blasto, meet official opinions on self-replicating minions

[peterxy]

The PRT catches wind of a strange increase in disappeared domestic animals in the downtown area. Given that the people who live there are the rich and powerful, this is clearly a problem that needs to be investigated and solved immediately. The PRT, of course, agrees that this is of utmost importance, and not just because of precedent about mass abductions of pets, of course not, why would you think that, they are so very worried about Fido, even Scion recognizes the merits of rescuing lost pets.

(Lorica's asked to maybe keep a few more eyes there than she has been.)

Comments

[thinkering]

"I'm still making finishing touches but you can practice with it whenever I'm not doing that. Your shoulderbot can let you know."

[peterxy]

"Oh, okay. Do you know when it'll be, like, totally complete?"

[thinkering]

"It'll be ready to go out with you when you are, but I'll need to maintain it. Tune-up every two weeks if nothing hits you that you don't rewind away, and after it takes lasting damage."

[peterxy]

"Alright," she says, and starts taking off her armor.

[thinkering]

"And that's less often than I have to fiddle with mine or Dad's because yours is going to spend less time in active use and experiencing the ongoing passage of time."

[peterxy]

"Well I don't rewind that often," she says, a touch defensively.

[thinkering]

"You do in combat, which is when it'd be under the most materials stress. I'll need it back more often if you're planning to just walk around in it all the time like I do."

[peterxy]

She ponders as she finishes taking the suit off. "Mmmmmmaybe, flying's cool, and it'd help your bot know more about me, yeah?"

[thinkering]

"Yeah. So I'll need it back once a week or so."

[peterxy]

"Okay, cool, I can deal with that, six out of seven days in a suit is better than no days at all."

[thinkering]

"I'm glad you like it."

[peterxy]

"Are you kidding me I can fly and shoot stuff out of my hands to tag people and there's a HUD it's awesome of course I like it!"

[thinkering]

Giggle.

[peterxy]

"I'm gonna kick Lung's aaaassss," she singsongs. "Thank you!" And she scoots off.

[thinkering]

"You're welcome!" Lorica calls after her.

[peterxy]

And just as Rewind is walking away from Lorica's workshop, one of the bots patrolling downtown notices some suspicious movement over there.

[thinkering]

It refocuses and approaches to investigate.

[peterxy]

It's an apparently ordinary office building. A bit less fancy than the average, for the area, but otherwise pretty ordinary. But what caught the bot's eye was a flash inside one of the tinted windows, and-

Crusader flies through it, shattering the window as he's thrown outside. He generates a duplicate to catch himself before he goes splat on the concrete.

And a tree branch with crimson leaves grows out of the window he just broke, much faster than branches ought to.

[thinkering]

The bot sends up high alert and solicits immediate glambot backup.

Lorica is jolted out of programming fugue to attend to the situation.

[peterxy]

Two hybrid monkeys jump out of the window after Crusader, and two of Crusader's clones that were inside the building follow them. When they're outside, one of the ways they've evaded tracking this long becomes obvious to the bot: at least some of them seem to have evolved a very advanced form of camouflage, quickly taking on the properties of their background (though it seems not quick enough when they're actually running around). That, coupled with their very low body temperature, coupled with Brockton Bay being a big city, meant that they could effectively stay out of sight most of the time.

[mxglam]

Glam conjures more bots!

[thinkering]

Lorica writes thirty lines of code real quick to sharpen the bots' visual discernment for this situation and then goes back to paying attention to the fight. Glam's shoulderbot suggests that flamethrowers would be good too.

[mxglam]

While she was looking away, Purity showed up from inside the building and started shooting the monkeys, causing worryingly little damage in spite of going at it with enough force to crack the concrete they were standing on. As Lorica watches, a blindingly fast vine shoots out of the window, wrapping itself around Purity's midsection and pulling her back inside.

Glam gives the bots a gun that can throw flames or a flame retardant depending on a setting, which is just as well because the two camouflaged monkeys are running away in different directions. Armsmaster has started gathering some heroes and sending them in - he and Drupe are coming on his bike, Miss Militia is supposed to pick Windflower up, Glimmer and Silica are patrolling and for the moment needn't come but should try to stay nearby in case their help's needed.

[thinkering]

Bots chase the escaping monkeys with extreme prejudice. Other bots - disposable Glambots - enter the building with the tree to check it out.

[peterxy]

Yup, that's a tree. A huge tree, apparently going through all floors and occupying the entire building, while having managed to keep far enough away from the tinted windows that it wasn't visible from the outside. The tree moves, sluggishly, but still in ways trees ought not move.

Its purpose becomes clear, as well: in addition to the several differently-mutated monkeys here and there, many of which are fighting Purity and Crusader's clones (even being impaled is not enough to stop them most of the time), there are several monkeys connected to the tree, duplicating quickly, with mutations, and then having one of the duplicates killed for nutrients, with some help from other monkeys to ensure only "good" mutations persist.