Skidmark grinned. "If you think that's awesome, I also got you a whole new wardrobe, darling. I got you some good denim shit, etc."
At this, he pulled out a cardboard box and placed it on the bed next to the RC sports car, and opened it up to reveal…. A bunch of doll clothes. And not any clothes, they were that fancy shit like ballroom outfits, etc.
This was the first time that Skidmark had actually gone out of his way to buy her nice clothes like this.
She found herself tearing up. "Oh, Skiddy… I don't know what to say."
Skidmark flashed her a large grin, the metal in his teeth glinting in the light. "Just say you can help fuck up Automata's shit and that we can steal all of their shit. If she got a shrink ray gun, then she can have something that enlarges things, eh? Imagine, we buy all those super-cheap toys, super-size them and turn them into real vehicles… we'd have a whole fleet. The merchants will be unstoppable! And of course, as a side bonus, you get back to your normal size too."
Squealer grinned nastily at that. "Of course I can fuck their shit up. I may be little right now, but I'm still deadly dangerous."
"That's my girl!"
This shit right here? This was why Skidmark was the leader--he had an uncanny way of turning even the most rotten lemons into lemonade and knew how to cheer her up. This was why she loved him so much.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Meanwhile elsewhere--
Lung stood on a table as he surveyed his minions working around the clock as they collected weapons of every type and making as many as explosives as they could make.
Irritatingly, he was still… miniaturized. But that was a situation he planned on fixing very soon, once he had taught Kismet a lesson for humiliating him like this. Ideally, he'd be able to return to his normal size then.
"Oni Lee." He said, and then coughed. Ugh, he hated how being so small affected how his voice box sounded to himself and others.
At least, none of the ABB had dared to laugh at him ever again after he had made an example out of the one who had burst out laughing upon seeing him ride in Oni Lee's pocket and heard his small squeaky voice.
Turns out, even at the size of a large monitor lizard (who were on fire), one could still easily kill a human being. Good to know that one was still dangerous at any size no matter what.
Oni Lee moved to his side in an instant and bowed before the table. "You called for me?"
"Have you set things in place yet? I want the Automata group heavily monitored everywhere they go. I want to know where they usually patrol." Lung demanded to know.
He was planning to set an ambush where they usually went so that he could capture various members of the group and then ransom them in exchange for returning him to normal. But if that failed…
Well, there was a fallback plan. They hadn't made a secret out of where their base was, after all. That massive tower stood out like a sore thumb in the city, so it'd be all too easy to attack them where they supposedly lived and worked.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Somewhere in Canada--
"I don't like this at all… sending her in there all alone? She should have backup." Mischa said as he and Geoff watched Mags pack her things.
"It's the best way to get their guards down. We need somebody on the inside, and I know they're hiring people to maintain the tower right now. And once she's on the inside, we can find their weaknesses, and try to reason with them. If they're utterly unreasonable, we destroy them." Geoff said.
"Besides," Mags chimed in with a smile of her own. "People tend to lower their guards around women more than they do men. That's just how it is."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Back in Brockton Bay--
Max Anders couldn't help but feel completely humiliated and emasculated. He had gotten away from Kismet and the others because he had honestly thought this shrink ray would simply wear off in a few hours or so.
After all, it had happened that way last time. And he had been able to resume his business as nothing had happened.
But this second time around was a little different. He had a terrible sinking feeling that this shrinking effect was now permanent unless he got Kismet to reverse it.
And now when he was outside of his armor he had to wear those… shitty doll clothes given to him by Purity. He had tried to appeal to Purity's sympathetic side, and the side of her that still loved him by explaining the situation that he needed her now that he was this size permanently until they got Kismet to fix it.
Instead of being sympathetic like he had expected her to be, she instead had burst out laughing and said that his new size suited him. Although, she did agree to help him because she didn't want him to get killed off by a large cat or something ridiculous.
"Don't get me wrong. I still think you're a shithead, but we have some unfinished business between the two of us. I'm not letting you get killed off so easily until I've had my pound of flesh from you. So yes, I'll help you. For now." She had said.
Well, he would take what he could have, so he had accepted her help. But he had no idea that she would end up humiliating him so badly in a wide variety of ways in front of the entire Empire Eighty-Eight!
It had started small enough with the ridiculous and tacky doll clothing that made him look like a clown due to the clashing ugly colors. Kayden had all too innocently claimed that this was the best she could do on short notice and besides there was no way she'd shell out big money for the nicer doll clothing when this wasn't even going to be permanent. But, he got the feeling that she had simply gone for the tackiest and cheapest things she could find in the bargain bin judging by how much the rough fabric made his skin itch and break out in hives.
And then when he had gathered the troops together and tried to show them that he was still able to be respected and feared despite his new small size, Purity had pretty much sabotaged his efforts beforehand by talking about how small he was now. And then had suggested that certain parts of him were already tiny before all of this happened, but that he still knew how to be a man in other ways.
"Of course, just because he always had certain shortcomings and tended to overcompensate for it with flashy displays and having multiple mistresses…. Well, that doesn't make him less of a man. So please respect him as you always did…" Purity said with faux-innocence, as she tried to warn the goons so that they wouldn't have the nasty shock of seeing their beloved leader reduced to such a tiny size.
The gang had been confused at first, but once they got around to seeing him stand on a table, trying to motivate and rally the troops in that squeaky voice of his… well. They just lost it laughing hysterically.
He had never had that happen before! And the way they pointed and laughed at him… ugh. He had never felt so embarrassed before in his entire life!
Even worse, none of them seemed to want to help him capture the Automata group and force them to return him to normal size, much less help him free the others who were still being held captive for trial. From what he heard, his faithful follower Krieg and the twins had returned to normal but were still being held somewhere in an unspecified location because they didn't want the gang springing them before they were sent to jail, or worse, the birdcage should their judge decide that.
And, Hookwolf was dead. Stormtiger and the others had turned traitor, so there was no point in trying to bust them out if he was just going to be stabbed in the back later.
In the most bizarre way possible, Kismet and her group had single-handed managed to cut down Empire Eighty-Eight without even laying a single hand on them… all it took was shrinking down a few capes? Ugh.
Even worse, he was pretty sure that Purity was taking advantage of this whole situation to turn things around in her favor and that she was already in the process of leaving him for good. And, he couldn't even do anything about it in his current situation.
For the second time in his life, he felt so…. Utterly powerless.
He heard a noise outside, the sounds of people walking around the room. Right now he was in a doll bed stored away in the closet, because he hadn't felt safe sleeping in the open in his current size. Not after a rat had gotten into the room somehow and decided that he looked tasty. Of course, he had managed to kill that blasted rat by blasting needle-like metals into its' eyes and mouth, but the experience had still left him shaken.
He then yelled, in that squeaky voice he so loathed, "Didn't I tell you that I wanted some peace? Leave!"
The footsteps stopped, and within moments the closet door opened to reveal some capes he didn't recognize.
He tensed up at this, as he had thought it would be purity or some of the followers who were still loyal to him.
"Well. Turns out the rumors weren't as exaggerated as I thought. Such a pity." The masked man in steel grey said as he looked back at the other two capes.
"Who are you?" Max demanded to know.
The man in steel colors spread his hands grandly as he bowed down before Max, although he still loomed over Max when he did that. "We are the Gesellschaft. When we heard of your plight, it was decided that we would come to aid you. The two people back here is Night and Fog, and I am Stahl Adler… or as you Americans would translate my name, Steel Eagle."
Max's eyes widened at that. The only reason why the Empire Eighty-Eight had stayed in power for so long in Brockton Bay was due to the Gesellschaft. Well that, and the fact that he had been secretly using his medical company to support the Empire.
He quickly jumped out of his doll bed and stood to full attention. "This is truly an honor. I had no idea that the Gesellschaft would think so highly of my organization that they would come to help in our time of need."
Steel Eagle chuckled. "Is it so unthinkable? We are allies who are united for a common cause, and your group is one of the major footholds that we have in America. Why would we not come to your aid? Come, and you can tell me about this Automata group, and how we can restore you to your usual self."
With this, he reached down with his hand flat and outstretched, as if he wanted Max to climb on.
Max smiled at this. Well, maybe not everything was lost to him after all.There were a few pluses to being miniature-sized, Squealer couldn't help but discover.
In the beginning, when she had become a tinker, she had been so full of lovely ideas. Ever since the start, she had always wanted something that could easily defy gravity and the laws of physics. She dreamed of a car that could travel across not only the roads but climb skyscrapers like it was a friggin' mountain climber.
Imagine, a car with a built-in stealth system that could climb up the sides of the Hospital buildings without ever being detected, and that way they could rob the entire place blind.
Unfortunately, reality had a way of ruining your dreams as it usually did. She might be a powerful tinker, but she was still hampered by the fact that she had very limited resources. She loved being in the merchants, but even she had to admit that most of the stuff they gave her was total crap.
So as a result, she couldn't build an anti-gravity system in addition to the stealth systems. Not to mention the magnetism system one would need to make the car cling to the sides of the building like it was fucking Spiderman from the Earth Aleph movies she had seen dozens of times before.
There was the logical problem that the more heavy the vehicle was, the more power there was needed for the anti-gravity system. If she put that into a car that was heavy and dense like a tank, then she'd need a generator that was roughly the size of a car engine but could power a dozen cities, something like a nuclear generator. That was something she didn't have the resources for at all. In fact, that kind of technology didn't even exist yet on Earth Bet, even with the many various tinkers out there.
But to make her dreams come true, that meant that the car had to be ridiculously light, meaning that she'd have to sacrifice turning the cars into a tank or even get rid of the stealth systems. And well, she didn't want to make a pansy, weak-ass car that could easily fall apart like a fragile little feather, just because she wanted a car that could climb buildings.
So, she had given that particular dream up in favor of more practical vehicles she could make…. Or so she had thought.
When working on the RC vehicles, designing them so that they could infiltrate Automata's base, it suddenly occurred to her that she now had a very real chance to make one of her dreams come true. At long last, she'd be able to drive a heavily armored car that could very easily climb buildings… because for once it wouldn't be too heavy for the anti-gravity systems to handle. That was one of the benefits one got from being small.
Anybody walking by at that moment would hear some very demented, squeaky-sounding cackling coming from the corner of her room while Squealer worked on her RC cars. And they couldn't help but wonder what had gotten her so worked up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Hmm, that's odd." Clarence Birdseye said as he replayed the video interview he had recorded with a woman called Margaret.
"What is it?" Hideo Yamamoto looked up from his computer where he was in the process of coding more stuff for the virtual internet space that he was working on.
"I was using that newest thinker power that Annette gave all of us, the one that would let us know whenever a person was employable or not. And well, the thinker ability picked up a few oddities with this woman I can't seem to explain." Clarence said.
"Oh?"
"My thinker power outright states that she's the perfect employee because she's very fanatically devoted to her current job. Which implies that she's already employed…. Yet her work history doesn't point to any of this. She came in with a sob story about how much she needed this job to feed her family. Something doesn't match up here." Clarence explained.
Hideo frowned slightly. "You're right, that is odd. Do you think maybe she's sent in as a spy for somebody else?"
Clarence sat back in his seat with slightly narrowed eyes. "That would certainly explain it…"
Hideo went back to his coding project as he said, "Well, that's it. Just don't hire her."
Clarence smirked. "Nah. If we reject her they'd probably just keep on sending in more people… Nah, let's use her as bait, see who wants to spy on us. And in the process collect evidence that they're trying to get the dirt on us so that we can turn the tables on them…"
Hideo paused in the middle of his typing. He frowned again as he shot Clarence, a highly skeptical look. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
Clarence chuckled. "Oh, ye of little faith. It's not like I'm going to give her unrestricted access to the entire place. I'll limit her access to the bottom 40 levels only, and see what she'll do next...."
Hideo just shook his head at that. "Still think that's a bad idea. That's going to blow up in your face, I just know it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Southwest of Captain's Hill.--
"Damn." That was all Kismet could say, as her patrol team found themselves ambushed by the ABB.
They had somehow managed to nab Ulala before she could activate her dance power, and now had a gun pointed to the back of her head.
Oni Lee had come out carrying Lung and demanded that Kismet return Lung back to his normal size.
Kismet cooperated with them because that was something she would've done anyway, and frowned in confusion when instead of seeing Lung revert back to his normal size, he wound up shrinking even more?
This seemed to upset Oni Lee, as he started becoming aggressive towards Kismet.
"I'm sorry! I swear I don't know what's going on… if he gets shot with the shrink ray twice, then this means he should've returned back to his human size! There seems to be something inferring with the process!" Kismet yelled.
She tried shooting at Lung again, but this only returned him back to his barbie-doll size instead of restoring him to his human size.
This was so weird… it was as if her gun thought that was what Lung's normal size was supposed to be. And unfortunately, her gun didn't have a setting to make things bigger, because it was a shrink ray gun.
But how could she explain that to the others without them shooting Ulala's head off or having Oni Lee stab the fuck out of Kismet?
She pulled on her power, hoping her power had the answer for that--
>Ding<
Roll 28--Dungeon Crawl. A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video games that predominantly feature dungeon crawl elements are considered to be a genre. The first computer-based dungeon crawl was pedit5, developed in 1975 by Rusty Rutherford on the PLATO interactive education system based in Urbana, Illinois. Although this game was quickly deleted from the system, several more like it appeared, including dnd and Moria.
Effect: At this location, the entrance to an underground dungeon is constructed in the form of a small fantasy castle. The underground dungeon comes with over 1,300 subfloors for players to beat and is solely populated with typical RPG and fantasy creatures, from slimes to mimics, and so much more. Whenever somebody enters the entrance, they are scanned by the powers as to their true natures, and automatically assigned a player class based on their traits. Every human will then gain Gamer-like powers, but those powers will only grow if they train and use their powers within this dungeon. They can use the powers and skills they gained outside of the dungeon, but it won't get stronger on the outside. This is intentional on the Dungeon's part so that the players can keep on coming back to become stronger. Whoever reaches the final floor and can defeat the final boss will then become the new Dungeon Keeper, the ruler of the entire dungeon...
Everyone startled as a small medieval castle popped out of nowhere, and Ulala took this chance to knock her captors off their feet and activate her dance powers so that the force fields would go up around her as she chose a target to dance off against.
The first guy refused the dance-off challenge and was subsequently paralyzed per the rules of Ulala's powerset, and Ulala kept on picking a target until some of the ABB goons finally wisened up to the fact that they could possibly beat her without getting paralyzed as their friends did. So they recently accepted the challenge and started dancing as force fields formed up around them, creating a Dance Dance Revolution-like game within that space.
Meanwhile, Kismet was doing her best to dodge all of Oni Lee's attacks as she tried to reason with the man.
"Look, if you and Lung would just turn yourself in, then I'd be able to take a look at what's wrong with Lung and try to fix the problem…" She was saying, but Oni Lee interrupted her by throwing a bunch of knives at her.
Rude.
She ducked and then rolled out of the way, painfully pulling her left leg muscle as she did so--
>Ding<
Roll 18--Scaling (geometry). In Euclidean geometry, uniform scaling (or isotropic scaling) is a linear transformation that enlarges (increases) or shrinks (diminishes) objects by a scale factor that is the same in all directions. The result of uniform scaling is similar (in the geometric sense) to the original. A scale factor of 1 is normally allowed, so that congruent shapes are also classed as similar. Uniform scaling happens, for example, when enlarging or reducing a photograph, or when creating a scale model of a building, car, airplane, etc. More general is scaling with a separate scale factor for each axis direction. Non-uniform scaling (anisotropic scaling) is obtained when at least one of the scaling factors is different from the others; a special case is directional scaling or stretching (in one direction). Non-uniform scaling changes the shape of the object; e.g. a square may change into a rectangle, or into a parallelogram, if the sides of the square are not parallel to the scaling axes (the angles between lines parallel to the axes are preserved, but not all angles). It occurs, for example, when a faraway billboard is viewed from an oblique angle, or when the shadow of a flat object falls on a surface that is not parallel to it.
Effect: Annette now can enlarge or shrink people or random objects to her liking any time she wants with a mere touch, even without shrink ray guns.
Kismet wished at this exact moment that she could glare at her own power, because seriously? It couldn't give her this earlier on? Then this way she would have avoided getting into a fight with the goddamned ABB and prevented her leg muscle from being pulled while she was dodging Oni Lee's attacks.
Her left leg still hurt like a goddamn bitch, by the way.
And now there was no way they would even let her go near Lung to help fix whatever was wrong with him. Hmm…. oh, there was an idea.
"You want Lung to return to normal, right? Meet me at my base in a week, I have tech back home that could enlarge him but I have to work out the bugs first. Is that a deal? If yes, can we please stop fighting?" Kismet called out.
Amazingly enough, Oni Lee seemed to stop attacking her once she blurted that out.
Lung wasn't completely convinced though, and he gestured to the minion holding him in a basket to come closer to Kismet so that he could speak to her.
"How do we know that it isn't a trap?" Lung asked.
Kismet sighed. "Look, I hate to admit it… but the truth is I haven't still gotten a good handle on my tech that shrinks and enlarges people. It's still full of bugs, which is probably why it wasn't working right when I tried to return you back to your size. I need time to fix it, okay? I need to figure out why my ray gun didn't work on you. And if you think it's a trap you can come with your goons at your beck and call. Deal?"
Lung pondered this. He had been planning to storm the base with every ABB member he had on hand if this ambush failed to get what he wanted, anyway. That just meant that his backup plan would still be the same, with the minor difference being that the Automata group would welcome him in instead and that Kismet would revert him back out of her own free will. If she was being truthful about her intentions to start with.
But no matter what the outcome, nothing would change… Lung would still get his way, as he always did.
So he nodded in agreement, saying in that detestable squeaky voice, "It is a deal."
At that, all the ABB members backed off, save for the ones who were still dancing off against Ulala.
"Does this mean I can stop dancing now?" They pleaded. They didn't really want to be recorded dancing like this, but they also didn't want to get temporarily paralyzed if they lost or just gave up.On a certain day, run-down cars and vans pulled up close to where the Automata base was. The bystanders gave them a curious glance as the men jumped out. But they went on their way once it turned out to be a meeting place for what looked like a group of RC vehicle hobbyists.
A large gathering of men and a few women playing with what appeared to be RC cars, helicopters, and what not? Interesting, but not that noteworthy enough to keep on watching them.
Of course, had the bystanders stayed around long enough they would've seen Skidmark in his ratty blue costume peek outside to make sure nobody noticed him, before gently setting down the ugliest customized RC car one might've seen in their life. And that there appeared to be a doll in a frilly pink dress sitting inside.
The doll would, of course, turn out to be Squealer.
The reason why Squealer was wearing what appeared to be a gaudy pink prom dress from hell, was due to the fact that the seats on the inside of the RC cars weren't exactly designed for comfort. And well, out of all the doll clothes that Skidmark gave her, this was the only one that gave her some comfortable cushioning on her butt when she sat in the RC car.
And she was also wearing yellow rubber bands that doubled as seat belts for her seat since this model hadn't been designed to seat dolls in there at all, much less a miniature living person.
"Okay, time to test all our shit before we launch our mission. Cameras and microphones working okay?" Skidmark asked, and the tech guy inside the van nodded.
"Testing cameras…" He said as a dozen small CRT TV monitors stacked on each other in neat rows lit up after one other, showing what the cameras hidden inside the RC cars were "seeing". Most importantly, they could see Squealer inside her vehicle. And the 360 degrees camera on the top of her vehicle was also working great.
"All video feeds in prime condition. Testing the mics. Squealer, you hear us?"
"Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Can we get this over with already?" Squealer's squeaky voice grumbled over the line.
The tech guy nodded at Skidmark and Skidmark grinned nastily. "Yeah, let's fuck up their shit!"
He wasted no time in going out and building a massive large glowing ramp with his power that would accelerate Squealer's speed when she started racing on this thing, and also send her flying straight at the tower.
Squealer pressed her feet down hard on the hand-crafted pedals that she had built into this RC monster truck, and it picked up speed quickly as it raced across the glowing ramps. Before she knew it, her monster truck was sailing across the air and was heading straight at one of the building's curved walls at breakneck speeds.
She quickly activated the anti-gravity and magnetism systems, which caused the car to flip in the air before landing on the wall. And, it was clinging to the wall just like she wanted.
"Woo! I did it!" Squealer cheered, as she pressed down on the pedal once again, causing her to speed up and climb upwards the side of the pearl building. Her goal today was to get to the top of the tower, get into the place that way, and then explore the place from top to bottom looking for Kismet's workshop so that they could steal her shit.
"Atta girl. We'll move into position down here." Skidmark said, before switching off the radio.
It was too bad though, that Skidmark's tracks couldn't extend all the way up there though, that would make the climb go so much faster. But, she was also content to see how much this little baby of hers could handle climbing up such a massive tower. Hopefully, the battery wouldn't run out at a bad time.
Down on the ground floor, Skidmark then said into the radio, "Everyone, pull your RC cars into position, and engage cloaking before your cars enter the building!"
The merchants all obeyed, as they lined up their cars in front of the Pearl building before they all disappeared from sight. And then the merchants pushed on the remote controllers, and the only indication that their cars were even moving, was by the way the dirt on the pavement moved around, and the dots on their built-in radar thing.
The automatic doors on the building opened once the pressure plates outside sensed something trying to enter the building, and the invisible RC cars made it inside safely without too much fuss.
Skidmark couldn't help but let out a loud bark of laughter at this. They hadn't even any detectors down there in case something tried to enter the building? And automatic doors like they were some fancy upscale mall or something?? And everyone laughed at the Merchants for being losers… well, at least they didn't have shitty security like that! Not even a few guards stationed outside?
Pathetic.
Well, too bad for them… those Stealth RC cars were all packed with explosives! The RC cars were to park themselves in strategic positions within the building and they'd be Skiddy's going-away present once he got what he wanted from the Automata group.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Earlier--
"In light of current events, I've decided to give the guards paid time off today. They're not capes, so they can't possibly stand up against Lung and the ABB. as for the rest of the staff, especially the cleaning staff, I'm giving them hazard pay but I've issued commands for them to stay out of the way in case Lung does something dangerous. They'll get paid to help clean up the mess afterward, however." Kismet said.
She was explaining the game plan for today, such as having a fake tinker lab down on the lower levels where she would restore Lung to his original size without letting them know where her actual lab in the tower was at. Also, keeping things on the lower levels here would allow for Lung to enter and leave quickly as possible… thus keeping things peaceful as possible.
"I don't know. There are just so many things wrong with this plan." Birdy said, "we're literally just laying out a welcome mat for anybody planning to enter the tower today. What if some curious bystanders come into the tower to explore it? What if some other enemies decide to infiltrate the tower at the same time Lung does? What if something happens and Lung blames it on us?"
"That's why I asked Tech-fire and his artificial intelligence programs to keep an eye on the entire tower today and to lock down most of the tower. People will be only be allowed on the first floor up to the 10th floor, as seen on those floors there's nothing of importance to start with anyway. The Thompsons will help Tech-fire keep an eye on things, while the rest of us will be down here in our heavy armor." Kismet replied.
"Besides, if anybody that doesn't belong tries to come in, I can gently persuade them to go elsewhere…" Nanny Ogg suggested.
Hermes/Danny shook her head. "I don't like this at all… it's all so sudden. But, unless somebody else here comes up with a good plan on how to deal with Lung, I guess we're stuck with this last-minute plan."
"Believe it or not, but I discussed this with Armsmaster on what to do about this Lung situation the other day," Kismet said, sighing slightly. "He didn't seem to have any better ideas but said to have him on speed dial in case a fight broke out. So we do have that on the table too at least."
Everyone nodded at that. It did make them feel better to know that they weren't completely on their own.
As the Automata group discussed every avenue they could take in case a fight broke out, little did they know that they were being spied on.
Mags of the Dragonslayers group was nearby but hidden, as she listened to the conversation. Internally, she was smirking to herself.
The timing couldn't be more perfect… if a fight broke out then she'd take this chance while everyone was distracted to find the nearest computer that was connected to everything in the entire building, and install a virus that would allow the Dragonslayers to hijack everything here. This way they could watch the Automata group through cameras, their internet activities, etc.
This way they all would be able to learn what kind of people this group was, and whenever they could be reasoned with… or if they needed to be killed for the sake of the world. Tech-fire clearly had to go, as it was clear that through his interactions with Dragon that he was one of those feeble-minded humans who honestly saw AI as actual people in themselves… but that didn't mean that the rest of the group couldn't be reasoned with. Unfortunately, they didn't know too much about the others so they had to resort to measures like this.
Mags sincerely hoped that the rest of the group could be reasoned with because she didn't really want to kill everyone if she could avoid it. Especially so because one of the members was just a young teenage girl, and she didn't want Karma's death on her conscience… even though she'd kill her if she had to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Present-Time--
"Um, Skidmark?" one of the merchants nervously approached the van where Skidmark was hiding out in and watching the video feeds on all of the RC cars that had infiltrated the building, as well as watching Squealer's climb up the tower. She was already halfway up there, around the 120th floor.
Seriously, how many floors did this god-damned tower have?? It was just ridiculous.
"What the fuck do you want? I'm trying to watch Squealer do her thing." Skidmark snapped.
"The ABB's here. And what's more, the Automata seemed to be expecting them as they're standing outside waiting for them." The merchant told him meekly.
"What?" Skidmark poked his head out to look at the Pearl building's entrance, and sure enough, there was a large group of ABB goons and Oni-lee carefully carrying a basket towards it.
Skidmark narrowed his eyes. What the fuck were they up to? He couldn't stand it if the ABB actually went out of their way to sabotage his plans to steal Automata's shit. Not that they knew about his plans as he hadn't told anybody else, but still.
Thankfully, he still had some smaller RC cars in reserve for this sort of thing.
"Put one of the RC cars in stealth mode and get close as you can so I can hear what's going on over there. Hurry!" He demanded of his merchants, and one of them complied.
The merchants' car disappeared from sight, and the only indication it was moving towards the building was where the dirt in the ground moved around.
Skidmark turned on an extra TV and turned up the speaker so that he'd hear everything.
"I have brought Lung-sama to you." Oni Lee was saying over the speakers, "If you fail to restore him to his original size the consequences will be severe."
On the video feed, the teleporting bomber had opened up the basket to reveal Lung himself.
Skidmark blinked. "Oh yeah, I forgot he got shrunk down alongside us…" He mumbled to himself.
On the TV screen, Kismet merely nodded and gestured for everyone to get inside.
The technician next to Skidmark then asked, "But why are they going along with Lung's demands? I thought they were enemies?"
Skidmark scoffed. "Lung must've found some dirt on them and is blackmailing them into helping him. It's obvious, it's the sort of thing I would've done myself if I could."
The technician simply nodded at that, as that did make sense to him.
Skidmark then grinned nastily. "But this's a real opportunity. We can have our little mechanical spy follow them from behind and see where Kismet keeps her lab. Then, we can charge in and steal all of their shit before Lung wrecks everything, because that's what he always does."
The Tech guy then spoke into the mic. "Alright, you heard the boss. Have your car follow in after them."
The merchant controlling that RC car nodded, and waited until all of the ABB members were walking into the house before following closely behind them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lung looked about the place as they all walked inside, and he had to say, he wasn't terribly impressed at all.
The first floors of this massive tower looked more like it belonged in a mall… a high-scale mall that sold expensive things granted, but still just a mall all the same.
Was this the impression that this group wanted to give off to the public? He had heard rumors from his spies in the PRT that the Automata group was planning to sell off some of their tinker-tech and be something akin to heroic rogues…
Although something was also very strange about this so-called "mall". There were actual store signs hanging over some of those stores, and most of them were in Chinese and Engrish rather than actual American English. And he knew this for a fact because he could read most of them, thanks to his history as a Chinese prisoner before he escaped the Yangban.
"Ah, you must be wondering why those signs are in Chinese," Kismet explained, "Funny thing is, you know how our tower just kind of… built itself? Well, believe it or not, but the tower built itself using the plans of a Chinese Architect that we found. Apparently, the plans were made for a spot in Hong Kong before the Yanban took over most of China. It never got built though and were originally meant to be somewhat smaller but there were errors in the documents we found, so as a result, it wound up much bigger than we thought it would be."
That last part was actually something of a lie because she really didn't want the public to think she had a size complex or something, due to her supposed specialty. Like she was compensating for something, ya know? Having those weirdos depict her as a giantness online was bad enough, she didn't need more crap on top of that.
"OH! So that's why there were that dragon and the pearl imagery going on with the building… and why you call it the Pearl." One of the ABB said, looking somewhat enlightened by this explanation.
Another one sniffed loudly. "Just like Americans to take something that wasn't even theirs to start with."
"Would you have preferred that this never got built to start with? At least that Chinese architect had his dreams come true years later after he died, even if his tower was built in a different spot than he expected it to be." Hermes said, "We're still in the process of altering the bottom levels but hasn't gotten around to removing all the signs yet."
"What was this architect's name?" Lung wondered.
"Zhao Long Ji." Kismet automatically answered, having memorized all the facts about this tower that she could.
"Hmm." Lung just grunted at that, making a mental note to look that name up later on. Of course, knowing the Chinese government and the Yangan, it was probably going to be a real bitch collecting information on some obscure guy who died a long time ago. Although, he probably had immigrated over here to escape what was going on in China at the time before dying. Otherwise, how did this tinker group find his notes?
It was too bad that this place was so public by now… a building designed with the legend of the dragon and his pearl in mind? It just felt like this building should belong to Lung by all rights. Yet if he was to claim this building for himself it just meant that all of his enemies would know where to find him. Which would render the building useless for his purposes. Such a shame.
"At any rate, you didn't come here to learn the history of the building. You wanted to return to your size, so let's get to it. Follow me." Kismet said, and Lung simply nodded at that. With that, the large group followed Kismet up some escalators towards the back of the "mall" area.
"We set up a makeshift laboratory for you, considering that you might want to get in and out of here as quickly as possible, yeah? And you can't do that if you're all the way at the top of the building." Kismet said, pretty much implying that was where she kept all her stuff. She gestured at a bunch of machines, telling the ABB group what functions they had. Especially at something that looked like an MRI machine, but still looked like it was a sci-fi prop.
Which it honestly was, as Kismet was only doing this under the false pretext that she was a straight Tinker and not some weird flavor of cape who summoned things. but the ABB didn't have to know that, did they? Besides, if shit went down and Lung went on a ramage this just meant nothing of importance was lost.
"Oni Lee. Can you place Lung over here? I want to scan him first, see why my ray gun didn't work on him." Kismet asked. She actually had a pretty good idea of why Lung hadn't been affected, after having studied Oni Lee's power in action.
But, She felt that Oni Lee wouldn't be very forthcoming about how his powers worked if she just straight out asked... but he might be willing to answer her if she did it under the pretense of helping Lung.
Thankfully, Oni Lee seemed to comply as he gently settled Lung down on the MRI-like machine. Kismet pulled at a lever, which wheeled Lung into the circular part of the MRI-like device, and pressed a button that swept non-lethal lasers all over Lung's body. The computer next to the machine then displayed a lot of nonsensical stuff, which Annette pretended to understand.
"How odd. This says that the exotic effect I placed on his body when I shrunk him was never on him in the first place. And that his body reads as perfectly normal even if he's ridiculously small. That shouldn't be. The only way this could happen is if he was taken apart and then put back together in a teleporter machine or something…? That would explain why my ray gun didn't return him back to normal when I tried to remove the exotic effect." Kismet looked puzzled, as she quickly spun around to face Oni Lee.
"Oni Lee. you're a teleporter, right? Is it possible that your power somehow inferred with the shrinking effect that I put on Lung?"
Oni Lee seemed to consider this, and then reluctantly nodded. He spoke haltingly, as he tried to explain his power to his best ability. "Power makes clones I place anywhere across space I see. Consciousness transfers around the clones all the time...remaining clone that does not die and turn to dust becomes the real blood and flesh person. Is how I teleport. But do it too much, then parts of the mind die. Might have killed off parahuman effect too."
Kismet blinked at that. That… was honestly more horrifying than she had thought. And judging by the slightly horrified expressions on some of the nearby ABB members, that little factoid wasn't common knowledge even in the ABB group.
She took a deep breath at that. "Right. That would do it alright. Um, let's have lung lie down on this medical table over there while I use the machine next to it to enlarge him…"
She pulled the lever again to roll Lung out of the MRI machine and had Oni Lee carry Lung over to a medical table.
"Alright, Lung. lie down and you'll be back to your normal size." Kismet said in a professional tone of voice.
Lung just grunted softly at this as he laid down in the center. Kismet quickly touched him with the tip of her finger, triggering her size control ability before turning on the machine by her, which was yet another useless prop that was just there to look impressive.
The machine beeped as it let out a purple light, bathing Lung in its light.
"It's working!" one of the ABB members perked up as they noticed Lung getting bigger… and bigger… and bigger….
"Oh, crap." Kismet quickly turned off the machine. She had subconsciously imagined Lung as being bigger than he really was when she had used her power to try to return him back to normal… and now he was ridiculously tall for a Japanese man. Stupid subconscious conflating his rage dragon size and his human size!
If Kismet remembered right, Lung had actually been around 5'9 to 6'0… which wasn't so bad for a Japanese man. Well, he was now roughly 7'9. Which was very tall for any human being to be, regardless of ethnicity.
"Um, oops? Didn't mean to make you so big. I can fix that if you want?" Kismet said weakly.
"No. Considering that you can't seem to control the sizes, you'd probably just make me abnormally short for a Japanese man. This is fine." Lung growled.
He stood up to leave, and his hair was actually scraping against the ceiling.
"You sure? You'd just keep on hitting your head on doors and stuff? I hear that's a common tall people problem and that's when they're at six feet tall." Kismet wondered with a somewhat dubious look on her face.
"I'm sure." Lung gritted his teeth, and that's when Birdy rushed into the room with a panicked expression.
"They're coming! The Nazis are coming!" He yelled.
"What? Why?" Kismet instantly looked worried.
"I got a strange call from Purity, stating that she was warning us about this because she didn't want her husband returned back to his normal self quite yet… but that he had gotten help from out of town capes to storm this building so that he could force you to return him to normal…" Birdy babbled a little bit, but at least his words were easy to follow along.
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot that I shrunk Kaiser too… he got away, though?" Kismet muttered to herself.
"Wait, Purity and Kaiser are married? And why wouldn't she want her husband back to normal?" One of the ABB goons asked.
"Ermm. to make a long story short, Purity's in the middle of a nasty divorce from what I hear. I ran into them when they were arguing in costume once. Apparently, he blackmailed her into joining the Empire and forced her to marry him. And then kept on cheating on her with the bimbo twins. So yeah, she hates his guts… and for good reason. Guess she thought that a mini-kaiser was easier to deal with than a life-size Kaiser?" Kismet told them.
"Damn. Talk about stone cold." the ABB goon said.
"Who? Kaiser or Purity?" another asked.
"Both." the first person replied.
Lung smirked slightly. "In return for your services today, Kismet, I shall rid this building of Nazis for you. Besides, if Kaiser is here? I'm more than happy to help Purity out with her…. Little problem."
Kismet grimaced at that, unsure if that was a good idea to start with. She honestly did not want a gang war to break out on her front lawn, but she couldn't think of a good way to diffuse the situation without it blowing up in her face. Honestly, sometimes she just had the worst luck ever!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Skidmark was gearing up to invade the Tower now that he knew where the enlargement machine was at. Most importantly Squealer had finally reached the very top of the tower and was entering the Pearl itself.
Kismet had said on the live feed that the top floors were where she kept her crap, so Squealer could figure a way to embiggen herself and steal everything. And then drive a life-sized RC car back down the tower?
And, Skidmark himself would steal the machine on the lower levels… and between the two of them, they'd be unstoppable.
But his good mood was dashed to pieces once he saw that the remains of Empire Eighty-Eight were approaching the tower too.
He groaned loudly. He then sarcastically asked, "What is this, a party for all the gangs? If there's a party going on why weren't I invited?"
He then stood up in the van as he spoke over the mics. "Screw this shit. I'm going out there to fuck up their shit regardless. Who's with me?"
"You cum-guzzling fucks! Get out of here, I was staking out this place first before you assholes came on the scene! I got first dibs on this place!" Skidmark was screaming as he stormed the place along with a dozen Merchants.
Kismet felt a headache coming on as she realized that the entirety of Brockton Bay's gangs were all here, for some reason…
Oh yeah. There was one way to resolve this without starting up a gang war on her turf, wasn't there.
"Listen. You're obviously all here because you had a member who got shrunk down by me at one point. How about this? I can unshrink your allies, and everyone can go on their way without starting a fight. I've already done Lung here, as you can see… so I can do the same for you. Deal?" Kismet called out to everyone hopefully.
Lung snorted loudly at that. "No. I would not have things go back to the way they were. I offered to help you with the Empire trespassing on your turf, mainly because I would sooner see them dead than see them wander around Brockton Bay another day. My men will see Kaiser dead this day, and his Empire scattered to the winds!"
The ABB around Lung cheered at that.
"That's right!"
"You tell them, boss!"
"How… vulgar. But that's to be expected from the lesser races, hmm?" A cape that Kismet didn't recognize at all spoke up.
"Sorry, but who are you?" Kismet wondered, as she looked over his costume, which had a very strong Nazi imagery to it. It was similar to what a decorated Nazi officer might've worn during WWII had they worn red instead of grey and green, and he was also wearing a grey metallic chest plate over his Nazi uniform that had a massive eagle clutching a swastika in its talons decorated across it. He was also wearing a metallic mask under his nazi officer hat, along with an actual nazi flag as his cape that he kept attached to his back.
A part of her internally rolled her eyes at how over the top that costume was… it was like this dude was trying to out-Nazi all the other Nazis. Even Kaiser and the other empire capes had more subtlety in their costumes than this dude did.
Hell, with Kaiser you wouldn't have known straight up that he was a Nazi until you came closer and saw the Swastika-shaped holes in his crowned knight helmet, that he had made for easier breathing. From a distance, he just looked like a medieval knight that had Celtic motifs on his armor.
It annoyed Annette a lot, by the way, how the Nazis kept on appropriating Celtic and Norse imagery when the cultures they came from never really endorsed white supremacism in the first place. Just like how they stole the lucky sun symbol from the Hindus and turned it into the swastika. It was the truth that the Nazis had zero culture of their own at all, so they basically had to steal cultural stuff from others in order to seem cool, edgy, and relevant.
"The name is Steel Eagle, Madam Kismet. I am one of Gesellschaft's elite, coming to aid the Empire in their time of need. I was going to ask you to aid us in restoring Kaiser back to his normal size, considering you were at fault for that in the first place." The cape replied stiffly and politely.
Lung sneered loudly at this. "Aha, so that's how the Empire got by for so long. I've heard rumors that they were being supported by allies from overseas. That without the Gesellschaft, they were nothing but powerless thugs who would've died out a long time ago. Imagine my non-surprise when this turns out to be true!"
"Don't ignore me, you assholes!" Skidmark screamed.
Everyone ignored Skidmark in favor of watching the ABB and what still remained of the Empire plus the Gesellschaft trash-talk each other, while Kismet futilely tried to keep things peaceful.
"Damn it, Lung. is this your idea of being helpful?" Kismet hissed, but Lung seemed to ignore her in favor of fixating on where Kaiser might be so that he could go after him and kill him. And Kaiser seemed to be carried by Night, some woman in grey and black garb.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Squealer FINALLY made it to the very top of the Tower… having successfully climbed all 225 levels.
Was this what mountain climbers felt like whenever they finally conquered a large mountain? Squealer wasn't the outdoorsy type and tended to think that things like hikes and mountain climbing were a waste of time. But at this moment, she could kind of understand the appeal now.
Of course, She climbed using her vehicle and hadn't scaled this stupid tower by hand… but that sense of accomplishment was the same. Climbing over what had to be a helipad was the hardest part, but now she could finally take a breather and let her little car rest a little as she radioed Skidmark that she was finally at the very top.
Of course, her peace couldn't last very long, as Skidmark radioed back telling her that the fucking ABB and Empire were right at Automata's doorsteps demanding that Kismet fix them or some shit. Squealer hadn't forgotten that the others had gotten shrunk as she did, but she simply hadn't cared about the others as that wasn't her problem, ya know? But it seemed like the others were determined to make it HER problem. Ugh.
"Damn. I'll hurry then!" She said back, "Soon as I find the shit that turns me back, that is."
She started up her car, and rushed into the ball-shaped pearl room itself as the doorway was wide open…. Her RC car skidded and spun around on the floor, and finally stopped. Squealer then pressed down on the pedal, only for her battery to completely die. That was when she realized something horrible.
The inside of the pearl was completely mirroring the outside. Which meant it had the illusion of there being no room, much less a tower, and that her RC car was now floating in the sky. It was giving her a very strong sense of vertigo… considering that she actually had a fear of heights that she had never told anybody about, not even skidmark.
And she couldn't find a door at all. Much less an outlet socket where she could recharge her RC car's batteries. And even worse… she couldn't tell where she had come in, so she couldn't simply exit that way.
"Ahh! Fucking shit! Where the hell is the door?!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mags jumped slightly when her cellphone rang, grabbing the attention of the other cleaning staff she was working with.
She pulled out her phone and looked at the caller ID. She rolled her eyes when she noticed it was her husband Geoff. She then explained to the others somewhat truthfully, "It's just my husband. He's been worried about me working here when I explained to him about the hazard pay."
The other cleaning staff just simply nodded at this and went back to cleaning on the tenth floor in the theater section, where they apparently played movies. The movie theater area was just a few floors above the mall area.
Everyone was admittedly a little nervous at being at the site where a possible parahuman fight could break out, but there were a few amongst them who seemed eager to record the entire incident on their cell phones if they could. Apparently, records of parahuman fights went for a good price around here, no matter how shitty the quality was. Who knew?
Maggie answered her phone and said in a syrupy-sweet voice, "Hey, sweetie. How's it going? I'm still at work."
Hopefully, Geoff would get the hint and not bother her anymore while she was supposed to be undercover. If they kept on calling her like this the others were bound to be suspicious. After all, she could only use the excuse of an overly worried and overprotective husband for so long.
If he kept this up long after the gangs were dealt with… well.
"Mags. Didn't you say you were going to install the virus around this time?" Geoff said on the other end, wondering what was happening over there that she'd get held up like that.
"Of course honey. I'm fine. I'm safely out of the way along with the other cleaning staff here. How are the kids? They're behaving themselves, yeah?" Mags said, sounding overly reassuring.
"We've already set up the monitoring system in your local apartment. We're all set here, we just have to wait on you…" Geoff replied.
Mags sighed. "Oh, dear."
She then said to the other people on her team here in the Pearl Tower, "uh, do you mind if I go talk to my husband elsewhere? Seems that one of my kids got into trouble… again. And I'd like for that to be a private chat."
An older woman gave her a sympathetic look, no doubt having experience with troublesome children of her own in the past. "Of course, dear. There's a ladies' bathroom nearby here, it's never been used… that should give you all the privacy you need."
Mags gave her a grateful look, silently mouthing "Thanks" as she walked off in the direction that the old lady pointed her in.
Little did she know that there was a glitch in the plumbing system for both the ladies and the men's restrooms on that floor… or that one of Skidmark's explosive-packed RC cars had opted to hide away in that area.
Once she rushed into the ladies' restroom, she then finally spoke into the phone now that she was alone with no chances of anybody overhearing her.
"I'm slowly working my way up here, Geoff. I need to earn their trust, and then install the virus while they're distracted. There are gangs meeting up here downstairs, I just need to wait for a fight to break out, and then I'll be able to do my thing. You're so impatient, Geoff. Have more faith in me please." Mags finally said once she was sure that they were alone and that nobody could overhear her on the phone.
"I know, honey. That's just… Well, it's Dobryina. He keeps on ragging on us about how it's a bad idea for you to be without backup. And he's starting to get to me. I'm starting to wonder if we all shouldn't have gone undercover together." Geoff said on the other end of the line.
Mags shook her head as she kept on walking into the bathroom area, unaware that a fully invisible RC car was directly in her path. "You know how much of a worrywart Dob tends to be--AHH!"
She yelped as her foot made contact with the RC car and slipped, sending the RC car flying against one of the walls. And as she fell down, she banged her head against the linoleum floor hard, knocking her out for a few seconds.
The impact against the wall caused the wiring inside the RC car with the built-in explosive to come loose, triggering the explosion prematurely. Lucky for Mags, there were only so many explosives that one could pack into an RC car, so it wasn't a huge explosion that would've been lethal to her. However, it was about to send off a chain of very unfortunate events…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--On the first floor--
The tension between all gangs as they watched each other warily was so thick that you could cut it with a butter knife.
Suddenly, there was a loud explosion in the distance nearby, and that seemed to trigger something in all of them, as the gang members suddenly lunged at each other, weapons swinging wildly in their hands.
The mall area had just turned into a fighting pit full of a hundred men and some women, as they battled for dominance over each other to see which gang would come out on top.
Honestly, it was like something straight out of an action movie… some of the ABB guys even apparently knew some kung fu and looked cool as heck while they were busting out their moves on their rivals.
Kismet belatedly remembered all too late that there was a widespread action movie effect over the entire tower, one that enabled everyone who ever stepped foot into here to feel and act like Action Heroes who did all their own cool stunts. In other words, there was a "Rule of Cool" Arena-of-Effect going on here.
This certainly explained why even the merchant gang members suddenly looked badass and competent when battling others as well….
And somewhere in the background, there were radios suddenly playing random songs that suspiciously sounded like fight songs.
There was a rap song where the man crooned about "tearing up da club", As Steel Eagle and Lung went at each other, the Asian man ramping up and covering himself up with fire as The Gesellschaft cape grew a pair of what looked like metallic wings out from under his nazi flag cape and took to the skies.
"This for all you playa haters who be talkin' that (Haha)
The three six-show no love, put some hurt on a trick
I'm bustin' through the crowd, wild, with my hand on a cannon
Be like quick to put two up in ya like who man standin'
I will be the last man, blast man
If you think you fast man, headlines
Three left 'em up in a cast man
When I look into your eyes I see a coward
Face to face I hit ya.
Tear da club up, nigga, tear da club up
Tear da club up, nigga, tear da club up
Tear da club up, nigga, tear da club up…"
Skidmark blindsided the hell out of the two of them with super-charged sharp projectiles that he had used his deflection forcefields for, piercing through Steel Eagle's body and caused the Nazi cape to crash through a wall with a shocked expression on his face.
Skidmark grinned, showing off some of his missing teeth. "That's what you get for underestimating me, bitches!"
Skidmark's grin was short-lived though, as this just caused Lung to turn on him, chasing after the Merchant leader as he grew bigger and bigger.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mags came to with one hell of a headache and stared around at the destroyed ladies' bathroom. She realized that she didn't have her phone anymore, and then set about looking for it.
While she was looking for what was most likely a broken cellphone, the pressure was building up in the toilet's pipes… causing fecal matter to move in the wrong direction.
They finally burst, and it just so happened that they were aimed at exactly where Mags was, and she found herself being hosed in brown sludge… and to her horror, she realized exactly what that brown sludge was once the smell hit her.
The spray from the broken pipes didn't let up, the pressure building up until the "water" was so strong that it was actively pinning Mags against one of the weak walls. Mags tried to call out for help, only to get the fecal matter into her mouth, which caused her to gag and throw up.
The weakened wall behind Mags finally crumbled under the water pressure, causing her to fall into what looked like a closed pillow store.
Stuttering, she weakly picked herself up and groaned loudly when she saw that she was completely bathed from head to toe in…. Shit. Ugh, she'd have to shower constantly twice every day before she could feel clean again.
But what was that sound in the distance? She realized quickly that it had to be the gangs fighting with each other, and that she couldn't waste this chance to infect the Tower's computer systems with the virus that Geoff and Dobybra had cooked up, no matter how much she smelled and felt unclean right now. She groped around her body, trying to find the hidden pocket that she had sewed on under her employee uniform, and sighed a breath of relief when the USB stick hidden there felt like it was still intact and didn't feel damaged at all. She didn't take it out quite yet, as seeing she was still caked in… fecal matter. And she didn't want to damage the USB stick, not when she had yet to get to a nearby computer system.
She determinedly set out to carry out her mission, not noticing a broken flashlight lying on the floor in the dark store until she stepped on it and found herself falling… again.
Thankfully, there was a mountain of pillows in a large box nearby, with a Chinese sign over it saying something about 50% off. Feathers flew about as she landed there, and she got up to climb over the box… and that's when she realized that she was now covered in feathers too.
"Ugh." She groaned, but at least that wasn't any worse than being covered in fecal matter. She then vowed to be more careful in looking where she stepped, so that there wouldn't be any more incidents like that.
She stormed out of the pillow store once she found an exit, fully aware of how ridiculous she looked right now, covered in both fecal matter and feathers. Ugh, so embarrassing...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Meanwhile, at the top where the Pearl room is--
Squealer gulped as she battled back her strong sense of vertigo. She had never told anybody this before, but she had what one could call a highly specific form of fear, a fear of heights.
She was normally fine with heights, as long as she was secured safely inside a vehicle. She had faith that even if the vehicle fell and crashed, there was still some buffer between her and the ground and that she'd be able to walk away alive thanks to things like airbags and junk. She had no problems riding an airplane for that reason.
But, take away anything she could hold on to? Not even a parachute for safety? That's when her fear of heights came out in full force.
Standing in a large mirrored room that gave off the illusion of there being no tower below her, that she was somehow suspended 3,500 meters high in the air? (which was over 10,000 ft high). That was literally the worst thing ever when it came to her phobia. It didn't even matter that she could feel a hard floor under her feet, her eyes and mind was telling her a different story.
Even worse, she couldn't stay in her RC car like she wanted to, because it had run out of power, and she needed to find an outlet to recharge her car's batteries. Hence why she was dragging this plastic junk around trying to find the walls of this room, or better yet, a door.
Not that she was making much progress, because her legs were feeling wobbly thanks to her phobia. She was dangerously close to a panic attack the more this went on.
That was when she noticed two young kids that seemed to be both seven years of age, wearing costumes and just kind of hovering there, staring at her curiously. What really caught her eye besides the costume they were wearing, was the fact that they didn't seem to be wearing any masks. They both looked vaguely Asian, despite having a lot of "white" features such as dark green eyes and blonde hair. The boy's hair was a dark brown color though, although he still had the same green eyes as that of his sibling.
Squealer startled at this, and blurted out, "Who the hell are you?"
The young girl tilted her head, as she responded. "I'm Roll.exe and my brother here's Rock.Exe. Who are you?"
Squealer raised one eyebrow at this. So they had to belong to the Automata family, huh? When they said they were a family of capes, they really meant it. Although, what kind of cape name was Rock.exe and Roll.exe? Was that some weird pun on Rock'n'Roll or something?
"I'm Squealer." She stood straight, fighting the urge to want to run back to her RC car and jump into there. Those kids might seem comfortable walking around this room, but she wasn't! But she wasn't the type to chicken out in front of kids. She had her rep to think about.
Roll.exe tilted her head even more in a quizzical manner, as she remarked, "That's a weird name."
Squealer scoffed. "You're one to talk. Now, little girl, can you please show me the way out of here? I wanna get into the tower here."
"Why?" Rock.Exe was the one to talk this time. "Your car's really cool… can I play with it?"
That seemed to give Squealer an idea as she smiled nastily. "Sure, you can. But the thing is, it's run out of power. It needs to be recharged first. But there's no outlet in here, is there? So that's why I needed to get into the tower, to recharge my ride here. I promise to let you play with it after it's done recharging..."
"Really? Awesome!" Rock.Exe seemed excited at that, But Roll.exe frowned slightly.
"I don't know. Daddy said we had to watch out and not let any gang members up here, that they were supposed to be confined to the lower floors only. I looked through the memory banks, and Squealer's a part of the Merchant gangs." Roll.Exe pointed out.
"But I'm already up here on the top floor! So technically you didn't let me up here, I was already there to start with. So there's nothing wrong with letting me recharge my car in one of your rooms, eh?" Squealer said in what she hoped was a reasonable-sounding tone of voice.
"She's got a point, sis!" Rock.Exe said, grinning toothily as he "telepathically" stopped the holographic room's mirroring effect of the outside world with a single command so that Squealer would be able to find the door at last.
Squealer definitely did not let out a loud sigh of relief once she noticed that she was now in a normal black room. Of course, little did she know that she was about to face something so much worse than dealing with her fear of heights…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Back on the first floor--
Skidmark found himself being thrown through the ceiling by an enlarged, enraged dragon… through a few floors, actually, once he finally stopped on what appeared to be the third floor. He hit the third floor's ceiling, before falling to the floor.
If it hadn't for wrapping himself in his deflector forcefields right away, he would've surely died from that attack.
Panting slightly, he glanced around to discover that he had landed in what looked like a Chinese-themed sports store. There were baseball bats, hockey masks, and other protective armors one might need for playing sports. He grinned.
Oh yeah, he could work with this.
While Skidmark was shaking off the effects of being thrown through a few floors, Kismet was dealing with an entirely different problem of her own.
Namely, the fact that she was now being held hostage by Steel Eagle while her husband Hermes was standing a few feet away, scowling angrily at him.
The gang war kept on going on in the background.
"Enough of this foolishness." Steel Eagle said as he coughed up the remains of blood that had gotten stuck in his throat. The holes in his side were closing up rapidly, indicating that he also had a regenerative power. "Now, you people will return Kaiser back to normal or else…"
"Fine. take my shrink ray gun. With it, you can return Kaiser to normal. The first shot shrunk him, and being shot again with it should return him back to normal, undoing the effect. That's how it works." Kismet managed to say, despite the long knife at her throat.
With his free hand, he reached for Kismet's gun holster which held her shrink ray.
Kismet took this chance to pull on her power, hoping against all odds that she'd get something that would help her deal with the Nazis. An Anti-Nazi power?
>Ding<
Roll 20--Magneto (Marvel Character). Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, the character first appears in The X-Men #1 (cover-dated September 1963) as an adversary of the X-Men.
The character is a powerful mutant, one of a fictional subspecies of humanity born with superhuman abilities, who has the ability to generate and control magnetic fields. Magneto regards mutants as evolutionarily superior to humans and rejects the possibility of peaceful human-mutant coexistence; he initially aimed to conquer the world to enable mutants, whom he refers to as homo superior, to replace humans as the dominant species. Writers have since fleshed out his origins and motivations, revealing him to be a Holocaust survivor whose extreme methods and cynical philosophy derive from his determination to protect mutants from suffering a similar fate at the hands of a world that fears and persecutes mutants. He is a friend of Professor X, the leader of the X-Men, but their different philosophies cause a rift in their friendship at times. Magneto's role in comics has varied from supervillain to antihero to superhero, having served as an occasional ally and even a member of the X-Men at times.
Effect: Magneto is pulled from his own earth, renewed as a young man in his twenties instead of being old, and on his deathbed with Professor X watching over him. Which was the last thing he remembers before waking up on Earth Bet.
Kismet groaned again when it looked like she had summoned yet another person once again instead of gaining some cool superpower that would help her deal with the Nazis more directly.
What would this man even do to them? And of course, this had to be the worse possible moment for a guy like this one to be summoned, as seeing they were all in a highly dangerous situation right now!
Poor guy was going to be so terrified once he realized what was going on here.