endbringer, meet gun

[peterxy]

...Very unseasonable rains can be seen in the distance from the shores of Acapulco.

The Brockton Bay Protectorate starts organizing volunteers to be transported or teletransported in batches to it. Heroes, rogues, villains, anyone's assistance is appreciated. A rendez-vous point is set for non-Protectorate capes wishing to volunteer, and Protectorate capes are informed of the situation via communication devices.

Comments

[thinkering]

"Well, this is all sort of worrying and not the sort of thing we can ethically test, so. Leave it aside until one does pop up sapient and don't run off and do things without the original. Do you think you can get the animals master idea in working order in the next few days or should you go with a different specialty fork?"

[mrglam]

"Dunno. I'm feeling very omnipotent right now, and this is exactly the right kind of feeling to test it."

[thinkering]

"Cool. Gimme a seagull."

[mrglam]

Seagull!

It perches on copy's shoulder. "Can you squint at it?"

The copy does. Neither of them poof. "Guess I don't count as a person."

"Good."

[thinkering]

"Hey, I resent that."

[mrglam]

They look at her. "I'm pretty sure you count as a person! You made my Rubik's cube disappear when you squinted at it," original says.

"It's just the belief thing you're immune to," copy continues. He furrows his brows, then shrugs and shakes his head. "I am powerless and also immune to the belief thing. Non-sapient constructs don't have beliefs."

[thinkering]

"We haven't concretely determined whether the bot counts."

A bot approaches the seagull to inspect it.

[peterxy]

Seagull: exists.

And preens itself a bit because it is a bird and birds do that?

[thinkering]

"Bot does not count either," Lorica concludes. "Well, there goes my idea of building you a minion that believed in you real hard."

[mrglam]

"...if I ever become sapient I'm giving myself omnipotence."

[thinkering]

"Wouldn't that be fun."

[mrglam]

"I think it would! The world is suboptimally arranged and I am displeased about certain facts of it like Endbringers or old age."

[thinkering]

"I cannot disagree with your stated goals."

[mrglam]

"I didn't expect you to."

[thinkering]

"So there's a seagull, you could stick with a theme or you could do a whole menagerie, throw in a polar bear and a, I don't know, can you do an air-breathing levitating swordfish?"

[peterxy]

Swordfish: appears!

...and falls on the floor, twitching and flapping.

The seagull looks interested.

[mrglam]

"...do seagulls even eat swordfish? They look too big."

[thinkering]

"They'd probably pick at a dead one. Come on, why can't the swordfish fly? It is here at all by your sufferance, surely it can ignore gravity."

[mrglam]

The copy frowns, picks the fish up, and raises it to eye level. "Will you stop twitching already?"

It does.

"Thank you."

Both of them glare at the swordfish before the copy lets it go. It insists on obeying gravity.

"Whyyyyyy."

[thinkering]

"Give it an antigrav accessory."

[mrglam]

Original attaches a small electronic device to the fish.

It is now a flying fish.

It is also very dead.

"I would be much obliged if you were not dead," original says. It is no longer dead. It is flopping. "What are you even doing, you have a breathing device in your gills." It stops flopping.

[thinkering]

Lorica giggles. "There you go. Okay, does 'throw swordfish at people' sound like a good backup skillset? Shaker-blaster can lean on the tinkery thing and hang out with me a lot, Master Swordfish can not happen to mention out loud anything as sophisticated as a "breathing device" and maybe come up with a flashy or hidden way to summon the critters to begin with and mostly pair with other people?"

[mrglam]

"Yeah and I think I can probably get it to breathe without the breathing device. Especially since I made it up, it shouldn't matter whether it's technology or mystic applied phlebotinum."

"You didn't mean 'throw swordfish at people' literally, did you? Because that in itself is a pretty crappy power."

[thinkering]

"I didn't mean it literally. If I were you I'd do a lot of snakes - nonvenomous snakes - for nice nonlethal capture, and ride around on a dragon."

[mrglam]

They look at each other then at Lorica and then conspicuously do not say anything.