Amalgamate 1: No Rest for the Wicked (Patreon)

A/N: A story idea using the Worm CYOA interactive v.6. Instead of going for the STRONGEST sets of powers, why not go for a set of powers that gives the best "escalation"?

-VB-

Amalgamate
Chapter 1: No Rest for the Wicked

-VB-

Colin Wallis.

Publicly, the name of Colin Wallis belonged to an obscure man who worked for the PRT.

However, when Colin Wallis put on his Tinkertech helmet, he became Armsmaster, one of the most well known Tinkers of the Protectorate. He was a leader, a veteran, and a powerful man.

And yet, he flagged against the new threat that plagued the city.

The threat’s name was “Argyoschani.” Loosely translated from ancient and modern Greek, it meant “Silver Machine,” and it was an apt cape name for a cape whose main color scheme was silver or steel. The public thought his name too long and just called him Steelsilver.

A challenger to his title, Colin initially thought when Console called in that Argyoschani made his public debut attacking the Merchants and Squealer’s Tinker lab two days after he introduced himself as an unverified cape on the infamous Parahumans Online forum. He claimed that he was not a traditional Tinker and that he possessed no specialty unless makeshift modern weapons counted as a specialty.

He thought it was ridiculous. Anyone with the right knowledge could make a gun. Just ask India. They had a lot of illegal gun manufacturers (though, most of these belonged to local gangs and the guns themselves weren't exactly reliable).

But as Colin stopped outside of the alleged Merchants hideout, all thoughts about the new supposedly Tinker cape fled his mind when all he’d found at the site was a massacre.

Four bodies laid outside, riddled with bullets. Their blood pooled like water and would have appeared no different from puddles of water in this dark corner of the city had it not been for his helmet’s colored night vision.

He unhooked the halberd from the side of his motorcycle and took it up in a ready stance.

“Console, this is Armsmaster. I am at the location of an alleged battle between Argyoschani and the Merchants. I have spotted four bodies, all at thirty-four degrees Celsius,” he reported the data streaming to his eyes from his helmet view. “I am moving in to survey the scene.”

“{Console advises waiting for reinforcement.}”

“Negative. Killer might still be in the warehouse. How far is reinforcement?”

“{Two minutes out.}”

“Then I will move in.”

“{Copy that, Armsmaster.}”

He activated his armored boots’ ArmsSoundDampenerTM before slowly moving forward, ready to pounce at any incoming hostility.

Before he made halfway towards the open warehouse garage door, someone from within stepped outside.

Colin stopped just as the figure saw him and stopped.

Dressed in crude chestplate and kilt forged from various road signs painted tarnished silver, a deer skull helmet, gray hoodie, a pair of gray pants, a pair of gray boots, and holding what looked like a makeshift rifle in his hands, this figure too reminiscent of the Teeth cut an shabby if intimidating figure.

Had he been a regular civilian, then he might have been a little intimidated. As it was, he’s seen and fought worse.

“State your name and affiliation, unknown parahuman,” he immediately demanded. “You are in a scene of a crime.”

The cape looked down at the hole ridden bodies and then looked back up.

And then ran back into the warehouse.

Cursing himself for not acting sooner, Colin gave chase, only to stop at the entrance. The moment he was fully underneath the garage door, gunshots rang out.

Bullets exploded upon his armor, and Colin felt that! Even though his shock absorbing layers built into the armor, he felt those explosions. Hell, his head was being pushed back! But what was worse was the damage readouts. As he took more damage, more quickly did the armor damage readout turn redder and redder. In under a single second since the point of taking the first bullet, Colin made the decision to back off and hide from the storm of bullets that had three origins.

He jumped away from the open garage door and quickly took cover by the sheet metal walls.

The bullet storm pittered out the moment he disappeared from view, and Armsmaster quickly checked over his armor through the UI readout on his helmet visor. He grimaced upon seeing that his helmet, chest, and pelvis sections of the armors were all blaring red; his armor was in need of immediate repair, and wouldn’t last another engagement.

“Console, an unknown cape, very likely to be Argyoschani from the silver loadout, has engaged me with lethal intentions. My armor is incapable of sustaining any more fire. I repeat, my armor has been reduced to be in need of immediate service. I am designating the unknown cape as Blaster 3, Tinker 2 for this engagement.”

“{Armsmaster, are you injured?}” Vista’s professional voice rang in his ear.

“Negativ-”

Ting ti ti ting-!

His head snapped down and saw a can bounce out from the warehouse interior to the exterior … with a rope lit with fire and quickly burning.

Taped to the can was a piece of paper with the word “BANG” written on it.

Tzzzzzz-!

Armsmaster jumped out of the way as quickly as his damaged and strained armor could toss him.

And not a moment too soon.

The beancan grenade exploded, taking a small layer of the concrete floor with it. He felt the brief shockwave hit his armor, but took no damage.

“Console, be advised. The enemy cape uses homemade grenades!” he shouted into the comms before he saw a cape run out… and two more capes, dressed similarly in tarnished silver or steel gray outfits run out, all with guns in hands.

They found him instantly, and pulled up their guns.

Knowing that he couldn’t risk his armor taking any more hits, he pressed a button on his halberd.

There was a BOOM and a smokescreen deployed in the same instance.

Using the smokescreen as cover, he rolled out of the way and around the corner of the warehouse.

Maybe it was a mistake entering a battlefield with no backup.

There was a clunk and then silence.

Slowly as the smokescreen disappeared, Armsmaster looked around the corner. He didn’t see any of the attackers.

“Console, I’ve lost sight of the capes-.” He froze. “They took my motorcycle.”

A minute later, Dauntless and Battery arrived.

-VB-

“So what do we know about Steelsilver?” Director Piggot started the meeting. If she didn’t want to use Argyoschani’s chosen cape name, then he wasn’t going to bother, not after he and his team made off with his motorcycle.

Armsmaster reported quickly, “They are definitely a cape. Gender unknown. Three individuals in total in the team, wearing similar levels of armor. All of their armors and weapons were makeshift in nature. However, the bullets that they used - whose physical casings were found later at the scene - are of 5.56mm NATO rounds. Comparing the number of bullets used against the damage sustained by the armor, there was a significant difference in firepower arrayed against myself. Mu body armor is classified as beyond level four due to its ability to withstand some esoteric effects on top of sniper fire, and yet, my arnor was reduced to needing full refit and repair after three magazines worth of gunfire, maybe even less since some bullets missed me. As such, I have temporarily concluded that Agryoscani is either a Blaster capable of enhancing projectiles they use or a Tinker capable of heavily modifying ammunition.”

“Thank you, Armsmaster,” the director hummed. “What is the preliminary psych evaluation for this cape?”

“Homicidal and goal-oriented.”

“The first one is obvious, but the second…?”

“It is from the Thinker Tank.”

“Goal-oriented. Perhaps they had a very rough past with the Merchants or drugs?” Miss Militia asked with a frown.

Armsmaster glanced at his second-in-command. He knew that she didn’t approve of any cape that killed right off the bat on their debut; it didn’t help that there was a clear correlation between body counts in a cape’s debut and the body count in their cape career, and such capes were detrimental to their local cape scene and wider city.

The Butcher, though long gone from the city, was the best local example.

“Do we have any idea what their goal might be?”

Dauntless spoke up here. “We surveyed the scene, and concluded that the Arden-3rd Street warehouse was one of Squealer’s workshops. In it, we found many broken and discarded bits and pieces of one of her vehicles. This, on top of the theft of Armsmaster’s motorcycle, suggests that … Steelsilver may be after Tinkertech.”

Murmurs broke out in the meeting room. Tinkertechs were varied and limitless in appearance and application. Their problem was the fact that they needed to be maintained by Tinkers, preferably the item's creator, or lose function quickly.

So why collect Tinkertech…

Unless you were a Tinker?

"Did your motorcycle have a tracker?"

"It has been disabled on its way towards the Trainyard."

"I suppose that is one place we will be looking. Next subject on the meeting topic, please: the new vigilante called Shadow Stalker continues to elude…"

-VB-

Colin heard of Steelsilver/Argyoschani again only a week later, but the report came from PRT Boston.

Steelsilver (as no one seemed to call the cape by his chosen name and so Colin will do so for the sake of efficient communication) had launched an assault on Blasto with six minions, each of whom were equipped with same deer bone mask, road sign armies, and makeshift rifles - if now more compact.

They came riding in on a heavily armored van with compact turrets built on top that came out of the van's roof, just like his motorcycle had been equipped to hand him foam grenades from within its internal storage.

Taken off guard, Blasto had stood little chance. Steelsilver ripped through his Tinker lab, broke Blasto's legs, and left with every scrap of movable Tinkertech or notes on Tinkertech.

The report of the battle made Steelsilver's goal and motive clear: the Tinker learned from other Tinkers and their Tinkertech and was capable of quickly implementing them.

Realizing that Steelsilver had stolen his designs on top of his motorcycle made him … mad. Very mad.

He went to the director for prioritization of Steelsilver as a cape to be brought in, but was denied.  His reasons were not good enough, she told him.

Colin knew that if left alone, Steelsilver would become a menace.

-VB-

He hated being right.

Steelsilver launched three more offensives over the course of two weeks, attacking capes, and specifically going after other Tinkers.

The only target, the latest, was the only offlier: the Empire Eighty-Eight.

During the latest Empire rally in the Commercial District in which Kaiser and four of his capes - Menja, Fenja, Purity, and Krieg - had shown up, Steelsilver and his minions, reported to be at least ten, launched an assault.

An assault that broke all rules of engagement.

Purity died instantly when three sniper fires caught her at the same time.

Krieg would have survived to fight, but the villainous Tinker used mundane rocket launchers from multiple angles to blow up the alleged Gesellschaft cape.

Menja and Fenja were brained in a similar manner as Purity had been killed: lots of lethal gunfire aimed right at their heads.

Kaiser survived because his metal helmet took the hits and kept him alive.

The regular gangsters and their supporters weren't lucky. Steelsilver's minions rained homemade grenades and Molotov cocktails from rooftops, causing widespread chaos and many incapacitation.

And now, the white supremacist villain was fighting a desperate retreat.

Lethal force authorized.

Armsmaster jumped out of the PRT van and ran into the thick of the fight.

Despite the reported damages Steelsilver inflicted upon them, E88 gangsters still fought back. They hid behind bars and other obstacles to prevent the Tinker villain's minions from mowing them down while returning sporadic gunfire.

Armsmaster looked and saw that he stood at a four lane intersection where most of the buildings were two stories high. Five of Steelsilver's minions were on the rooftops, one per building at the intersection corners, except the north corner where there were two of them. The rest were at ground level.

Kaiser, who was the furthest from where Armsmaster was, was on the 23rd Street, the road that ran northwest to southeast. Armsmaaster was on the southeast side of the intersection while Kaiser was opposite of him and fighting a retreating battle against the two Steelsilver minions on the north building's rooftop and firing explosive bullets from what looked like a Tinkertech M249.

He had his targets.

His halberd remained steady and pointing forward despite his sprinting charge, and he quickly intercepted the nearest Steelsiver minion trying his best to murder a bunch of cowering E88 recruits behind a thoroughly wrecked and ruined sedan with his Thompson.

Armsmaster crashed to a stop in front of him, flipping his halberd in one smooth motion beforehand, and stabbing the minion just as he crashed with the sedative injector at the butt end.

The minion yelped out in pain… and somehow, he caught the attention of the rest of the Steelsilver minions not attempting to - and parially succeeding in - mow down Kaiser and his metal barriers.

As the minion he just pricked went down, Armsmaster moved to dodge two incoming sniper fire. He saw their trajectory from the pattern recognition software's output to his helmet UI… and would have tossed a smokescreen if he did not see the soon to be unconscious minion pull out a homemade grenade from within his jacket.

Just as he hit the ground, the minion pulled the pin off-

Armsmaster tensed his arms and legs to cut the grenade as it was thrown...

-and the minion did not throw it.

He rolled it to Armsmaster's feet.

Armsmaster's eyes widened. He attempted to jump away, but the unreliable grenade went off almost immediately, sending him kreening back a foot.

Just as he righted himself, a aniper rifle found his temple.

His helmet's visor cracked and he felt the helmet contort and saw blue metal shards fly away from the explosion.

My helmet shouldn't even dented from a normal sniper rifle, a corner of jis concussed mind thought for a brief moment as everything seemed to slow down for him.l

He stumbled but took another hit from another sniper to the center of his chest.

His visor screamed warnings that the integrity of his helmet and chest portion of his armor were in YELLOW range, but he was too concussed to pay attention.

He screamed in pain when one of the Steelsilver's ground level minions shot at his hip from somewhere in the west, sending him crashing to the ground as the force of each explosive bullet rocked his body. His armor grew yellower and then red and redder-.

He gasped in pain as another sniper bullet found purchase in his back armor, pushing the air out of his lungs.

W-was this how he was going to die?

A crash came down right next to him, and the unrelenting rain of bullets suddenly let up, replaced by ricocheting pings.

"YOU LEAVE MY BOSS ALONE!"

It was Dauntless.

"Armsmaster, hang on! We'll get you out of there!" Hannah's voice reassured him from his helmet's speaker.

He heard a sniper rifle fire from where The PRT vans were supposed to be. The rain of bullets lessened on Dauntless after that.

His armor finally injected him with stimulant, and he slowly gor up and looked around.

Just like he knew it would happen, he had been focused on by Steelsilver's minions, but the speed of which he and others had underestimated had nearly gotten him killed.

He shuddered before grabbing his halberd and crouching up.

He glanced at his visor's armor integrity readout.

Dark red.

Dark red all over.

He grimaced in resignation.

"... Armor is completely useless. I will retreat. Miss Milita, you are in charge of the engagement."

He later learned that the engagement ended with Kaiser's death… And a new information.

Steelsilver did indeed incorporate other Tinkers' works into his own tech and that he did not have minions; all known members of his organization were his clones, each with his own power.

But what struck fear into him was the last scene Steelsilver created after killing Kaiser via overwhelming firepower: he used Kaiser's own power to impale the cape's corpse.

By the end of the first month since hid appearance, Steelsilver was elevated to A-rank threat on par with the Butcher.

Rule of engagement against Steelsilver: lethal force authorized, permanently.

-VB-

Worm CYOA interactive v.6 Choices

ck5v,bxz5,cjqy,xy6v,6dri,b0pr,udrw,wa9x,jfl2,znp9,1y99,ilp3,4tfy,0s6z,ttv5,z4op,0fkt,48m6,w0ll,42jg,uh4g,9mam,7jpe,nd1r,l8bx,9gbp,r1r7,pl4z,ab0h,3vmt,woqj,bqul,glyh,ar4o,2b7c,pr2q,hqw9,82sh,ueuc,ljdq,icne,akq3 (you can insert this into the interactive cyoa to see the choices below)

Who?, Scenario, Character, Shard, Point Conversion, Perks and Drawbacks, Powers, Me (Aware), Open All, Open All, Summer, 2009, Insert, Male, Brockton Bay, Shard of the Warrior Entity, Vital, Blood Thirsty, Not-so-Gentle Push, +25 SP -50 CP, +10 SP -20 CP, Cloak Mark II, Cloak Mark III, Mental Barrier, Trumped the Trump, Negentropy, Extended Range, 'Plot' Armor, Noctis Cape, Conscious Geas, Unconscious Geas, Slaughterhouse 8, Endbringer Target, Corona Pollentia, Tinfoil Hat, Twinsies, (Master) Hive Mind, (Tinker) Reproduction, (Trump) Fae Court, (Trump) Fighting makes me stronger!, Dauntless, The Legion of the Fae, (Trump/Breaker/Thinker) The Gamer