Chapter Text
There I was one moment getting angry over an MC in a Worm fanfic for being stupid with their powers, like come on, the author is just being a lazy writer if the only reason the problem is there is because the MC was too stupid.
The next I was in an alley, before I could gather my wits and figure out what exactly happened I heard a voice in my head.
****
"Good day Gerald, I noticed you also like worm fics! :)
Specifically those SI ROB-based ones, So I thought why not help out a fellow fan? So I sent you to worm with the power of the last fanfic you read, since you seemed frustrated with the mc's use of it I thought I'd give you a chance to see where it can go.”
Ah, and no need to worry about having to pay me back or doing anything specific, my interest in this is writing a novelisation based on this. So I've set up my recording so I can watch it later, sorry we couldn't chat in person but you would literally go mad.
Tee hee :P.
Have fun! - R.O.B.
****
‘Damn R.O.B. can't even be bothered to talk and just left a voicemail!’
"Ps I also did the "Enemy drawbacks" thing because I liked those in the other novels."
'Son of a bitch, well that means I'll have to get moving quick because fuck if I know which enemy has been put on my ass. Knowing my luck...'
"Hey you white boy!" - Asian guy 1
'Crap, It’s the ABB! Or at least I think so, it would be pretty racist of me to assume right?'
"Give us your wallet or I'll make those round eyes see red" - Asian guy 2
'Ah heck it doesn't matter, I need to act fast. I tried to look for the power I have in myself like the MC in the fanfic did before and there it is.'
The three gang members got closer, they were teenagers judging by their height and looks. The main guy held a knife. Gerald's demeanour changed from his confused state when he arrived, to the fear when the ABB arrived and now he looked confident.
"I don't think so guys" Gerald said with a smile on his face.
"It's 3 against 1 dumbass" - ABB guy 3
Gerald shook his head and replied "Ha but I think Glory Girl can handle you" Gerald said and looked up with a smirk.
The 3 gang members looked up in fear, but nothing was there. About to shout at the man who lied to them they realised he was gone.
"W-what the fuck? Where did he go?!" - ABB guy 3
"Must have run off" - ABB guy 2
"Let's get him!" - ABB guy 1
The three teens ran off down the alley to chase the guy who tricked them.
Meanwhile on the other side of the street on a roof.
"Heh every time, well that's one charge down."
Gerald thought back to what just happened.
-like 30 seconds ago.
'I've found it! The enchantment power, similar to the original [power manipulator] where you get charges each day to create a power and a whole bunch of off branches.
With this power, you get 3 charges a day that you can use to empower an object.
My first choice was 'Teleportation' a rare and versatile power in Worm. Yeah, I could have just done a brute power on my clothes and beat the shit out of them. But Why?
1: I don't need to put myself in useless danger.
2: I don't need to expose myself and my powers, which is very important for me at this stage.
3: I don't want to waste my charges, even if I get them back every day.
So that's why I chose teleportation and tricking them with the ruse I did, oh yes there are lots of ways I could have handled it. I could have mastered them easily but again, that's not viable long term if I chose it right now.
Heck, I needed to focus on survivability today. 3 Charges isn't a lot if you're in danger, because the big drawback with the charges is that the powers need more to upgrade.
In the novel I read, it matched the danger rating of the PRT.
So that's why I couldn't just be like "Give me the power of a god" and be over and done, each level of the power needs more charge than the last.
1 level = 1 charge
2 level = +2 charges
3 level = +3 charges
etc
To get to level 9 I would have to spend a total of 45, 3 charges a day I could max out a power in 15 days? 2 weeks, theoretically.
However “Worm” is a fast-paced and dangerous playground, so sinking all my charges into 1 category would be risky, and well I'm not that risky.
My survival is key.
Which means backup powers to cover weaknesses in me, but also in the objects themselves. Self-repair, summoning, restricted users etc.
I’m not getting caught out by something bad stupid as people using the objects against me.
So back to my first power, The teleportation power I gave my underwear, yes my UNDERWEAR, It's the best place because no one would think of it, no one would steal it and use it. And it's the least clothing item to get damaged.
The power only has 1 charge in it, but I adjusted it and added some drawbacks to it so It would allow me to escape. Originally the teleportation power would only teleport me to 3 meters in eyesight. I added the following restrictions
1: Can only use it 5 times a day.
2: Needs energy to recharge - solar
3: Can't be seen when using it - another reason for the ruse.
4: Can only be used by white guys (blame the ABB for that idea)
Because of that, I had enough 'power' left over to stretch the distance, a fair trade-off I think. I wanted the restriction of "can only be used by Gerald" but that was seen as a feature, so I settled for the white guys, not like I was going to let anybody wear them, even the 88! Though the idea of them doing that would be funny, no! I won't become an online influencer and sell my used stuff.
Shaking my silly thoughts I started to plan my next action.
I had 2 charges left of my power and 4 uses of the telebriefs.
I have no idea who's my enemy and I have no idea what date it is!
I vaguely know where I am, in the ABB territory but as a non-native that means nothing to me.
"I should hide and gather information."
My main two fears at the moment are being mastered and being hurt, secondary is getting 'caught' and thirdly is canon events. As much as I wanted to help people, I needed to worry about myself. I can't just run and save every person who screams, at least for now. Luckily mastering is not too common so I won't run into that so quickly.
'Hmm that could work' I thought to myself, I spent another charge on my underwear but instead of teleportation, this time I applied a thinker ability.
****
Power: 20 questions.
Type: Thinker 3
Item: Underwear
Function: Ask 20 yes or no questions a day.
Restrictions:
1: 20 slots
2: Recharges 1 per day - solar
3: Yes or no only.
4: Range is 50 meters
5: not immune to other thinker powers.
6: The more specific the question is the better the result.
7: can only be used when not moving.
****
Thanks to the restrictions I’ve managed to make a 1 charge power into a Thinker 3 power, I knew I could think of better ideas if I had time but That's the best I could do right now. I kind of hooked on to it from the already established concept of '20 questions' which helped shape it, yeah I could make more esoteric ideas but speed and simplicity are also important.
I don’t want to add a series of too-demanding restrictions like - ‘Stand on one leg and say the alphabet backwards while doing hand signs etc’. The way it works is like a bootleg tattletale, it gathers the data from the surroundings and uses it to formulate and deduce the answer from it.
The reason I chose a thinker's power? it was that of an investment, Information is power and a lot of people forget that.
"Okay let's use it now"
"For my immediate survival and freedom for the next 12 hours, should I choose another power now?"
- yes- 19/20
"Okay, that assumes that I would stay here for the next 12 hours because of the range, though if I am within the range wouldn't that cover everything? ah better not take the chance"
"Should I choose a defensive power"
-No- 18/20
'hmmm'
"Should I choose an offensive power"
-No- 17/20
"Should I choose a mover power"
-No- 16/20
"Should I choose a changer power"
-Yes- 15/20
"Yes! Okay let's think about changer powers for a second, okay so changer powers at its core allow the alteration of the body form or abilities. The power said no to defensive or offensive, so that rules out things like hard skin or arm knives."
"Should I choose a power that supports stealth"
-Yes- 14/20"
"So a stranger-type power then? okay I think I know where this is going"
Power: Colourblind
Type: Changer/Stranger 1
Item: Underwear
Changes the race features of the user.
Restrictions:
1: 5 seconds to change
2: Only human Earthbet races.
***
The race restriction being only human was quite limiting, something about not much difference? so I guess that’s a win for equal rights.
Does this count as Black/Asian face? Hmm well, probably not if I stick to being a regular person and not stereotypes. But I still won't be showing it off, I activated my changer power and climbed down the fire escape, no need to waste a perfectly good teleport charge.
30 minutes later he was out of the abb territory, how did he know? Well, the decline in graffiti and the rise of middle-aged/class white women proved that he was in a safer environment.
A few questions from real people and his Thinker-power and he was in his desired place, the library. The source of all knowledge until Wikipedia came along.
Entering the building he found an ancient-looking PC.
1:45 pm 27/12/2010
"Huh if this was the locker incident day then I would still have time?"
"...."
"Fuck I completely forgot about the date, I always remember the big events and silly things but specific dates just went over my head. It happened in 2011 right?"
-Yes- 12/20
"Was the locker incident in the first six months of 2011"
-yes- 11/20
"the first 3?"
-yes-10/20
"Did it happen in January?"
-yes- 9/20
"Good enough for now, I can figure it out later when I have more charges. Wait, what the fuck? How did my power know this? We ain’t anyway near Wilson school?”
(Author notes he’s forgetting the name)
"Is my memory and brain affecting the answer to the question?"
-ye..-
"Excluding the formation of the questions?!"
-YES- 8/10
"Wow, I accidently made an OP thinker ability. I now have perfect recall. Okay, let's gather some information the normal way."
================================================
Welcome to the Parahuman's Online Message Boards
You are currently logged in as, Dauntmore.
You are viewing:
• Threads you have replied to
• AND Threads that have new replies
• OR private message conversations with new replies
• Thread OP is displayed
• Ten posts per page
• Last ten messages in private message history
• Threads and private messages are ordered by user custom preference.
■
♦Topic: Brocton Bay Dangers for a New Guy
In: Boards ► Brocton Bay Forums ► Capescene ► Dangers
Newguy9878 (Original Poster)
Posted on May 4, 2009:
So I just moved to BB for work and wondering how to survive in this place, I've heard gun fights and cape fights are prominent here. Am I over worrying? If not what should a new guy in town watch out for?
>Gatornode
You want some advice? move back where you came from. BB is a hell hole, 3 gangs and even fucking nazis are all STILL not caught by the prt.
>Potatoman
Well technically prt have captured them....until they escaped, so yeah if you like a monster of the week thing then BB is the best place. We have the highest number of capes :D.
>Samsalmon
@Potatoman Highest VILLIAN capes, I swear anyone to willingly move to BB must be insane, If I could I would hightail out of here
.
>BigRichard
@Samsalmon Anything? heheh PM me and we can work out an arrangement.
>Samsalmon
Ew, creep.
>Hunglikeaduck
Okay since no one has answered properly I guess I'll have to. 'pushes up glasses'
BB has 3 major gangs as mentioned before, the reason they stand out is due to them all having capes. The basic information I'll list below, they are from the wiki.
88empire: Nazis, white skinheads, attempting a neo nazi thing but TLDR, they are just regular nazis. Their 'turf' includes the areas listed in the image here: [88map]
Capes: Kaiser, Hookwolf, Rune, Purity, Menja, Fenja, Cricket.
AZZboys: Anyone who's Asian in their turf gets wrangled in, Chinese, Philippines, or Japanese doesn't matter all's the same to them, So watch out OP if that's applicable. They deal in all sorts of crime. [AZZ Map]
Capes: Lung, Oni Lee.
Merchants: Drugies, they sell drugs. [Mechants map]
Capes: Skidmark, Squeler, Mush.
Those are the main issues, also steer clear of the hotdog stand on Ferry Street.
>Yum_yum_girl
@Hunglikeaduck what's wrong with the hotdog stand? Is it a secret villain?
>Hunglikeaduck
@Yum_yum_girl, nah it just gave me a bad case of the runs last Tuesday.
page 1,2,3,....66
================================================
"Hmm well, that was fun, less informative than I hoped but good enough."
"My next problem is a place to stay for the night."
I wandered around and looked for an apartment building that had low security. When I entered the building I asked my question.
"Are there any apartments free within this building, that I could stay in and not be caught or found in for the next 12 hours?"
-Yes- 7/20
I looked over at the mailboxes with all the apartment buildings.
"Is the apartment address that I could stay in (with the conditions of the previous question) within 1 and 20?"
-No- 6/20
I grimaced, I was running out of questions. I had only one recharge per day for that and I was burning through them. I am a bit prideful seeing actually how useful this thinker power I thought was, Something to expand on in the future, though maybe not since I could get Tattletale and Dinah on my team.
"Is the apartment address that I could stay in (with the previous, previous questions' conditions) within 1 and 40?"
-Yes- 5/20
"Bingo"
Eventually…
-Yes- 2/20
I used the key that I 'found' and opened the door, it was a small but clean apartment. I felt kinda bad so I won’t trash the place but I NEED a place to rest and get some more power.
My stomach grumbled in anger for not getting lunch so I went over to the kitchen and started to take stock. I wanted to make sure what they had in excess, something the owner of this place wouldn't mind me taking.
I found some cereal and milk and made a big bowl. Walking over I flicked on the TV, I skipped the news and went to a cartoon.
'Now criminals are you going come along mice or do I have to dish out a slice of justice!'
'IEEE it's THE mouse protector!'
'This reminds me of when I was a kid haha.'
After a fine meal, I took off my pants just remembering I needed to charge my underpants, I then took a shower. The hot water was nice against my skin, and coming out I saw my 'Asian' features.
"Hmm not bad, but not 'Me', I forgot I wasn't wearing my briefs, but this is also a lesson learned."
It was dark now, and my bottom was feeling lonely so I put back on my underwear and watched TV, thinking about how I would spend my next charges.
Now that things aren’t so urgent, it’s time to address the idea that Powers from items can be permanent without the gear.
I had always thought about ideas like that reading the original fanfic, in that story the MC relied too much on the items. Originally I thought it was something in the 'later down the line” category, but now I'm rethinking my strategy.
My thoughts were to add a charge to food and eat that, of course with the effect of 'anyone who eats this will can xxx power'.But maybe I don't need to do that? I could probably have another item that just makes all-eaten food with effects permanent. There are lots of ways to make this power work, the problem is the most efficient.
Again 3 charges are both a lot and not a lot.
I have many plans, one includes TINKERING.
I had always wanted to be an inventor in my past life. That didn't work out, I thought you needed to learn and be good at maths (I wasn't) So I gave up, but here? I could easily gain the skill too. Another idea is growth-based power like [every heartbeat increases brute strength] or [Wearer increases skill learning when learning a new skill]. Heck, even a power-copy item.
The benefit of these is that I can get stronger outside the 3 charges, I've got whole days to spend. Tinkering or training is a great use of that, so investing in that would be wise instead of a flat increase of strength from one item.
But there are also survival skills like hardening skin, danger detection, regeneration, anti-master etc
Priorities are hard, something that I had trouble in my last life haha well not anymore for that.
Also MONEY. God damn it I seriously need money, I can't steal from Coil...yet. My first thought for that is to create a master power and go around begging for money, but that was too short-sighted…
"I needed more time, I needed more power, I needed more charges, I needed more...ME!"
The lightbulb went off in my head, the solution was all so simple, I could make more items that would give me more charges (at least for a long while) but I can probably make more of ME hopefully with the charge-based power.
If not, well I could easily give in power with items down the road. I know it's not a good idea, more competition in the dating scene but some things can't be helped.
I stood up and walked back and forward thinking exactly how I was going to do this on the budget of 3 charges, hopefully, 1... I was a stingy bastard but I saw it as a good quality of mine.
"Well, the first way to cheapen the cost is restrictions, basically drawbacks that would weaken the power in others such as time constraints, fuel, set up conditions. The other way is to create another item that externally reduces the cost of the powers, basically, a gear that would "reduce mana cost by 10%" not that I know if these charges are mana. AH, that's another idea, refueling the charges instead of waiting...no that would also cost a lot of charges."
Gerald mumbled into the night, scribbling on paper about restrictions and conditions for the clone power he wanted. Gerald knew that his enchantment power was STRONG, the original Dauntless was a up incoming tinker himself with a similar but limited power.
That's why Gerald wanted to be better, because he knew he could be better he could be MORE. That's why he was frustrated at the MC in the original fanfic he read.
"Nothing more annoying than wasted potential" That's why Gerald was raving over the clone skill, he wanted to do the best with it. He truly loved that he had a superpower, he didn't want to take it for granted and underappreciate it.
12:59 PM
01:00 AM
Three charges appeared inside Gerald, he heaved a sigh of relief.
"Oh thank god, I didn't want to wait a full 24 hours."
Gerald stood up and got ready, he took one charge and applied it to the tictac he found in a cabinet.
---
Power: Gerald Clone
Type: Trump 1
Item: Tictac
A tictac with the power to give the consumer the ability to create a copy of Gerald Hastnew.
Restrictions:
1: Consumable (dissolves the tictac)
2: Tastes terrible
3: 8 hours delay for the pills clone availability
4: Put's user into normal sleep mode when ingested
5: The creation process will take 20 minutes.
a: Gives the user nightmares.
6: Gives the User gas for 8 hours.
7: The copy will grow from the user's back
8: The process will be itchy
9: The user needs to be lying on their stomach
10: The user needs to be still
11: The user needs to be singing The song lyrics "..”
etc
***
"I ducking did it! whoops slip of the mouth, I mean."
"FUCK YEAH"
This was a game changer, but first sleep...
Gerald's body hit the bed and through the clever use of restrictions, he fell asleep the quickest in all of his life.
****
8 hours later
I woke up, It was one of the worst and weirdest sleep I ever had. I was walking down the street when a giant Armsmaster came at me and poked my butt with his halberd and I blew away like a balloon all the while chasing after me.
"well, at least that should have worked- cough cough, Jesus what died in here?"
I quickly went over to the window and opened it up and let the gaseous build-up out of the room.
"I'm sorry whoever owned this bed but It was necessary to save the world."
Still, I wasn't a total bastard I scooped up the sheets and put them in the laundry. I didn't want to wear what I had yesterday so I looked through the owners' clothes looking for something to wear.
I got some more shirts and a jumper, but I also grabbed a few accessories.
Gloves, beanie, wrist band (rubber), bandana, sunglasses and a belt.
All great items to add for enchanting. I'll really have to make a list and pay the dude back.
Time to test out the clone skill, First I went and drank two full glasses of water, the process will use up water. Then I stripped fully naked and lay down on the floor in the direction of north. After closing my eyes my hands were behind my back and doing peace signs. My legs were normal except that my feet were flush with the ground.
From what I gathered the more difficult it is for the user to do the more of a discount I could get. Then I started singing.
"When we lay all down our charges, and hope for the powers,
Do we all sit back and let things get sour? NO!
We put up restrictions taxing both mind and bone,
For all our work and sweat we create our Gerald clone!"
*repeats ….
20 minutes later
The fleshy blob that grew from my back was done and flopped to the floor beside me, I rolled over finally glad to be out of that position. Rubbing my sore neck, I looked over at my 'clone' who looked nothing like me thanks to the restriction 13.
13: Appearance will be random, age, height, sex. limited from ages 10 - 40, European, human ..."
The person in front of me looked around 15 years old, with green hair, very skinny, average height and caucasian.
The person in front of me should have all my memories and my power...
My plan for this was a new, NEW wave, making my own clone family so I thought it was a could idea to not mess with the race thing.
For the first clone, I was pretty lucky, the age fit right with the main characters of this world. Eventually, I would have gotten a bio skill that could shape people's form so as to not make things suspicious, but this saves a step.
I greeted the guy asking if he remembered anything.
"Yeah yeah, I remember being Gerald, everything up to when I-you started singing." -Clone
'hmm interesting, the head formed first but wasn't aware until the 'ritual' finished. Probably a good thing, it was probably quite the body horror and would be scary...hmm perhaps another condition to add?'
The other Gerald shivered but didn't know why, he turned to look away and saw the clothes the other Gerald got and went to put them on commando style.
"Okay we got 20 minutes until the cooldown finishes, so let's test if you have charges."
The small teen Gerald made a thoughtful face and then a smirk. He closed his eyes and after a second he opened them.
"It worked"
I grinned, Step 2 of ??? plan was a go.
***
Several hours later and with many glasses of water, the apartment now held several clones a total of 16 which means I had 32 charges, each clone having two leftover charges. Of course, the clones all looked different, some were kids, middle-aged and women!
But that didn't matter, they all were Gerald at heart and if any problems crop up some charges into body modification would solve that.
The next step is to use these charges to set up a foundation, powers, lair, information and money. He looked at two random Geralds and told them to work out a power that would make the clones permanent. One of the restrictions of the clone charge was that the clones would last 3 hours. The two Geralds nodded their heads and went over to the side of the room to figure it out. Gerald had an hour until the clones disappeared. He looked at his first clone and told him to gather as many Geralds to make a decent healer package for him to use.
He got another small group to work on a brute package, another for tinkering and last with him a Trump/power copy group. Each group went off into an area and brainstormed.
45 minutes later another 16 clones the decisions of the enchantments were made.
First was the most important, permanent clones. A group of 4 clones with 8 charges easily made a power for this.
Power: Gerald Permanent Clone
Type: Trump 3
Applied to self.
The ability to create permanent copies Gerald Hastnew.
Allows to retroactively make temporary copies permanent when directed.
Restrictions:
1: 1-meter distance creation
2: 10 minutes for clone creation
3: limit of 16 per day.
4: Must be standing still.
5: The user must touch clones to make permanent
6: Only Gerald clones can be permanent.
....
5/8 Charges were spent from that group, mainly to remove a lot of the annoying restrictions. Level 3 serves my purposes for now. The group all poured their charges into a single tic tac which I ate, the above power is the result of that, merging with my original clone skill.
I then went around touched the clones and made them permanent, they'll need food, rest and other human needs still but again a later problem.
The next group was the brutes, they had 3 originally but made another 3 clones themselves so they had a total of 12 charges to spend.
6 charges into a defensive power, making a level 3 power that can shrug off small bullets and mundane mele damage.
3 charges into a strength skill, a level 2 power that improves the overall strength passed peak human.
3 charges into basic fighting skills. Level 2, Focused around hand to hand and how to move your body in a fight.
This time we applied it to a metal drink bottle, having the effect that the bottle makes the water inside have the power. So all we need to do is drink and refill, of course, we had to add some restrictions but they should be fine...
The next group was my first clones, 6 people 12 charges for a healer package.
6 charges into diagnostics and scanning
6 charges into healing, the restrictions were touch-based, fueled with water (from the body), small areas (hands), duration and made use of the patient's body fat. Those were the main along with the typical standing still etc.
We needed a relatively powerful and versatile healing ability.
Unlike Panceas this isn't body shaping but almost those magical healing spells, so it can heal probably anything but we can't change or improve stuff (yet). The advantage over this though is it can be self-directed.
The next group was the tinkers, 4 clones, and 8 charges.
3 charges in clothes/costumes (level 2)
3 charges in chemicals (level 2)
1 charge in simplification (level 1)
1 charge in speed (Level 1)
Of course, each has its restrictions and conditions to squeeze out its potential, instead of the expensive bottle I did the Tictac version again. The brute bottle could be used to hire and empower minions, not that my clone army needs it. But tinkers are more important.
The last was the copy/trump group. 6 People, 12 charges.
6 charges into being able to copy parahuman powers
6 charges into being able to give owned powers to others.
Again yes there are restrictions like eyesight, duration etc. This will be a core part of my powers that will help me grow stronger quicker, the idea of all those tinker powers under the same roof makes me salivate.
'Gurgurg'
I looked at the hanging clock '5:55 pm'
"Well now that's done we should go grab some food, once it gets dark we can go out camping, and copy some powers"
I looked at all the people and mentally calculated how much food I needed to buy, buy...
"Shit, I knew I forgot something!"
I forgot to get a power that makes money. I looked at the owners' kitchen with a guilty face.
"Sorry dude I will pay you back"
End of chapter