Word Play 7 (Patreon)

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Word Play
Chapter 7

-VB-

As great as a Tarrasque was as a personal Changer form, I knew that sooner or later, Earth Bet would throw something that would match its ridiculousness. After all, Alexandria alone could probably fight a Tarrasque, and all of the Endbrigners had more than enough power, though they may be shorter.

No, if I wanted to use Horrify to its full potential, then I needed something more sublime. It needed to be an idea because ideas cannot be killed. So what could that be?

-VB-

Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown looked down at the request in front of her and wondered how the situation in a city could have degraded this abruptly and horribly.

“How exactly do you justify this?” she asked the person who submitted this request, who was none other than Armsmaster, leader of Protectorate ENE in Brockton Bay. While Protectorate heroes were officially under the oversight of the Parahuman Response Team, Protectorate heroes possessed methods and legal rights that extended outside of the jurisdiction of the PRT.

Submitting a request for martial law was one such privilege.

“There is currently an indestructible self-replicating stone statue, possibly parahuman but also possibly tinkertech,” he replied from his screen and connected his screen to his computer, showing the more visual informatics of the request’s cause.

Rebecca looked at the seemingly serene stone angel statue on one side and at least five extremely hostile, fang-baring, and clawing stone angel statues on the other side of the image.

“Currently named as ‘Stone Angel,’ this parahuman prefers to take on the form of a stone angel, hence their name, and has been hunting down unpowered and powered criminals and converting some but not all of their victims into copies of themself,” he added. “First appearing on April 11, 2011 as a warning by their possibly first group of victims, Stone Angel’s modus operandi for the first days of their operation was to stay away from open confrontation with villains and heroes while they improved their power base, which they do so by multiplying. Then on April 13th, they struck out and killed all cape and non-powered members of the local gang, Archer’s Bridge Merchants. In doing so, they have shown five distinct abilities: reproduction through memetic contamination, rudimentary biotinkering, weak control over electricity, and invulnerability while under observation, currently classified as ‘quantum locking.”

“How invulnerable is this ‘quantum locking’?” she asked him.

“Enough to be classified as Brute 8. My halberd’s blade, which has been certified as possessing Striker 6 level penetration, broke against it. We have no way to test if it is the same while not under observation as the mere act of striking it counts as observation. However, this ability has a flaw in that any observation, whether it is done by a rat, pigeon, dog, cat, or even a passerby, can and will cause the quantum lock to activate.”

“I assume this weakness is not as all-encompassing as we think it is, isn’t it?”

“No,” Armsmaster grunted frustratedly. “There is a threshold that we have yet to determine, but the cumulative ‘gaze’ must have a certain mass. A single pigeon cannot trigger it but a flock of pigeons can. We are not even sure if the mass of the observer is the key to the ‘weight of observation.’ So far, the data we have compiled have been contradictory at best and nonsensical at worst.” He took a deep breath in. “Worse, the last confirmed count of Stone Angel is one hundred nine. There are one hundred nine murderous statues roaming the city and multiplying every time they get their hands on a criminal.”

“By biotinkering…?”

“They used the vocal cord and select areas of the frontal lobe of Mush, a cape of the now-defunct Merchants, to speak and mock the PRT because they could not communicate with us otherwise.”

Rebecca blinked and that was a sign of surprise most issues did not get the honor of getting a reaction from her. “I see. Have you lost control of the city, then?”

“We are losing control. PRT, Protectorate, and the local independent heroes cannot hold the line,” he replied with a grimace. “During the day, we can patrol and walk around just fine, but once night falls and visibility drops, we cannot leave the headquarters or the Rig. Stone Angels does not initiate Hostile contact but they corral us into buuldings. We need help in … disposing of Stone Angel’s duplicates. Because mere reinforcement will not stop this. It is a crisis in progress and we didn't know about it because unlike the Machine Army and Nilbog, Stone Angel can strategies and tactically outmaneuver their enemies like the Merchants."

"... I need to talk with the governor and the president, but you have my vote."

He let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

-VB-

Love, Smoke, and Riot sounded like the start of a romantic movie set in some civil unrest era. All three of them were good and I could keep three in reserve aside from my three active powers, but I was currently focusing on improving Horrify to its max. I burned all three of them, and combined them for one Tier 2 and one Tier 1 motes. I had now a mote of each Tier from three and down.

I paused working on my next project and waited.

Maybe my power would give me another  word…?

…nope. I guessed this was the end of it today.