Mass Craft 4.1

Editor: AssemblerManiac, pids
Beta Reader: j0nsta, Impish Oni, BigTofu
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Mass Craft

Chapter 4

September 4th, 2007
Cosmic Warehouse
Workshop
Morning

I was pooped. Laying on the impromptu inflatable bed in my workshop, I looked at the finished Mako vehicle. Using my Kryptonian abilities to speed up production of all the gear we needed was the best idea I ever had. It was a good excuse to suntan on the roof garden with the girls in bikinis as well. One month without getting any sleep and recharging thanks to the sunlight nourishing my body made me develop bad habits.

The Mako looked rather well made, even though I had to create the part individually after forging them out of Neosteel. Normally, I would have used omni-gel to make it but I didn’t want to deplete my current stock and decided to save it for the full armory of Asari, Protoss and Terran weaponry. My eyes slid to the opened vault chock full of weapons. Pistols, rifles, cannons, etc; all this was for the three of us.

I levitated from my inflatable bed and floated toward the vehicle. I didn’t go with the Mako from the first games, but with the Andromeda variant, the ND1 Nomad, which is an all-terrain rover vehicle that can be piloted on a planet's surface. It didn’t look like a tank and label me a criminal from the get go, it wasn’t armed yet. But, I intended to mount some sonic weapon turrets on it. Sonic weapons don’t care how tough you are, they will fuck you up.

Landing before the front wing of the vehicle, I let my hand slide over the onyx colored paint, a thermal-resistant coating of my own invention that can withstand sustained temperatures of up to 5800 degrees Fahrenheit. How do I know that? Well… that’s simple I just took a Neosteel plate coated in the paint and blasted it with heat vision. It held up well, until I got serious and melted it with my strongest blast.

Yes, I took inspiration from Knight Rider for it. Science fiction literature, TV shows, and comics have affected society significantly. It has inspired many to pursue careers in science which has, in turn, resulted in advancements in technology such as the developments in cloning, rockets, artificial intelligence, satellites, wireless internet, etc. Was it so improbable that I wouldn’t do the same?

Take this for example, my problem with energy generation? Now I had a Fusion reactor powering the Cosmic Warehouse, I had the knowledge to make it but with my Kryptonian enhanced memories I remembered the bullshit that the Arc Reactor from Marvel is. I zipped toward the reactor chamber in the middle of the warehouse. It took up almost all the room, it’s also shaped like a glowing blue donut on a red spherical pedestal.

Just like in the movies, my Arc Reactor looks a lot like a toroidal "Tokomak" plasma containment system for standard "hot fusion" but worked completely differently. The Arc Reactor has a palladium core and emits a white-blue light; a phenomenon indicating the presence of Cherenkov Radiation which causes white-blue light to appear from an underwater reactor due to nuclear decay.

The Arc Reactor is initialized through the ionization of palladium through an electric arc, while the radiation (Gamma rays) thus generated, coupled with the collisions of the particles inside the core, produces a potential difference in the core, thus causing current to flow in the reactor. But differently from the movies and comics, I decided to keep using palladium. Normally, using palladium in the Arc Reactor comes with drawbacks, such as its toxicity. But! The thing produced Rhodium! It fucking decayed into Rhodium via electron capture!

The Rhodium Price per Ounce went for $10,800.00 and a lot of my technology from Mass Effect and Starcraft depended on it such as this one: Room temperature superconductors. Building a Quantum supercomputer was dependent on how much Rhodium I collected from the waste of the Palladium decay of my current setup.

Seeing how it worked right now, I felt really satisfied, as if I had accomplished something great. Tony Stark’s reactor yielded 10,000 gigajoules per hour while mine was triple that because of the core concept I applied from Terran and Protoss technology. All that was left was to miniaturize the damn thing, the fabricator was taking its sweet time with it, but it’s normal; this is the first time it’s making an arc reactor. The next one is going to take no time at all.

With my energy problems now solved, I had to focus on obtaining computing power, but classical computers had a limit. Even though a classical computer helps to do many amazing things, “under the hood” it’s really just a calculator that uses a sequence of bits—values of 0 and 1 to represent two states (think yes and no switch) to makes sense of and decisions about the data we input following a prearranged set of instructions.

But for me to be able to win this shadow war and be able to make the technology I had available into my mind, I needed Quantum computers. Why? That’s because they are needed as a tool I will use to solve complex problems that are beyond the capabilities of a classical computer. For the most part, classical computers are limited to doing one thing at a time, so the more complex the problem, the longer it takes. A problem that requires more power and time than today’s computers can accommodate is called an intractable problem.

These are the problems that quantum computers are predicted to solve. I returned to my workshop at super speed and sat before the design computer. And began to do a bit of research on particle science. Thank God, Earth bet’s history only diverged in the 80's. I easily found the research of Louis de Broglie, a French physicist and aristocrat who made groundbreaking contributions to quantum theory. For example, the de Broglie principle tells us that matter can act as waves just like light can act as waves and particles (photons). So every particle will have a wavelength corresponding to its wave behavior.

This forms a central part of the theory of quantum mechanics; which brings me to Quantum entanglement, which is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more objects have to be described with reference to each other, even though the individual objects may be spatially separated. This leads to correlations between observable physical properties of the systems.

When you enter the world of atomic and subatomic particles, things begin to behave in unexpected ways. In fact, these particles can exist in more than one state at a time. It’s this ability that quantum computers take advantage of.

Instead of bits, which conventional computers use, a quantum computer uses quantum bits—known as qubits. To illustrate the difference, imagine a sphere. A bit can be at either of the two poles of the sphere, but a qubit can exist at any point on the sphere. So, this means that a computer using qubits can store an enormous amount of information and uses less energy doing so than a classical computer. By entering into this quantum area of computing where the traditional laws of physics no longer apply, we will be able to create processors that are significantly faster (a million or more times) than the ones we use today.

I looked at the design that I had created on the holo-table (that shit was awesome, it could project 3D holograms controlled by leap motion), it should take an entire room. And I didn’t have enough space in the warehouse, so I will have to build it outside. I manipulated the hologram with my hands; the concept of this computer was in the form of a half dome and the processors and electronics were all carbon and crystal based. Fucking protoss influence… Each time I tried to stick to Terran tech they always slipped in upgrades. Thanks to my foray with Neosteel and my sudden leap in material science that bordered the realm of transmutation, I could create my own room temperature superconductors.

So… I will need a bunker for this shit, X-men style, I always liked how it looked in the movies; but I was also attracted by the batcave stuff. Hopefully I could combine the two. But Miranda was already taking care of everything for the land we needed to secure in the city.

Speaking of Batman, I remember my meeting with a certain blue armored man in my second foray as a cape in Brocton Bay. It went like this...

***

(Flashback)

July 8th, 2007
Downtown Brockton

I shot the two goons protecting the entrance of the disused white building, an old office that recently closed due to economic problems. That was a common story in Brockton bay, owner declared bankruptcy and decided to move on to New York or Boston; or got pressured by the Nazi to move on. For my second sortie in Brockton in my persona of Battletech, I decided to go the non-lethal route.

I rushed the first one and touched his head with my stun baton, with a cracking sound, the electricity in the stick’s head discharged and the goon fell on the ground like a sack of potatoes. I fired my modified air pistol revolver and a paralysis ball hit him directly on his forehead. Then I kicked the pistol out of his hand.

The goon fell on his knee as the fluid filled rubber ball had broken on his skin and the fast acting paralysis agent stopped him from moving. He’ll be like that for the next two hours. I fired one at first one that I had dropped with the stun baton, it was still untested and I didn’t know how long the guy would be down.

“Nice takedowns.” I heard on the Tacnet, it was Nova; she was again tailing me. Thanks to my HUD I could see where she was, one hundred meter from me, on the roof of the building facing this safehouse.

“Then you better watch this.” I said as I took a smoke grenade canister of my own make from my kit, punched a hole in the door of the safehouse and let go of the grenade.

“C-cape!!” I heard from the inside.

Stepping back, I readied myself for the eventual rush of the Nazis out of the building. I had developed a special type of canister that contained a volume of gas. There was a lot of carbon inside, if no one exited they would be asphyxiated. I had dispatched cloaked armed drones with the same air propelled delivery system as my guns to take down the goons that would flee from the back of the building.

“Can you snipe more goons than I can take down, Nova?” I asked her, I could see her current loadout on my HUD linked to the Tacnet. She had gone for lethal and non-lethal, and took one of my air rifles patterned after the local M40 rifle.

Ionic Force Field : Online
Kinetic Barrier: Online
Allied Unit: Nova Terra
Weapon available:

• 40 mm grenade launcher
• Air Pistol Revolver .50
• Asari Disciple
• M12 Locust SMG

Kit Available:

• Medi-gel
• Grenades
• Bio-scanner
• Grapnel gun
• Capsule cartridges x20

I really liked the belt kit I had come up with, it made my armor pop. I was already sure that Miranda and Nova would be using it. Bodysuits were cool, but they didn’t have any pockets. As I heard shuffling and people coughing inside the one story building, Nova asked, “What do I get if I win?”

While thinking about that, I threw another smoke grenade in the hole in the door. “Foot massages for a week?”

Nova said nothing for a moment, then the goons inside started exiting through the windows and the doors.

“... you’re On.” I heard Nova mumbling on the Tacnet.

I shot the first nazi bastard in the temple, everything slowed down around me when one of the goons took the opportunity to pass me and flee, there was someone behind him. I left the fool to the tender mercies of Nova to shoot at and I grabbed the face of the second bald guy with tattoos, lifted him and slammed him into the remains of the door, completely destroying it in the process.

"Hmm, some of them seem to have fainted. The smoke grenades are too condensed." At super speed I took all the fainted guys and brought them outside the building and shot them with my paralytic agent.

Meanwhile, Nova was having fun shooting those dumb Nazis. Thanks to my super hearing I could hear the almost silent noise the pneumatic system of her M40 rifle replica was making when she shot the gang members.

"3… 4… 5… I'm going to win this, Shepard." Nova boasted through the Tacnet.

I’m not against massaging Nova, but knowing her she would keep me under her forever if I give her too much leeway. I sped to the inside of the building’s ground floor and found multiple armed men down on the ground. They could barely breathe, there was too much CO2 in the air.

"I got 6 in the building. I am winning this."

Chtunk! One of the fleeing men fell in the street. "...and 7. You were saying, Shepard?"

"Grrr." I swiftly looked through the building, looking through it with my X-ray vision, and found more of them in the back of the building, bunching up toward the back end. They were going to flee, poor men thought they were going to go scot free. They pulled the door to the exit, only to be met by a hail of capsules fired by my waiting drones.

Chtunk! "...8! Haha, you are going to massage me tonight, Shepard."

I chuckled in my hemet. "Oh, I'm afraid that it's you who will be massaging me, Nova. 12." I said with a sweet tone.

She was so surprised that she stopped her Overwatch and shooting. "What?! How?"

"My drones took down 6 goons who fled from the back." I said smugly as I zipped around with all the paralyzed men.

I threw her a thumbs up. "No, that's cheating!" Nova hollered.

It seems she really wanted that massage… Maybe I should sneak into her room and do that for her later. We bickered for the next ten minutes, after tying the gang members and organizing the weapon cash, drugs and money inside the building. With my scanner it was easy to see the hidden room where everything was.

Ding! "Huh, Shepard. There's two bogeys coming toward you, one from the sky and the other on foot."

Looking up in the sky, I saw a light so brilliant that it left spots in my eyes, "What the fuck is that bright light?" My helmet saved me by adjusting the light from my visor. The Headpiece of my helmet contains large area holographic lensing to allow for long eye-relief and panoramic viewing. It includes several optical spectrum modes with synthesized information overlay.

"Nova, cover me. I am about to slay some Empire capes." I ordered while directing my VTOL drones forward with a mental command.

The drones flight system used a pair of ducted fans with coaxial propellers, increasing the lift efficiency while granting excellent maneuverability. They are also equipped with basic VI programming allowing them to adapt to changing situations on the battlefield, and have a small amount of shielding.

Parahumans inbound

Analyzing Data…

Match found…

The cloaked drones who weren’t bothered by the light and using special spectrography immediately identified the woman and the men coming by cars to my location. Purity and Hookwolf, huh. They even brought friends with them. I put my weapons back into their holster on my belt and waited for Purity to arrive. She is the fastest flier in the city after me, so I won’t have to wait for long.

She swiftly appeared before me, her costume was completely white, radiating a soft, rippling glow. Her hair and eyes were a radiant white, poor woman didn’t use a mask, is she idiotic enough to think that this light emanating from her skin was going to stop someone from running a facial recognition program. Huh, as I thought it, my VI already found a match for her; one Kayden Anders, wife of Max Anders. I need to calibrate my VI a bit more to not react to stray thoughts.

Obviously, I already knew her identity. “Hello there, I didn’t expect to see the Empire’s cheerleader today.”

Not even bothering to banter with me, the Nazi woman simply threatened me with a, “Leave.”

*Aww, she hoped her reputation would intimidate me… too bad for her.* That was almost cute.

I laughed at her. “I don’t think so, Purity-chan.”

“Don’t call me that.” Purity fired a lance of light that she generated from her raised hand; I read from the story that her beams were supposed to be powerful kinetically charged light blasts.

It passed through my Ionic force field, strange. But the kinetic impact was absorbed by my barrier. Oh yeah! Her power was basically being a big flashlight… just sunlight with kinetic forces… and I am a Kryptonian physiologically. So, it did nothing, I just felt a big boost in my personal power level. Wow, she’s handy.

I looked at her, she looked completely shocked that her power didn’t do anything. “Huh, was this supposed to do anything?”

“Impossible.”

“As you are attacking first I’m required to stop you with a similar level of brutality.” I said as I let out my biotic might course through me, a haze of purple, blue and white light surrounding me.

I used Slam to grab onto her flying form and made her forcefully land and used throw the same second to send Purity away and to hit a parked car. The car’s alarm rang into the air. The woman looked at me and in panic she shot me with everything she had; she was an experienced long range fighter, but grab her and she’s completely helpless. At super speed I unsheathed my air pistol and shot her three times on the face, spraying her with the paralysis fluid from the capsules.

As my armor stopped her shot, Purity then began to focus on using the terrain to subdue me. A car exploded at my side but I threw a biotic barrier to bolster my armor’s kinetic barrier. As the shrapnel and car’s shunks hit me, the woman put distance between us by flying.

“Hmm, smart Nazi cheerleader.” I intoned, impressed with her resourcefulness.

However… I grabbed her again with my biotics and slammed her back on the car she had hit earlier. Then I waited for the paralytic fluid to take effect. Slowly, oh so slowly, the woman stopped moving. I walked toward her with a predatory gait.

“You’ve been a really bad girl, Purity. I need to talk to you later, so I will leave you on the nearest roof.” I said as I grabbed her and placed her on my shoulder pauldron and used a biotic jump to reach the nearest tallest building. It was a disused apartment block, no one lived there. Landing on the roof, I looked around and saw that there was nothing there, just gravel, I placed Purity on the ground.

“Stay here, I must finish what I started, your boy Hooky is coming.” I said as the woman looked at me with hatred.

I chuckled at her reaction, she was basically saying in her head that she wanted me dead. Telepathy could be such a curse. “Aww don’t be like that, Purity-chan. With your powers, you should have done better than get pulled in by the Nazis. I mean really? Do you think those people are going to have any good afterlife after I’m done sending them to Hell?”

Parahuman Unit: Hookwolf Incoming! Appeared on the right space of my HUD. A white van was coming at great speed directly toward the location of the safehouse.

I informed Mrs Nazi that she was going to have back up. “Oh, Hooky and his boys are coming. I’ll be back, Purity-chan.”

With a biotic jump, I threw myself to the ground behind me and landed in the middle of the road. Just at this exact moment, I saw the white van of the Nazis drive at high speed toward me. They had no intention to stop at all. I could see the smile on Hookwolf’s face and the driver laughing.  I braced myself with all my power and met the charging vehicle.

No force can move an immovable object. “Wow, really? Running me over? What happened to the no killing things from the Unwritten rules?” I asked as I watched the car being turned into a pancake as it impacted me.

The first thing to go was the windshield, and the hood and bumpers of the van. The engine pushed into the driver side. The van simply turned to paste around me. My Kinetic and Ionic barrier were now in the red, but my Kryptonian invulnerability kicked in at the same time. The paint job on my N7 armor was going to need to be redone.

“Hmm.” I looked into the passenger side next to the driver and saw that Hookwolf wasn’t there anymore. The normal gang members that were in the van were clearly dead. I extracted myself from the wreckage by simply flexing my arms and the metal of the derelict simply parted.

I wasn’t surprised to see that Hookwolf was on the ground, he must have been propelled out of the van when it hit me. He was on the ground panting, bleeding from his head and arms. He had a metal wolf mask on his face, he was a big man, hairy, with long, greasy blond hair, an "E88" tattoo on one bicep, and a wolf superimposed on a swastika on the other, the guy just wore blue jeans as a costume. Strangely, the swastika was now punctured by a shard from the windshield.

“Hookwolf, pitfighter, mass murderer, a man styling himself as a ‘warrior’ but who is nothing but a butcher.” I said as I strode toward the monster.

He was sitting on the ground, shell shocked. He looked balefully at me. “Stop the theatrics, Lady. I’m going to kill you for what you did! My best guys were in that van!”

I cocked my head. “Oh? Aren’t the Unwritten Rules against such things? And didn’t you try to kill me first by running me over? What a strange double standard you have there.” I harrumphed.

Hookwolf looked down for a moment, then looked up to me again. “It doesn’t matter to me, those are just guidelines at this point. We have never respected them, and never will. The subhumans seek to bind us with their silly rules.”

Putting my fists on my hips I looked down on him. “Huhu, it doesn’t surprise me that lowly scum like you have no respect for any sort of laws. Does Kaiser think the same? I wouldn’t be surprised that he was the one to put the hit on Fleur.”

Hookwolf didn’t say anything; his silence was telling me everything I wanted. Despite him I ransacked his mind and saw exactly what Kaiser was about. He thought of himself as an emperor, a monarch; someone who is just using PR to further his goal of controlling the bay area. He wasn’t shy to ask the help of Gesellschaft by abasing himself to them either. Then I saw even more things that made me want to take the E88 down, the breeding camps all over america and the world, parahumans, humans, they didn’t mind raping their way to power by capturing women or brainwashing them into accepting their fucked up vision.

This was the moment when I decided that I would kill all the E88 in Brockton and then give whatever evidence to the NSA or FBI to break up the camp and White supremacist organizations on American soil. At the same time I laughed at Hookwolf and said, “Oh!! I am right, then. You are just a bunch of savage killers preying on people. In fact, I don’t think that I should call you people at all, you, Hookwolf, are just a beast thirsting for blood, a parasite, a tick, on the back of society.”

Hookwolf stood up. “I'll kill you! I'll kill every last person you care for!! Your family, your lover, whatever pet you have!”

I chuckled, raised my hand and made a come-on gesture. “Come at me, bro.”

Hookwolf turned into a shifting mass of hooks and blades, assuming the form of a large wolf-like creature. I used my X-ray vision to look inside of him, and here is the famed core I read about in the Worm story from my previous life. The 'core', into which he can draw his fleshy human body for protection, looked like an amorphous globe of orange goo.

The metal-wolf-like creature charged me, but I sidestepped it. Hookwolf swiped me with his left paw that turned into a sword, barely grazing me. Turning on himself, he then went low to attack my legs. I kicked his wolf head away from me, I had the greater brute rating, so he went crashing into a lamppost, destroying the light. I threw a biotic throw at him and sent Hookwolf careening into a closed shop’s iron curtain.

Hookwolf was tough, huh? “The first mistake you made was to threaten my loved ones.”

He lunged at me, but I used my sped up reflex to catch the metal creature’s tail, and lifted him with my superstrength and slammed him on the asphalt, over and over again. Then I threw him one hundred meter away on the sidewalk, his weight crushing a sports car under him. “The second one was thinking that you could harm me, you insect.”

As I walked toward him, I heard him say in a crazed litany, “I'll kill you...I'll kill you...I'LL KILL YOU JUST LIKE I DID EVERYONE ELSE!”

Using my biotic charge, I was quickly on him and opened the mouth of the metal construct in wolf form and then reached for the core. “No, you won’t be killing anyone else. Taste my Nova.” I channeled energy into a point-blank high-damage explosion inside Hookwolf  and everything went purple. The core that the man’s body was inside, exploded and the metal covering it acted like shrapnels. The surroundings were dramatically damaged, but it was worth it.

There was a bloodied body with crushed bones and flesh at my feet when I regained my vision. I looked at his face, he was literally unrecognizable as it looked like a bloody steak. “And the third was thinking that I wasn’t recording you. Don’t worry, you’ll take the Empire with you when I’m done.”

My Omni-tool scanner told me that the guy was dead, I shrugged and I used Telekinesis to wash the blood off of my armor and decided to call the PRT and the Police. It wasn’t long until the Police came, maybe five minutes, they sent at least a dozen cars. When they saw the body of Hookwolf they almost went for my arrest, but everything got cleared after I showed them the video of the altercation and of me taking care of the stash house of the empire.

They asked me what I did with Purity and I said that she fled after I took her down after fighting off the paralysis. The PRT and Ambulances came next, they were accompanied by a certain Tinker with a motorcycle. Armsmaster's costume consists of a suit of midnight-blue power armor with silver highlights and a helmet and visor that covers his eyes and nose. He wears a neatly trimmed beard. He wields his personally designed and crafted Halberd.

Leaning against a lamppost, I waved at the blue and silver armored man. "Hello, Armsmaster. I am everyone's friendly neighborhood Battletech. Just out of a fight with the E88, I am still riding the adrenaline high."

He stopped two meters away from me and then looked at the sorry state my gear was in. "Hmm, Greetings... your armor seems to have seen better days..."

Wow, the guy automatically focused on my tech and not myself; he was kind of weird. But I got him, technology was fun to build.

The onyx black paint on most of my chest pieces was gone and there was a lot of scratch and cracks on my pauldrons and arms; a result of the van crashing into me. I chuckled as I looked at myself. “Yes, it clearly isn't enough for combat with parahumans. I need to go back to the drawing board. Add more artificial muscles to speed up reflexes and enhance strength by another 20%. Fortunately, I have already come up with a metal alloy that has kinetic absorbing properties.”

Armsmaster finally looked up at my helmet, and I laughed a bit. “What do you use to reach such a level of enhancement? I can see that your armor is some kind of exoskeleton.” He asked after a long moment.

Oh, he was good. The N7 armor did more than protect its wearer. See, my current armor was designed with ablative ceramic plating and kinetic padding to provide most of the hardsuits protection, while sophisticated VIs regulate the user's omni-tool and biotic amps. But five days ago, after the clash with the Merchants, I recycled my first armor after saving how it was made, then I used my technical knowledge to add a musculature motility layer composed of artificial muscle made of metallic microfibers to boost reflexes and augment the strength of the wearer. “Yes, under the armor, I have layers of an organic metal of my own creation, it simulates human musculature pretty well, giving me a serious brute rating.”

Armsmaster nodded, satisfied with my answer. He spoke with a rather animated tone, “I see, your speciality includes material science and advanced robotics and cybernetics.”

Oh yeah, Tinkers were restrained to focus on a specific technological path; I pitied them, what I did was pure science and experimentations. I wasn’t limited, I could build whatever my mind and knowledge I possess allowed me to do.

“Amongst other things, yes.” I boasted as I took a pose with my hands on my hips.

Miracle, Armsmaster smiled at me; then he flinched and said, “Oh, I forgot why I was here…”

I X-rayed the bike and the halberd and derailed Armsmaster’s train of thought again. “It happens to me as well from time to time. Tinkering always makes me zero-in on what inspires me. Just like your bike right here, when you came in, the sounds and vibrations it produced told me that you modified a DUCATI 851’s engine. And you’ve got a nice Halberd as well. From what I can see the blade is made of razor sharp metal? Hmm, a form of titanium by the sheen of the metal and… hmm, it's able to channel and project some kind of energy. Plasma? I see, nice delivery system in the halberd's body; it can also project an EMP and… is that a grappling hook?” I couldn't help but say with childish wonder.

The man might have been an ass, but he knew his stuff. This was the first time I've seen a tinkertech weapon, however, there was something weird with it. There’s some part missing, as if… I used my Telekinesis to feel the space inside the spear and realized that the missing parts were shunted out of phase with our dimensions. *Oh, so this is the entities’ blackboxing.*

“You guessed it's function just by looking at it?” Armsmaster said with surprise in his tone.

“Of course I did, I'm an engineer and scientist, before being a tinker, Armsmaster. What I build, I know how it works. And to me, it's easy to see how something is put together, your tech seems to mix a lot of concepts and you focus on miniaturization and efficiency. Though you did a good job with what you have so far, I like the finish you placed on your weapon.” Yes, even though tinkers are idiot savants with schematics loaded into their brain, some people like Armsmaster who have engineering and science backgrounds can make sense of what they are doing.

Still, it’s really insidious of these Shards… introduce disruptive technology to stop the host species' technological advancement, making them rely on the hand outs they give everyone. They must have found a previous host species that found out about them and beat them; and in the end we have these measures that they implemented in the tech they gave access to the tinkers.

Was it redness that I was seeing on the protectorate hero’s cheeks? “Amazing. You even guessed one of my specializations... I can see that you are a dedicated-”

At some point Miss Militia had come behind us. “Armsmaster, we are working. You can talk shop when we’re done.”

A dark haired and olive skinned with bottle glass green eyes, she wears a scarf and sash around her waist patterned after the American flag, and stylized, fitted army fatigues accentuating her curves. She was the kind of gal that made my motor purr, but the wariness and slight fear that I felt from her didn’t endear her to me.

“Oh, hello there. We meet again, Miss Militia.” My synthesizer made my voice sound so sinister, but you couldn’t miss the purr in it.

Miss Militia’s eyes tightened as she focused on being professional, but her mental state and weapon shifting to different ones showed how she felt. “Hello, Battletech, it’s indeed our second meeting. Can you tell us what happened?” She asked, her voice neutral.

I nodded. "Yes, but I can do better though. Do you wanna see the recordings?"

Armsmaster and Militia looked at each other, something being said through their gaze. “Please do so.”

I moved my arm and my Omni-tool manifested and after I carefully accessed my video records on the interface, a 16:9 holographic window that was 30 inches in size was projected before me.

“What’s this?” The tinker asked.

I didn’t have the time to answer, Miss Militia told him to focus. The man grumbled and positioned himself on my right and Miss Militia on my left. I started the first recording of my actions with the stash house and my little bet with Nova. Then I showed them my fight with Purity and made it look like she fled by cutting part of the fight with her; Next came my fight with Hookwold and him basically saying that the E88 didn’t care about the rules, and him not denying the fact that Fleur was assassinated.

“Armsmaster…” Miss Militia looked into the eyes of her colleague.

Armsmaster simply nodded and turned his attention to me. “Battletech… This is dangerous information that you have here. You should give us this recording, if it spread it might turn into-”

*Yeah, how about no? I’m not playing with that political shit again.* I thought, then called Nova.

“Huhu, no way. Oh! Here’s my ride. Later!” While I said that, a massive black hummer came into existence as it uncloaked, opened the door; and I disappeared inside it through its backdoor at super speed, at the passenger side, there was Purity who was bound and gagged. The vehicle recloaked again and Nova gunned it, driving us far from the crime scene.

Yet again, Nova was anticipating what I wanted. “Like I was saying when we were interrupted, Mrs Nazi, we have things to talk about…"

(End of flashback)

***

And this is how I met my buddy, Armsmaster. He hadn't been as bad as the Fandom back home had made him sound. Since then, when I registered and verified myself on PHO, the guy contacted me. Of course he started with a recruitment pitch for the Protectorate, but as I told him that I have a team already he stopped.

He is a really swell guy, when I asked him for pointers about building a motorbike he had sent me schematics of different engines commercially available and told me to study those and make my own, just like he did and that he hoped that I would be magnanimous enough to show him the end result when I was done.

Well, the bike was still on the queue on the new fabricator, I have two of those now, working in tandem. I had been slowed down by my energy problems, but no more! The Arc Reactor supplies enough energy for me to create a replicator to churn out materials by turning energy to matter. But sooner or later I will still have to use resources from the asteroid belt.

All of a sudden, pale and smooth white arms went around my neck; My senses went into overdrive and a familiar heartbeat and smell invaded them. I recognized who this was, Miranda kissed my right cheek and put her own against mine. “Still working, Jane?”

The ravenette tightened her arms around my neck, she sent worried feelings at me, she was afraid that I was killing myself at work. Putting a hand on her forearm and gently caressing it, I decided to try to soothe her worries. “Have to, I just started on project Minerva.”

Project Minerva was me taking over the digital world with Quantum Computing to fight against enemies such as the number man and Contessa. To follow Cauldron's and their associated malefactors digital tracks. For now, they control the information. But when Minerva comes online that will change.

Cauldron and it’s agents have been running rampant for too long; they’ve worked from the shadows for years, shaping the future, manipulating lives, never realizing that their actions made the world go to shit. Too many innocents have died as they’ve played their games.

Miranda let go of me, turned my chair and then sat on my lap, again holding onto my neck. “Already? I thought that you’d take another three months?”

I looked into her eyes. “We need this to be ahead of everyone.”

Miranda put a hand on my cheek. Her hand was smooth and she smelled of jasmine. “Even so, you shouldn’t go without sleep so much… I missed you in bed.”

This was another change I was happy about, Miranda, Nova and I are officially dating. This happened in August, when we had a serious talk about what's going to happen as we worked to save this world. First was that we could only count on and trust each other, second was that we don't fall into the trap that this society had fallen into. Really? Their version of heroism was so skewed that they modified the definition of what it was from the dictionaries. And for third and last, we needed to communicate if that thing between us was to work; as we were telepaths we decided to initiate a passive mental link between us.

Grrrrl. Miranda’s stomach grumbled; I looked at her with a cheeky smile. She rolled her eyes at me and said, "Time to get breakfast, are you coming?"

I couldn’t keep my grin out of my face, and I kissed her on the nose. "I could eat yeah, and I love your cooking. Though I don't know why you stopped using the food replicator."

Miranda stood up from my laps and said, "Because it's so easy… my cooking skills might deteriorate if I rely on it too much."

"Ah, the same problem I have with my weapons vs my combat training." I stood up and proceeded to stretch.

Bones cracking could be heard coming from me, I seriously needed to take a break. *Miranda is right.*

The beautiful woman before looked at me smugly, knowing exactly what I thought. “Thanks for understanding.”

She spun and was starting to leave the workshop, and I followed her. She rolled her hips for my pleasure, aware that it was one of the features that I liked on her beside her intelligence and dark cutting wit. We found ourselves in the loft part of the warehouse. We had a stocked kitchenette in the living quarters. Nova was at the breakfast table with a coffee already and was using her omni-tool to surf the internet.

I zipped toward her and kissed her on her forehead while she was looking at a martial art video on youtube. *Wing Chun, huh. Interesting*

Sitting at Nova’s side, I looked at my own holo-screen, then the Haptic interface appeared. While Miranda and Nova were otherwise busy, I used PHO. More accurately, I went back on my favorite post that I helped Miranda write.

[Center]■[/Center]

[B]♦Topic: Team Battletech [/B]

[B]In: Boards ► North America ► Massachusetts ► Brockton Bay[/B]

[B]Miranda_Rights[/B] (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (BattletechTeam)

Posted on July 9, 2007:

Hello, Brockton Bay. I am Operator, my cape name isn't the same as my forum handle I know... I'm Battletech's team 'Operator' and its PR representative as well as the ‘Girl in the know’; I always know everything happening in our fair (but crazy) city.

We have become active since July the second and our team's first success was taking out Skidmark, albeit by accident. Or is it better to say by happenstance? Our Leader had finished harvesting the Boat Graveyard for resources when ten or so Merchants as well as Skidmark (I hate his name) thought that he could intimidate her and gangpress her.

Link to the battle video log of the altercation: [Here] The video is R-18, you’ve been warned.

Everything changed when he threatened to capture her and threatened group rape on her person; and in accordance to the general rule of self defense in the state of Massachusetts that states that if you are attacked or reasonably believe that you are about to be attacked, placing your physical safety in immediate danger, you have a right to defend yourself; our Leader, Battletech, successfully removed the threat of Skidmark upon this city by neutralizing and gelding him permanently. We are hopeful that we will be able to smoke out and arrest the remnants of the Merchants gang.

Now that we are in this cape business, my team and I have realized how the glitters and accolades afforded to the cape life is completely different from what we had expected. The PRT and Protectorate make it sounds like heroism out of the comic books, but it is more like being deputized and going out while being careful of not making any mistake that could land you on the other side of this business (Villainy).

But it is somehow hard to do when the villains make it difficult to treat them like… people. Reasonable people don’t go out of their way to make things difficult for others. I mean with all the things happening around us, such as the endbringers attack every three months, you’d think humanity would band together to fight the threat... To me, parahumans and humans today are being stupid, choosing war, villainy and ephemeral power over their fellow humans while driving the world further into ruin.

However, I still have faith in mankind…  And my team and I decided to not give up and continue this business, but we got over another roadblock recently. We in the team had thought that those codified Unwritten Rules [Link] who are somehow written on this forum told us that the cape scene has laws and a code of conduct that shouldn’t be broken or violated (no rape, no killing, no attacking families of capes and to respect secret identities). But twice, those supervillains have tried to take out Battletech by either killing or threatening harm beyond the pale on our people.

What was the second time, you ask me? On July 8th, 2007, after we took out an Empire 88 stash house, Purity and Hookwolf arrived. At least our favorite Mrs Nazi tried to make Battletech leave by intimidating her; but not deterred at all, Battletech took care of her and sent her packing wherever Nazis go to sustain their make believe vision of superiority. Then It was Hookwolf’s turn, yet again, an E88 cape arrived and tried to run over Battletech with a Van.

After doing this, she gave up using non-lethal means, Battletech fought for her life after Hookwolf threatened her and her family and tried to kill her. Result? There’s one more Nazi cape in Brockton Bay that left the city in a body bag. If no one wants to play the cape game responsibly, then we will take measures to finish anything that human or villainous Parahumans start.

This is Team Battletech declaration of intent: I would like to address this statement to every single human being born and raised in North America. We are a private armed organization in possession of a lot of advanced weaponry. The main objective of Team Battletech activities is to completely eliminate acts of villainy from this continent. We do not act for our own benefit or for personal gain.

As of this moment I make this declaration to all villains and common criminals. Territory, religion, money, twisted vision… No matter what the reason or excuse is, if there is an evident criminal activity or act being carried out, we will commence intervention with force.

Our goal is to remind this country that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you laughed at this declaration and wish to stay blind to the current situation around you, I would suggest you forget reading this post at all.

But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside us. One year from tonight, I hope that you’ll be able to remember this moment as the one when we pushed back the tide.

[B](Showing Page 1 of 35)[/B]

[INDENT]

[B]► DuHast[/B]  (Temp-banned)

Replied on July 9, 2007:

you goddamn bitch whore of a subbitch. WE will find you to slaughter your family after being serviced to your betters!

Mod Edit: And have your two week ban!

[B]► GenjiHikaru[/B]  (Cape Groupie)

Replied on July 9, 2007:

Is this a joke? I hope it is...

[B]► WhiteBreadDude[/B]

Replied on July 9, 2007:

Hopefully Battletech stays in their location and not go where people with jobs and nice houses are around.

[B]► Hammer Time![/B]

Replied on July 9, 2007:

Speak for yourself WhiteBread guy, your people aren't hunted and killed by those crazies who think the color of your skin shows you your place in life. Me? I'm glad that someone finally offed one of those monsters.

[B]► Socrate's student[/B]  (Unverified Cape)

Replied on July 9, 2007:

Operator, I think that you are making a mistake by declaring war on crime this way. There's so many villains and so little heroes that to make a change on the scale you actually informed us about seems rather... impossible.

Why don't you and your team affiliate and join the Protectorate and PRT? They are doing something about this already. You'd get back up and a safe environment to thrive. You are doing things the hard way, here.

[B]► Reaver[/B]  (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied on July 9, 2007:

I am... Impressed by Team Battletech’s resolve. And as a PRT agent I am aware of how they started as I was there after they first confronted Skidmark and the PRT ENE has chosen not to prosecute Team Battletech for what they did to Skidmark as it was justified, we know how he treated women he had forcefully addicted to substances.

She had started with lethal weapons in the fight with the Merchants, but the team had obviously seen that it wasn't the best and changed to neutralize gang members and other parahumans with non-lethal means.

I want to congratulate Battletech on her takedown of the stash house last night, they were all taken out without a scratch, some of them had cases of smoke inhalation and severe migraines and that's all.

It's a damn shame that the E88 forced them to go lethal on their second sortie, but that happens... When capes fight, they are unpredictable.

As a PRT employee I am compelled to ask team Battletech to not proceed to go to such extremes, join the protectorate or become affiliated with them. But as they said in their statement, they seem to have resources and the will to go through this arduous crusade they have taken onto themselves.

To other PHO users, I am going to tell you to take what they are saying really seriously. They are not motivated by their greed or some such like some heroes or villains who come into this business. The proof I have? They took none of the money, weapons or drugs that were in the stash house of the E88 and the statement they made to the police who offered to give them the money fee that vigilantes are bound to keep when they bust such places: "We don't take blood money."

That's where the "Private armed organization" comes from in the statement, they have their own resources.

My suggestions as a member of this forum community to theTeam  Battletech would be to lay low as the E88 is now out for blood.

Still thank you for what you did, some of my friends have been done in by Hookwolf.

[B]► Mint[/B]

Replied on July 9, 2007:

Thank you! You avenged my family, that monster killed them in cold blood!

[B]► Starwarsfan1879[/B]

Replied on July 9, 2007:

You avenged my son, thank you! I'm with you, this city needs serious cleaning!

[B]► Whitepower15[/B]

Replied on July 9, 2007:

Do you think this will change anything? We've been in this city longer than you. Your little statement is nothing more than the weak bark of one of those little dogs trying to threaten a much much larger and bigger wolf.

You Killing Hookwolf shall be avenged.

[B]► Miranda_Rights[/B]  (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Team Battletech ) (The Girl in the Know)

Replied on July 9, 2007:

We are not intimidated by E88 or any other Criminal Organization. They are insidious, you know, I am almost certain that they have masters in their midst to slowly bring people to their way of thinking, because anyone knows that this ideology has been wrong since World War 2.

@GenjiHikaru: It's not a joke, it's reality.

@WhiteBreadDude: Don't worry, we have already found a way to avoid collateral damages to properties and bystanders.

@Hammer Time!: We are here to make sure that people of all ethnicities, creeds and culture can be free from tyranny and oppression.

@Socrate's Student: We are obviously on a crusade, which means that we are leading a vigorous campaign for social change. And why would we join an organization like the PRT and Protectorate when they fail to even protect the people they profess to want to save? They are simply incompetent.

What are those excuses they make? They're underfunded, outnumbered, and outgunned. So what?

So, since then they decided to maintain the status quo. In the meantime, the E88 keeps growing, because they can point at the Merchants who forcefully inject people to get them addicted and say 'at least we are civilized about it, unlike them' (Though I know better than believing that bullcrap when they have PR agents to justify their atrocities and Masters amongst them to brainwash people to their cause).

The Merchants didn't have the cape firepower to really oppose the Protectorate. They aren't likely to get help from any of the other gangs either. The only two reasons I can think of why they are still around is 1. the PRT are too incompetent to find their bases (and apparently haven't heard of undercover agents or informants) or 2. they don't care.

Sure, you could argue that they're 'too focused on the threat of the E88 than to hit the Merchants', but that's a bad argument and a worse decision. Even if the PRT can't go after the E88 right now, they could at least try to clear out all the other lesser gangs, criminal groups, and independent villains. Doing that would allow them to focus more attention on the big two, and maybe even find an opportunity to whittle down or eliminate one or the other.

The E88 has an impressive cape roster . Kaiser, Fenja and Menja, Krieg, Night, Fog, Crusader, Hookwolf (deceased), Stormtiger, Cricket, Alabaster, Purity, Victor and Othala. 14 Capes, and I am loath to admit it but... it's frankly impressive.

The only way that the PRT and Protectorate could match that is if they muster their entire roster, plus the Wards (which they can't actually do due to Youth Guard regulations) and get all of New Wave to join in. However, that logic only applies in a stand-up fight where all the capes are on the battlefield at the same time.

Instead, it would be a hell of a lot smarter to insert agents and informants into the E88, find safehouses, weapons depots, and drug preparation and storage locations. Even better if they can get an idea when and where the E88 capes are. Seriously, Hookwolf was running dogfighting rings and (supposedly) pit fighting. Why not bust one of the fights when he and some of his cape buddies are in attendance? The entire Protectorate ENE roster could certainly overpower Hookwolf, Stormtiger, Cricket, and Alabaster all at the same time. Even if one or two of them escape, that would be a pretty big victory.

And the whole idea of 'well, the Empire would just break them out again' is another layer of incompetence. The PRT is a revolving door with no real operational security. If the enemy knows where and when your prisoner convoys are, enough to hit them en route, then you know you've got leaks. SO USE THEM TO YOUR ADVANTAGE! Tell different departments different stories on where and when the convoy will be, then transport the prisoners via Helicopter or something on a day and time BEFORE any of the false convoys are supposed to be leaving. Both problems are solved, or at least a few of the moles will be dug out. The fact that they haven't done this is PURE INCOMPETENCE!

A smart, competent Director with the balls to ACTUALLY FUCKING DO SOMETHING could start whittling away at the gangs' presence in the city. The fact that they don't is allowing Brockton Bay to continue an inevitable decline into becoming the Detroit of the east coast (if it isn't already).

I come from New York and things there are swiftly taken care of by the local Protectorate and PRT, the fact that the Merchant, E88 and other gangs thrive in a city such as Brockton Bay shouldn't be possible. I call foul play! This is an important port city that had been heavily involved in building submarines and sea vessels for the US in World War 2. Someone is obviously keeping this city in the current state it is for nefarious reasons, so the gangs aren't the only problem Brocktonites have.

So, Socrates, before writing a patronizing message to me while you're comfy in your midwestern house, you should do more research on cities the other capes posting on this forum comes from; and you say that you are a thinker? Hmph.

@Reaver Thank you for your encouragement and we are making sure that no one should be gravely harmed in our operations, but the gloves will come off if they come at us with the intent to kill.

And @everyone who has lost someone, we promise to bring justice to those murderers. Thank you for your support!

@Whitepower15 You won't know when or how, but all of you criminals and racists will get your comeuppance. And who was the little dog in the end? It was certainly Hookwolf as he was dispatched easily by Battletech.

[/INDENT]

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[B](Showing Page 2 of 35)[/B]

[INDENT]

[B]► ToddTheGiant[/B]

Replied on July 9, 2007:

Holy shit, you killed them @Miranda_Rights!

[B]► ThatGuy05[/B]

Replied on July 9, 2007:

Wow, this puts into perspective what I've always known... So they really are twiddling their thumbs in their ass. Yo, PRT answer us, why aren't you doing your job?

Thank you, @Miranda_Rights for showing us that our current PRT Director is holding the idiot ball.

[B]► Battletech[/B]  (Verified Cape) (Team Battletech ) (Command and Conquer fan)

Replied on July 9, 2007:

Operator has a really big bone to pick with the local PRT, forgive her. I had to calm her down a bit with a tea cup and some foot massages.

To everyone else, thank you for your support, we will do our job and protect you the best we can.

Thanks @Reaver, but we can't lie down, but your suggestions won't go unappreciated, we will now pass in stealth mode while we take out the trash, we don't need the credit or anything, so if you get called for more stash houses being busted or a strung up parahuman tied on a pole you know it's us

To the E88, all I can say now is that you won't see us coming.

[/INDENT]

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[Center]■[/Center]

I couldn’t stop reading how Miranda took down the PRT with simple logic. The worse thing was that she was right about the PRT, they could have done better. Miranda put a coffee mug before me while I was reading the derails, insults and threats from the E88 gang members, they didn't know that I was using PHO to find them all. Tonight, I felt that we would need to take them out too.

I took the mug of steaming coffee from her, smelled it's aroma and sipped it. Lavazza Crema e Gusto coffee fresh from Italy. Another awesome thing that was brought about by me being able to visit another country in minutes, I could obtain what people thought of as imported luxury such as this coffee.

Miranda arrived with a big platter of waffles, bacon and eggs for us that she moved with her Telekinesis, then she sat on her side of the table. Her omni-tool beeped, she looked at the message she received and laughed at it. "Hmm, Jane, you are never gonna believe who wants a meeting with you."