Next liveblog… Thursday?

I don’t think I’ve truly managed to get used to the slow pace of this story yet. No bank robbery this chapter, which was somewhat disappointing, but we did get a lot of information on some of the Wards and on how the powers are generally limited in this verse.

Overall, this chapter was… alright. The back and forth on whether or not they should actually do the robbery ended up getting a bit tedious after a while, though it might hold up better at a normal reading pace. Then we got an infodump, which while interesting, wasn’t all that exciting.

So yeah, maybe the chapter is suffering from too much hype on my part going in, but it does remind me quite a bit of 2.2, when most of the chapter was spent researching the Undersiders. It’s not bad, but it’s not that good either.

I don’t think we’ll be getting into the bank robbery immediately next chapter. It’s still two days away, and there are other things for Taylor to deal with in that time, such as whether she’ll go to school tomorrow. And even before that, there’s still most of today left to deal with, should Wildbow choose to do so.

“So that’s the plan, then?” I said, “So many maybes.”

“That’s the way these things go, Taylor,” Brian said, his tone a bit terse, “I think we’ve done a pretty good job of covering all the bases.”

Taylor likes to account for everything, but sometimes that doesn’t work out.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to sound like I was criticizing your plan-” I said.

“Our plan,” Brian interrupted.

I didn’t want to think of it that way.  Instead, I said, “I’m a touch nervous, is all.”

“You don’t have to come,” Bitch said, her tone a touch too casual.

Newfound respect? Maybe. Desire to have Taylor along? Not necessarily.

“In all seriousness,” Brian told me, “If you’re having second thoughts…”

“I am,” I admitted, “as well as third thoughts, fourth thoughts, and so on.  But I’m not going to let that stop me.  I’m coming with.”

That’s the spirit!

“Good,” Brian replied, “Then we’ve got the rest of today and tomorrow to prepare.  Taylor?  You can meet me on your run first thing.  I’ll have a cell phone for you.  You can text Lisa with anything you think you’ll need, like those weapons you were talking about.  Look up models and brands ahead of time if you want something specific.”

“What’s her number?” I asked.

“I’ll put it in the phone before I give it to you.

Nice. They did say they could get her a phone!

Lisa?  You confirm the job with the boss, talk to him about the other stuff.”

“Got it.”

“So unless there’s anything else, I think we just planned a bank robbery before noon,” Lisa said with a grin.  I looked at the digital clock displayed under the TV.  Sure enough, it was half past eleven.

I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a good thing.

Quick and easy! Now you can chill out the rest of the day and not at all sit for hours on end worrying about what will happen come Thursday. Fun! :D

Tattletale shook her head, “Her powers and Brian’s sort of have a weird interaction with one another.  Shadow Stalker can sort of transform.  She becomes extremely lightweight, can pass through glass and thin walls and she’s nearly invisible.  Only thing is, while she and the stuff she carries are all wispy in her transformed state, the stuff she shoots with her crossbow only stays that way for a half second.

Wispy, huh? Kind of like Brian’s sensory deprivation gas?

Then the effect wears off and it’s a regular arrow flying towards you. So she can leap between rooftops, almost impossible to see, hard to even touch, and all the while she’s shooting very real arrows at you.”

Very ninja-y. The name Shadow Stalker seems appropriate.

“So what do you do?” I asked.

“Her power doesn’t work well while she’s inside Brian’s darkness, for whatever reason.  She isn’t as fast or agile, he can see her better, and she can’t see him in the darkness,” Tattletale told me,

Heh, there’s a certain irony to the darkness making someone more visible.

“So it becomes something of a very intense game of tag, with one very fast person that’s essentially blind and deaf but carrying lethal weapons, while Brian, the other, is trying to take her out without getting shot.”

Everyone else better try to stay away from the blindly shooting crossbow wielder too, then. Especially considering they too will be blinded.

“Let’s avoid that,” Brian said, “It’s too time consuming and she may want to use that kind of scenario to delay us.  Just don’t get shot, and if you see her or see the opportunity, inform the team and do your best to take her down without losing sight of a priority target.

Sounds like a fair plan.

I nodded, slowly.  I wondered if that had something to do with why Lung didn’t burn himself, but I didn’t want to get further off topic, “And Vista?”

“Vista can stretch and compress space.  She can also do funny things with gravity.  Thing is, the Manton effect keeps her from stretching or compressing you.  It also makes altering an area a lot harder for her if there’s more people in that space.  So if all of us are in one room, chances are she won’t be able to affect the whole room.”

Handy.

Wait. Gravity? Interesting.

“But,” Brian added, wiping a string of cheese from the corner of his lip, “Every time we’ve run into her, she’s been faster and overall more powerful with her power, and she’s had new tricks.  Every second she’s on the battlefield is a second things become harder for us.  We take her down sooner than later.  Aegis, Clockblocker, Vista.  Those are the ones we’re most likely to run into, and whoever else winds up coming, they’re the ones we have to deal with, or we’re fucked.

I doubt any of these three are not going to show up. If not this time, the remaining one(s) will likely show up later, at least.

“Let’s quickly go through the rest.  Kid Win.”

“Tinker,” Lisa said, “Flying skateboard, laser pistols, high tech visor are staples for him.  Expect something new, depending on what he’s come up in his workshop.  He’s mobile but not that threatening.”

Sounds very eighties.

“Triumph?” Brian said.

“He turned eighteen and graduated to the Protectorate.  Don’t have to worry about him,” Lisa said.

Still no idea what this guy does.

“Gallant.”

“Glory Girl’s on and off boyfriend,

Ooooh

he pretends to be a Tinker in the same vein as Kid Win, but I think he just runs around in secondhand armor with a fresh paint job.

Pfft.

So kind of like the Iron Patriot to Iron Man?

His thing is these blasts of light.  Getting hit by one feels like a punch in the gut, but the blasts also mess with your feelings.  Make you sad, make you scared, ashamed, giddy, whatever.  Not that bad unless you get hit by a bunch in a row.  Don’t.”

That does tie in nicely with his girlfriend, at least.

“That just leaves Shadow Stalker.  Bloodthirsty bitch,” Brian scowled.

Alec explained to me, “She’s got it in her head that Brian is her nemesis.  You know, her number one enemy, her dark opposite.  She’s been going after him every chance she gets.”

Oh boy.

“She was a solo hero,” Tattletale said, “Vigilante of the night, until she went too far and nearly killed someone, nailing him to a wall with one of her crossbows.

Yikes, and this girl is after Brian?

Better watch out.

The local heroes were called in, she got arrested, and made some sort of deal.  Now she’s a probationary member of the Wards, with the condition that she uses tranquilizer bolts and nonlethal ammo for her crossbow.”

I guess that’s helpful at least.

“Which she isn’t,” Brian growled, “At least, not when she comes after me.  That arrow she shot through my side had a fucking arrowhead on it.”

…never mind.

Brian continued, “The third heavy hitter on the Wards is Vista.  You know that myth about how the capes that get their powers young are exponentially more powerful?  Vista’s one of the kids who keeps the myth alive.

Ooh, that’s very interesting. *makes mental note about that myth*

I suppose it would make sense given that they’ll have had more time to hone their powers, if you compare them at the same age.

Clockblocker is sort of a one trick pony, his trick involves screwing with one of the key forces of our universe, but it’s just one thing.  Vista also messes with physics on a fundamental level, but she’s versatile.

Shit.

“Twelve years old, and she has the power to reshape space.  She can stretch a building like taffy, so it’s twice as tall, or squeeze two sidewalks closer together so she can cross the street with a single step.”

That is a damn versatile power. Someone shoots at you? Make the space between you and the bullet large enough to step aside long before it arrives. Someone tries to run away? “What do you mean you’re running “away”? You sure seem to be getting closer and closer to me…”

I’m guessing she could make an opening in Clockblocker’s shields, since she’s not actually moving things, just reshaping the space between them.

“Her weakness,” Lisa added, “Is the Manton effect.”  She turned her full attention to me, “You know what that is?”

“I’ve heard it mentioned, but I don’t know the details.”

Hmm… no idea.

“Wherever our powers come from, they also came with some limitations.  For most of us, there’s a restriction about using our powers on living things.  The reach of powers generally stops at the outside of a person or animal’s body.

That’s interesting. Especially considering Alec’s power is in violation of that rule, applying specifically to people’s nervous system. Same with Taylor’s power, really - mass mind control of creatures with simple brains naturally involves using the power on those brains.

Actually, maybe that’s why it’s limited to simple brains. Maybe whatever powers the powers doesn’t consider insects “living things” because their brains are too simple. I really like the concept of magic that doesn’t necessarily follow human ideas.

There’s exceptions for the people with powers that only work on living things, like you, Alec and Rachel.

Ah, yeah, Rachel too. In her case, it’s straight up bodily transformation, which definitely messes with way more internal parts than Alec or Taylor’s powers do.

But the long and short of it is that the Manton effect is why most telekinetics can’t just reach into your chest and crush your heart.  Most people who can create forcefields can’t create one through the middle of your body and cut you in two.”

This is a pretty neat concept to introduce, to deal with why people don’t use their powers on their enemies internal bits.

That said, one of my favorite ever powers in a work of fiction, outside of Worm, belongs to Tyki Mikk from D.gray-man. He can choose what things to interact with physically and what to phase right through, and one of his favored ways to kill is to stick his heart right through your chest and literally just pluck your heart out. He’s also generally one of my favorite villains, thanks to that power and his personality.

(Though I will say they took it a little far when he started flying on the basis of making air be solid to his feet.)

“Narwhal can,” Alec cut in.

“I said most,” Lisa said, “Why these restrictions exist is a question nearly as big as where we got our powers in the first place.  The capes that can get around the Manton effect are among the strongest of us.”

I’m glad the origin of the powers is being treated as a mystery by the characters now. I think things are going to come together over time to at least imply something about the origin of parahumans towards the end.