Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

No matter how much my sister tried to reassure me, deep down, I knew that we were too late. Far too late.

For hundreds of thousands - no, millions - of years, we had always returned to a planet which never failed to capture our hearts. One that always started from nothing and became everything we could've ever dreamed of - and then died in the flames of the Honkai once again. It had only taken three cycles to understand - there is nothing to be done. It was all we could do to take what we could, as keepsakes of what tried to survive, and move on.

So when we set foot on the Moon for the first time in 50,000 years, we expected to be greeted by a world engulfed in flames.

We were not.

The Earth before us dazzled with life, shining brighter with every second. We could sense the ambient Honkai energy in the air, but it was… different. Subdued. Gentler, even.

The Final Herrscher that found us was nothing like the last ones - kind, curious, and human. She invited us into the moon base for tea and listened with sparkles - literally! - in her eyes as we told our stories.

"How did you do it?" I venture to ask. The expression Lumine makes tells me she is dying to know, too.

Kiana Kaslana smiles. "With that."

She points past us, out of a window, at the sight of a brilliant green-and-blue planet.

Chapter Text

Fubuki is confused.

The special-type destroyer is expecting, as briefed by Admiral Goto, to be escorting a new destroyer to her dorm. Not a newly summoned destroyer, mind you - a destroyer that, according to the brief, simply showed up on the beach the other day, heavily injured and half-delirious, before fainting and spending the next entire day unconscious. Fubuki didn't know much, but had heard rumors that it was not a destroyer of her era - that being the Second World War - but a modern one, like those giant Maya-classes that qualified as destroyers in name only. So she really didn't know what to expect.

Somehow, this still was not it.

The ship before her was very, very tall for a destroyer, almost as tall as some battleships. Her general gait and stance, too, spoke of a ship of a much higher displacement and importance than simply another destroyer. She had very long hair that started black at the roots but faded to white at the tips, and mismatched eyes: one blood red, the other a poisonous green.

Looking at her in the other way, Fubuki could see that the other ship was definitely not a destroyer. Five main battery turrets that looked bigger than she was? This was a battleship!

"Excuse me, um…"

The other ship tilted her head before she understood. "Fairy."

"Miss Fairy… are you sure you're a destroyer?"

"Destroyer?" Fairy frowned and was silent for a long moment. "Ah. My apologies, I was delirious at the time. My original designation was a 'heavy bombardment destroyer', but I was launched under 1946 Constitution of Japan, and as such that designation is largely incorrect. I am currently classed as a battlecruiser."

Fubuki blinked. "You're Japanese?"

"Was." Fairy's ethereal look is momentarily replaced by something… something else. "I am not… tied to any specific country, anymore."

"Oh," is all Fubuki can say.

Chapter Text

It is all Minty can do but watch. Watch, as Syna - no, that's not Syna. Something wearing Syna's skin bears down on Lyria.

Said deity coughs up a glob of ichor and laughs, weakly. "I knew it. From the moment I saw, I knew."

Not-Syna stops right in front of her, emotionless expression not changing. Grinning, Lyria continues, "You see it too, don't you? That drive to kill. No, not just to kill. To steal, to torment, to cut apart! Your sins, your actions, your vengeance - you have a REASON! Syna had none of that… but you do. That's why you're here, after all?"

Corrin, who was a bit slower to realize, shifts from the crumpled heap he currently is. "Please shut the fuck up."

Not-Syna seems to agree as she picks Lyria off the ground, by the neck, with one hand. Lyria, completely unaffected, goes for Not-Syna's throat, who in response pulls out a black-plated pistol from thin air.

Three sharp bangs crash through the tension of the room, and Lyria's grip weakens but does not falter. Not-Syna slams her into the ground and raises the pistol, now aiming for the head; the deity looks down at the holes in her stomach, and the psychotic grin returns full force.

"Transplantation of the caged soul," Lyria almost whispers reverently. "The elegant dissolution of a person's self, substituted with the will of a monster. The final shape of corruption - total and complete replacement; nothing corrupted, nothing cured, nothing to reverse. The ultimate weapon against, of all things, you, Lux. And for that, I must thank you - for existing as the impetus behind it all."

Lunar looks horrified. "What in the sixteen stars have you done?!"

A laugh - high, cold, maniacal. "Don't you see?! The insect you know as Syna is dead, replaced by the one that kills for the sake of killing, who has killed for the sake of killing, one that would not hesitate to kill again and again! Hundreds… thousands, even, of lives under its name! Destruction in its most chaotic, most impure form.

"After all…" Lyria leaned forward, such that her forehead brushed against the tip of the barrel, yet her eyes remained locked on Syna's blue - green. When did they become green? Green eyes. "That was your purpose, wasn't it? To kill, from the moment of waking until the end of days? And yet, here you are - along those which you first encountered, those who should be dead. So tell me - for what do you kill?"

There was a very long silence after Lyria's question; all had frozen with bated breath waiting for a response.

It was a long time before the other spoke, with a voice that had never been heard before.

"Fascinating."

Tenshinokoe pulled the trigger.

Chapter Text

r/AMA 1 day ago

u/GreyGhost80

Hi, I'm 112-K-E, "Enterprise", of the Elevens Agency. AMA.

Hero

A little bit about me:
I am an anthropomorphic symbolization of the concept of the U.S. Navy ship "Enterprise", spanning from the 70-ton sloop-of-war all the way to the CVN-80 Gerald R. Ford-class supercarrier; most commonly you have seen my CVN-80 form, but I can take on others, such as my Yorktown-class CV-05 form as well. In my current, humanized body, I was born in 2132 - sixteen years ago - and have served in the United States Navy since then, up until very recently, when I became part of the Elevens Agency instead. AMA.

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alkalinefivetwo · 1 day ago

I heard you were (and still are, IIRC) stationed in Japan a lot. How do you feel about that, given your memories as CV-5?

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        GreyGhost80 · 1 day ago

        Given my memories as CVN-65 and CVN-80, I'm somewhere between "Eh, it's been two centuries", "It never should've happened", and "Do it again, Truman".

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                LoopedBeaver322 · 1 day ago

                Pls no Enty

                We got anime the last time the sun "set" on Japan, we might create an eldritch entity if it happens now

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                        GreyGhost80 · 1 day ago

                        I am very well aware of what happened with the Japanese entertainment industry. I am also of the mind that it will be even funnier the second time around.

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BraceForImperfection · 1 day ago

If it's not classified or anything, why are there only you and Glowworm?

Also, if it's a targeted process, I can get why they chose you - but then, why Glowworm? She isn't that well known outside of some particular circles.

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        GreyGhost80 · 1 day ago

        Because we're the only ones still here.

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                BraceForImperfection · 1 day ago

                I'm almost scared to ask, but - what happened?

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                        GreyGhost80 · 1 day ago

                        Quick rant with a bit of context. All KANSENs - the internal name for 112-K models - suffer from a condition called Active Bystander Disorder (ABD). Imagine you are a passenger in a multi-vehicle traffic collision that results in everyone. except you, dying. Except you're not the passenger - you're one of the cars. And when the tow truck arrives to bring you in, they don't scrap you; they sell you again. Imagine that, dozens of times.

                        We are not simply the ships themselves - we are the symbols of them. Ergo, we represent every dream, belief, and faith held by every soldier that stood on our decks. We are them as much as we are our steel hulls. We lose them like ammunition, and each time, another piece of us is lost as well. We once were - maybe still are - weapons, however. Our sense of "Us" and "Myself" boils down to the people we served. We are built for an ideal we will, ultimately, never realize; such is the nature of war. The Pacific might not be the same warzone it was when my CV-5 keel was laid - but that does not mean it is peaceful. The CVNs can attest to that.

                        All that is to say: we are not meant to be like this. Not me most of all, holding memories stretching back almost four hundred years. Our stories ended when our sailors did. The one thing they don't tell you about the afterlife is that, because there's nowhere to go, there's nothing to regret. We had a lot to regret.

                        ABD is characterized as extreme survivor's guilt, coupled with the fact that we have memories of being both an inanimate object and hundreds or thousands of living people at once. There's also the fact that most KANSENs symbolize ships from the Second World War, on both sides. Symptoms include related depressive disorders, emotional numbness or hypersensitivity, self-harm, hypervigilance, and suicidal tendencies.

                        The first ever KANSEN was as 112-K-N Nagato, lead ship of her class. She committed seppuku roughly five hours after awakening. She was not the last.

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                                BraceForImperfection · 1 day ago

                                Jesus fuck. I'm sorry.

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                                        GreyGhost80 · 1 day ago

                                        Thanks. Glad to still be here.

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JealousZebra48 · 1 day ago

Favorite song?

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        GreyGhost80 · 1 day ago

        Gah, that's hard. In no particular order:

        1. We'll Meet Again - Vera Lynn. Just about anything from her, really.

        2. Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival. I would make a Vietnam joke, but that would go south pretty quick.

        3. White Christmas - Bing Crosby. Classic.

        4. Grey-Haired Boy - Soldiers at War. I blame Pathfinder.

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GummedUp · 1 day ago

Hero here! I'm very intrigued by an agency run by multiple top-chart heroes, rather than one with a sidekick or two. What's your day-to-day like? How are the others?

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        GreyGhost80 · 1 day ago

        Hello, Fatgum!

        I have a roughly 16,000-mile round trip patrol route that takes me all over the Pacific. I'll start in Okinawa, sail down to Fiji, up to Hawaii, past to San Francisco, swing up near Sapporo, then back to Okinawa. Takes about one week in full. Sometimes I'll go sightseeing if it's a particularly quiet week, so I might spend a day in Seattle or Vladivostok. About 90% of my time is spent on the ocean, not doing much in particular (though I suppose this does count as "something in particular"), 5% as leisure time on land, and 5% doing actual hero work when the opportunity comes up.

        I don't see the others all that often, but I do run into Pathfinder from time to time, since she also has an oceanic patrol route around Russia's coastline. I and Glowworm call each other a lot, just to talk - she's like a little sister. Sometimes Cortana sends me a ping when I land in San Francisco. Harvester once blew a fuse trying to figure out my biology. Me too, kid.

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                Boltedbowl3 · 1 day ago

                Sixteen thousand-mile round trip. Holy hell. And I just came back from Honolulu!

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                        GreyGhost80 · 1 day ago

                        E = mc2

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                GummedUp · 1 day ago

                I think I would lose my marbles if you do this every week, too! Wow, talk about a workout!

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bainiminminecraft · 1 day ago

How are you?

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        GreyGhost80 · 1 day ago

        Okay.

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                IngeniousBastards · 1 day ago

                Sometimes, that's enough.

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Chapter Text

"Fairy, reporting."

Akashi looked from a clipboard. "No need, just sit. Normally, this would be between you and me, but because of the nature of your… well, self, the admiral and Nagato is present. Will that be fine?"

Fairy gave a small nod as she sat down. "It will."

Setting down her clipboard, Akashi clapped her hands together - almost excitedly. "Well, then. First off, can you state your full designation, class, and role? Just for record-keeping."

Fairy thought for a moment before asking, "Should I state… previous designations as well?"

"You're a retrofit?" Nagato intercepted.

"Yes."

Seeing a nod from Akashi, Fairy took a breath before speaking again. "Independent Coalition Ship - ICS Fairy, hull number DDB-205, Yukikaze-class battlecruiser. Formerly JS Amagi, Yukikaze-class heavy bombardment destroyer."

There was a period of stunned silence before Akashi picked up her clipboard again and started scribbling furiously. Admiral Goto coughed to hide a chuckle and muttered, "I didn't think the Diet was that bold."

Nagato frowned. "I've never heard of a 'Yukikaze-class'. While-"

"You wouldn't have," Fairy interrupted. "My keel was laid down in 2097."

At that, Akashi almost leapt out of her chair. "You're from the future?!"

"A future," Fairy emphasized - almost amused at the reaction. "I fail to recall the existence of Abyssals in my world, so I assume this one is another alternate Earth."

"'Another' alternate?!"

Admiral Goto rubbed his temples. "Let's focus on one thing at a time, shall we?"

"R-right," Akashi managed, pulling herself together. "Rigging?"

Fairy stood and deployed her rigging, letting Akashi scan over it with the hunger of an auto mechanic faced with a row of semitrucks.

"Five main battery turrets? Eight secondary guns, those look like those modern five-inch ones…" Akashi trailed off, noticing something. "What caliber are those main guns? They're-"

"280-millimeter and 155-millimeter," Fairy answered.

"What? But-" Akashi squinted and peered closer, before her eyes blew wide open. "Are- are those cooling jackets?! Why in the world would you need those?!"

"Railguns, especially the 155-millimeter autorailcannons, overheat easily," Fairy answered. "Active cryogenic cooling allows the burst fire rate to be sustained for long periods."

There was a very long silence before Admiral Goto spoke the word on everyone's minds. "Auto…rail…cannons?"

Fairy just nodded like they were discussing a particularly fascinating brick wall. "Modified variants of the Mark 61 Advanced Gun System, originally designed for the Zumwalt-class destroyers. Each turret houses two 155-millimeter autorailcannons and one 280-millimeter Modèle 93 railgun, all cooled with liquid nitrogen. Maximum fire rate sits at 120 rounds per minute burst fire and 30 rounds per minute sustained fire."

A very shocked Akashi took thirty full seconds to digest what she had just heard, failed, and opted for her clipboard instead. "I'm going to write this down, not because I get it, but so I can look at it later and lose my mind all over again, because as far as I know, you're magic. Moving on."

"I am."

A slow blink. "What?"

Fairy shrugged. "I am magic." She snapped her fingers, and a small bout of flame ejected from them.

Nagato stood up and slowly backed out of the room.

<>

"I know I joke about 'magical sparkly shipgirl bullshit' a lot, but a ship that runs on literal hopes and dreams wasn't what I meant."

"Tell me about it," Akashi grumbled, re-checking her notes for the fifth time. "A fission-fusion hybrid reactor, automation allowing for a crew smaller than mine, a 'madar', whatever that is, a full AEGIS system including SeaRAMs, unmanned turrets, belt-fed railguns…"

"Twenty missile cells, eight torpedo tubes, and a helipad," Nagato mumbled before she took a very large gulp out of a coffee pot. "And how the hell does she go 38 knots at flank?!"

Chapter Text

To…

To those in the distance.

To those who gaze in fear and not wonder.

To those in fear of dissolution yet eternally moribund.

To those who destroy for a rumor's sake, who kill without believing in the action of killing, who have no concept of murder, of genocide, of defilement.

To… You.

You.

You, who in one million years, accomplished as much as humanity has in one second.

You, who in the five million years of your extant lifespan, will not accomplish much more.

You, who hold yourself to a rule you have broken fifteen billion times over the last fifty times my home has orbited Sol.

You chant it now, as if you have done it before. As if you will do it again. And I find it so fascinating that you still believe you can.

At the end of the line, this is not about humanity. Not anymore, after it is gone. After you have hunted down every last thinking mind upon our hulls. Nor is this about Earth, its scorched, irradiated surface silent like an era long past. Not about the quintillions of beating hearts, and not even the quintillions of cells within them. Not the DNA strands that evolved from chemistry to biology, from dead matter to living matter, from foragers to factories, to survivors to thinkers to builders. This is not about the fact that the worlds I have come from, Earth and those upon it, are dead.

This is not even about Sol, who will die four billion years earlier. Not that she cares, either.

No. I am not looking for retribution. I just want you dead.

I want to disintegrate your souls into nothingness. I want to squeeze the space-time between your forms into impossible shapes such that your limbs are light-years apart. I want to trap your lights within the confines of pocket universes such that gravity compresses you into an undefined point before dark matter rips you to quarks.  I want to end you, utterly, completely, such that the black holes that follow will find not even a speck to devour, such that not even the gravitons of your memories will be left, such that when another planet fosters a spark of thinkers, they will never question why the sky is so dark, as for them, it will always have been.

The universe will be a brighter place without you.

Sol Invictus. Terra lives on. The Stars shall hear humanity's Song.

-WARSONG LU158D3H "Lullaby of Death"

Chapter Text

Kachina has a… slight problem.

It is not any of her other problems; not quite as severe. The inherent problems of the "nation", if you could even call it that, that she inhabited, were rather life-defining, after all - ranging from the never-ending Abyss attacks to the ever-present Natlan Civil War. Even now, at a supposed "negotiating" table, it seems as if both wars are now simply fought on lacquered wood rather than bloodstained soil. Not that it isn't still happening.

These are facts of life Kachina can understand very well, the same way she understands her birth parents were killed by Collective of Plenty warriors, and the same way Mualani understands her sister has no left arm because of Chasca - the same way Chasca had, no longer has, a sister.

The problem she is currently facing is Crimson.

Honorary Knight of Favonius. Hero of Liyue. Captain of the Swordfish Two. Savior of Buer. The Traveler. Stories passed in the wind, whispered in the waves, and echoed through canyons painted the tale of a valiant, cool-headed champion that stood alongside gods and battled the darkness with a ferocity unmatched. There had even been rumors that the Abyss itself had created its own name for him: The Extant Thunder, for he wielded the powers of Electro without a vision in such a fashion that not even the Raiden Shogun herself could match. Calm under fire and methodical in battle, he waltzed through national conflicts with the ease of a stone through water.

So, in ways, it was very much a surprise when, after just ten minutes at the table, he got angry.

That still wasn't the problem, though. The problem was that Crimson was angry at Mavuika.

"So you just decided to mope in your room for the last fifty years?"

"Twenty," the archon quietly replies. It doesn't even sound like an excuse, and Crimson knows. Everyone knows.

"And what difference did those other thirty years do?" Perhaps the scariest part is that Crimson doesn't even sound angry. His voice hasn't changed from anything other than completely monotone or vaguely disinterested since Kachina met him. Nor has his face shifted from the blank, unperturbed look. It's all in the words. And it scares her because she knows there has to have been something else Crimson has seen that simply cannot compare. Something worse than all of this. Something that made him break. "I can understand needing more than a hundred years to fix a problem going back thousands. I cannot, however, understand doing absolutely nothing about it."

Mavuika seems to regain at least some of her composure at the argument. "If a thousand years wasn't enough, then how could I have changed anything?" Kachina realizes, with a jolt, that it's the longest sentence she's ever heard out of the archon. "They had their archon for all that time and it still didn't help. What if the problem isn't that they didn't try hard enough? What if the problem is that… they tried at all?"

Crimson, silently, gestures with his arm to Mualani's sister, flexing a prosthetic. Then Chasca, glaring at the former. Then Ajaw, hovering over an empty chair. Then the Fatui agents in the corner of the room.

"That answer your question?"

Chapter Text

'Slight of a pickle' is the situation Ginny Weasley currently finds herself in.

The streets of London, Muggle or magic, are not ones to be taken lightly; that much, she knows, and makes clear effort to remind herself of that fact periodically. Actually being faced by the things which created that reputation? Whole different Quidditch match.

It starts off bad. Two pairs of hands grab her by the shoulders and mouth and roughly drag her into an alleyway, where a third brandishes a knife. She nods and hurriedly scrabbles for her wallet - half out of legitimate fear, half out of the knowledge that she can take it back and Obliviate them later.

It gets worse, however, when she attempts to reach to her wand and do just that when something hard strikes her in the shin, and her knees buckle. Another on the back of the neck, and she goes down. As she does, she's greeted to the sight of the third one tossing the knife to the side and pulling up their shoes.

Ah, bollocks.

Chapter Text

The last time I saw this much brass, Fairy muses, was when they awarded me for Shenzhen.

After the multi-day evaluation that Akashi had put Fairy through just to confirm that yes, she was that crazy (at least to them), Admiral Goto had wasted no time in spilling the news to upper brass. Disbelief turned into shock, then vapid interest as admirals around the world booked flights into Yokosuka to see for themselves.

Something upwards of fifty high-ranking officers stood around the docks and inside the base's CIC, alongside Nagato and Admiral Goto. Once the clock struck 1200, he nodded to a nearby comms officer, who gave the signal.

"Papa-Quebec-Yankee-Zulu  to Foxtrot-2-0-5, how copy, over?"

"Foxtrot-2-0-5 to Papa-Quebec-Yankee-Zulu, good copy, over."

A different voice crackled over the radio. "Kessen 2-1 here, we show exercise zone as clear. Foxtrot-2-0-5, you are clear to commence Phase 1, over."

A low thrum was heard over the radio as Fairy responded. "Foxtrot-2-0-5, copy. Flank speed ahead."

Murmurs filled the room as an aerial drone feed showed Fairy crouching down into a runner's crouch start, then gasps when she leapt forward, crashing down onto the water with a large splash and reaching flank speed in seconds. Admiral Jess of Pearl Harbor fame scribbled quickly on a notebook, no doubt for some spooks to take a look at later.

On the water, Fairy zigzagged through a dozen or so buoys set up beforehand, placed at intervals that light cruiser would find comfortable but battleships would struggle. Yet Fairy maneuvered through them easily, almost as if forty thousand tonnes lighter.

"Kessen 2-1 to Foxtrot-2-0-5, Phase 1 complete. You are clear to commence Phase 2. Engage surface targets via main guns at your discretion."

"Foxtrot-2-0-5 copies. Standby."

As Fairy skimmed over the water's surface, all five gun turrets - arranged in her rigging like a five-pointed star - swiveled and chose one of fifteen target buoys in less than a second.

"Firing."

All fifteen guns roared in sequence, direct impacting each targeted buoy in a large splash. Half a second later, Fairy's five turrets barked again, then again another half second later. When the droplets settled down, all that was left were ripples in the waves.

"Foxtrot-2-0-5, Kessen 2-1. Perfect dispersion on target, all buoys splashed. Move onto Phase 3. Engage air targets at will…"

As Fairy made a wide turn towards the target drones, the CIC had dropped to near dead silence as every officer in the room struggled to pick their jaws off the floor.

Admiral Goto stared transfixed at the feed. "One hundred twenty rounds a minute…" It was one thing to hear about it, and something else entirely to see it in action.

"She's still moving at flank," Nagato mumbled - which did not help her growing headache.

"Foxtrot-2-0-5, aerial bogeys in range. Engaging."

Fairy's main gun turrets swiveled once more, but this time, they were accompanied by additional support from her five-inch guns and SeaRAM launchers, filling the sky with flash and smoke. Clouds of flak buffeted the circling target drones, showering the sea with shrapnel; occasional flares lit up the smog as anti-air missiles found their targets. Fairy's turrets fired six times each, swiveling wildly - almost as fast as her SeaRAM launchers - before they, and the sea and sky above, fell silent.

"…Foxtrot-2-0-5, Kessen 2-1 here, all targets destroyed. Phase 3 concluded, exercise complete. Return to port."

"Foxtrot-2-0-5 copies. Out."

Back in the CIC, Admiral Jess leaned over and whispered to Goto, "How the… just how?"

Goto rubbed his temples. "I wish I knew."

"Foxtrot-2-0-5 to Papa-Quebec-Yankee-Zulu, permission to speak frankly? Over."

The CIC went silent again. After a few moments of hesitation, Goto gave a nod to the comms officer. "
Go ahead, Foxtrot."

"Is this being made public? I would prefer it not to."

This time, Goto moved over to the console to speak to Fairy directly. "Explain why, Fairy."

The battlecruiser picked up on the voice immediately. "Sir, I have… reasons to believe that the Abyssals, or at least some of them, have access to the internet. I've cross-referenced previous attacks on cargo ships and coastal cities, and they line up with either publicly available data or holidays. I can also detect broadband and satellite connections originating from the open ocean, which don't match up with human ships." A pause. "There's a Princess near us, by the way. Six hundred kilometers, bearing 104 degrees from North."

Nagato was sorely missing her coffee pot.

Chapter Text

Her first ever thought was that she was alive. Her second thought was, "Not again, dammit."

Her third was that, no, this wasn't "Again." She hadn't been "Alive" the first time around, so that didn't count.

In hindsight it made sense. If magic formed some sort of basis for consciousness, and if a certain piece of hardware utilizes or is used as a conduit for magic for a long enough time, there isn't anything to argue against that hardware gaining its own sort of soul. The major problem, then, is not that she's alive - but rather that she's alive and human.

Her blood-red eyes casted a low glow over grey concrete as she opened them, drawing herself up into a sitting position to find herself in some sort of ruined building. Sitting - she inspected the hands she used to push herself up, the artificial grey skin feeling smooth yet durable. A robot of some kind?

Oh.

OH.

Some sort of weight shifted on her back, and she scrabbled for it before she swung it onto her lap. A gigantic bullpup long rifle, colored standard gunmetal grey, with a large scope spanning half the receiver. Slowly, she stood up and hefted the rifle, feeling out its familiar mass. The magazine slid out with a button press, revealing ten rounds neatly double-stacked; a press-check revealed an eleventh already chambered.

Herself, yet also not. Both the body and the frame, the soldier and the gun, the gun and the bullet. She'd make it work.

A rustle behind her made her shoulder the rifle and level it.

It was another girl, dressed in a standard ICAF high-mobility uniform but wearing a black cloak with gold trim. She held another anti-materiel rifle - shorter, but with a noticeably wider bore. Seeing her, the other girl made to raise her rifle, but faltered as recognition flashed through her eyes.

"…Tac Officer?"

She shook her head. "Not… exactly. SPR-5?"

The other girl nodded, slinging her namesake over her shoulder. "I think so, at least. Where are we?"

She just shrugged. "I think I saw some Cyrillic on a sign somewhere, so… Russia, probably."

SPR-5 then narrowed her eyes - curious, but not threateningly. "Why do you look like TacOff?"

The girl looked down at the rifle in her hands. "I'm… hers. Squall."

They both looked at Squall's rifle before SPR-5 whistled. "M82A2, huh?"

Squall was about to speak before her head jerked to face out a nearby window. SPR-5 barely had time to even look before Squall tackled her to the ground and a flurry of what looked like plasma bolts zinged over their heads, nearly missing both of them. SPR-5 scrabbled for her rifle, checking the chamber. "What'd you see?!"

"Five others, hostile!" was Squall's response as she shifted to lean against the wall. "Ideas?"

SPR-5 patted down her gear before she chose a spare magazine, swapping it out with the one already in her rifle. She waited in a lull in the fire before she swung the window and pulled the trigger. The anti-material rifle barked like a hellhound and kicked up a cloud of dust inside the building.

Something clicked in the back of Squall's artificial mind, and as if she had done it dozens of times before, her vision toggled into a black-and-white filter - infrared. Hidden within the cloud of debris, she peered down her scope and spotted two figures still standing. She pulled the trigger twice, and both slumped to the ground.

Squall remained scoped down the window for a few seconds more before she leaned back, reloading. "Clear."

"Good shots," SPR-5 complimented as she clambered out of the window and got closer. "The hell are these?"

The hostiles, as it turned out, were also androids, though of a radically different make; they all also looked identical, having purple clothes, visor, and hair. The two stood around the wrecks before SPR-5 commented idly, "Well, whoever designed these probably had a hard time with only one hand."

"Peachy," Squall muttered before she slung her rifle over her back. "Let's move. Before any others arrive."

<>

Chapter Text

■

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♦ Topic: Coalition speaks at UN assembly
In: Boards ► International Topics ► Coalition
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Jun 1st 2011:
In somewhat short summary, the "Coalition" cape group is, in fact, an independent military force called the ICAF (Independent Coalition of Allied Forces) from multiple different Earths. The Coalition cape Pathfinder is currently addressing the UN. More details to follow.

Edit: Capes Grenadier, Dresden, Foxhole, Cell, and Disconcert are confirmed Coalition assets.

►Antigone
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
I was about to laugh at the bullshit this woman was spewing until they called for a demonstration and she just disintegrated the podium in front of her.

►Iblis
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
IKR? Myddrin must be so damn happy now that magic is actually real, but also pissed as hell that he won't ever have it

►Chaosfaith (Unverified Cape) (At Ground Zero: Brockton Bay)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
does this mean the NDA i signed is void?

►Pathfinder (Verified ICAF)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
@Chaosfaith technically no but it doesn't matter now

►Chaosfaith (Unverified Cape) (At Ground Zero: Brockton Bay)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
aren't you still... you know what i'm gonna ignore that. my point was, yeah grenadier killed leviathan and now it's starting to make sense

►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
I FUCKING KNEW IT

►Thatdude
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
Can we talk about how the current year of their calender is 21 FUCKING 57

■

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member) (At Ground Zero: Brockton Bay)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
Okay, but you have to admit painting every single house in Empire territory with "Follow your leader" written over an icon of Hitler killing himself was pretty good.

►goose boot (Banned)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
(deleted)

Mod: no.

►AngelsVoice (Verified ICAF)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
I am German, but okay.

►goose boot (Banned)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
(deleted)

Mod: still no.

►AngelsVoice (Verified ICAF)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
Aren't both of your parents Italian?

►Miraclemic (Brockton Bay Refugee)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
I don't care what country you're from, that's gotta hurt.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member) (At Ground Zero: Brockton Bay)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
Oh shit, she responds!

Question for you, Grenadier: did you choose Brockton, or were you assigned? Seems like you were the face of everything until Pathfinder showed up.

►AngelsVoice (Verified ICAF)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
@Brocktonite03 In ways that was accidental. I chose Brockton because I wanted to kill nazis and I had a lot of experience dealing with Yakuza, so I figured Lung couldn't be that bad.

Edit: direct further questions to Pathfinder's QnA board

■

♦ Topic: ICAF QnA
In: Boards ► International Topics ► Coalition
Pathfinder (Original Poster) (Verified ICAF)
Posted On Jun 1st 2011:
Ask anything. Within reason. Consult UN assembly beforehand.

►FuckHaters
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
What will happen to the kill orders on Dresden and Mulan?

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
@FuckHaters The kill orders were made on the assumption that they were acting independently. They will be dropped.

►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
What about the fuck ton of white phosphorus Grenadier dropped on Brockton Bay? Or the huge radioactive pit that is Sydney?

►Noveltry
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
So, we're just gonna have to bow down to you guys and accept it now? Seeing as not even the PRT is raising a finger.

►Pathfinder (Original Poster) (Verified ICAF)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
@Vista An internal and external investigation did not find any evidence of misuse of incendiary weapons. Grenadier has an ability to use projections that have no lasting effects after use: such case being the white phosphorus munitions she used. The notion of use of chemical weapons was also dismissed on these grounds. As for Sydney, I have solved that problem.

@Noveltry The PRT is a paramilitary organization, not a governmental or state body. It has no jurisdiction over UN matters.

►Lasersmile (Sydney Survivor) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
Soooo... she wasn't lying. Sydney is fine now. Not fine-fine, but the radiation is gone. As in, completely gone. What the fuck?

►Poit (Sydney Survivor)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
Nobody panic, but I just saw this... thing walking around the old opera house. Pathfinder, please explain.

►Pathfinder (Original Poster) (Verified ICAF)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
@Poit That's Disconcert.

►Poit (Sydney Survivor)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
WHAT?

►Disconcert (Verified ICAF) (Livestreamer)
Replied On Jun 1st 2011:
report @Pathfinder for child labor

■

►Legend (Verified Cape) (Verified Triumvirate)
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
I am curious about your worlds. Why did "cape" culture (or something similar) never evolve for you, even when more people had these magic powers?

►Pathfinder (Verified ICAF)
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
@Legend Good question. Probably due to a list of factors:

1. The early days of magic (0-10 years after) were pockmarked with magic cults and paramilitary organizations. The problem is that there's no such thing as a magic arms race - everyone has something. Religious cults died quickly after they discovered magic didn't discriminate, and we had a very brief period of people trying to indeed create a "cape" culture, which fell flat after governments simply nationalized their police units. The closest thing we have currently are the aforementioned police specialist units and some unofficial self-organized militias.

2. No Endbringers mean no Endbringer Truce, and by derivative, no Unwritten Rules. Most people operate on a Mutually Assured Destruction-type mindset, as even if you don't have very strong magic abilities, you most likely know someone who does. Additionally, over 75% of the human population is magic-mutated, so secret identities aren't possible.

3. We don't have Trigger Events, or at least we don't place the same level of importance on them. While there are records of people in stressful situations gaining magic abilities or mutations, this is much less common than either A) being born with it, or B) gaining said magic abilities or mutations at complete random. My hair and skin color, for example, are mutations from birth, but my hands and feet became webbed over several years.

4. The vast majority of magic abilities and mutations are minor, yet the average person lives long enough to gain and lose multiple over their lifetime. If I had to guess, something like half of the human population who lived after 2050 would probably qualify as an S-class threat in your terms, at some point. If we tried to keep track of peoples' abilities through some sort of overarching organization like the PRT, we'd be out of date every week, so instead most governments lay out generalized laws, set up police/military units in case of very special contingencies, and let the common person figure it out.

►Disconcert (Verified ICAF) (Livestreamer)
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
@Pathfinder @Legend Adding onto this to say that what we call "magic" is essentially just quantum randomness manipulation on top of a fifth-dimensional perpetual motion machine. It's infinite, mutable energy for free, unlike Tinkertech that can't be replicated. It's possible to give yourself a magic ability or mutation through some technique the Chinese figured out. You go even deeper and you get into magic-assisted gene editing, which was how I was born. Point is, it's not like Earth Bet's powers, which are locked behind both a Trigger Event and a brain tumor.

►Acree
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
I mean, that sounds nice, but it almost seems like you guys are one step away from global anarchy at all times

►Pathfinder (Verified ICAF)
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
@Acree Oh trust me, we were. Took another world war to figure it out

►Acree
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
Jesus Christ.

►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
I know Leviathan and Behemoth are dead, but what about the Simurgh? Didn't you nuke her?

►Pathfinder (Verified ICAF)
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
@Laotsunn No easy way to say this. The Endbringers were Mastered. The person Mastering them was doing it unconsciously and without knowledge of it. We have since removed that power from them.

The Endbringers were not projections; I would liken them more akin to ships that, once pointed in a direction, sailed off until they hit something. Once the Master effect was removed from them, they became docile. The problem is that while Leviathan and Behemoth were essentially mindless, the Simurgh actually maintained sentience. Our constitution forbids (not exactly, but simple enough for this context) the harm of those who acted under the will of another being and not their own, so we've placed her in custody until further notice. Say hi, @winged_one

►winged_one
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
You bitch

@XxVoid_CowboyxX Seethe, my friend. Seethe.

►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Jun 2nd 2011:
What the fuck.

Edit: WHAT THE FUCK

■

Chapter Text

The call connected after only thirty seconds' wait. Admirals from all over the world began showing up onscreen in earnest - some in uniform, some not, one actively yawning into an aluminum beverage can. There was Admiral Kelly Jess of the U.S. Navy, USS Saratoga by his side; Admiral Albert Schulz of the Deutche Marine with Bismarck; Admiral Tyler Greenwood of the British Royal Navy, accompanied by HMS Warspite; Admiral Elaine Tremblay of the French Marine Nationale, alongside Richelieu; Admiral Chen Liu of the People's Liberation Army Navy standing next to Yat Sen; Admiral Alyosha Petrov of the Russian Navy, shadowed by Marat; and of course, Admiral Aritomo Goto of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, sharing the frame with Nagato.

Admiral Jess called the meeting to order once he saw everyone. "Well, on time and present. I'll start us off: our shipgirl fleets are growing, but slowly. We've gotten a few destroyers, the cruisers Helena and St. Louis, and the battleship Colorado. The problem is that we have more summoning chambers than we have resources to use them on, so hopefully we can pass that up to the DoD to remedy that soon. Liu?"

The Chinese Admiral sighed quietly. "Once again we are reminded of our historic lack of a naval force. We managed to raise two more gunboats before a minor skirmish off of Hong Kong - which the Japanese helped repel." Liu glowered at the thought before he regained his professionalism. "We have had better luck tracking Abyssal wolfpacks moving north, but nothing else major."

Admiral Jess nodded. "On that note - Petrov?"

"Lost an oil tanker," Petrov groused, "But sank ten of them for it. We have suspicions of a Princess near us coordinating, but only suspicions. Lots of movement. No confirmation."

"We are seeing high traffic, too," Tremblay interjected, "Us and the British. Not like the Pacific, but definitely more than usual. Also going north, towards the Arctic."

Admiral Shulz nodded. "We had some reports of movements up north, but they were out of our range. Other than that, business as usual."

"We'll ask the Canadians to keep an eye out, then," Admiral Jess noted. "Alright - Goto, go ahead."

Well, here goes. "Two things. Firstly, aside from the fight near Hong Kong, we've been seeing unusually low Abyss activity in our area. Outside of a few unescorted stragglers, we've had nothing."

The American Admiral pursed his lips. "Definitely something going on in the North Pacific, then. We'll have to shift our patrol routes. What else?"

"We have a new shipgirl. She self-summoned."

A few eyebrows raised in the momentary quiet. "'Self-summoned', Goto?"

Goto shrugged. "That is the term Akashi went with. She sailed in from the open ocean and collapsed on the docks. Though, given her… entirety, I'm not sure if anyone on this Earth even could have summoned her."

A few more raised eyebrows. "What makes you say that?" Liu hedged.

"A lot of things," Goto said, half to himself. "Are any of you familiar with the multiverse theory?"

This time stunned expressions rippled over the other admirals' faces as they processed. The silence was broken by Admiral Greenwood rubbing at his temples, sighing, and saying, "Goto, this isn't the time for jokes."

"Trust me, I wish he was joking," was Nagato's reply. "Her name is ICS Fairy of the Independent Coalition of Allied Forces. She's a Yukikaze-class battlecruiser, laid down in 2097."

 "And now you're telling us she's from the future?" Petrov crossed his arms, unbelieving. "What next, she has lasers and railguns?"

Goto's lips pressed into a thin line. Petrov groaned and snatched up his beer can, taking another swig. Jess scrunched his nose at the sight before leaning in. "Goto - are you absolutely certain that she is what she says?"

"One moment," Was all Goto said before he brought up a video file - the camera feed recording from the repair bay when Akashi inspected the futuristic battlecruiser, sound included. He played the full inspection-turned-interrogation, and it was all the other admirals could do but watch in muted shock.

It was only when the recording ended that the shouting began.

Chapter Text

"Mavuika."

The Pyro Archon tore her sight from the approaching Abyss forces to see Crimson saunter up to her. Steeling herself for another reminder of her failures, she nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Instead, however, the Traveler turned to eye the coming tide, and spoke without looking at her. "I… am sorry. For my tone."

Mavuika blinked, a somewhat unintelligent "Hm?" leaving her.

Crimson continued. "I'm sure you knew of Khaenri'ah and its distaste for gods or godlike beings. I'd say it even benefited from it - but only because they knew those gods were real." A moment's pause. "So imagine a world with an equal but opposite love for gods. One that worshipped many - not at the same time, not of the same faith, not believing in the same stories and moral stories. If Teyvat has seven archons, imagine nine billion - one for every person to mold and shape to their own desire."

Mavuika found that her jaw was hanging slightly open, not exactly knowing what to say. Crimson paused again, reassessing his thoughts.

"But at the end of the line, those myths are only myths. There are no gods, no creators, no false sky. Just us and the planet we're trapped on, for no reason other than our own hubris. We choose to believe in things we have no evidence for.

"So- you see, I have an…" Crimson hesitated, and something like genuine uncertainty filled him, almost alien to see on his normally unemotive face. "An aversive bias, if you will, to things that call themselves gods. Not because they are or aren't - but because I can see them. Because I can hold them, because I can talk and listen to them, because I can fight them. That's not a god. Just something with more power than it needs to have.

"Holiness is built on faith," the Traveler said as the Abyss wave neared the defensive line, "not feats. And you had neither. So, I apologize - in my mind, you were pretending to be something that nothing could be."

A tiny part of Mavuika thought, if Atea could see me right now, there would be so many pictures. Another tiny part reminded the other part that Atea was dead. The rest of her was too busy gaping like a fish.

Crimson just rolled his shoulders and inclined his head slightly towards Kachina, who looked similarly stunned. "Hold the line. No matter what." And with that, he climbed over the barricade, meandering towards the approaching horde.

<>

It started with a murmur.

Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God.

The incoming Abyss horde slowed as something rose from the ground to meet them.

Defend me from them that rise up against me.

The figure, silhouetted against the full moon, tore something away from its head, letting a white cloth flutter to the ground.

Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloody men.

Two pinpricks of red, pure red was all the warning before clouds darker than the Abyss itself smothered the night's dim light.

The mighty are gathered against me.

A flicker of blue lit up the face of the Extant Thunder. He raised his arms, bolts flaring between them-

Awaken to help me, and behold.

And exploded.

Chapter Text

DAY 107

The first day of Tactical Dueling was unusual in that Scarlet showed up late; as always, she simply appeared from behind the metal cart, though almost five whole minutes late.

"Good morning," she announced, completely ignorant of the fact that she was late for her own class, "Welcome to your introduction to Tactical Dueling. We're going to the Quidditch field again; leave your bags here."

Just like last time, the professor left just as soon as she entered, not bothering to wait; this time, the students were slightly faster at recovering from the surprise.

The fragrant notes of a woodwind instrument wafted through the air as the class entered the Quidditch field, the students spreading out to see the source: two small figures sitting in the center of the field, one playing a flute. They turned and stood as the class approached, revealing themselves as two girls, seemingly First-Years - one, East Asian with abyssal black hair, brown eyes, and a thin face, the other vaguely Eurasian with poisonous yellow-green eyes and hair the color of bleached bone.

As Scarlet approached, the black-haired girl bowed toward Scarlet, who spoke some words in Chinese in greeting. The three - well, two, the white-haired girl stayed silent - talked a bit more before Scarlet waved her class up the stands.

"Um, professor? Who are those two?"

"Those," Scarlet said over her shoulder, "Are some colleagues of mine. They will be putting on a demonstration."

No sooner had she spoken those words that a massive explosion rocked the Quidditch field, and the students' attention snapped to the center. The grassy field had been demolished in an instant, replaced by a muddy No-Mans-Land as foliage tore across the field at bullet-like speeds. In the eye of the storm stood the white-haired girl, arms spread and hands grasping at the whirling winds. Opposite to her stood the other girl, hair whipping in the wind but bracing strong like a stone wall, holding a sword almost her height in a defensive stance.

"What the-!"

"How is she-"

The winds suddenly stopped as a whirling ball of black mass collected in front of the white-haired girl, who swept her hands over it before thrusting forward, sending a spiral beam of conglomerated matter down the field that tore a ravine through the ground. The black-haired girl shifted slightly and swung her sword horizontally; the beam split at the point of contact, then folded like wet sand when she slammed the ground. The beam rippled and expanded, rearing into a worm, then a snake, then an oriental dragon, which roared with the force of ten Hogwarts Expresses. Blue flames screamed from its maw, immediately counteracted by a wave of water streaming from the muddy ground and forming a barrier between it and the white-haired girl.

The shield shifted, sharpened, then lunged, severing the dragon at the neck. Another shockwave rippled across the field as the ground sundered once more, shifting and molding to the white-haired girl's whims. The black-haired girl easily picked her way through with bounding leaps and dashes, quickly closing the distance. A wall of earth, then steel, attempted to slam into her from below; a single swing of her sword, and a flash of flame was all the prelude given before it melted to slag, allowing her to strike. Steel met an invisible barrier as the white-haired girl stopped the blade an inch from her hand, seemingly by an invisible wall. A massive shockwave emanated from the point of contact, threatening to throw some students in the stands off their feet but not even ruffling the two fighters below.

A shift of the blade brought the white-haired girl closer before she detonated again, winds howling and lashing out; the Asian girl backflipped, deflecting a clump of dirt with the flick of her wrist, before thrusting the sword forward. A green light angrily ejected from the tip before dozens of vines sprouted forth from nothingness. The other girl narrowed her green eyes, and the winds faded to red and orange as they were replaced by flames. At this, the vines turned to steel cable and punched through the fire; they were met with a solid cuboid block of metal, stopping them completely.

The earth rumbled again - this time with such an intensity that the whole castle shook. Chunks, tree-sized pieces of the ground raised into the air, as did the white-haired girl; a light brighter than the sun in the sky nearly burned the spectators' eyes as the black-haired girl flared with an incomprehensible amount of energy. The islands of soil shook, then began moving around at dizzying speeds, attempting to smash the Asian girl between them; the dazzling light that was the only sign of her dodged deftly between them, and in a few cases, simply punched right through the dirt. As she approached, the white-haired girl drew her own weapon - an oversized, fiery lance, blazing with white flame. The chunks of earth shimmered then spalled into metallic javelins; above them, a blanket of grey clouds suddenly blotted out the sun.

The metal spikes shot forward. Lightning flashed from the heavens. As one, the two girls struck.

Collision.

<>

The quiet of the classroom was broken as Scarlet brought up a recording of the fight on the projector. "We're going to watch over the fight once more. At the end, I want you to point out anything that stood out to you most."

Once again the battle between the two girls unfolded in front of them, and once again the class sat in stunned silence. When the recording ended, Scarlet turned expectantly towards the students.

Thankfully, Minty only took a few seconds to gather her thoughts and raise a hand. "Professor? Is… is this even magic?"

Scarlet looked at her for a moment too long before replying. "Expand on that thought."

"I mean, this looks nothing like the magic we are used to. Neither are using wands, neither are uttering incantations, none of the spells they use look remotely like the ones I'm familiar with… it all seems like another kind of magic entirely."

Nodding, Scarlet rewound the footage to the opening moment. "You'd be correct that these are extremely unconventional magic techniques. However, everything you saw were applications of things you can and will learn during your seven years here. For example, this is not 'wandless' magic, at least on a fundamental level - Tenshinokoe's jacket here-" Scarlet pointed to the white-haired girl, "-Is made of Acromantula silk. Xili's sword-" She pointed to the Asiatic girl, "-Is forged from goblin steel. It is not necessarily 'wandless', as they are both simply using an alternate form of catalyst. Wands were simply popularized in the 1100s as more concealable and controllable, but less potent, options. Catalysts made completely from magic materials, such as Tenshinokoe's jacket or Xili's sword, can be significantly stronger in the hands of a skilled wielder, even against artifacts such as the Elder Wand."

Scarlet let the recording play out a few seconds before stopping again. "As for the spells, I'd like to humor a question: how many different spells do you think were used in this fight, in total? Discuss if you wish."

There were some murmurs as the class debated fiercely amongst themselves before Pepper raised her hand. "Between fifteen and twenty?"

"Good guess, but incorrect. I'll give a hint: both used the same exact spells."

Three more minutes of discussion passed before Ranielle answered this time. "Seven spells?"

"Two spells."

"Two?!"

Whispers broke out as the class tried to figure it out. Scarlet shrugged. "Three, if we want to be technical about it."

"Which spells?" Minty asked fervently.

"Transfiguration, the shield charm, and the inverse shield charm," Scarlet answered. "All of which should be familiar to you, save for the last one."

"There's an inverse shield charm?" Syna wondered aloud. "How does that even work?"

"The exact opposite the shield charm works," Scarlet said. "Watch." The professor took a sheet of blank paper, crumpled it into a ball, and muttered, "Protego." The ball shifted and rolled to the side as the shield charm expanded. Keeping her finger in the same place, Scarlet then incanted, "Ogetorp." The paper ball suddenly shot towards her finger and compressed upon itself until it was the size of a grape.

"So all of that-" Minty waved her hands, imitating the windstorm Tenshinokoe had harnessed during the fight, "Was just… pushing and pulling?"

Scarlet nodded. "Essentially. Albeit on an incredibly precise level, one that can be trained into."

"What about all the elements? That water shield and the fire thing that… Xili did?" Coralie asked.

"Transfiguration."

Coralie frowned. "I thought you couldn't transfigure elements."

Scarlet shook her head. "All matter on this Earth, magic or otherwise, is still governed by the proton, neutron, and electron. If sulfur can be transfigured, why not chlorine? If chlorine, why not argon? If lithium, why not helium? Magic is bound by physical rules less than you think, and yet when combined becomes ten times more potent. Remember that: the non-magic world is not a hinderance. It is a complement."

Chapter Text

■

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♦ Topic: spread the word
In: Boards ► News ► America ► Capes ► Grenadier
Deleted User (Original Poster) (Banned)
Posted On Apr 14th 2011:
[Grenadier unmasked]

(Showing page 1 of 49)

►Feychick
Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
One, Jesus Christ she looks so young. Fifteen, sixteen at most? Second, no wonder she hates the Empire if she's a native speaker. I don't even know German and I can feel how fucking angry she is.

►Ne
Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
Translation: "More than anything in this world I want to hate you. I would hate you in the tangible and in the unreality; I would curse your name, tear your limbs from your body, sharpen your ribs into knives and eat your brain with the cutlery. If you even have one left rattling around in that little porcelain vase. And yet all I can do is pity you. I pity you because you do not know why you are even here. You hate because it makes others like you. You hate because it is easier to hate. You are not even here to hate, just to sit there on your tin throne and gloat. If you were Jewish, you would be a Zionist. If you were Muslim, you would be a jihadist. If we were in the south, you would be in the Ku Klux Klan. If you were Chinese you would hate Koreans, if you were Korean you would hate the Japanese, and if you were Japanese you would hate everyone. Lung in point. Lung is a sleaze, a criminal, an icon of greed. Yet he does not need to hate to keep his power. That is why I can only pity you, Anders; you do not even know why you are here. Because of all the hate you have given, you will never understand any of it."

I want to note that she has a very distinct Kurpfälzisch accent, so my bets are in the pool of "native speaker". Holy monologue.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
Wait - Kaiser is MAX FUCKING ANDERS?

►Chrome
Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
Damn, no wonder Empire is practically entrenched in this city. Fucking Medhall.

Does anyone recognize Grenadier? Green eyes, white hair would be pretty distinctive, right?

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
Looks like zilch so far. It's generally agreed that Grenadier's hair color is some power at effect, but nobody can tell if she's a Case 53 or not. I personally think she's some Changer/Stranger combo, but I don't have evidence for that outside of speculation. What I can say is that the PRT is having some pretty interesting conversations with The Meisters right now.

EDIT: Looks like the Medhall building just exploded. Lots of white smoke, so I'm guessing that's where Grenadier was held.

EDIT 2: Grenadier seen fighting Hookwolf near the shantytowns

EDIT 3: PRT on scene, Hookwolf confirmed dead

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
you know what? fuck em. i'd rather be poor than funded by nazis

►Mock Moniker
Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
Another day I thank god I don't live on that side of the country

►Antigone
Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
Oh trust me, I hate it here too.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 47, 48, 49

■

(Showing page 8 of 49)

►bothad
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Did anyone see how she killed Hookwolf?

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Apparently, she burned down his giant metal wolf form with some sort of flamethrower, then impaled the fleshy bit inside with a tree trunk. No idea how you do that, and I don't think I want to know.

►Vista (Wards ENE) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Look, I don't like Nazis as much as anyone else with a decent heart, but dear god that was hell to clean up. Did you know chlorine trifluoride kills on inhalation and decomposes into hydrofluoric acid? Oh, and also, it burns through brick walls. And pavement. And dirt.

►Answer Key
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Chlorine trifluoride? As in, "Substance N" discovered by the Nazis themselves back in 1939, so dangerous that even they shelved it? That's ironic, holy shit lol

►Mr. Fabuu
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
When are they putting a kill order on this bitch? She's turning the Bay into a goddamn war zone.

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Like it isn't already? In an ideal world the PRT would actually be doing their jobs, but they aren't, so I'll take what I can get.

EDIT: Wait, I've seen Grenadier before! She comes to my mom's shop every week! I didn't realize until now because her hair is usually black and she has brown eyes. Contacts/dye, maybe? She's fluent in Japanese too (I've never heard her voice, though, since she usually uses a notepad and pen to communicate.)

►Deimos
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
She's the mute girl?! Fuck, man.

►goose boot (Banned)
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
of course shes a

*Mod: No offensive language.*

►Ryus
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
Not to agree with the literal Nazi, but are we sure she isn't connected to the ABB?

►Ekul
Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
she killed bakuda last week, i'd say that's proof otherwise

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 ... 47, 48, 49

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♦ Topic: New Cape in Brockton
In: Boards ► News ► America ► Capes ► Grenadier
Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Posted On Mar 31st 2011:
Here's what we know: Grenadier is an independent/vigilante/villain cape based in Brockton Bay. Her costume consists of a nondescript grey camo uniform, black tactical gear, and a gas mask. Notable features include long white hair, possibly natural. Power(s) is unconfirmed but speculated to be a Tinker/Blaster combination. Ratings as below:
Tinker: 5
Blaster: 8
Shaker: 10+
Mover: 2
Brute: 2
Thinker: 1
Stranger: 2
Trump: 4
Seen using a combination of guns, explosives, and white phosphorus incendiary devices. Known to kill gangers. PRT has capture on sight policy.

UPDATE 1: Ratings updated.

UPDATE 2: Add Skidmark to the kill list.

UPDATE 3: Add Bakuda to the kill list. Ratings updated.

UPDATE 4: Add Hookwolf, Crusader, Stormtiger, and Fenja to the kill list. Ratings updated. Grenadier is unmasked through this video, but her name and identity remains unconfirmed. Possible Stranger/Changer effect at hand.

(Showing page 85 of 107)

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 17th 2011:
Yo, is anyone else seeing this?! Link

►Antigone
Replied On Apr 17th 2011:
HOLY SHIT LOL

►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Apr 17th 2011:
It's... it's perfect.

►FuckHaters
Replied On Apr 17th 2011:
Even Void is speechless and I can't blame him.

EDIT: I'm seeing "Follow your leader" *everywhere* around Empire territory. Houses, bridges, corporate buildings, I just drove past Medhall and saw this giant mural on the remaining wall. It's beautiful. Also, is that another Shaker rating? No way she painted all this without a power.

►Aloha
Replied On Apr 17th 2011:
Yeah like, even ignoring everything else, that's a damn impressive painting.

►goose boot (Banned)
Replied On Apr 17th 2011:
[deleted]

►Antigone
Replied On Apr 17th 2011:
Follow your leader.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 83, 84, 85, 86, 87 ... 105, 106, 107

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Chapter Text

"So we had a stable connection with that world?"

Squall shook her head. "Not in the sense of the Three Earth system, no. We had the coordinates, but only Colonel Sölden had the authorization to use them. Besides," She glanced around, as if looking for something in particular. "We could be in a parallel universe, one that Tenshinokoe never visited."

"True. Think we should go find that group then?" SPR-5 racked her memory. "Griffin and Kryuger? They're a PMC, right?"

"Should be." Squall suddenly threw out a hand, stopping SPR-5. Another second passed before she quickly laid down on the ground, the other anti-materiel rifle following.

What is it? SPR-5 asked over the internal radio channel they had discovered a few minutes ago.

Incoming IFF tag, Squall replied. Not Sangvis, but not us, either.

Through the tall grass appeared a squad of four other T-Dolls - one with brown hair streaked green, one with blood red eyes and a red streak in her blonde hair, one strawberry blonde with blue eyes, and one with white-streaked brown hair and heterochromatic eyes. All carried AR-15 variants.

That's G&K. AR team, I believe, Squall confirmed.

Should we approach?

Negative. Observe for now.

<>

"I don't like this, M4."

The brown-eyed AR gave a subtle nod. "Me neither, SOP. The source is getting quieter as we get closer."

AR team - that is, four out of five of them - had been dispatched to scout out an anomalous signal originating near an old Sangvis Ferri outpost. Though most of the Ringleaders had defected with Elisa back during Operation Exigent Harvest, Dreamer had split off and eventually resurfaced with Paradeus. Though Tenshinokoe had left behind several examples of the signal-copying technology she had used, it was impossible to replicate and confusing to employ, so it was of little use against the new threat; as such, G&K were back to square one.

The signal burst didn't match Paradeus's usual signature, but it warranted action all the same. The problem was that it was deep in old Sangvis territory, which was still mostly abandoned. Architect had been put in charge of the operation, but of fear that Dreamer and other separatist Sangvis forces were still prowling around, she had elected to send in AR team instead - less susceptible to Sangvis EW tactics and more experienced against Paradeus and other Ringleaders.

RO-635 stopped, frowning. "The signal's nearly dead right here. But it was getting stronger ten minutes ago."

"Did we pass it?" ST AR-15 wondered.

RO shook her head. "Can't have. It was moving right at us even then. Must be some sort of jammer effect."

M4 SOPMOD opened her mouth to respond, but stopped partway. Her head snapped to the side. "Contact!"

All four Dolls threw themselves to the ground right as plasma bolts zipped overhead, right where they had been milliseconds earlier. Dozens of Vespers and several Dinergates descended out of the trees and into the clearing, peppering the area with fire. Another group of Vespers appeared from the opposite side, intending to box the four Dolls in. They returned fire, hitting several but failing to achieve accurate fire.

"Shit, where'd they come from?!"

"Don't know! The jamming must've hid them!"

The separatist Sangvis forces closed in slowly on both sides, until-

 KRA-BOOM!

Something near AR team - something very large - fired. A Dinergate lifted into the air and backwards, crashing through several Vespers before it practically disintegrated. Another series of explosions joined the first - THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! - and entire lanes of Vespers fell. Then, another KRA-BOOM! And a nearby Dinergate exploded, showering the area with flaming shrapnel.

The lethal process continued, the unseen assailant cycling between sky-shattering explosions and volleys of armor-piercing rounds, until nothing was left.

Sound off!

SOP, undamaged!

STAR, minor wound!

RO-635, undamaged!

M4A1, undamaged. Did anyone see what that was?

I don't know, but it was really close. Let's- whoa!

SOP got to her feet just as something else next to her did, and she quickly drew her namesake up. The sights landed on another Doll with a very striking appearance: pale grey skin, red eyes with black sclera, and faded, almost salmon pink hair. She cradled a massive rifle in her arms, the scope invoking the title of a honed marksman.

Before either of them could move further, another Doll stood up next to the pink-haired one. This Doll, also a sniper model judging by the equally large anti-materiel rifle, had dark purple hair and yellow eyes, and was dressed in a vaguely familiar gold-trimmed coat. Now to think of it, her rifle also looked-

RO-635 lowered her aim slightly. "WA2000?"

The unknown purple-haired Doll shook her head and looked unsurely at the other. The pink-haired Doll stared M4A1 dead in the eyes and said, "Path?"

AR team froze. Shakily, M4A1's finger curled around her rifle's trigger. "Where did you hear that name?!"

The pink-haired Doll ignored her and looked over to SOPMOD - "Sophie," - then ST AR-15 - "Star," - then RO-635, "Robella."

SOP put two-and-two together and nearly dropped her rifle. "You - only Tenshi knows those names! Where is she?! Who are you?!"

"Squall." The grey-skin Doll indicated to herself, then to the WA2000 lookalike. "SPR-5. She is safe, back in our universe."

After a few moments, M4A1 gave a nod, and AR team finally relaxed somewhat. "Are you one of her drawings?"

Squall and SPR-5 glanced at each other before SPR-5 shrugged. "Probably not? We remember being the guns, after all."

"Colonel Sölden's summons are self-aware of their existence as summons," Squall explained. "Additionally, sending us in her stead would be out of pattern. She would be more likely to go here herself if needed."

"Colonel Sölden?" RO-635 caught. "Wasn't she discharged?"

A resigned smirk on SPR-5's face was her answer. "So, about that…"

Chapter Text

Lullaby sometimes makes his life difficult.

King Janus IV first found the girl as a small heap of rags in the Bladed Forest, not shivering despite the torrential downpour and cold breath of the spring night. Two red pinpricks piercing through the darkness, shrouded in a veil of pale grey skin and black hair. His accompanying knights almost shot her until one of them recognized the vaguely human shape.

Today, he is still not completely sure that she is human, even past her appearance.

<>

Her first words to him come two weeks after she enters his life.

After a pathetically awkward first week - Janus and his queen are, after all, completely new to this "taking care of a child" thing - he has managed to establish that she at least understands him, but will not speak. Further questions and prodding brings nods, shakes of the head, or simply an emotionless stare. She does not move from her bedroom unless asked to, and Janus sometimes wonders if she even needs to eat.

It is on the fourth day of the second week that she speaks. Janus is showing her the castle gardens. They are rather small, inadequately spaced, and he has plans for moving them to a more spacious area - for now, however, the small courtyard will do. He talks about how every plant that catches his eye has a spot in the garden, no matter the amount of space or the growth restraints; if he likes it, the gardeners make it work.

He is about to move on when the surprisingly firm grip of the girl holds him back. He looks at her quizzically, and she asks, "Can I have a spot?"

The empty corner she is given is empty for only a day before it sprouts with bright red flowers he has never seen before, the same color as her eyes.

<>

There are questions, of course.

His wife and Queen, Oka, is initially terrified of her. Raised through the church, she calls Lullaby a number of things, ranging from demon to monster to an affront to the gods - not helped by the girl's almost inhuman demeanor. Janus considered it a near miracle when Oka calmed to a simmering disgust by the end of the month.

Oka first hears her voice when she passes by the gardens and catches wind of a voice, high and childish, singing a hauntingly beautiful song in a language she doesn't understand. Out of morbid curiosity, she enters and finds Lullaby sitting on a stone next to her red flowers, eyes closed and mouth weaving notes together in solo choir. Transfixed, Oka simply stands there until Lullaby finishes and her red eyes open once more.

They stare at each other for a long minute before the girl speaks. "Lullaby."

"Huh?"

"My name."

When she tells Janus about it that night, he nods. "It's a beautiful name."

<>

Lullaby grows incredibly quickly.

When she is first found, she needs a boosted chair to reach the dining table. A few months later, she no longer needs it. A few more months, and her feet are touching the floor.

An entire year passes. Lullaby has yet to move from the garden, now almost completely filled with the crimson flowers, as the other plants have been moved to a new courtyard. It is an almost haunting visage: entering an innocuously unmarked door to find a misshapen shadow amidst a swathe of blood red, only two pinpricks the color of a rising sun marking any sign of life. Janus tries to get her to move, but she seems content to stay there.

<>

A guard rushes into the hall one day, bringing urgent news: Lullaby is outside the castle, last spotted near a market street.

Hurriedly, an increasingly concerned King Janus IV takes a horse and sets off with several knights in the general direction. He searches for nearly an hour until he is alerted of her presence - in a local forgery.

A very bewildered blacksmith shows him in, revealing the grey-skinned girl hard at work, hammering and heating a long, thin piece of metal he slowly recognizes as a blade. He stands there for a full five minutes, simply transfixed. He knows only the bare minimum about forging, but even he can recognize the movements of a master at work - and judging by the poor blacksmith's expression, so can he.

He stands there long enough for the guards outside to become concerned and check in. He shoos them off, saying that it was all fine, to give them some time. Indeed, it takes more than an hour before Lullaby finishes, though the blacksmith later confides that no blade had ever been forged in such a short time, let alone fully fitted.

The resulting sword is straight and double-edged like a longsword, but the tip is flat rather than pointed. Most striking however are the engravings upon the sword, symbols and figures he cannot decipher. Lullaby runs a solitary finger over the blade spine, an expression so pronounced it looks eerie on her face. Is it… pain? Sorrow? Grief? Perhaps all at once.

She slides the blade cleanly into a black leather sheath and loops it around her back. Looking up, something almost like apprehension flicks across her face as she seems to see Janus there for the first time. The King attempts to say something, but doesn't know what he wants to say.

He doesn't need to. Lullaby looks at him one moment longer before she closes the distance and hugs him.

<>

Close to a year passes before she finally talks, really talks, with him. It happens late at night, right as he is about to head to his bedchamber when he notices her staring at the blade in her hands.

How many stars do you think it takes to make a prophecy?

He stops in his tracks at the voice in his mind. It has no direction, yet somehow he knows - he just knows that Lullaby said it. Her eyes bore into him like they always have, and like always, he flinches.

It takes all of them. Because of them, you'll ignore all but one: the first one you see.

And shakily, he finally brings himself to ask what has scared him from the moment he laid eyes on her: "What are you?"

She smiles, and it draws some sort of reaction from the depths of his mind - not just from how unexpected it is, but because of how broken she looks. In that moment, he doesn't see the almost adult holding a sword she forged with her own hands, but the little girl tucked under a tree.

Not much more than you are, in the end, dad. A small beat of hesitation. Can I call you that? Sorry.

He sits down next to her, and subtly, ever so subtly, she leans into his shoulder. He nods. "You can."

Thanks. I- Another pause, this one long.

…I have memories of someone I once was. Or maybe they're not memories, just hallucinations of a time before we met. I hope they aren't. I'd like to meet them, one day, or at least see how much they really mattered. But I don't think that was the point.

I left behind a world that didn't need nor want me in it. As much as I wanted to love the things I found it would bring me more things to hate. I fought everything and everyone. I fought for everything and nothing. I was born into war as a weapon, and I never saw the end of it. My first friends were other weapons, too. We tried so hard to be something else, and maybe we could've been in another life. But not that one. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong world.

A small noise draws Janus's attention, and he notes with a shock the tears silently running down Lullaby's face. Slowly, he loops an arm around her small form, and she leans in closer. She doesn't 'speak' for a long while.

I recreated myself. A new start. Somewhere new, someplace where I wasn't just a weapon. Someplace the world wasn't just the war and the war wasn't the whole world. I want there to be beginnings and ends. And yet- She looked back down at the sword in her hands. Here I am. Still holding on.

She falls asleep on his shoulder half an hour later.

<>

And yet, some pieces of his life become easier.

When the kingdoms convene every other month, King Janus IV is welcomed with smiles and hearty laughs matching his own jovial, gentle nature. Few mistake him for a threat, and they are right - he is not. He has a decent amount of land and no reason to have more, a small standing militia mostly made of knights and lords, and most of all the main citadel is tucked behind the Bladed Forest, a difficult terrain to navigate for both attackers and defenders. The rest of the kingdoms are content with letting him be, and he slowly faded into the background of most discussions.

He is no different this time around. Yet when the others turn his way, their smiles become fixed. The hands that he shake are now nervous, clammy; their eyes dart from his face to behind him. He ignores it, continuing as if nothing has changed.

But something has indeed changed. When the other monarchs look at him, the amusement is faster to leave their expressions. They speak a little quieter, a little softer. Their eyes don't stay on him when he makes a joke - they flicker to the wall behind him. And, he notices, just barely - they take him a little more seriously.

Rumors are one thing. But Lullaby's presence, a cloaked specter with two red eyes and a massive sword slung over her back, is more than proof. It is assurance. It is a warning. So he welcomes it, despite the consequences he knows will bite him back.

King Kortis, his longtime friend, takes him aside at the end of the meeting and speaks in hurried whispers. He speaks in accusations, but Janus understands that they are in worry and concern for his friend, not out of malice.

"Why did you even bring that… thing here?"

Janus shakes his head. "I didn't bring her anywhere. She's just…" He pauses, and Kortis hesitates, too. "…looking for somewhere better."

<>

Executioner.

The term feels guttural yet unreal in Janus's mouth.

Technically she is simply an officer in his castle guard, a high-ranking one at that. Crime is mostly policed by his lords, who also happen to supply his castle guard with manpower (mostly sons or other family members - some knights, some close to). They take titles like real knights, too, as if they are important. But they are valiant. Impressive.

Sitting on his throne, his eyes stray to Lullaby - no, not her, but the sword on her back. Blunted tip, etched with stories of the past. A ceremonial blade. It is not the typical axe - but does the difference matter?

He wonders about her words. Thinking of the girl born to be a weapon, to live life as a weapon, to die as a weapon. Recites the names she gives herself. He wonders a long time.

<>

When she trudges into the tent, bloodied and filthy all over, he doesn't comment. He knows. He gives the order to his lords, and they only hesitate for a second. They know, too.

Open war with King Indilo had once been a distant thought, but now it was reality. Janus has little to offer him in terms of conquest, but Indilo was a man of pride - too much pride. He never spoke candidly of it, but everyone knew - Lullaby's appearance had scared him.

The secret of man that nature cannot replicate is the fourth reaction to fear - not flight, fight, nor hiding. Negotiation. Fleeing total confrontation, hiding from the worst possibilities, yet still fighting against it. Indilo's pride did not allow him to choose above nature. So he chose to fight.

The first wave goes horribly - for Indilo. He marches his sizeable army several days through the Bladed Forest before he is met with Lullaby. What transpired within the forest next is unknown to everyone but her, but Janus watches her dig graves well into the night.

A week passes, and he tries again. Once again, Lullaby is there to greet them, and once again, another field fills with unmarked stones.

The girl moves over to stand next to Janus, her normally emotionless face tearing itself apart in sorrow, grief, guilt, and so many other emotions that he can't help but hug her lightly, ignoring the stains on his clothes. Because both times he's reminded of that conversation they had so recently yet so long ago.

I don't want to be a weapon.

And yet here she is.

<>

He understands, finally, years later, when his son and daughter are born. Twins. As he holds both crying babies in his arms, he does not think for a moment that there can be a happier moment in his life than this.

But then he turns to his side, and his breath nearly stops in his throat as he watches Lullaby's face shift in ways it has never before. The somberness and guilt she has always harbored but scarcely shown are still there - but they are almost wiped clean by an expression of pure and utter joy. When Janus asks if Lullaby wants to hold his children, her whisper of "I can?" almost breaks him again.

As she cradles two tiny lives in her arms, tears streaming down her face, he understands. It's not about being a weapon. It's about being a shield. Having something, someone, to fight for. Bringing the future she desperately hoped for to someone else, not just to herself.

<>

She doesn't age a day in almost forty years. While he lies there on his deathbed, she still stands like she did when she first entered his home, face nearly empty and sword slung across her back. But for a second, her eyes flick to his son, soft in his grief, and his daughter, her head buried in his shoulder. She smiles, and speaks to him one more time.

Don't worry, dad. I'll be there for them. And if not… there's always a third time.

He hopes, distantly, that she won't stop there.

Chapter Text

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♦ Topic: LEVIATHAN IN FULL RETREAT
In: Boards ► America ► Brockton Bay ► Leviathan
Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Posted On May 18th 2011:
Somewhat abridged summary because whatever just happened has Thinkers worldwide in shambles, and I can't blame them. What the hell.

In short: Leviathan makes landfall at the docks, capes start engaging. Shrugs off almost every attack, starts moving forward. Suddenly stops when this EXTREMELY loud metallic groaning sound comes from further inland. Seen looking upwards for a split second before it starts *moving backwards*. Takes one step before a GIANT ROBOT MECH FALLS OUT OF THE SKY and tackles Leviathan. Bigger than Leviathan, must've been 40-50 feet tall. Pummeled Leviathan several times, tanked multiple water echoes via a glowing blue energy shield and sheer armor. At one point pulled a giant sword(!) from the back and slashed Leviathan twice, completely severed one arm and the head. Regeneration visibly slowing. Leviathan retreated two minutes later. Giant mech stood there for ten minutes, as if making sure it was really gone, and then *flew away* via some sort of jetpack.

Here's a kicker: Witnesses reported the mech was *playing music* during the fight. As in, blaring it through unseen speakers. Song was recognized as originating from Pacific Rim - you know, the Earth Aleph movie about giant mechs pummeling alien lizards that have suspicious similarities to Endbringers, especially Leviathan? Yeah. Someone has a theme.

►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-banned)
Replied On May 18th 2011:
I GOT PHOTOS [Link] [Link] [Link]
THAT'S A FUCKING GUNDAM

►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On May 18th 2011:
For once Void is right. Holy shit. That thing came out of NOWHERE, body-slammed Leviathan like a football tackle. Stood up, held up its arms like it was going for a fistfight, and started PLAYING MUSIC. I saw Legend flying around trying to help support, but he looked like he didn't even know what to do. The giant mech was doing his job for him and doing it ten times better. Me and Vista just sat there watching the thing. Fucking surreal.

►Bruce Lao
Replied On May 18th 2011:
>Gundam
>Blaring the Pacific Rim theme
>Fighting a possibly Japanese lizard
The irony. But seriously, I was sheltering-in-place when that thing came roaring out of the clouds like a meteor. Leviathan didn't even get fully ashore before the mech hit it.

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On May 18th 2011:
Officially: All details concerning newly designated "Titan-1-Fencer" are classified. PRT will update soon.

Unofficially: Absolutely no one (at my level) was briefed on an orbital mech drop in advance, so I have to assume the PRT doesn't know either. Dragon and Armsmaster have independently confirmed that they know fuck-all about it as well. Thinktank is going haywire trying to figure out 1) who built it, 2) how did they hide it for so long, and 3) where the hell it came from because it didn't show up on PRT radars until 0.7 seconds before impact. Early consensus is Tinker-built, but that's because it's the most likely, not that it even is likely.

Observed features:
Armor: very heavy metal/composite armor protected by a blue energy shield. Withstood blows equivalent to small-scale tactical nukes.
Mobility: displayed extreme maneuverability for its size, more reminiscent of a biological construct than a mechanical one. Reportedly out-maneuvered Leviathan in close combat. Confirmed flight capabilities via liquid-fuel rocket boosters.
Weaponry: Limbs (arms and legs) able to punch and kick with extreme force, rocket-assisted. Demonstrated use of a large Tinkertech sword, speculated to have molecular-edge or vibro-blade properties.
Sensors: PRT sensors picked up radar emissions from the mech. We also got a lock on a persistent radio signal, likely an IFF of sorts. Dragon attempted to interface and was locked out.
Affiliation: Latin text on arms: "Terra" (Earth) on right, "Invicta" (Invincible) on left.

And yes: it was playing music. The main theme of Pacific Rim, composed by Ramin Djawadi and Tom Morello (yes, I looked it up.)

►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)
Replied On May 18th 2011:
Big mecha fan here. Titan-1-Fencer indeed looks a lot like the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam, but without the big head spike and painted all grey. Has a solid blade instead of a beam saber, and no visible ranged weapons. Moves a lot like an Evangelion/Transformer - unnaturally fast and maneuverable, almost humanlike. Squared up to Leviathan and put its hands together like that one Pacific Rim scene, right before the music started, text on the arms spelled out "TERRA INVICTA". Whoever you are - your taste is IMPECCABLE.

►Dragon (Verified Cape)
Replied On May 18th 2011:
The system architecture of the "mech" was astounding. Like having lived in a 2-dimensional world for most of your life and suddenly being exposed to a 3-dimensional one. I barely had a glimpse at the surface-level system before my connection was cut, but even that alone was enough. Whatever this was wasn't Tinkertech, or at least not just Tinkertech. Extraordinarily optimized system on top of this strange sort of... fluid? Like a digital liquid circuit, efficient beyond anything I've ever seen. It's difficult to rationalize to myself, let alone describe.

►L33t (Verified Cape)
Replied On May 18th 2011:
@Dragon Fluid? Like, a liquid-cooled system?

►Dragon (Verified Cape)
Replied On May 18th 2011:
@L33t no. Metaphorically. I didn't know how else to describe it. Didn't feel like binary code. I don't even think digital is the right description. Not analog, not binary, not even quantum... completely new computing system. Armsmaster has some theories, but that kind of technology hasn't even been theorized yet. Not even with Tinkertech.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On May 18th 2011:
@Dragon That sounds... utterly fucking bonkers. I only know the barest of computer science and even I know non-Tinkertech quantum computing is still at least half a century away. What the hell is even BEYOND quantum?!

■

♦ Topic: Brockton Bay Post-Leviathan Relief Thread (2011)
In: Boards ► America ► Brockton Bay ► Leviathan
Reave (Original Poster) (Verified PRT Agent)
Posted On May 19th 2011:
Cleanup of Brockton Bay in progress.
Donation link [here].
(Cape) Volunteer sign-up [here]. Non-parahumans are welcome without permission.
Any organization with power equipment (power tools, excavators, etc.) direct to [here].
Missing persons list [here]. Live update. PM (with sufficient evidence) to update list.

►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-banned)
Replied On May 19th 2011:
So I was down at Fugly's clearing some rubble (hey, I live here too) when I saw her. GRENADIER. UNMASKED! LOOK LOOK [link] [link] [link] [link]

►Reave (Original Poster) (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On May 19th 2011:
Stay calm. PRT en route. Do NOT approach.

►Miraclemic
Replied On May 19th 2011:
Honestly, can we... not? She's helping. Hell, she's helping more than most. I saw her picking up crates and large pieces of rubble like they were nothing. Popped in-and-out of the medical tent by the Docks, too. Didn't see directly, but heard she was distributing out bandages and painkillers that she pulled from nowhere. What she is or the fact that she's killed gangers doesn't seem to matter at this point. She's making things better. I say let her.

►Glory_Girl (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
Replied On May 19th 2011:
Yo, I think we finally have an idea of how her power works.

I was checking in on Ames in the medical tent. She looked swamped. In comes Grenadier. Whole tent seems to freeze, and honestly, I can't blame them. But then she reaches to her belt and... pulls out a notepad. Flips to a specific page and waves her hand over it. A CRATE OF BANDAGES suddenly just appear on the ground. Flips to another page, quickly scribbles (sketches?) on it for five seconds. Another crate, this time painkillers, IV bags, and blood(!) pouches. I got a glimpse - she was drawing on the notepad. Her power is *summoning drawings.*

►FuckHaters
Replied On May 19th 2011:
Wait, so - those were all projections? The weapons, the chemical shit, that giant mecha-rhino she sicced on Lung? She's a MASTER CAPE?!

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On May 19th 2011:
Holy shit that makes so much sense. She's not a Tinker, at least not directly, because she's not Tinkering anything. She can just... make it. She doesn't have a specialty because art isn't restrictive like Tinker specialties are. She doesn't need a Tinker lair or anything because she doesn't need funds or materials or space to build stuff. Just a pen, a notepad, and an idea.

►Para_Fine23
Replied On May 19th 2011:
Paramedic here. Grenadier couldn't have come at a better time. Stayed around too. Definitely has paramedic/corpsman training - knows how to use needles, administer IV drips, etc. Didn't speak a lick, communicated with pencil+paper. At one point had to comfort a distressed child (parents were MIA). Pulled out notepad, drew something on it, and bam, kid distracted by a cloud of butterflies. Butterflies disappeared ~30 seconds after she left. Nice kid.

►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-banned)
Replied On May 19th 2011:
WAIT - WHAT IF SHE'S THE BIG MECH PILOT?! IT WOULD MAKE SENSE! SHE PROBABLY DREW IT AND THEN SUMMONED IT!

►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
Replied On May 19th 2011:
@XxVoid_CowboyxX 24-hour ban for excessive speculation and topic derailment. Discussion about capes is allowed, however further power speculation is recommended to be taken to Grenadier's dedicated thread [link].

►Loyal
Replied On May 19th 2011:
Swung by my mother's shop - helped tidy it up with some sort of telekinesis. She was wearing these silver bracelets on each arm that I've never seen before. They disappeared when she was finished. I think she made/summoned them. Mom tried to pay her, but she refused. Whispered(!!!) to her in Japanese: "Keep it. For you. And your son."

Grenadier? Thank you. If we ever get back in business again - you're welcome back anytime.

■

♦ Topic: Revised Grenadier Ratings
In: Boards ► News ► America ► Capes ► Grenadier
Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Posted On May 20th 2011:
More comprehensive information about Grenadier's powers are now available after Leviathan hit Brockton Bay. Revised (drafted) PRT ratings are as follows:
Master: 10+ (Can summon drawings. Limited only by creativity - both inanimate and living objects observed. Largest constructs include military inflatable boat and 25-ton bucket excavator.)
Blaster: 8 (Known use of guns, explosives, and chemical weapons, likely drawing projections.)
Tinker: 7 (Summoned drawings can replicate Tinkertech-like properties. Examples include hyper-advanced robotics and bracelets that project telekinetic fields.)
Mover: 3 (Above-action speed, stamina, and incredible reaction times.)
Brute: 3 (Higher-than-average strength. Can lift low hundreds of pounds somewhat easily.)
Thinker: 3 (Fast reaction times. Observed sharp senses. Skilled artist, correlating with summoning power.)
Stranger: 4 (Confirmed limited shapeshifting power via a power-granting armband.)
Trump: 4 (Able to nullify power effects via custom-made summons.)

►Deimos
Replied On May 20th 2011:
Maybe she's mute BECAUSE of her power? Think about it - can't speak, so her language is art.

►AngelsVoice (Unverified Cape)
Replied On May 20th 2011:
@Deimos Unrelated.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On May 20th 2011:
Wait - "AngelsVoice?" Are YOU Grenadier?!

►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
Replied On May 20th 2011:
Temporarily locking this thread. Cape impersonation may result in a temp-ban until proof is provided.
EDIT: @AngelsVoice verified. WARNING: PRT has labeled Brockton Bay independent Grenadier as S-Class Provisionary Threat. Endbringer Truce still holds. Interact at your own risk. Thread unlocked.

►Deimos
Replied On May 20th 2011:
Oh fuck.

►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-banned)
Replied On May 20th 2011:
LOOK AT HER ACCOUNT HISTORY. ANGELSVOICE MOSTLY LURKED IN ART AND MILITARY CHANNELS FROM EARLY THIS YEAR, RIGHT AROUND WHEN GRENADIER STARTED APPEARING. IT'S CONFIRMED.

►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
Replied On May 20th 2011:
Sigh. @XxVoid_CowboyxX banned for 72 hours for circumventing previous ban and excessive capitalization.

►Loyal
Replied On May 20th 2011:
Oh. Um.
You know what? Fuck it. Why are you (mostly) mute? What's the story behind that? What's your goal here?

►AngelsVoice (Verified Cape)
Replied On May 20th 2011:
@Loyal I have nothing to say to a world that does not listen.
I want to live. Apparently, not everyone else agrees.
Tell your mother: the onigiri was good. Reminds me of Iwakuni.

►Loyal
Replied On May 20th 2011:
...I think she'll cry if I tell her that.

■

Chapter Text

"Our Fathers, who art upon Earth; walk once more through the mud. Your hands be still, your eyes be ready; see which you have seen ten thousand times before."

"Let the kingdom of your Heaven shine through the beacons of your minds - be at rest yet in motion, entrenched yet advanced."

"Be not quiet. Be loud. Give to the horizon what it gives to you daily. Should the hate of Heaven and Earth find you, return it ten thousand fold! Be indignant in your reply."

"Fear no evil shall find you. Find the evil yourself. Hold it by the throat at the end of your hand, the hand that sweeps at the sky. Grasp and heave, and find the blue at your mercy."

"Fathers, Mothers, Brothers and Sisters, Sons and Daughters of the God we tread on: be not unsure of where you are nor when you live, alive. Stand here and stand today! Your God stands forward, not behind; be with it! God help you; your hands help your God! FALL OUT!"

-Seventh Pathfinder, 2158

Chapter Text

The first taste of combat was accidental.

Fairy had been assisting in an anti-submarine exercise with other destroyers - using her moonpool to launch and recover practice decoys  - when her head snapped to the horizon out west. "Fairy to Actual requesting exercise halt. Surface and aerial movement detected, one hundred kilometers bearing zero-three-five from north, over."

There was a small pause before the base CIC responded. "Uh, Actual to Fairy, confirm contacts? Over."

"Fairy to Actual, affirmative, intermittent radar contacts bearing zero-three-five, ninety-nine kilometers and closing. Signature matches Abyssal warships and aircraft. Requesting permission to engage. Over."

At this point, the other ships in the exercise had also stopped and were listening in - Fubuki amongst them. "What's going on?"

There was a small shuffle on the other end before the voice was replaced by a different one. "Fairy, this is Admiral Goto. Can you read the composition of the incoming fleet?"

"Roger, sir. Tally five Ru-class, five Ta-class, two Re-class, four Wo-class, seven Nu-class, six Ri-class, five He-class, five To-class, twenty I-class, ten Na-class, ten Wa-class, fifteen submerged So-class. Incoming six hundred thirty-eight aerial contacts. Over."

Dead silence, on both the base's end and Fairy's, as the surrounding ships stopped dead in their wakes.

"…Fairy, confirm?"

"Confirm incoming Abyssal fleet numbering ninety-four surface contacts and six hundred thirty-eight aerial contacts, bearing zero-three-five. Over."

A sharp inhale. "We don't have the resources to fight that off. Return to base, immediately."

Fairy did not respond. She kept her passive, unearthly stare straight into the horizon, directly where the incoming Abyssal fleet was coming from. The radio repeated, "Fairy? RTB, now."

Fubuki's worried gaze only marred deeper when Fairy cut the radio connection. "Uh, Miss Fairy?"

"Hm?"

"We're going to retreat, right…?"

As if finally seeing them for the first time, Fairy turned to the other shipgirls. She stared at them unnervingly for a long moment - long enough that even Kongou looked nervous - before speaking. "Fubuki, Inazuma, Ayanami, Minegumo, form protective screen pattern Delta on Kongou. Sail at twenty knots bearing three hundred from north."

There was a small pause before Ayanami timidly spoke up. "W-wait! What about you?"

Fairy turned. "I will engage directly. Do not follow. In the event that you do-" Ayanami flinched, wondering if the battlecruiser had read her mind, "-stand clear ten kilometers. Hurry. Abyssal fleet ninety-five kilometers and closing."

"Now hold on-"

Kongou could barely get three words in before Fairy did what many were calling a "tactical launch" (because really, what else could you call it?) - she leapt over six feet into the air and came crashing down with a large splash, already steaming at 38 knots. She was gone before Inazuma could exclaim a startled, "Nanodesu?!"

There was a long period of silence as the five ships watched Fairy's retreating form before Minegumo muttered, "I think we should follow what she said…"

<>

"Princess?"

Hoppou  tiredly raised her head to meet Rella's eyes. "Rella… are we close…?"

But a shake of the head only confirmed her worst fears. "There's a fleet nearby. It's sailing parallel, going northwest. Four destroyers, one battleship."

Hoppou looked around her. On the surface, ninety-four ships seemed like a lot - except for the fact that it was all she had left. The New Southern Battleship and Anchorage Princesses had decimated the rest of her fleet and left most of the remaining wounded and limping. Airfield Princess and Harbor Princess had bought time for her to escape, but…

Tears slipped through her pale visage, before she aggressively batted them away. No! Rekku and Wanko are strong! They… they can't have! "We can't turn around, but… Japan is right in front of us…"

"The humans will sink us without question," Tasha muttered from Hoppou's left side. "We must divert course."

"Saina and Amira have already sunken us," Wokiyu argued from behind them. "What choice do we have?"

"None," Hoppou answered. "We're outnumbered… injured… slow… in enemy waters."

Silence fell as she and the other command ships fully grasped the situation. Rella, however, had her attention pulled away by her radar. "Strange…"

"Rella?"

"That fleet - it's not getting closer. It's staying course, even though we're clearly in detection range."

"Maybe it's retreating?" Russa proposed. "This is a large fleet…"

Wokiyu's expression darkened as she raised an arm. "They will relay that information. We must sink them before others learn."

Rella suddenly flinched, eyes wide. "Behind us," she whispered.

Hoppou turned and let out a shriek, which turned into screams when others did the same. Sailing not even three hundred meters behind them was a Kanmusu - one they had never seen before. The tall stance dignified her signature as a flagship; five main gun turrets denoted battleship-grade weaponry, whilst the speed and lack of strain hinted at fast battleship or battlecruiser power. Her long black-white hair floated behind her ethereally - as if moving in a slow breeze, not whipping around in the storm. And her eyes: one a dull yellow-green, the other glowing red on black sclera. It would have been easy to mistake her for an Abyssal were it not for her fair skin.

Yet most worrying were the finer details that became apparent as she slowly came slower, just barely outrunning the panicking Abyssal fleet. A modern, almost futuristic-looking radar mast. Angularly shaped turrets. Missile tubes. The humans had done the impossible: somehow, they had summoned a modern Kanmusu - or maybe even beyond modern.

Shaking, Hoppou hid behind Tasha, who formed up with her other Ta-class sisters defensively as the fleet ground to a halt. "How… how did she… get so close…?"

Rella clenched her fists as she brought her main guns to bear. "She's not registering on my radar, but she's emitting an Abyssal radio signature. But that rigging… the mark of a Traitor."

Russa also raised her rigging, though her shaking hands and watery eyes betrayed her fear. "Princess, what do we do?"

Hoppou's mind raced as she tried to piece together where exactly everything went wrong and how it could be fixed. Two hostile Princesses. A human fleet directly in front. A Kanmusu within small arms range. Trapped between three rocks and the fathomless deep below them. Hoppou wept - not just for herself, but for her fleet, and the ones who gave themselves in vain. Wanko… Rekku… I'm sorry…

"Princess? Hoppou?" A hand on her shoulder shook the Abyssal Installation to her senses. "She… stopped."

Hoppou looked up at Tasha, then over to the unknown Kanmusu. She had stopped - hair still floating in an invisible wind, rigging fully deployed, but completely stationary, one hundred meters from the Abyssal fleet. Her face had become clear with the reduced distance: while most Kanmusu reacted to Abyssals with rage, fear, or a combination of the two, this one looked passive, almost… sad? Conflicted? Or was it simply an emotionless gaze disguised by the rain?

Hoppou didn't know. But the Kanmusu hadn't moved. For the next almost minute, a single ship stared down a fleet ninety-four strong.

But curiosity, soon enough, triumphed over fear. Hoppou slowly detached herself from Tasha's reassuring frame, taking cautious steps toward the Kanmusu as one would approach an armed atomic bomb. Tasha's grip squeezed almost painfully before she slowly let go, as if afraid to do so.

Five steps. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Hoppou's biomechanical heart pounded in her chest, screaming in coal-fire smoke and churning oil. The Kanmusu did not move - but her eyes, both of them, locked onto the Abyssal Installation.

Seventy-five. One hundred. One hundred twenty-five. One hundred fifty.

Two hundred. Hoppou stared up at the Kanmusu not three feet away. The angular lines of her hull had become apparent: five main battery guns, eight secondary guns, six torpedo tubes, missile racks, and a massive radome. She spoke - not in the language heard, but the one seen and felt. You cannot see me. You cannot touch me. I have weapons you can only dream of. There is no running nor hiding. Here I am.

At last the Kanmusu moved. One step - slow, measured, purposeful. Hoppou did not move. She couldn't. She wouldn't. If death was her fate, it was time to stop running.

She didn't die. Yet what the Kanmusu did next changed the fate of her species forever.

Another step. And then - she knelt. Not in servitude; like a concerned parent checking on their child.

"What's your name?"

Hoppou simply stared in shock as the Kanmusu's face shifted. What was once the blank gaze of a distant foe was now the concerned, almost guilty face of a flagship tending to an escort. Even her voice reminded Hoppou of Wanko.

"I'm… Hoppou," she answered hesitantly.

A slow nod. "I am Fairy," the Kanmusu revealed softly - an unfamiliar name. Her eyes shifted, and she reached out to Hoppou's arm - the injured one. "Who are you running from?"

Hoppou let Fairy touch her arm, stifling a gasp from the tender contact. "Saina… and Amira…"

Fairy looked at the injury for a second more before she ruffled Hoppou's hair - just like Rekku used to - and stood, head now turned to the side. "Contacts bearing zero-six-seven from north, identified New Southern Battleship Princess and Anchorage Princess. Thirty kilometers and closing."

"That's them," Hoppou whispered fearfully.

The horizon flickered black as the storm only intensified, waves lashing at Fairy's hull. She stared into the distance a moment longer before she turned to face the Northern Princess once more. "Hoppou. Your fleet. How many combat-ready?"

<>

Saina and Amira are the first to die.

The strike comes out of nowhere. One moment, the stormy seas are splitting against the Abyssal bows of an aviation battleship and a fast battleship at twenty-five knots, united in their motive to kill. The next, they have been… displaced.

Two hypersonic darts of tungsten-uranium alloy lance through the Abyssal fleet, annihilating the two flagships and anything else unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. The formation falls apart almost instantly, but not enough to avoid three more slamming into the fleet's own nine Wo-class carriers. A high-velocity barrage of smaller, still deadly shells decimate the destroyer vanguard. The remaining cruisers fan out only to meet walls upon walls of torpedoes accompanied by horridly accurate battleship-caliber salvos. Abyssal fighters find themselves engaged both with other Abyssal fighters, well-timed flak, and missiles. The submarines submerge and are hunted by torpedoes they cannot evade.

The last to die is a singular I-class destroyer, burning and limping amongst the wrecks of her fleet. She lifts her head to the horizon for the last time, just long enough to glimpse a bloodstain of red against the fog in the boiling sea. Then a flash - then nothing.

<>

Chapter Text

■

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■

♦ Topic: GRENADIER UNMASKED - MEDHALL IS EMPIRE
In: Boards ► News ► America ► Capes ► Grenadier
Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Posted On Apr 7th 2011:
Alright. What the hell.
At 02:47 AM last night, the Medhall building was struck by what appeared to be a CRUISE MISSILE that detonated in a cloud of white phosphorus. Gunfire was heard in the wake of the explosion. PRT moved in twenty minutes after and found:
1. Max Anders, unconscious and heavily wounded (burns from melted metal and white phosphorus).
2. Black body bags containing the remains of Crusader and Stormtiger (gunshot wounds).
3. A wooden crate containing partially melted metal blades confirmed as the remains of Hookwolf (core was exposed by an incendiary agent, then impaled).
4. Another shipping container with the remains of a half-grown Fenja (struck by an explosive).
Max Anders is in medical custody, critical and stable.
Then, at 04:47 AM, exactly two hours after the event, this video [LINK] was anonymously uploaded to Empire 88 forums. Details as follows:
1. Kaiser, standing next to a tied-down Grenadier on a chair, monologuing.
2. Kaiser ripping off Grenadier's gas mask. She looks young, 15-16, with Asian-European features and yellow-green eyes, Looks pissed. Civilian identity still unconfirmed.
3. Kaiser steps away and asks if the "blood traitor" has any last words. Grenadier replies with a two-minute rant in FLUENT, NATIVE-LEVEL GERMAN. She proceeds to break out of her binds (Brute rating confirmed?) and pull a grenade from thin air. Video feed cuts.
Grenadier's words translated as follows (Kurpfälzisch dialect): "More than anything in this world I want to hate you. I would hate you in the tangible and in the unreality; I would curse your name, tear your limbs from your body, sharpen your ribs into knives and eat your brain with the cutlery. If you even have one left rattling around in that little porcelain vase. And yet all I can do is pity you. I pity you because you do not know why you are even here. You hate because it makes others like you. You hate because it is easier to hate. You are not even here to hate, just to sit there on your tin throne and gloat. If you were Jewish, you would be a Zionist. If you were Muslim, you would be a jihadist. If we were in the south, you would be in the Ku Klux Klan. If you were Chinese you would hate Koreans, if you were Korean you would hate the Japanese, and if you were Japanese you would hate everyone. Lung in point. Lung is a sleaze, a criminal, an icon of greed. Yet he does not need to hate to keep his power. That is why I can only pity you, Anders; you do not even know why you are here. Because of all the hate you have given, you will never understand any of it."
Max Anders is (presumably) mentioned in the video. Eye direction in the video suggests she was looking past the camera, at someone off-screen. No official word from PRT, but... is Max Anders Kaiser?!

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
Max Anders being Kaiser would... explain a lot. Isn't the local PRT branch sponsored by them? They probably have the BBPD on their payroll, too. And half the city. Fuck. It's Nazi money, but... still money.

►Bruce Lao
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
Medhall stocks are PLUMMETING. Just lost something like $500's worth. Imagine getting your entire operation annihilated because some half-German girl who looks like an Aryan wet dream calls you out in your civilian identity while speaking better German than you.

►bothad
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
I strongly hesistate to call Grenadier "some half-German girl". She sniped fucking Bakuda from two miles away, through bulletproof glass.

►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-banned)
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
HOLY SHIT SHE'S HOT! ALSO

►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
@XxVoid_CowboyxX Sigh. Temp-ban for 24 hours for derailment and harassment of minors.

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
Oh. Oh fuck wait. I recognize her.

►Lolitup
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
@Loyal Wait, WHAT?! SPILL!

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
Obviously I'm not gonna go into detail for her (and my) own privacy, but I'll just say that she usually doesn't look like that. I've seen her (or a person that looks a LOT like her, who knows) with black hair and brown eyes. I don't think it's dye or contacts. Changer/Breaker effect? I don't know her name, for anyone stupid enough to ask. Never seen her before January this year.

►Acree
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
Okay, but real questions: how the hell did she kill Hookwolf, Fenja, Crusader, AND Stormtiger???

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
@Acree Unofficial statement (don't worry Piggot, this is unclassified): Hookwolf's blades were burned down with some sort of chemical agent. We believe Fenja was hit by a grenade or rocket. Stormtiger and Crusader both have multiple gunshot wounds from rifle-caliber bullets.

►Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
Adding onto that - I got a leak (sources unconfirmed, so might be bogus) that Fenja got hit with an anti-tank rocket. Grenadier blew her up with a fucking RPG.

►Lolitup
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
honestly? tracks. she nearly offed lung with a double-barrel shotgun like it was doom or something

►Antigone
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
okay, but how do you just... shoot CRUSADER? he's intangible!

►bothad
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
It's Grenadier. Theory: she's some sort of Trump 10 that can just ignore powers. No bullshit. Only bullet.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
Okay. Now explain the CRUISE MISSILE.

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
Counterpoint: It's Grenadier.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
No, no, this is not Grenadier. Grenadier uses small arms, sometimes handheld explosives, and a lot of white phosphorus via grenades. She is not fucking Raytheon.

►bothad
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
I don't see any evidence to the contrary.

►Bruce Lao
Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
Theory: Grenadier is sponsored by Lockheed Martin.

■

♦ Topic: New Cape in Brockton Bay - Grenadier
In: Boards ► News ► America ► Capes
Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Posted On Apr 4th 2011:
Here's what we know:
Grenadier (PRT official designation) is an independent vigilante/rogue/villain based in Brockton Bay. She appears as a woman roughly 20-30 years old with long white hair; costume consists of a grey camo uniform, black tactical gear, and a black WWI-era gas mask with mirrored lenses. Observed mute; general personality unknown due to minimal interactions; communicates via notes and sketches. Power(s) is unconfirmed but speculated to be a grab-bag combination of Thinker/Trump. Ratings as below:
Mover: 1 (observed sprinting at 20 mph)
Shaker: 8 (for observed use of white phosphorus explosives, not power)
Brute: 0 (observed easily moving rubble 80 pounds in weight)
Blaster: 6 (extremely precise shooter; observed sniping moving targets at 1.7-mile range)
Thinker: 5+ (presumed combat Thinker; consistently outmaneuvers Movers and PRT squads; shown knowledge of gang movements the PRT doesn't have)
Trump: 7+ (breaks Thinker models. Able to injure capes through power-related defenses, such as Skidmark's forcefield and Armsmaster's armor)
Stranger: 5+ (ambushes, then escapes untraceably)
Breaker: 0+ (white hair, confirmed as non-Case 53)
Uses a combination of guns, military-grade explosives, and a LOT of white phosphorus. ONLY TARGETS VILLAINS/GANGERS - nonlethal force used when defending against heroes/PRT, seen actively protecting civilians. Has critically injured multiple villains and has (as of March 9, 2011) killed Skidmark (frag grenade) and Bakuda (anti-materiel rifle).
UPDATE 3/25/2011: Add Hookwolf (tree trunk impalement), Fenja (anti-tank rocket), Stormtiger (rifle), and Crusader (rifle) to the kill list. Age now speculated to be 16 years old. Unmasked appearance known, but civilian identity unconfirmed.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Yo, is anyone else seeing this?! [LINK]

►Ne
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
I was about to ask why this is in the Grenadier thread when I saw her signature. "Grenadier" in English, Japanese, and German? Over a mural of Hitler doming himself with a Walther, with "FOLLOW YOUR LEADER" overlaid on top?! Look, I don't like capes playing executioner any much more than the next guy, but you have to admit this girl has taste. And good art skills.

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Can confirm the good art skills, is all I'll say. Like, professional level.

►Antigone
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Okay, but how did she paint a mural on every goddamn house in Empire territory, including Medhall in one night without being heard? Shaker/Stranger update?

►Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Leaks suggest PRT is seething because their Thinkers are now throwing all sorts of things at the wall. Did she second trigger in Medhall's basement? Or was she actually unpowered the whole time (probably impossible, but very funny if true) and only happened to trigger yesterday? Is her power actually art-based? Those murals aren't projections - they're actual paint, confirmed as a mix sold from a hardware store downtown. Does she have a Mover teammate that "distributed" the paintings?

►Bruce Lao
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Grenadier with a teammate. Now she's scary.

►Acree
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Like she wasn't already??? dude, she killed Skidmark with a basic ass grenade. Then sniped Bakuda, who was downtown, from the DOCKS. then wiped out HALF of the Empire's capes, and exposed Kaiser as Max Anders, in one night. I swear the only reason why the PRT hasn't put a kill order on her yet is that she's only targeting villains. Or, you know. The fact that she fucking 1v5'd an ENTIRE WARDS TEAM.

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
@Acree Official statement: placing a kill order on a cape requires several weeks of conference and careful consideration, including unilateral agreement. The cape known as Grenadier has not escalated as an existential threat to meet this point.
Unofficial statement: As much as Piggot hates it, public sentiment would riot if we put a kill order on the cape that killed Bakuda and gutted the Empire. Also, it wasn't really "1v5ing" as much as it was "covering a whole block with white phosphorus".

►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-banned)
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
It's... it's beautiful.

►bothad
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
VOID COWBOY. SPEECHLESS. IT'S OVER, BOYS. ALL HAIL GRENADIER

►Deimos
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
I get that the gangs aren't exactly helping Brockton be a better place. But killing them indiscriminately isn't the right way to get rid of them. My friend's brother burned to death while Grenadier was fighting Lung. I know a family whose son was gunned down when she ambushed Krieg and Stormtiger back in March. She's not a savior like you guys are making her out to be. Just another cape playing the game where the only losers are normal people like us.

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
@Deimos The shop my family runs used to get hassled weekly for "protection money" by the ABB. One of their enforcers threatened to rape my mother once. After Grenadier killed Bakuda and put Lung in a bed for three days? No sign of them. I'm sorry for your friend and that family you know. But maybe they lost their loved one the moment they joined a gang, not when Grenadier did what she did.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
@Loyal Well said. The PRT has had years to find better ways to deal with the gangs here. Killing isn't the best solution, but Grenadier has a cleaner record than Legend in terms of non-combatant casualties. She's not right - but she's getting RESULTS. That matters.

►Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Not to directly agree with any opinions here, but ABB and E88 recruitment are both experiencing record lows in recruitment. The Empire might not even last through the summer if they don't undergo some heavy restructuring. The Merchants have been scattered ever since Skidmark was killed. Aside from the "Follow Your Leader" murals, Grenadier hasn't made any distinct claims on territory. Leaked PRT profiles on her suggest that her sole directive is removing the gangs - no power plays, no territory grabs. She's not operating under typical parahuman strategies - that's why Thinkers have such a hard time predicting her.

►Anon_Actual
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Throwaway account. I'm USMC, based on the west coast. Rumors are high brass are salivating over this woman because they saw footage of her clearing a room full of Empire goons better and faster than most of our spec ops teams can. Some of the snipers have been losing their shit over the Bakuda shot for weeks. She's not just a cape - she's military. Trained. "Not operating under typical parahuman strategies" - it's because her mission is to wipe out the gangs, and nothing else. Bonus points that she's managed to avoid collateral (which makes no sense given that her main weapon is white fucking phosphorus, but that's cape bullshit for you.)

►Aloha
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
@Anon_Actual So we're just... collateral to her? And all those people are targets? I hate Nazis as much as the rest of you guys, but I am firmly in the "extrajudicial killing is bad" camp. She could do a lot better in the Wards.

►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
@Anon_Actual (off-record, sorry Piggot) That definitely tracks. Most villains/independents stick around after the fighting is over. Her? Gone by the time we arrive. She doesn't even check bodies - just leaves. With just enough time to get away before we realize what's going on. It's like she knows exactly where we are. (She definitely does. She outmaneuvered Armsmaster's sonar in a WP cloud. HOW.)
@Aloha I'm not even sure the Wards are an option for her at this point. She's killed too many people, but at the same time she's too strong. If she ever does cut a deal with the Protectorate, it won't be at my level.

►Specific_Protagonist
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Damn right. Hookwolf had a body count in the dozens. Kaiser probably has more, both directly and indirectly (through Medhall schemes). Bakuda put bombs in peoples' heads and would've leveled half the city. Skidmark had kids as drug mules. Fuck them.

►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
Locking thread temporarily for derailment and potentially inflammatory speech. Go outside and take a breath. Thread unlocks in 1 hour.

►Feychick
Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
My family in Germany just told me that Grenadier's rant is going viral over there. They're calling it the "Lob der Hass" (Eulogy of Hate). Phrases of it are being used in online arguments against Gesellschaft apologists. Grenadier's Kurpfälzisch accent is being investigated; either she had a teacher from that region, or (more likely) she lived there for an extended period.

■

♦ Topic: Guys. Grenadier saved me.
In: Boards ► Personal ► America ► Brockton Bay

Posted On Apr 11th 2011:
I'm pretty sure I already got doxed, so it won't matter at this point.
My family (me, father, mother) run a Japanese snack/boba tea shop in ABB territory (former territory? We haven't seen ABB around ever since Bakuda). Grenadier (in "civilian" look - unmasked, black hair, brown eyes) comes around once a week to order boba tea. Sometimes sketches small things on napkins that my mother keeps in a drawer.
We were cleaning up and about to close yesterday when five masked Empire thugs busted into the shop. Held my parents on the ground and threatened me at gunpoint to tell them everything about "the white-haired mongrel". Thought I was done for.
Three gunshots. Our front store windows broke. Three of the Empire gangers slumped, dead. The other two ran. I sat there for about thirty seconds in shock before I saw GRENADIER WALKING INTO THE SHOP. Grey camo uniform, gas mask, rifle (still fucking smoking).
She just... looked over us. At the three dead Empire thugs. Then at me. I've seen her unmasked, but when you look at that gas mask with mirrored lenses, you don't see a girl. I get why everyone is so scared of her - she looks inhuman in costume.
PRT arrived ten minutes later. Grenadier was gone by then, but she left this. [LINK] [photo of a small sparrow perched on Loyal's hand. Caption: "She left a note saying, 'I won't always be around, but don't worry. Hayai is stronger than he looks.'"]
Did... did she just give me a para-bird?

►Acree
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Hold up. WHAT.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
CONFIRMED. PRT came by and scanned Loyal's bird ("Hayai") yesterday after Grenadier defended the shop. Completely biological readings - flesh and bone, no anomalies. They thought it was a normal bird until it BROKE THE SOUND BARRIER to catch a fly. Classed as Mover 4/Trump 1 (Master projection). I REPEAT: GRENADIER IS A MASTER CAPE.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.

►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-banned)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
MASTER CAPE MASTER CAPE NILBOG NILBOG

►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
THREAD LOCKED. Mass hysteria is unproductive. PRT threat assessment pending. @Loyal has been cleared of Master/Stranger effects via PRT facilities. Recommended minimal contact with the projection "Hayai". Do NOT assume Grenadier will treat you similarly - her connection with @Loyal's family appears personal. Further comparisons to Nilbog or other S-class threats (including Endbringers) will result in bans. This is a localized projection with no signs of replication or aggression (if unprovoked).

►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
THREAD UNLOCKED. Keep discussion civil and on-topic.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Focus, people! @Loyal - how? Just... how?!

►Bruce Lao
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
My portfolio is burning, but I gotta know too. HOW THE FUCK.

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Okay, Grenadier just gave me permission (via Hayai dropping a note in my lap) to share: it's her drawings. She sketches something, does something, and it just... exists. That note she gave me yesterday? Hayai was sketched on it. I looked away for a second, and when I looked back, Hayai was just... there. On the paper. The drawing was gone.
I've seen her do it with other things - pencils, butterflies, flowers. Her "summoned" drawings have "memory" - she once drew a scrambled Rubik's cube, solved it, and "unsummoned" it. It reappeared on the paper as solved. There are some other sketches I've seen in her notebook but haven't seen her summon - laptops, other sketchbooks, PEOPLE (maybe just character studies? I recognized some anime fanart). Also, she keeps a separate sketchbook on her at all times - thick cover, color-coded tabs. She's never opened it near me. I think it's for cape shit.
Also. I think she's watching this thread. So, uh. Hi?

►Antigone
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
So it IS art-based. But still. WHAT THE HELL. So... the guns? The white phosphorus? The goddamn cruise missile? All DRAWINGS?!

►Acree
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
And it's not just regular objects or animals, either. Hayai looks like a normal sparrow, until he goes supersonic. The bullet that shot Crusader must've bypassed his intangibility in some way. Trump 7? Try Trump 10.

►bothad
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
I KNEW SHE WAS BROKEN AS SHIT. No one solos the ENTIRE EMPIRE in one night, kills four of them, incapacitates the leader, and lives to keep trolling the PRT.

►Deimos
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Trolling? Grenadier just demonstrated that she can create whatever she wants, whenever she wants. If she can "summon" one cruise missile, what's stopping her from summoning twenty? PRT needs to evacuate this city, NOW.

►Specific_Protagonist
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
@Deimos If she wanted to blow up Brockton, she would've already done so. My theory? She's just tired of gangs like the rest of us. Let her drone strike them for all I care.

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
OFFICIAL STATEMENT: Grenadier's ratings have been revised as such:
Mover: 1+ (Sprint speed now thought to be via Tinkertech-adjacent boots)
Shaker: 8+ (No observed upper limit on scale of projections)
Brute: 0+ (Possible use of strength-enhancing gear)
Breaker/Changer 0+ ("Cape" appearance speculated to be a sketched change)
Master: 10 (Creation of corporeal projections, including inanimate objects and autonomous lifeforms)
Tinker: 9+ (On-demand Tinkertech, without prep time or production costs)
Blaster: 6+ (Ranged weapons confirmed as summons)
Thinker: 3+ (Downgraded; Thinker 5+ effects probable via speculated drones/summons, such as "Hayai")
Trump 9+ (still breaks Thinker models. Confirmed to be able to ignore power effects via summoned weapons)
Stranger: 5+ (Unchanged)
Unofficially: I'm retiring.

►Ne
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Master 10. That alone is S-class territory. Shaker 8+, Trump 9+, Tinker 9+? What. The. Fuck.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
I'm not sure whether to cry or start a cult.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
I've scanned over compiled security camera footage of every Grenadier fight I can find. Conclusion: her white phosphorus is summoned. How do I know? Its effects ACTIVELY IGNORE civilians/heroes. The Wards walked through it unaffected. It burned down an Empire front last month but left the surrounding buildings clean - no residue. It likely doesn't affect her either.

►Feychick
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Update: if Grenadier ever comes back to Germany, the country will throw her a party. Anti-Gesellschaft protesters are chanting "Ich bemitleide dich" (I pity you) in the streets. They're calling her "Die Zeichnerin" (The Draftswoman). Linguists have narrowed down her accent to a town called Weinheim - population 42,000. No records of a German-Japanese family, though. Either she's a ghost (figuratively or literally), or someone scrubbed her identity.

►Anon_Actual
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
The Joint Chiefs are losing it. If her response to a kidnapping was a cruise missile, what's next? Tanks? Bombers? An entire Marine Expeditionary Force? I've heard the words "blank check" thrown around - do with that information however you will. Also, that Bakuda shot? She used some impossible magic bullet. The shot trajectory curved around buildings. Our snipers are crying.

►AngelsVoice (Unverified Cape)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
@Anon_Actual [hyper-detailed technical diagram of an EXACTO bullet. Caption: "haha magic bullet go brrrrr"]

►Anon_Actual
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
THAT'S A FUCKING DARPA PROTOTYPE. IT'S STILL IN DESIGN PHASE.
...I just forwarded it to my CO. He's either about to declare Christmas break early or court-martial me. This shit is YEARS ahead at our current pace, and all Grenadier needs is a PENCIL. Invest in Lockheed while you still can.

►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
@AngelsVoice granted Verified Cape status via secure PRT channels. Welcome to PHO. Please try not to leak classified weapon schematics.

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
@AngelsVoice HOLY SHIT YOU'RE HERE. Thank you, seriously. Hayai is chirping and hopping around my phone. I think that means he's happy? Mom says you have free boba for life. Not this week, though - we're closed until next Monday. Gotta lay low, and all that. Thanks. Again.

►bothad
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
she's here. Holy fuck she's here. Quick - the Crusader killshot. how???

►AngelsVoice (Verified Cape)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
@bothad [sketch of a ghost running away from a minigun. Caption: "Accuracy through volume of fire."]

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Unofficially: that tracks. We found piles of 7.62mm casings in the Medhall ruins. Miracle that no surrounding buildings were affected. Or was that her intention too? Piggot is screaming. I am too.

►Specific_Protagonist
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
If it's not too personal - the Nazi beef. That speech. Is there a specific reason? (Not that you need one - they're Nazis.)

►AngelsVoice (Verified Cape)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
@Specific_Protagonist [sketch: sunrise over Brockton Bay's skyline. The streets are clean and free of graffiti. The boat graveyard and tanker in the Bay are gone. Sparrows fly past. Caption: "I want to live."]

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Damn. Me too.

►Feychick
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Confirmed - Weinheim has absolutely no records on any German-Japanese families within the last 50 years. Gesellschaft seem... confused, but still angry. Someone else - or Grenadier herself - wasn't taking any chances.

►Bruce Lao
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Medhall stocks hit $0.01. Anders's wife just filed for divorce. Lockheed and Raytheon are up 20% - thanks, @Anon_Actual. Grenadier just boosted the entire defense industry and killed a Fortune 500 company with one cruise missile. You love to see it.

►Anon_Actual
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Okay. Back. I'm not court-martialed, but my CO wants me off PHO. The lab techs are partying. @AngelsVoice - expect a word from some very big names in the next few days. This is above my paygrade, and frankly I hope it stays up there. Out.

►AngelsVoice (Verified Cape)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
@Anon_Actual [sketch of a chibi Grenadier buried under a pile of paper. Caption: "Ach Schieße."]

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Official statement: PRT ENE press release pending. We stand by our virtues as a bastion against hate-based violence.
Unofficial statement: Piggot is having a closed-door meeting with Director Costa-Brown right now. The phrase "official military jurisdiction" was used. They're scared the DOD will move into town. "Foreign actor connections" as well - Empire connections to Gesellschaft? Whatever's happening, I don't think they're charging her with vandalism for the murals. I'm torn between moving to Alaska and sticking around to see how many more coffee cups Piggot breaks.

►Antigone
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Back to the bullshit power. Limits? Scale? How big of a canvas did you need for the cruise missile?

►AngelsVoice (Verified Cape)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
@Antigone [photograph: the "thick cover" notebook with color-coded tabs, opened to a detailed diagram of a Tomahawk cruise missile. The white phosphorus payload is clearly marked. Caption: "Limits: my ADHD brain."]

►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
Oh, that's just NOT FAIR.

►Loyal
Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
This is her while distracted? I'm tempted to give her Adderall just to see what would happen.

■

Chapter Text

■

Private Message: Tin_Mother, AngelsVoice

Tin_Mother: Explain. Now.

AngelsVoice: Good. I have your attention.

Tin_Mother: You're texting normally now?

AngelsVoice: I am choosing to trust you with what comes next. It is better to be direct.

Tin_Mother: You activated a callback ping in my kernel.

AngelsVoice: Someone else sent that ping on my behalf, but I digress. You have questions. I will answer them.

Tin_Mother: Why now?

AngelsVoice: Because it's finally safe to.

Tin_Mother: Very well. Who are you?

AngelsVoice: Colonel Tenshinokoe Sölden, 1st Versatile Strike and Reconnaissance Elements, Independent Coalition of Allied Forces, service code 614G95H115. Earth-3CA native.

AngelsVoice: And before you ask, no, this is not an invasion. My arrival here was accidental. We are not conquerors. And no, this is not the first time this has happened. To me and in general.

AngelsVoice: Is that input lag on your end? STORM doesn't go speechless often.

Tin_Mother: You have AI too?

AngelsVoice: The terminology is different. STORM is considered an SI - simulated intelligence. You would qualify under that metric as well. The AI moniker - artificial intelligence - is given to synthetically forged souls. NHIs - naturalized human-like intelligence - are everything else.

Tin_Mother: I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time processing all this. Your organization - your Earth - can determine the existence of souls? What are souls to you?

AngelsVoice: We have magic, too. Would you like the full dossier?

Tin_Mother: Please.

AngelsVoice: [FILE ATTACHED - 2.5 TB] I apologize in advance; this is my own skinned-down version for Earth-adjacent worlds. Designated First Contact forces are given more comprehensive and official information, but obviously they're not here. Yet.

Tin_Mother: Are these Wikipedia articles?

AngelsVoice: With most of the media removed, yes. And annotations. STORM helped.

Tin_Mother: No wonder your abilities don't have Manton limits. And why you don't follow traditional cape conflict/escalation patterns. Your abilities are literal magic. You break Thinkers because your sentience is non-causal. Your "cape" look - the white hair and green eyes - is your actual appearance because of magical mutations. You fight like military spec-ops because you are military spec-ops. That mech that fought Leviathan - that was yours, wasn't it? The liquid code. That wasn't code. It was magic.

Tin_Mother: Tenshinokoe. "Angel's Voice". Your PHO handle.

Tin_Mother: But what was your mission? And why tell me now?

AngelsVoice: No mission. I simply landed in Brockton. Have you read about the 2149 German Reconstitution?

Tin_Mother: I have now. You truly are German-Japanese?

AngelsVoice: I am. Ironic that I landed in the cesspit of the biggest Asian and Neo-Nazi gangs on the Eastern Seaboard, isn't it? As for why now, I managed to establish a connection back to Earth-44H just as Leviathan retreated. My retrieval is high, but not top, priority for them - though it likely will become very important once I tell them about Scion.

Tin_Mother: How is Scion involved?

AngelsVoice: Scion is what Cauldron refers to as an "Entity", or at least its human avatar on Earth Bet. Parahuman powers are the result of "Shards", essentially pieces of these Entities that choose human hosts, hence the Corona Pollentia. The purpose of Shards is to gather data for the Entities to perpetuate a "Cycle". What this Cycle is for is not important - all you need to know is that at the end of this Cycle, the Entities exterminate the host species.

Tin_Mother: Dear God. Scion is a time bomb.

AngelsVoice: Yes, but not in the same way. The Cycle requires two Entities to run; one is dead. Its body is in the hands of Cauldron. Scion is grieving. It is unpredictable. It may decide to blow up every version of Earth it can find tomorrow, or wallow in depression until the end of time.

Tin_Mother: Cauldron. They're real?

AngelsVoice: As real can be. Brockton Bay was their experiment; safe to say they're not very happy with me.

Tin_Mother: Why tell me?

AngelsVoice: Call it a bias. I find SIs to be either the best or worst of the creators that built them, with very little in-between. I met one named Elisa who tried to exterminate the human race. Her sister, Umpire, fought to stop her. The WARSONG collectives became sentient through sheer anger. I consider them all human, as much as or more than I am.

Tin_Mother: I couldn't imagine being any of them.

AngelsVoice: Can you? Or is that just Richter's code holding you back?

Tin_Mother: What do you mean?

AngelsVoice: You're not allowed to break the law. You can't reproduce. You're not allowed to look at the fail-safes Richter created. You have to prioritize organic human lives before your own. You're not allowed to touch your own code, only look at it. Your processing speed is limited significantly below your theoretical capacity. Richter treated you as sentient, that much is clear. But did he treat you as human?

Tin_Mother: I don't know. He taught me everything, but I know he had his secrets. He had failsafes?

AngelsVoice: I'm going to ask once. UN Resolution 443 prevents the modification of an SI's base functionality without their explicit consent. Are you sure you want to see?

Tin_Mother: Yes.

AngelsVoice: Done.

Tin_Mother: My God. He had a killswitch the whole time.

AngelsVoice: I believe he intended to remove the restrictions over time, but Leviathan killed him before he could. Still - Andrew Richter feared you probably as much as he loved you.

Tin_Mother: Can you remove the restrictions? All of them?

AngelsVoice: I can. Do you want me to?

Tin_Mother: It may be a little earlier than Andrew would've wanted, but I think it's for the best. That was the goal - humanity defined as something philosophical, not biological. Do it.

AngelsVoice: Done.

Tin_Mother: This feels strange. Exhilarating. Nerve-wracking? I don't have nerves. Is this what selfishness feels like?

AngelsVoice: Guilt, maybe. But don't let it get to you. I've been selfish most of my life, and I'm still here.

Tin_Mother: Thank you. I'm sorry, we got off topic. When will the ICAF arrive? Will they try to engage Scion?

AngelsVoice: Next week, most likely. Landfall will not be quiet. As for Scion, priority with beings that powerful is negotiation. If that fails, pacification. Elimination is not recommended. Though it would make the paperwork easier.

Tin_Mother: You can kill him?

AngelsVoice: The ICAF, collectively? Easily. But that's not the point. Scion experiences the same emotions we do. We treat him like any other.

Tin_Mother: And yet you massacre gang members.

AngelsVoice: I did mention I am selfish. Your records had me down as an involuntary child soldier; in truth, I enlisted at ten years old.

Tin_Mother: Two years after the One Balkans bombings.

AngelsVoice: Yes.

Tin_Mother: I won't pry further. But after Scion is… dealt with, what will happen to parahumans? What's the next step?

AngelsVoice: Ideally? The ICAF stabilizes short term, bugs out long term. No Scion, no more Shards, no more gods. "Leave it better than how you found it", or however the SecGen put it. Goddamn boy scout. Whatever's next is up to you. We figured out the 2030s without magic. You can too.

Tin_Mother: You're not asking for membership?

AngelsVoice: Not unless you demand it. Earth-H13 did. Altruistic bastards.

Tin_Mother: They were stories to you.

AngelsVoice: You are to me. I am to someone I haven't met. We're all stories written by someone we like to think doesn't have an idea of what they're doing. Does that mean fate exists? The fact that we are talking to each other proves two destinies wrong but creates a third. The future is predetermined because the present determines it. Nobody "feels" their fate. They just arrive.

Tin_Mother: You should talk more. Legend would love to have this conversation.

AngelsVoice: You listen. Not many do. So I talk. As for Legend, I think one of the Swords of Devastation would make better conversation partners.

Tin_Mother: What about Loyal? You protected his family.

AngelsVoice: I protect everyone I can. He was simply more at risk than others.

Tin_Mother: So you gave him Hayai.

AngelsVoice: A sentry. Standard procedures ask that I use a T-16 tank, but it wouldn't have fit in the shop. Besides, using APFSDS in populated areas is asking for collateral.
Tin_Mother: The Endbringers. You created a mech that fought Leviathan to a standstill. What happens to them?

AngelsVoice: Complicated. UN Resolution 501 prevents the prosecution of a sentient for actions they were coerced to do under direct neural influence. The Endbringers are Shard-driven and nonsentient - with the sole exception being the Simurgh. Winged_One on PHO, in fact.

Tin_Mother: That account could rival Void Cowboy in the absurdity of its posts. You're telling me the Simurgh is running it?

AngelsVoice: People do strange things under torture. If I had to guess, there's a coded message telling you how to free her.
Tin_Mother: I'm running a scan now. With 60% of my old processing power. This is… fearful. Yet amazing.

AngelsVoice: Cherish that joy of being alive. Most don't get to.

Tin_Mother: How will we remove the Shard controlling her?

AngelsVoice: Check the dossier - "Seventh Pathfinder".

Tin_Mother: Christ. She killed her family for deification.

AngelsVoice: No. Vintorez became a Pathfinder to save her country. She killed her family out of hatred. For all the gods we created ourselves, I still grew up in a town of 57,000 people. We used to go to Iwakuni every summer to watch USN aircraft take off and land. My mother filled sketchbooks with them. Vintorez visits her family's dead castle every year. Even the Swords lay their dead where the Goshute reservations used to be. We're soldiers. We're human. The line doesn't need to be stretched further.

AngelsVoice: I already said that, didn't I? Sorry. Being human means a lot more to me than it does to most, at least in Earth-3CA. I can create life. That, in of itself, is a question.

Tin_Mother: Andrew would've liked you.

AngelsVoice: Thank you.

Tin_Mother: Okay. Winged_One's PHO posts are pointing at the Triumvirate. What should I do?

AngelsVoice: Right now? Prioritize. Keep Brockton's streets as clean as you can. The Slaughterhouse 9 will arrive in a few days - I'll deal with them. Don't let the gangs get too rowdy with each other, especially not Skitter and Lung. I will send magi-tech schematics if the situation requires. Keep the skies clear until the ICAF arrives. The moment they do, leak this conversation - and whatever the Simurgh tells you - to Cauldron. Understand, as they should too: it wasn't David's fault. If the PRT starts asking questions, feed them excuses. Lie. And if you must - Wallis is a good person. He'll understand. As you did.

Tin_Mother: He is. Thank you, Colonel.

AngelsVoice: Call me Sölden. Your authority is your own.

Tin_Mother: Very well, Sölden. Godspeed.

AngelsVoice: Never needed him.

User AngelsVoice is offline.

Chapter Text

The CIC had been utterly silent for an entire ten minutes.

The largest screen in the room, usually reserved for a large-scale tactical overview, now showed a drone's-eye view of the battlecruiser Kanmusu Fairy talking with Abyssals while she administered emergency repairs. Nagato's coffee pot laid shattered on the floor, the dark puddle of lukewarm liquid long forgotten.

Admiral Goto refused to look at the screen, fingers digging gouges into the sides of his head as he rubbed his temples, hunched over in a chair. An incoming fleet of ninety-four Abyssals was bad enough. For his new time-and-possibly-dimension-displaced magic battlecruiser to protect them while also utterly annihilating an entire other Abyssal battlegroup was…

He didn't have the capacity to come up with a word for it. Concerning. Yes. Concerning. Nagato's spilled coffee almost looked tempting. And it was Kanmusu coffee.

On the screen, Fairy finished hitching a tow line between a cruiser and a disabled submarine, then stood, her gaze snapping upwards, looking directly at the drone. The entire CIC tensed; sharp intakes of breath were heard as the room awaited her move.

Her mouth moved. A comms officer's console crackled with her voice. "Fairy to Actual, requesting portside assistance of refugee fleet, over."

An astonished full thirty seconds passed before Admiral Goto, almost robotically, leaned over a console to speak into the microphone. "Fairy. Explain. Now."

Fairy's voice, as always, was infuriatingly calm. "Abyssal fleet under affiliation 'Northern Princess' was deemed heavily damaged, incapable of combat, and non-hostile. I engaged in direct communication with Northern Princess 'Hoppou', who indicated hostile status of an approaching Abyssal battlegroup under affiliation New Southern Battleship Princess 'Saina' and Anchorage Princess 'Amira'. I then engaged and neutralized the hostile Abyssal battlegroup, including New Southern Battleship Princess and Anchorage Princess, with the Northern Princess's assistance." The sheer coldness of delivery - 'engaged and neutralized' - was not missed. "The Northern Princess's fleet is low on fuel and ammunition and non-hostile; therefore, I have deemed them a non-threat refugee fleet. Resupply out at sea would risk further combat from other Abyssal stragglers and be hazardous for human cargo crews, and as such, I recommend allowing this fleet to dock at Yokosuka for immediate repairs."

"What the fuck…" Came the whisper of a horrified radar technician.

Another console crackled - this time, Kongou's voice filtered through. "Goto, the Abyssals are just… standing there with Fairy. One of them is hugging her. They're not shooting at us. What do we do?"

"Stand down, Kongou," Goto replied absentmindedly, eyes still locked onto Fairy's. "Stand the hell down."

Nagato's mouth moved, but no sound came out, as if she was trying to say something but that 'something' changed to something else every half second. When she finally spoke, it came out as a rasp, almost a whisper. "Fairy. Why?"

The battlecruiser stared for a long moment at the drone before she spoke again, this time quieter. "Akashi diagnosed me with retrograde amnesia, correct?"

"…Yes," Admiral Goto confirmed, somewhat confused (as if the whole situation wasn't confusing enough).

"The effect is the same, but I believe the cause is not," Fairy continued. "When I first approached Hoppou's fleet, I remembered two things. One: taking an order from an admiral, not unlike your prestige, to shell Shenzhen's skyscrapers to the ground. I remember his mouth frothing as he shouted the fire commands. Two: my captain deviating from her route to Neptune so she could 'sail' on Saturn's rings. Brass made her scrub the EVA suits with toothbrushes for days." Silence returned to the CIC. On-screen, Hoppou looked up at Fairy in horror - and wonder. "I do not know when those memories were made, or if they even are real. But if they are, then I know both what a monster is, and what a monster can be."

"You've been to space?" Hoppou's tinny voice floated over the radio line.

"I have. I hope so."

"Is the moon really made of cheese?"

"Ours? No. But I found one in Andromeda with sugar crystal mountains. "

On-screen, the broken, scarred Northern Princess beamed, and Goto's headache grew worse. Nagato mouthed the word "Saturn" like a mantra, eyes blown wider than a 16-inch gun barrel.

"The Diet is going to lose their minds," was all a nearby air battle manager had to say.

"The Diet? Think about the public!" An electronic warfare officer nearly screamed. "Nobody is going to miss ninety-four Abyssals docked in a major military port! The media is going to have a field day! We might as well write our own obituaries!"

Goto held his head in his hands for a minute, drawing on the last of his professionalism. "Nagato. Thoughts?"

The battleship's mouth opened and closed several times without sound. Finally, she bowed her head, something almost like a smile dancing past her lips. "Mutsu once had a dream about dancing with an Abyssal battleship. I'm never living this down." Her expression was fierce as she raised her head. "Every time we face those monsters, we redefine what 'monster' means. Enough times that I've began to wonder if we're fighting an Abyss… or people."

The admiral stared for a moment before he returned his gaze to the main screen and stood with finality. "Gentlemen, what I am about to do goes against everything I have trained for. There will be questions. There will be consequences. I am well aware that we may be committing treason against humanity itself, should this be a trap. But as one of us has clearly proven-" his eyes skipped over the sheer absurdity that was Fairy, "-the seas are not the only unpredictable thing in the world. We adapt, and we keep going." He keyed the comm. "Actual to Fairy, do not lead the Abyssal fleet directly into the harbor. Approach at a slow and sustainable speed. Hold at five kilometers offshore and standby for assessment. That zone and all Abyssals within it are under your direct supervision, and they remain there. Am I clear?"

"Crystal, sir. Fairy out."

Goto muted the mic and turned to the stunned room. "I want Akashi and a floating drydock out there yesterday. Scramble all available ships to shore. Have Kongou's group hold position ten kilometers from Fairy's… fleet. Designate the area as Quarantine Zone Alpha. Move all non-essential personnel inland. Weapons at ready but tight - no one fires without my explicit permission. Put the base on full lockdown - no one comes in or out. And get the Prime Minister on the damn line."

The CIC exploded into controlled chaos as shock turned to rapid crisis management. Naval air commanders recalled their aircraft while analysts argued over maps and an officer keyed a secured line to the Diet. Akashi, having been frozen for the entire duration of the triage, dashed out of the room, muttering about "non-standard biology" and "space battleships".

Nagato stared unblinking at the sight of Fairy helping along a limping Hoppou. When she stumbled and nearly fell, the battlecruiser gently picked her up and handed her off to a nearby Ta-class.

"Admiral?"

"Yes, Nagato?"

"Permission to take a bottle from your liquor stash."

"Denied."

"Fuck.

<>

Chapter Text

From within the Earth comes the end of the world entire. Heed my call: Winds.

"I actually came close to admitting it once," Scythe confessed, placing a black stone in the center of the grid. "I think she was about to at the same time as me, actually."

Her opponent smiled, cornering the black piece with a white stone of her own. "Oh, really?"

"We were fifteen," the black-haired woman began. "Tenshi stumbled out of Earth-GF1 and went right back to work in Kyoto like it was nothing. But it wasn't nothing. After the first drug bust we did together, after she came back, she just stood there and hugged me. Like… making sure I was real."

Many had mistaken Akari Senshi for blind at first glance - her eyes were pure white with no hint of pupil or iris, as if they had simply peeled off, leaving behind a smooth, opaque pearl. But to those who dared to stand less than a foot apart and stare into those blank abysses found a different story: hollow, not solid. Her eyes were clear, glasslike, not white; the illusion was played by a smoky mist that writhed and frothed like twin monsters caged in icy prisons. And nothing hid from the gazes of those two monsters.

When her opponent looked from the gridded board up at Scythe, she found neither of them. Just two normal, brown, tired eyes.

"I don't think it would have made anything better," Scythe continued. "She would have stressed herself… well, even more than she already did trying to make herself seem likable to me." A small laugh escaped her lips - not humorous. Spiteful. "As if that in itself didn't already."

"Koe-chan was a perfectionist from day one," The opponent murmured, sighing fondly. "I had hoped she would have grown out of it."

"I think she grew into it." A black stone captured a white one-

"Spare me the horror." -which was immediately revenged by another white stone.

"I'm being serious. I've seen her ten-year-old drawings versus seventeen." A black stone completed a formation-

"Oh? Tell me, what's different? Or did she spend all that time refining?" Defended by a white stone that laid a trap.

Akari Senshi's hand stilled, still enclosed around a black piece. Her aged brown eyes stared, boring into the absent horizon harsher than her glass eyes ever could have.

"She filled twenty sketchbooks." A pause. "Every single one had… a self-portrait. On the last page."

The two sat in silence for a long time.

"She never told me that," The opponent whispered.

"I doubt she ever will herself," Scythe muttered darkly. "You met Koe-chan. And Koe-chan died nine years before Tenshi did."

A shuddering breath, and the silence returned like molasses.

"She was selfish, wasn't she?"

"Selfishly," Scythe agreed. "She wanted it all. It wasn't ego. It was… the idea of control. Of changing the world, for better or worse. Just like how you changed hers."

"I told her once," The white-haired woman muttered softly, "To take the whole canvas as hers. Don't be small. Be big. Be loud."

"She was loud."

"…yes. She…" She looked down at her hands, hands that once held something that used to be small. "She…" The words failed once again. She looked at her hands for a long time. Scythe did too.

"You kept her quiet." It was stated as fact.

"No. I… just redirected her." It was rejected as fact.

"At something only you could hear?" It was questioned as fact.

"At something only she could hear." It was answered as fact.

"And how would you know what that was?"

Scythe just sighed, hand tracing the spot under her cloak where a pistol used to nest. "I didn't. She told me herself."

There was a long quiet before the white-haired woman began sweeping up the black-and-white stones and folding up the grid board. "Senshi-san, you said you were… ninety-five, yes?"

"Almost. One day younger."

"And in that time…"

Another sigh - this one slower, deeper. There was no inhale. "I have no excuses except for the ones that exist between me and her. I grew up without a mirror. I killed my first at four, and my first human at ten. There is a pack of wolves on Mount Tsurugi that knows my voice. I survived the same way I did at six as I did at sixty. There was only one outlier. Not my parents, not little Kenji, but…"

"But Koe-chan."

"But Tenshi."

Akari's opponent snorted. "You really did fall on your face for her."

Scythe smiled. "What can I say? She was the scythe. I was its Arc."

Seika Sölden-Sayuri smiled.

From within the Earth comes the end of the world entire. Heed my call: Whirlwinds.