grooming the dog.

Brian glanced at her, then looked at Lisa, raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "Sounds like a ringing endorsement to me."

"I still can't believe you let her pull that crap on me." Alec folded his arms.

Lisa rolled her eyes. "You asked for it, and you know it."

"Yeah, but you should've backed me up."

"So what you're saying is that you don't want to be in on this?" Brian's eyes were steady on Alec.

"Fuck it, no, I'm good," Alec muttered. "Can't believe you don't find her creepy, though. Using our powers better than we can."

Lisa shrugged. "It'll make it more interesting."

"Yeah," Brian replied. "To be honest, I'm kind of looking forward to this."


End of Part Twenty

Part Twenty-One

 

[Xilph]

I nodded. "It's for the best." I could feel the beginnings of a headache – Thinker headache – so I flicked the light-spot on to Grue for a moment; the headache eased, and was gone. His power didn't cause problems like that.

Click to shrink...

Had this already been mentioned? Because that's right up there with Leet's resetting quota in how stupidly broken it is, I mean effective immunity to thinker headaches? Good god, what if she met Dinah? Oh you can't exploit this horribly broken bit of your power because of crippling migraines? No worries, just turn those off at will no problem.

Hell, since she apparently resets all powers on gaining them would it work on Eidolon? Every time she switches to him she gets a full strength copy of it? Because that would be another notch for the ludicrously broken combos and perfectly in line with what we've seen.

 

[Ack]

Had this already been mentioned? Because that's right up there with Leet's resetting quota in how stupidly broken it is, I mean effective immunity to thinker headaches? Good god, what if she met Dinah? Oh you can't exploit this horribly broken bit of your power because of crippling migraines? No worries, just turn those off at will no problem.

Hell, since she apparently resets all powers on gaining them would it work on Eidolon? Every time she switches to him she gets a full strength copy of it? Because that would be another notch for the ludicrously broken combos and perfectly in line with what we've seen.

Click to shrink...

Eidolon's powers are actually fading. He's not losing his grip on them.

But she could probably figure out how to switch to the nice, fresh, juicy powers.

 

[Datcord]

Eidolon's powers are actually fading. He's not losing his grip on them.

But she could probably figure out how to switch to the nice, fresh, juicy powers.

Click to shrink...

...sweet baby Jesus in a smoking birch bark canoe.

I almost feel sorry for Leviathan when he hits town. ALMOST.

 

[theonebutcher]

Especially when she finds the draining power. Or the Endbringer controls.

"Dude you were so focused on fighting them you didn't bother looking for the off switch?"

 

[Xilph]

Eidolon's powers are actually fading. He's not losing his grip on them.

But she could probably figure out how to switch to the nice, fresh, juicy powers.

Click to shrink...

So no getting to abuse the power reset for him, just the fact she gets the manual to any powers she copies so it will probably spell out that the powers are weaker and need maintenance to keep at full strength as that's basically his only weakness so definitely the kind of thing her power should mention.

On a different note I spied her power giving her extra info in power interactions in there, I wonder if that will come up? I mean if she could tell that Grue's power could interfere with Sophia's power just from having felt what they were both like I'm sure she'd be rather adept at spotting potentially beneficial power interactions.

 

[Chojomeka]

"Yeah," Brian replied. "To be honest, I'm kind of looking forward to this."

Click to shrink...

As am I Brian as am I! Also Lisa will never stop trying to hook up Taylor and Brian will she?

 

[Ack]

So no getting to abuse the power reset for him, just the fact she gets the manual to any powers she copies so it will probably spell out that the powers are weaker and need maintenance to keep at full strength as that's basically his only weakness so definitely the kind of thing her power should mention.

Click to shrink...

She'll figure out how to get to the stronger powers (and she can then advise him how to do it for himself).

On a different note I spied her power giving her extra info in power interactions in there, I wonder if that will come up? I mean if she could tell that Grue's power could interfere with Sophia's power just from having felt what they were both like I'm sure she'd be rather adept at spotting potentially beneficial power interactions.

Click to shrink...

Well, she's used Sophia's powers and she's used Brian's powers, and she was using Lisa's power at that moment, which allowed her to figure out the power interaction between them.

 

[Asheram]

Especially when she finds the draining power. Or the Endbringer controls.

"Dude you were so focused on fighting them you didn't bother looking for the off switch?"

Click to shrink...

I can see the whole thing before me; the whole Triumvirate gathered, Alexandria barely able to introduce Eidolon to Hax before Hax punches him in the face.

Edit: a power armor and Alexandria enhanced punch at that.

 

[pepperjack]

I only expected you to want to kidnap her back to the base, is all. Propose marriage to her or something.

Click to shrink...

Yes, please.

 

[Chojomeka]

Yes, please.

Click to shrink...

Mama mia now that's spicy

 

[Ack]

I can see the whole thing before me; the whole Triumvirate gathered, Alexandria barely able to introduce Eidolon to Hax before Hax punches him in the face.

Edit: a power armor and Alexandria enhanced punch at that.

Click to shrink...

Grabs him by the front of his costume and screams in his face, "YOU FUCKING MORON!" Shakes him like a baby.

 

[Datcord]

I can see the whole thing before me; the whole Triumvirate gathered, Alexandria barely able to introduce Eidolon to Hax before Hax punches him in the face.

Edit: a power armor and Alexandria enhanced punch at that.

Click to shrink...

Grabs him by the front of his costume and screams in his face, "YOU FUCKING MORON!" Shakes him like a baby.

Click to shrink...

"Why would you do that?!" Hax screamed, lifting Eidolon in the air and shaking him like she was a particularly ill-tempered nanny.

"Why would I do WHAT? Please let go of me!" Eidolon yelped, realizing perhaps a little too late that the best way to pry someone with Alexandria-level strength off you is to not let them grab you in the first place.

"Do what? Do WHAT? You don't even know- Oh, my god! Does NO ONE on this fucking planet know how to use their fucking powers?" Hax let out a short scream of aggravation, then dropped the older man onto the ground in order to let her jab him in the chest with one finger. "STAY. HERE. I gotta go put your middle child in the Time Out Corner. YOU might be joining him, you... you... idiot!"

 

[Chojomeka]

"Why would you do that?!" Hax screamed, lifting Eidolon in the air and shaking him like she was a particularly ill-tempered nanny.

"Why would I do WHAT? Please let go of me!" Eidolon yelped, realizing perhaps a little too late that the best way to pry someone with Alexandria-level strength off you is to not let them grab you in the first place.

"Do what? Do WHAT? You don't even know- Oh, my god! Does NO ONE on this fucking planet know how to use their fucking powers?" Hax let out a short scream of aggravation, then dropped the older man onto the ground in order to let her jab him in the chest with one finger. "STAY. HERE. I gotta go put your middle child in the Time Out Corner. YOU might be joining him, you... idiot!"

Click to shrink...

"And YOU!" Hax pointed at a seemingly random spot in the sky."I see you up there, so help me if you cause any more trouble I will either come up there myself or I WILL drag you done here and put you in the time out corner too!"

For what felt like an eternity of quiet was suddenly punctuated by a soft voice from far away shouting."Your not my real mom!"

 

[AylorAivo]

"Your not my real mom!"

Click to shrink...

In this case the fact that it's said by the Simurgh makes the you're/your error actually pretty funny.