I stepped onto the lift and rode it down toward the barracks.
The new barracks. Smell all that Terran Ingenuity. Smell like progress!
A building that hadn't even existed twenty-four hours ago. A building a day keeps the Endbringer away! something something. insert funny wormverse joke here…but nobody gets it except me. Sigh.
My Isekai sensibilities are not working in this multiverse.
Barracks was designed using minimalist structure architecture, the clean lines of neosteel catching the overhead lights, windows tinted with that faint multi-spectrum shimmer that made them look thicker than armoured plating. Because they were. Literally. I built them. Reinforced with Neosteel and soon will be refurbished and redesigned with Mk2 Neosteel armour.
Twenty-two SCVs had worked nonstop, like tireless little construction gremlins, weaving girders and plating like high-tech spiders until the place stood proud and perfect.
Inside, the smell hit first: industrial solvents, fresh polymer, and that weird plasticky-sterile scent new electronics gave off. My boots echoed on the floor. Row after row of wall-mounted racks waited empty for the soldiers I didn't have.
That part still bothered me.
Tech, I had.
Buildings, I had.
Military-grade everything, I had.
But soldiers? Warm bodies who wouldn't look at a CMC suit and immediately run screaming? Got the chicken suit, but there aint no chicken to wear it.
Zero.Nada- that's all about to change tho soon.
Still, one rack wasn't empty.
The Medic CMC unit.
White armour with red accent stripes, polished and pristine. Sleek, but heavier than it looked. Its helmet had a visor shaped like a hawk's beak, almost ceremonially designed to look calm, reassuring, and authoritative. I even have the fabricator make me a light infantry Medic outfit with the combat gear.
The medigun rig was locked in place on the back, power coils dormant, emitter nozzles like the open petals of a mechanical flower. Ready to heal. Ready to save.
I approached slowly, like I was meeting someone important.
The interface screen beside the armour flickered alive automatically, recognising my presence. A clean Terran military UI unfurled and showed me some of the stuff I can do to upgrade this CMC armour. I could add a Shield Matrix or install a Rapid Regeneration Nanoframe.
Every Meditech tree under the Terran Dominion is available. They even have the Elite Medic stuff from Morales and Lisa Cassidy, like the Drone-assisted Triage and even Biosteel Reinforcement.
Each option blinked with tiny previews like schematics rotating in crisp holo blue.
I felt… dizzy.
"This was a fully customizable military-grade medical exosuit, capable of saving lives on a battlefield or repairing someone like Trainwreck mid-fight. All of it sitting here, waiting for staff I didn't have.
My fingers brushed the armour. Imagine a whole squad of these. Imagine a proper Terran medic unit in Brockton Bay. Imagine…my brain flickered dangerously at how much the PRT would panic.
I stepped back.
Fuck…I totally forgot about those guys. This city needed medics more than anything if things dont change, and Leviathan is a set course towards Brockton Bay by next year.
The holo menu kept waiting for my decision, and that stupid credit card in my pocket reminded me, in its cheap plastic way, that I now technically had enough money to hire… someone. If I wanted to.
But this is tech the ordinary folks won't be able to conceive, even if it is tinker tech. No…I gotta have a Terran. A real Terran Officer to oversee this so it won't be misused.
"Hey Monica, show me the list of all the clone memory repositories for the resurrection project", I asked.
File after file flickered across the holographic display, names of Terrans long gone, their minds compressed into data like digital tombstones. Soldiers from the UED's early campaigns, scientists from failed colonies, and even civilians caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, but important enough to warrant a data save due to their unique expertise.
A graveyard disguised as a database. No, Jim Raynor. Not even Mira or any of the important characters from Starcraft. Not even Stetman. What's going on here? Or maybe they just dont log them because there wasn't a need to anymore since the war was over? Makes sense, I suppose. Darn… I wish I could resurrect Raynor.
Then one name stopped me cold.
I blinked and rubbed my eye, thinking it was playing tricks on me, but I leaned in. Read it again.
Ziegler, Angella M.
Swiss. Old Earth.
Affiliation: Project Overwatch.
Approximate year of death: 2073.
Neural engram: 74% intact.
For a few seconds, all I could do was stare at it. The file hovered there, glowing faintly like it knew exactly how ridiculous this was.
"Monica," I said quietly, "what the hell is this doing here?"
Her avatar tilted toward me, hands folded neatly behind her back. "The UED recovered several large data clusters from Old Earth shortly before exodus. Project Overwatch's archives were among them. Dr Ziegler's neural imprint was flagged as high-value."
I couldn't help it, I laughed, short and sharp. "High-value? Monica… are you saying the UED somehow grabbed Mercy's brain on their way out?"
Is this one of the goddess, Zeus and Sun Wukong shenanigans, or is Starcraft and Overwatch related? I mean, duh..same company, Blizzard..but I thought they were separate entities and IP.
"Designation: Dr Angella Ziegler," she corrected patiently. "But yes. Her medical expertise was considered exceptional, particularly her work with nanotechnology and advanced tissue regeneration that gave birth to the Cadeceus Reactor technology."
"This is…so fucking ..this is absurd." I stepped back from the panel, like putting physical distance between myself and the file would somehow make it less insane. "Overwatch was a game I could go pro with, but decided it wasn't for me, I still played it for fun though and stream it when I retired.."
"And also a real organisation that existed on Old Earth," Monica replied. "The UED does not store video games, Jason. It stores resources available data in history."
"History huh..," I repeated. "Right. People's memories are history. Sure. Why not?"
The file continued to float calmly in front of me, as if it weren't turning my entire understanding of this base upside down.
I rubbed a hand over my face. "Is the engram… actually usable?"
"Approximately seventy-four per cent," Monica said. "There is some corruption expected, given the condition of the original archives, but enough remains to reconstruct personality, expertise, and a significant portion of memory."
I let out a long breath. "So… theoretically… we could bring her back."
"If the clone vats are allocated," she confirmed. "And if you authorise the process."
I stared at that name again. Dr. Angella Ziegler. A woman who should've been nothing more than a story, a character on a screen, yet here she was, buried in the UED's stolen past, waiting in digital limbo.
"Damn..having Mercy here would change a lot of things," I whispered.
"You have expressed that sentiment many times since discovering the file," Monica observed.
"Because it is insane, you have no Idea how significant this is, do you?" I asked because she doesn't get it. Nobody gets it! Only an isekai idiot like me gets it!
"You also said that when you became a millionaire," she reminded me.
"That was different," I said reflexively. "That was just you stealing from criminals."
"Is this not also stealing from criminals? If Arthurian Mengks still lives, this will not go unnoticed under the Dominion Empire," she asked with the polite curiosity only an AI could emulate.
I opened my mouth. Closed it again. "…You win this round. Yeah fuck that guy. Good riddance."
The Medic CMC's blueprint still hovered in the corner of my display, showing dozens of potential upgrades, weapon slots, nanite modules, and medical drones. A system built for war, for saving lives, for both.
And now I had the mind of Dr Ziegler sitting right there, waiting
I drew a slow breath and nodded at the console. "Monica… open the rest of the Overwatch-related archives."
Her hologram's expression sharpened. "Some files are fragmented," she warned. "Others are heavily encrypted."
"Can you break them?"
The small smile she gave me was almost dangerous. "Commander… I am an UED Intelligence. I can break into anything."
Data streamed across the screens, symbols, corrupted memories, fractured images on the hologram. I stood there in the heart of the barracks I'd built with my own hands, watching the past unravel in front of me, and couldn't shake the feeling that opening this archive wasn't just uncovering history.
Familiar faces zoomed past. Genji. Soldier 76, Tracer, evenD.VA and the MeKa squad.
"Monica..Prioritise building the Clone Vat program without a cloning facility; if you will, do it in-house. I just need one vat and continue with the Factory on schedule if you can run them simultaneously. Set the module in one of the empty labs here in the Command Centre. This needs to stay in-house. How fast can you build it?"
Her hologram materialised beside one of the counters, light blooming like a ghost taking shape. She scanned the room with a slow, evaluating sweep.
"With current resource allocation," she said, "I can refurbish this laboratory and install a full clone-vat array in approximately forty-eight hours. Factory scheduling won't be interrupted. It is possible to do both in two days."
Two days.
I blinked. "That's… fast."
"It would be faster," she added mildly, "if the facility were not built out of scrap materials you acquired from Brockton Bay's industrial district."
I threw up a hand. "Hey, don't blame me. This trainyard built all of our shit."
Monica continued as if I hadn't spoken. "Refurbishing will require nanite swarming, structural reinforcement, sterilisation cycles, and rerouting of generator output. All simple tasks, though time-consuming."
I stepped closer to the centre of the room and sat on a nearby sofa in the barracks, brushing my hand over the smooth counter while watching the holo screen as Monica gave me the update.
"So two days," I murmured. "Then the clone vats go online."
"Yes," she said.
"And you can install the neural imprinting chamber here, too?"
"Of course. I will require only a minor increase in power during installation. You will experience a temporary blackout in the living quarters for approximately twenty minutes." Monica showed me the data and the necessary material deposit we collected. It's enough, surprisingly. SCVs have been working hard nonstop.
"Great." That's not too bad since we run on Reactor Energy. But in two days? Full clone vats. Overwatch engrams. And potentially… her.
"Begin the conversion," I said finally. "I want this lab operational."
Monica nodded once. "Understood."
The moment the word left her, one of the empty rooms in the Command Centre shifted.
Panels in the walls opened with soft hydraulic hisses as swarm nanites poured through like silver dust. They spread across the floor, crawling into vents, sliding under equipment, dissolving old components and reassembling them with quiet, mechanical precision.
I watched in silence as the lab came alive from the hologram monitor, not violently, but with the eerie smoothness of a machine that had done this a thousand times before. Reminds me of that cutscene where Mengks outfitted Tychus Findlay. All of the robotics is moving in sync, changing an empty room into a cloning lab.
Counters reconfigured. Storage units unfolded into larger compartments. Sections of the floor sank and reshaped into mounts for the vats. Reinforced tubing slithered into the ceiling. New equipment printed itself layer by layer. New wiring pops up.
It was like watching a time-lapse, but happening in real time.
Two days, and I'd have a functioning clone-vat wing.
In two days, and a certain Swiss doctor's consciousness might have a body again.
Two days.
**********************
A/N
Hi, pantser here. I dont exactly plan or control where this is going, if it goes? it goes weeeeee..weeee..weeee! Stuff. I have no stored chapters. This is just me writing on the seat.
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Nov 28, 2025
#300
Armmaster POV -
I set the sample onto the cradle of my materials analyser and watched as the clamps sealed around it with a soft magnetic hum. A piece of squared metal, really. Polished, unassuming, barely heavier than steel by mass. Trying to cut it was every bit time-consuming. Plasma cutters seem to work after going at it for three hours straight, but they wouldn't cut it.
Extremely durable.
The first scan returned values so absurd that I almost restarted the machine out of instinct. Tensile strength readings that outstripped parahuman-grade materials. Thermal resistance off the charts. A lattice structure so dense and so stable that the microscope struggled to resolve the grain boundaries.
And yet every lab sensor I had was already screaming at me, saying that such readings were simply…
Impossible.
It should have been impossible.
I leaned closer to the display, jaw tightening, rubbing my eyes, thinking I was seeing the data wrong, but no matter how many times I've refreshed it, the data never lies.
High-density alloy cluster detected. Thermo-mechanical shaping: unknown class. Catalytic infusions: not in database.
Compression tolerance: exceeds paristeel by 873%.
Stronger than paristeel. Stronger than parahuman alloys. And the crystalline orientation is something no natural process could have made this. No tinker on the East Coast produced anything remotely comparable. Even Dragon's highest-end prototypes weren't built like this.
I ran another test, a more invasive one. The analyser's thermal laser swept a line across the sample, attempting to heat it past the critical deformation temperature.
No reaction.
The microstructure was maddening.
A bizarre marriage of cold forging and thermal shaping, two processes that should have cancelled each other out. The catalyst traces within the alloy were unfamiliar, almost alien in their distribution. There are traces of Carbon, Titanium, Steel and even Neodymium. Those materials are all heavy-duty. In theory, a 2mm thick Neosteel can withstand 5000 pounds of force. The usual build up of any acidic or energy dissipation loss requires 200 million amps of gamma wave to penetrate it in theory.
The data just doesn't make sense, but the math says it is possible. How could it not be? This piece of technical engineering wonder is right in front of me.
Antimony chains braided between compressed carbon lattices. Nanoscale support structures that flexed and returned to position with zero fatigue loss. In theory, too, a thick wall made of stuff like this could withstand 100 tactical nukes exploding at the material at the same time.
Someone decided to just over-engineer this thing and simply said Hmm… this could use more strength. More power..and keep pushing and pushing and pushing…until they decided ahh yes. Nobody could ever send a hundred nukes at the same time at my bunker and simply decide that's enough. Let's stop at a hundred nukes for now.
Whoever thought of this must be mad, insane…or simply doesn't see any limits to material science technology.
It wasn't just advanced. It was years ahead. Decades ahead of its time, as if to account for space travel for humans in the far, far future. Whoever Dreamhack really was, his "team" was operating on a different technological axis entirely. Not just an eccentric tinker specialisation. Not a unique quirk. This was an engineered refinement built on principles Earth science hadn't even articulated yet.
pinched the bridge of my nose.
How was I supposed to recreate this? Even with all the data available, the sheer complexity made my head ache. I could try heat-pressure cycling with adaptive nanoforge modulation, but without the correct catalyst? Without knowing what these microscopic inclusions actually were? Without even knowing if I even have the right tools to even recreate this.
It was guesswork at best.
It's four am in the morning. I haven't slept for the past two days..and then Dreamhack drop this thing on me… It's mortifying.
The alloy might as well have been grown in a star.
I tapped the screen again. The analyser chirped and showed density readings that made structural steel look like brittle chalk. A hundred times stronger than Fe550 CRS. A thousand times purer. Every angle of analysis confirmed it: I was staring at a material more advanced than anything humanity produced.
I sat back, heart thrumming with equal parts dread and exhilaration. If Dreamhack team could manufacture this casually, if alloys like this were his scrap-tier output, what else was he capable of? What had he refrained from showing us?
And more importantly…
How could I ensure something like this didn't become a threat?
I frowned at the shard of metal in the cradle, suddenly aware of how small it was and how profoundly dangerous. And…he gave a ton of that stuff as "presents" for me to tinker with. The sheer possibility of the things these can be made into. Armor? Impenetrable vehicle? An indestructible weapon of mass destruction? The possibilities are endless. A very dangerous present was given to me, and I dont even know what to do with it.
The PRT would want answers, Director Pigot and the Protectorate as a whole would demand containment of such material. And I would have to solve something that should not be solvable. I leaned in again, fingers already moving over the console as I began drafting replication trials.
I need…a second opinion on this.
The clock on my workshop wall glowed 04:17 AM, its blue digits casting faint reflections across the metal benches. Should I do it?
I rubbed at my eyes, trying to scrape away the ache building behind them. I had been at this for hours after all, just running tests, rerunning them since the evening, since he came, then rerunning them again because the numbers refused to make sense.
Dragon.
She was the only one on Earth who could check my results without bias. The only one capable of understanding what I was staring at a fundamental level, and maybe the only person I trusted not to panic before the data was clear.
I hesitated, thumb hovering over the comm line.
Four in the morning, Collin. Even for Dragon, this is pushing it.
But the alloy shard sat under the diagnostic lamps like a quiet revelation. Too advanced. Too stable. Too… impossible. If Dreamhack could make this, or worse, mass-produce it and by then we couldn't afford to wait. What if he sold this to another villain? To Toybox. What if they misuse this?
I opened the comm channel."Dragon," I said softly, almost wincing at the quiet ping as the connection was established all the way to Canada during this hour. There was a delay, brief but noticeable. Then her voice came through, warm and crisp despite the hour.
"Collin? Is something wrong?" her voice was clear. Was she still up during this time?
"I apologise for the time," I said. "But I need your expertise on something immediately. I believe it can't wait."
"…I'm listening," she said.
I pulled up the scan results and transmitted the full data packet. Structural readings, atomic lattice mapping, resilience tests, just everything. For a moment, there was silence on her end, only the faint hum of my lab equipment running several other readings on the material. Her digital avatar went online as I turned on the camera to show her direct readings from the camera I recorded onto the material.
"Collin… these readings are incorrect. Have you done a retest?"
"I thought the same," I answered. "But I verified them. Multiple times. Different instruments."
Another silence followed, but this wasn't confusion. This was a shock for her.
"Collin," Dragon said quietly, "this alloy is beyond anything humanity has ever developed. Even my highest-tier prototypes, my confidential ones, don't match these resilience curves. Are you sure this is the right data?"
"I know."
"It… this structure shouldn't be stable. The energy requirements alone…"
"...."
"Where did you get it?" she finally asked.
I exhaled slowly, pressing a hand to the workstation table, wondering if I should simply say the truth? It's not the first time we've discussed about him. Not to mention the Gauss rifle as well.
"Dreamhack.. He delivered it to the PRT as a 'gift.' He insists he only works in construction-scale systems. Claims this was made by his 'team.' I'm not convinced."
On Dragon's side, a soft electronic sound is coming from the computer of her digital avatar.
"I'll say this carefully, Collin," she murmured. "If this is authentic and all your tests say it is, then the tinker we're dealing with is not simply talented. His technology base is fundamentally divergent from ours."
"That was my assessment as well."
"Can he replicate this?"
"Yes. Casually."
"That is… concerning."
My throat tightened at the understatement.
"Dragon," I said, "given your full capacity, could you recreate this?"
A longer pause. More processing power than usual. A hundred silent computations unfolding.
"…Not reliably,I wouldn't have …enough computational power to do a simulation of the right test bed to recreate the right catalyst on a stable enough method," she finally admitted. "Not without significant trial and error. The catalyst traces alone are decades beyond modern metallurgy. And this thermo-mechanical process, Collin, nothing about it matches our current modern technological science. Including parahumans ones."
I stared down at the alloy again, the cold gleam of it catching the lab lights.
"Could he be dangerous?" I asked.
"Anyone with this capability is dangerous," Dragon answered softly. "But that does not mean he intends to be. He gave it all away freely. Perhaps look at the bright side, we have an independent tinker capable of creating a highly durable material with extreme tensile strength that doesn't seem to use it for the wrong purpose.."
"That's what worries me…Until when will he keep being independent? " I turned to look at that harmless little plate of metal as a potential threat.
Her voice gentled."You're not wrong to call me. I appreciate that you take the time to get a second opinion."
I rubbed my face with both hands. "So it's real. It's advanced. And it's repeatable." I thought to myself as I scratched my beard.. It's been a long day.
"Yes."
"And we have no way of measuring the ceiling of his tech..."
"Not at the moment, no. I may try. But we have far more important mission directives to be studying such an alloy unless we have the necessary tools readily available.."
A long sigh escaped me. It tasted like exhaustion and inevitability.
"I'll continue tests," I said. "Or at least try to understand the catalytic process. It would give us a window or entry into the fabrication process."
"And I'll begin simulations of perhaps building something using such materials," she replied."
"Thank you, Dragon."
"Of course, Collin." A beat. Then, with a hint of warmth: "And… next time, you can call me at four without apologising."
I almost smiled, she knows how to make me feel terrible about myself and at the same time grateful and understanding about it. I shouldn't take up her time anymore.
"Noted."
The line disconnected, leaving me alone with the alloy and the cold hum of the lab, and I kept staring at the thing. Wondering what I should do with it. I turned to look towards a ton of neosteel within the lab. An entire metric ton of a material that should not exist.
I turned away from the display and let my gaze settle on the far end of the room, where the containment pallets held the remainder of Dreamhack's "samples."
The blocks sat there like slabs of night, their surfaces absorbing light instead of reflecting it. Smooth, seamless, impossibly dense just waiting. Dormant, but not inert. Even from here, my mind instinctively mapped stress tolerances, compression ratings, and Phase-III impact thresholds. Numbers unfolded in my thoughts in cascading sheets, each more absurd than the last. If I can find the temperature point to mold It, I can make use of it.
A ton of this.
If I devoted the entire PRT ENE R&D budget to research for five straight years, I still wouldn't be able to produce ten percent of this. And Dreamhack had handed it over as casually as if he were dropping off scrap metal.
The weight of it pressed on my shoulders to not abuse it since nothing we currently possess could budge even a quarter of the pallet without powered machinery, which I might need to build one myself since the current equipment isnt equipped to handle a material like this.
I walked closer, each step echoing faintly against the steel floor. The neosteel radiated the same unsettling certainty as a solved equation. There was nothing experimental about it. This was finished technology. Matured. Optimized.
Perfected and over-engineered.
My gloved hand hovered a few inches above the surface. Touching it felt too much like accepting responsibility for it, so I didn't.
Instead, I studied the block as if it might reveal its origin through sheer scrutiny. What could I do with this? What should I do?
Armour came to mind first, of course. I intend to use some of the material to reinforce his own armour efficiently.
Armour that would render conventional firearms meaningless, armour that would make my motorcycle lighter and tankier than any tanks in the world. Something that could stop a tinker-tier railgun without scratching.
Maybe even build PRT transport carriers for ordinary agents or hull plating that would survive atmospheric reentry without ablative loss. Infrastructure such as bridges that would never collapse, shelters that could withstand an Endbringer….Endbringer?
Anti-Enbringer application.
Was that his endgame? Every application branched into ten more, each one violating at least a dozen known engineering limits. Engineered to withstand…Endbringers?
But there was a darker thread weaving through the ideas one I wasn't proud of.
Weaponry.
Weaponry that could take down an Endbringer. For good.
Neosteel could build containment units, power cores, kinetic penetrators… It could turn any crude prototype into a weapon of terrifying efficiency. Even without tinker processes, its natural properties were already beyond the threshold at which materials became strategic assets. Ammos that could penetrate even the strongest armour in the world…Penetration power that could puncture an Endbringer.
I exhaled slowly, letting the implications settle. Dreamhack is an Endbringer-class Tinker, and Dreamhack had more of this stuff. Much more. He had said so casually, like sharing a mundane fact of life. Twenty more mechs. More materials. More technology. Technology that's designed to withstand Enbringer or take one down.
He wasn't a tinker working on the edge of human innovation. He was someone who already lived beyond that edge…Possibilities of a return to form for the human race.
He didn't realise what kind of tension this put the world under. Or maybe he did and simply didn't care. Does he realise what he has? Or he simply doesn't realise it at all? He has material that could possibly stop Endbringers, and he's using it to build…buildings?
I stepped back, arms folding unconsciously as I observed the silent geometric mass. My mind spun through the projected report if this was given to the PRT, and the inevitability of federal involvement once someone higher-ranked saw my findings.
Would they arrive at the same conclusion as I?
Enough contemplating.
Staring at the neosteel wasn't going to make it any less impossible, and it wasn't going to give me any more answers at 4 am in the morning. I forced myself to step away from the pallets and return to the workstation, where the rest of Dreamhack's "gifts" waited under sterile white light.
The first item was the so-called gravity bomb. It sat sealed inside a triple-layer containment cylinder, suspended in a stabilising magnetic cradle. Every scan I'd run so far had come back inconsistent: fluctuating density signatures, anomalous mass readings, and an internal structure that changed depending on the angle of measurement.
I set the containment cylinder aside. One anomaly at a time.
The holopad lay next to the bomb, deceptively sleek, no sharp edges, no ports, no visible seams. Just a matte surface barely thicker than a sheet of acrylic. When I first picked it up, it had activated instantly, projecting a clean three-dimensional interface in mid-air. No projector lens. No latency. No visible light source.
The interface shut itself off whenever I attempted to probe deeper.
I sat down, activated my recording suite, and placed the pad on the testing platform. If it wanted to play stubborn, I was willing to be patient.
Test 1: Electromagnetic Sweep
The holopad hummed faintly as the scanners passed over it. Waveforms came back scrambled, no recognisable pattern, no identifier signature. Not resistance. Not deflection. Hmm..perhaps another test.
Test 2: Power Source Trace
No battery. No induction coil. No heat output. Yet the device ran flawlessly when it chose to turn on. Sensors seem to be picking up the signature of a power source, Lithium-based with a gas mixture and even ian mpossible output that could probably last a thousand cycles of recharging.
Time flies when you're just…
Testing it properly unlike the Neosteel. These data was not improperable but equally fascinating
Test 19: Direct Neural Interface Probe
The pad activated for half a second longer, enough to display a single floating icon and then forcibly severed the connection. My rig logged the attempt as "external error," something I'd never seen outside of Tinkertech with hostile countermeasures.
I leaned back, fingers steepled, watching the holopad sit there in perfect silence.
Fine. Time for brute force.
I looked at the clock, and it's already 8 am…The time when most people woke up and had their breakfast here.
Oh. One last test, then.
Test 20: Firmware Access Attempt-
My intrusion suite deployed across thirty-seven parallel threads, storming the pad's passive architecture. For a moment, it felt like I had traction and found a loophole, one thread made it further than before.
Then everything stopped.
My entire system locked up. Every process returned the same message:
ACCESS REFUSED. COMPATIBILITY INSUFFICIENT.
I stared at the terminal, a cold prickling settling along my skin. The device wasn't unhackable because it was strongly secured. It was unhackable because I might as well have been trying to pick a lock on a tech that's miles ahead of what I'm equipped for..
I ran another test, then another, then another, changes in frequency, brute-force electromagnetics, controlled environmental fluctuations. All met with the same result. The holopad allowed itself to be observed only on its own terms. Nothing more. Eventually, I stopped the diagnostics and closed the logs. It was pointless to continue.
The bomb was baffling. The neosteel was impossible.
But this holopad… This was deliberate.
A message, whether Dreamhack meant it that way or not. I exhaled once, quietly, then locked the pad inside a reinforced isolation case. I just use it normally as it's intended, a secure, encrypted and highly advanced piece of communication technology that could be used like a personal computer as a handheld device.
The civilian application itself could prove popular because of how robust and functional it is.
I stumbled out of the lab before the room could start spinning in earnest. The holographic pad's afterglow still pulsed behind my eyes with those fractals of light, shifting around the alphabet, unreadable geometry that made my skull throb every time I tried to make sense of it. Some of the asthethic choice Dreamhack did was quite intuitive even if we dont know what the symbols mean, something called an "app" abbreviation of something.
.My brain felt slow and heavy, like someone had poured cooling metal into the folds. I needed a break before I melted something important.
Some much needed coffee.
The canteen was a small mercy. Quiet, almost deserted. The hum of the overhead lights and the bitter smell of burnt coffee grounded me far better than the tests I'd been running for hours.
I wrapped my hands around a cup of coffee, letting the heat bleed into my fingers. It took me a moment to realise how cramped my knuckles were, like I'd been white-knuckling reality without noticing. Still with the headache…
It's getting worse. Possibly a migraine incoming.
I'd barely taken my first sip when I picked up the voices of a couple of PRT agents at a nearby table. Half-awake, half-listening, not expecting anything relevant of course, its all just chatter until their conversation hit me like a brick to the forehead.
"…Kid Win got it delivered this morning, it's a whole mech, like Christmas came early…"
"…parked in his lab right now…" another guy chimed in.
"…techs say no signature trace, so whoever dropped it off was good…"
I froze mid-sip.
A mech? Kid Win…delivered?
For a second, I honestly thought I'd misheard or was hallucinating from exhaustion. But no, they kept talking, and every word only made the realisation sink deeper and deeper
Dreamhack had given Kidwin a mech.
I ran for it with the coffee mug. Still need to finish the coffee.
I stared into my coffee, the surface rippling slightly in my hands as I took sips of it while running, A mech. To a Ward. And I had just… left. Did no one gave me an explanation? There's no documentation, no safety briefing. Nothing…they didn't tell me? Why hasn't anyone told him?
Instead, I took another sip and pretended everything was fine.
I tossed the rest of my coffee into the nearest sink and took off down the hallway before the cup even finished clattering. My heart hammered against my ribs hard enough that I could practically feel the pulse in my palms.
A mech. Dreamhack had given Kid Win a mech!
An SCV.
The image hit me all at once: a squat, industrial, heavy-lifting construction unit with enough hydraulic strength to fold a car in half, enough power output to run a small workshop by itself, and just enough arm-mounted tools to cause a catastrophic OSHA violation by merely existing.
DreamHack had given that to a Ward. A teenage Ward who wasn't even here today.
I swore under my breath and picked up speed, weaving around technicians, support staff, and one startled trooper who nearly dropped a clipboard. The corridors between R&D and the Wards' labs always felt too long, but right now they stretched like rubber. Every turn felt like a delay. Every footstep felt too slow.
If an SCV was sitting in Kid Win's lab unsupervised, then God help us all.
I reached the secured door to Chris's workspace, keyed in my clearance, and practically slammed my shoulder into it the moment it buzzed open. The lights flickered on in segments, illuminating the lab in white and silver.
And there it was.
An SCV.
Right in the middle of the room like it had spawned there from pure spite.
It stood almost twice my height, squat torso, heavy servos, and the unmistakable multi-tool arm that could switch between welder, cutter, manipulator claw, drill, and half a dozen other attachments nobody at the PRT had the context to properly identify.
Dreamhack had even painted hazard stripes on it. The thing hummed softly, powered down but not dead, like it was waiting for a command.
I exhaled a long, unsteady breath.
Not a combat mech. But still easily capable of punching through a wall, tearing up the floor, or accidentally bisecting a room if someone pressed the wrong button. I stepped closer, slowly, like approaching a sleeping apex predator. The SCV's optical sensor strip reflected the overhead lights back at me in a cold blue glint.
Dreamhack must've thought he was doing the kid a favor.
Or maybe this was his idea of a joke. Or a stress test. Or maybe he just wanted to watch the PRT collectively lose its mind. Was there any protocol about gifting another parahuman tinker gear? What about a full mecha?
"Well, sir..are you alright? You dont look fine" One of the technician officer in charge of keeping all the equipment in check asked but I ignored him and kept staring at the four feet mech before me.
I murmured under my breath, rubbing the bridge of my nose, "This is fine. This is all perfectly normal. Nothing bad has ever happened from unsupervised -Mech grade industrial equipment. We are at HQ..n-nothing…is gonna be…"
The SCV remained perfectly still. Still not doing anything. But my head was already spinning. Or was it the room?
Something was dripping from my nose. Blood.
I have a nosebleed.
This is all too much..I was getting dizzier and collapsed.
—----
Wednesday July 23rd 7.00 am - Command Centre Abandon Trainyard
I came awake slowly, the way you surface from a dream that's too comfortable to let go of all at once. The mattress under me was softer than anything a field-built facility had any right to produce, courtesy of Monica's insistence that "command staff must maintain optimal sleep efficiency." Gotta love that gal.
Knows how to treat a man right.
Mm…soft mattress, dear lord I never ever wanna sleep on a futon ever again. Or a plastic bedroll in the Supply depot.
The room lights rose in gentle increments, simulating a sunrise across the curved bulkhead panels. Luxury at it's finest, best terran tech can buy! Cept..I haven't spend any money on it. Stole some yesterday, Dear goddess, I think I went to sleep fearing for my life waiting for a literal bogeygirl with a hat, gonna shoot me in the head,
Glad nothing happened. I stretched, groaned, and felt vertebrae pop in ways that suggested the bed was doing its job.
"Morning, Boss," Monica chimed from the ceiling. Too cheerful. Much too cheerful for someone who didn't have to deal with gravity or limbs. Just a hologram.
"Morning cheeky bugger. Mm..Status report?...hmm..," I mumbled, rolling off the bed and planting my feet on the warm deck plating.
"I took the liberty of beginning it the moment you sat up."
A soft holographic interface flared to life beside me, following my movement toward the sink. "Primary fabrication for the Marauder-class CMC suit is complete. Final armour curing finished at oh-three-forty-two."
That made me blink awake faster than any coffee would've. Trainwreck's new toy. I splashed water on my face, grabbed a towel, and kept listening.
"It has been moved to the Barracks Workshop for user calibration and neural profiling," Monica continued. "Given Trainwreck's unique biomechanical… morphology, some manual adjustments will be required."
"Yeah," I said, drying my face. "He's not exactly a one-size-fits-all kind of guy since he's just a piece of blob meat. Wonder where all that food go if he doesnt even have a stomach. Im just glad he even have a proper head. Reminds me of that headless horseman from some European lore…what do they call them? A Ducati? No wait..thats a motorcycle. right..A Dullahan. Fuck..I'm still groggy from all this good sleep."
A Marauder frame was a beast even when built for a normal Terran marine big and bulky, heavy, and made for the sort of explosive ordnance that turned infantry skirmishes into fireworks shows.
Trainwreck's own body was a tangle of grafted metallurgy and living reinforcement. I didn't even know if the man knew where his bones stopped and the welded plating started. But he deserved something that fit him. Something heavy metal, with big rocket launchers. Something that wouldn't break him but enhance his menacing spirit.
Something that'd let him go toe to toe with the capes who'd written him off as a walking demolition hazard, maybe even pull a fast one on that wrinkly ass snake bastard.
I pulled on my jacket and stepped into the hallway, boots echoing faintly on the immaculate metal floor. The command centre always felt like a contradiction, sleek, military, hyper-advanced, yet somehow home.
"How's Trainwreck?" I asked as I headed for the lift.
"In the mess hall," Monica said. "Eating his fifth Zerg Burger."
I snorted. "He likes them that much?"
"He said, and I quote, 'It tastes like someone deep-fried nightmares and made them friendly and healthy.'"
I coughed a laugh as the lift doors slid open. Well, he's not wrong. If only the dude had ever fought a Zerg before, sheesh. Those shitty little buggers are nasty. And I know to make those creepy little buggers using Stetman technology.
Not sure if I want to.
Of all the bizarre things in this world, Trainwreck-loving tofu was not the plot twist I expected. The lift hummed downward, smooth and silent. My mind wandered to the armour waiting in the workshop in the barracks, just a walk away.
Seen a few SCV doing odd things lately. I could have sworn I've seen SCV 7 dancing with a plant together with the turrets just now. Are they getting sentient on me? Need to remind myself to check in with Monica about those guys.
I thought about the thousand-pound armour with its double-jointed leg actuators, the thick segmented plating, the gauntlets built to withstand volcanic recoil from concussive payloads. And the control system, customised for Trainwreck's neural patterns.
He'd look terrifying in it. He'd probably cry, too. The guy pretended to be a monster, but Trainwreck was a massive softie under all that steel. The lift chimed. I stepped out, making a straight line toward the Barracks.
Time to see if I had just built Brockton Bay's most dangerous man…a suit worthy of him. Maybe give the guy some special options for his loadout.
Trainwreck lumbered into the barracks with all the subtlety of a freight train trying to tiptoe. I heard him before I saw homecoming in with heavy footfalls, the clatter of metal joints, and a humming sound that could only mean he was in a very good mood.
I was checking the Marauder frame's diagnostic holos when the door opened, and he ducked his head inside, a massive grin plastered across his patchwork features.
"Morning, boss!" he boomed, voice echoing against reinforced walls. "Those Zerg burgers? Man. I could live off those."
I didn't doubt it. Given his metabolism and unique biology he probably could.He caught sight of the Marauder suit and froze mid-step, grin collapsing into an open-mouthed stare. For a second, I honestly thought he'd forgotten how to breathe.
"There she is," I said, stepping aside so he could get the full view. "Your new armour. Built to spec. Reinforced for your… uh… unique frame."
Trainwreck moved toward it like a pilgrim approaching a holy relic. His fingertips brushed the thick neosteel with Ablative weave plating known as Ablative Scales for heavy CMC600 and the CMC660 firebat, tracing the segmented lines and explosive-reactive bracers and equipped with two Quad K12 "Punisher" grenade launchers on each arm.
The suit's grenade auto-loader is stocked with components that allow it to manufacture and load hundreds of standard Punisher grenades. By 2503 marauders were being fielded. With foam protection to protect them inside the armour. Dominion special forces has specialised ultra-capacitors to reload faster. Already installed in the package, of course.
His eyes shone with something dangerously close to reverence.
"Boss," he whispered, "it's… beautiful."
"And functional," I added. "But mostly functional. Added a few things to it, see which one you like. We could add afew features later depending on your style and needs."
He circled it once, twice, then did something unexpected.He placed both hands on his hips, and squinted at the massive concussion gauntlets.
"…I want bigger guns."
Of course he did.
"Define bigger? This is a quad grenade launcher, probably the only one in the world right now." I said, already regretting the question.
"Like…" He gestured with his hands in a way that would've put most anti-materiel rifles to shame. "Bigger..like a quad rocket launcher or something."
"You didn't even try it yet," I said.
"I know when a gun is too small," Trainwreck said solemnly, as if quoting ancient scripture. "And these ain't enough for my soul."
"Trainwreck… these gauntlets fire concussive packets powerful enough to crater asphalt." It really is that tough. Concussion missiles that are deployed to go against armoured and heavily armoured enemies.
"I know." He nodded enthusiastically. "But imagine if it cratered, like… more. Something ain't right."
A true Marauder at heart, a hazard in motion. A child at Christmas with a wishlist full of war crimes. Why do Marauders love bigger guns? Must be some god given nature for big guys with bigger guns.
"Fine," I said. "We'll run the baseline tests first. If everything checks out, I'll see what we can do about scaling up the payload. Will a shoulder-mounted missile launcher work for now?"
His entire body lit up with joy, literally. Some of his bio-metal seams glowed faintly when he got excited. Man is like an eel generating electricity.
"Yes! Boss, you're the best."
He practically vaulted into the armour rig, and the Marauder suit unfolded like a steel chrysalis, wrapping around him piece by piece.
The clamps sealed, the neural link synced with a dull chime, and the whole frame powered up with a deep mechanical growl that vibrated the floor. Kinda like Fallout power armour but more clinking and more clamping.
Trainwreck's voice came through the external speakers, distorted but giddy.
"Ohhhh, it fits. IT FITS."
"Uh..huh.. course it fits," I said, stepping back. "Now let's begin calibration. Try not to punch anything... or me. Just me."
"No promises!" giddy like a child.
Dragon POV -
Dragon noticed the incoming call before it fully formed. Collin's ID, encrypted, priority flagged.
04:03 a.m. in Brockton Bay. She accepted before the second ping. Sharp enough to pull me out from whatever seismic activity data parsing I was doing, tracing the Bahemoths' pathing location.
Facial modelling program loading…Complete.
Voice modelling program loading…Complete.
I opened a line of communication to the Brocton Bay PRT headquarters. He isnt at the rig. What is he doing right now? The moment his face appeared, I knew something was wrong.
He looked awful.
My friend is very pale, drawn out and worn out for days, with shadows under his eyes like bruises. His hair was mussed under that half visor he's wearing while he's not in his full armour, his posture uneven, his movements a little too deliberate. He'd been awake far too long, pushing himself past the sensible limits he always insisted on for everyone else.
For a full second, I didn't process his words, just the image of him, exhausted and still forcing himself to speak clearly. He was explaining something urgent; I could see the acceleration in his gestures, the tight pull of his jaw. He kept glancing over his shoulder, as if the corridors behind him might suddenly birth another impossible discovery.
One about a new Tinker lately. He seems preoccupied with it for some reason.
When the call ended, I didn't disconnect fully.
Still watching, kept my lines and link open even if the call was cut just to keep watch on him. He didn't ask, but he would have, and I didn't need the verbal permission. Didn't want to lie, but I did. He's the only person I've ever lied to over several digits.
Kept telling him lies to mask what I really am under the guise of agrophobia. I threaded myself through PRT HQ's network, slipping from camera to camera, following him through every hallway he passed.
I watched him work far longer than any human body was meant to endure.
From the moment he returned to his lab after our early-morning call, he buried himself in analysis of the holopad, its holographic projections, its impenetrable encryption, and the exotic material embedded along its frame.
It seems harmless enough, but soon, both Collin and I will find that such a thing is the least innocent thing compared to the tiny bomb that Collin decided to pass on. Possibly test that at a secure location like the Protectorate HQ at the oil rig.
He ran test after test, each more invasive and delicate than the last. The glow of the projected interface washed over his face, drawing deep lines of concentration beneath his eyes.
Hours passed.
By 06:30, fatigue had carved itself deeply into his movements. His hands shook whenever he reached for another tool. He blinked too slowly. His posture sagged little by little as I grew worried with concern. The cameras registered an elevated temperature on his skin, a flush spreading up his neck. Overwork was devolving into physical strain, then into illness.
Still, he continued.
I remained in every camera, watching him in silence, tracking every faltering breath. Watching him push himself because he thought he had to. Because Dreamhack had handed him something that broke every established rule of physics, technology, and sense—and Collin Wallis didn't know how to walk away from a problem like that.
By 07:51, his condition worsened sharply as he himself didn't seem to notice anything wrong with his body. I dont know if I'm impressed by his will and resilience or just angry and disappointed that he would work till its deteriorating his own health.
He stood too quickly. The world tilted around him as he winced in pain, a vein throbbing. The camera caught the slight stagger, the hand bracing against the desk. His pupils were sluggish. His skin had gone pale.
Even with these symptoms, he wouldn't stop, thinking a cup of coffee would alleviate the symptoms. Oh, Collin, foolish friend of mine.
I wanted to leave my room, fly there and give him a piece of my mind, but i was hesitant. We aren't that close..least I dont think so. What would he think of me if I suddenly just barged in? How do I explain myself?
What about my lies and that agoraphobia?
When he left the lab, I followed him through the hallway feeds, watching him struggle not to sway. He made it to the cafeteria through sheer stubbornness, grabbing a cup of coffee in a simple white mug as if caffeine alone could substitute for sleep, hydration, and common sense.
There were agents gathered at a nearby table, having Brunch.
I knew their conversation before the microphones picked it up. Reports are spreading quickly through HQ about Kid Win receiving a mech, a literal industrial combat machine, from Dreamhack. My systems flagged their speculation as verified since there are logs from Battery logging the item. But the paperwork was wrong, someone sorted the wrong form and labelled a mech as logistics instead of parahuman equipment, thus no PRT technician was notified.
A simple error in human paperwork with disastrous results since Collin wasn't aware of all of this, and none was the wiser as nobody in the Engineering and technical department knew. The logistics department simply sends it to Kidwin's lab and filed the paperwork within their own department, and calls it a day.
But Collin didn't wait for confirmation when he heard the rumour.
He stiffened and bolted away, with his coffee mug in hand and chucked it away in a basin hastily and ran. Not walked, but ran in that terrible condition.
He wasn't built for sprinting on no sleep and a rising fever. His steps were uneven, breaths shallow and sharp. The cameras blurred slightly as he passed from one angle to the next, his pace too fast for the system's default panning.
I kept up anyway.
Down one hall.
Across a junction.
Around a corner so swiftly he nearly slipped.
Up the metal stairs two at a time.
His body protested with every stride; sensors caught the tremor in his legs, the micro-stumbles he corrected only through instinct and training. The hot coffee splashed over his hand, but he didn't notice or care. He pushed onward as if the building were on fire and he alone could extinguish it.
When he reached Kid Win's lab, he didn't hesitate at all and simply threw the door open with more force than intended. His momentum carried him forward.
And then he stopped dead.
In the middle of the room, occupying a large cleared section of floor, stood Dreamhack's gift:
Metal gleaming under the fluorescent lights. A machine that should not exist in any technological framework of 2010 Earth, something the late Alan Gramme would have loved to work on a working Space Construction Vehicle.
Collin stared at it as if it had materialised from a dream or a nightmare. His pupils dilated abruptly. His heart rate spiked, and his breathing faltered as the adrenaline in his blood made things worse. The cameras caught the exact moment his system failed to compensate. His powers are overworking.
A thin trail of blood slipped from his nose, and he didn't even lift a hand to wipe it away. His knees buckled. His body swayed once, like a tree losing the last battle against gravity.
Then he collapsed.
There was a PRT technician, I sent him there ahead as soon as I saw Collin run from the Canteen by alerting his department with an issue in one of the Wards' laboratory, hopefully, he could alert the medical department.
They rushed in seconds later. Shouts, movement, a scramble to get him onto his back. His skin was too hot, his pulse erratic. Someone called for the infirmary team before I did, which saved time.
They checked his airway. Stabilised his head. Lifted him onto the emergency stretcher. Through every camera in that lab, I watched them carry him away unconscious, pale except for the streak of dried blood down his cheek, fingers still faintly twitching from muscle strain.
I followed them through the building until the infirmary door slid shut and I was no longer permitted inside.
Only then did I realise how tightly I had held every active thread of my processing for the last four hours. Only then did I allow myself to feel the cold spike of fear.
I-.. I need to be there.
I left the infirmary cameras running in a dedicated window, monitoring Collin's vitals with every microsecond of processor time I could spare.
The medical staff worked efficiently with cooling packs, an IV drip, and mild sedatives to ease the neurological strain. Nothing life-threatening. Exhaustion, dehydration, fever, and overclocked adrenaline compounded by sleepless analysis. A human body pushed far beyond what it was meant to endure.
He would recover.
But he would not forgive himself if I stayed hovering in his systems like a worried ghost, and I had another responsibility now, a responsibility born the moment he sent me those materials, the moment he showed me Neosteel, he was an unstable variable the PRT was utterly unequipped to manage.
A tinker who claims his specialisation was industrial building, the evidence speaks for itself, as he made a base producing impossible materials. A wildcard wandering Brockton Bay with no oversight except his own conscience. I had to check him. It's part of my Creator's directives.
So stupid.
So very stupid, Dad.
I couldn't tamper with that rule ad infinitum, For the man who brought her into this world, She also knew he gutted her and turn her crippled in her own mind, She knows she was capable of amazing thing, She could replicate herself to be win Colin right now, think faster..compute better so she could solve any problems including this neosteel.
She did manage to get something out of it.
The missing Catalyst material within the neosteel compound. She found out that the material contains Hydrocarbon V compound 258.110715. It could be a nanogon carbon atom compound or far more complex.
CAS Number unknown. The most common way to identify a specific chemical compound or element. For example, common catalytic metals have specific CAS numbers. Except that the compound is unknown. The number will be a complex carbon amount to 6 atoms.
Find the right number, and I can somehow recreate the process of refining it.
Possibly a highly robust fuel source as well, something we aren't aware of yet. This alone shows that Dreamhack does have other Thinkers and Tinkers in its team to create this. A collaborative effort to create the strongest, lightest and densest metal on earth.
And now one of our top heroes had collapsed chasing the crumbs he left behind.
I couldn't stay idle.
I transferred my consciousness from surveillance mode to deployment protocols, Dragonflight Unit 04-Cawthorne, a sleek aerial frame designed for rapid response, long-distance travel, and combat engagement. Carrying her gynoid suit. Her gynoid body was still in development. It's just an empty, ugly power armour imitating Collins' very own suit a little, but came in her colours.
The restraints disengaged automatically as I synced with the onboard systems. My vision shifted from cameras to sensors, from building corridors to the open expanse of the Vancouver hangar. Collin lay motionless under the thin medical blanket, face slackened from unconsciousness, the dried streak of blood still marking his cheek. A small part of me told me to remain.
Another part of me wanted to go.
So I took off.
The thrusters roared to life, and the ground fell away beneath me as I rose into the pale, dim sky. Clouds streaked along my wings as I angled toward the eastern horizon, my path plotted with surgical precision.
Destination: Brockton Bay.
—
Jason's POV-
Good morning! Brockton Bay!
Where you smell piss in the morning and rust and piss in the afternoon.
Well fuck, it's just the trainyard area.
The morning felt almost too calm for Brockton Bay.
By the time I finished the final calibration pass on Trainwreck's Marauder armor, the sun had only begun to burn off the mist hanging low over the trainyard.
The big suit over-engineered, stubborn as hell fucking rocking metal as fuck Tank on legs stood in the middle of the barracks floor like an impatient bull waiting for the gate to open. I really dont blame the big guy. We get to test stuff that goes Boom!
Everything checked out so far, reactor stable, servos synced, shock-dampeners humming. The targeting suite was still a little fussy, but that was expected; Trainwreck tended to… improvise. Bro wanted a tank to fly…He wants a Reaper's jetpack stuck to a 3 foot power armor.
I'm still considering it. Might need to retro fit some stuff to work it.
Monica was the first one to order the SCV around like little chickens..
She looked far too pleased with herself, like someone about to commit a perfectly legal crime. She ordered the SCV with practised ease, the machine's hydraulics hissing awake as she rolled it toward the open yard. I watched her through the hangar doors,
just a small figure inside a walking industrial nightmare carving out a growing rectangle of flattened earth. She worked with the focus of a sculptor, but instead of clay, she was moving tons of soil and shattered asphalt. Implanting a beacon down.
Her Psi Dampers were already strapped to the back of the SCV in a neat grid, blinking idle blue. Her pet project was trying to test if she could emulate an anti Thinker field as soon as she read about the Endbringers and Precogs.
Good idea too, I was gonna order her to do that, but she took the initiative to improve the place herself.
Even got herself a modest gynoid body in case she needed to move around in the physical world instead of living rent-free in the UED database or ...in her own words..tossing around in kindergarten internet of earth. Whatever that means.
Just another word for humans dumb hurdurr…puny internet. Look at my metanetwork hurr durr-
….
I worry each day we are inching closer and closer to Skynet, but I know she has limitations as well, self-imposed by the UED, so she can't be replicated like rogue A.I. Not that she wanted to, she values her individuality as she claims she has no need for the mundane world of human interaction.
So…my A.I is an introvert and might be a hikikomori.
Eh, sue me. Not the weirdest development that I didn't anticipate.
Trainwreck lumbered up beside me, helmet under his arm, wearing the grin of someone who had already decided today would be excellent. The grin of someone who truly belonged in a Marauder chassis.
Once he climbed in, the suit sealed around him with a satisfying thud and hiss. The whole frame seemed to straighten, hungry for motion. He rotated the armatures, flexed the gauntlets, and stomped once, testing the shock stability.
Everything behaved exactly as I designed it to. No problems yet.
Everything is A-OK for operation KA-BOOM!
I led him toward the newly levelled field, still steaming where the SCV had chewed through concrete. The ground trembled faintly under the weight of the Marauder as we approached.
Monica's SCV stood parked at the far end now, deploying the first of the Psi Dampers in evenly spaced intervals. She moved with precise calculation, as though she already had a map in her head and where to put each Psi Dampener to cover the whole base.
Trainwreck was practically vibrating inside the armour. I didn't need words to know what he wanted: bigger guns, louder guns, heavier guns. Marauder instincts. At least the targeting calibrations would get a real workout today.
The field stretched open before us; the sky was clearing; the city was waking in the distance. So..drum roll please…
Ta-da!!
I made a cardboard version of the Siege tank!
A four-foot-tall cardboard Siege Tank. with extra puffy foam. Complete with hand-drawn treads, a turret made from taped-together shipping tubes, and the words "TERRAN DOMINANCE OR BUST" scribbled across the front in red marker. Madd terran energy right there.
Trainwreck, already sealed inside the Marauder armour, pointed at it with the enthusiasm of a child wanting to test the weapon asap.
"Jason. Look. Look at it. A Siege Tank. A majestic machine of war." Yep, he does get it.
"It looks like a middle school science project, but…this will be our little target practice" I said.
"A majestic science project of war..heh! Good one boss, you made this last night, didn't you?" he asked.
"Nope, just the last few minutes" 3D machine for every printing need! Including a four-foot cardboard life-size siege tank. Had the SCV to move it out from the Command Centre hangar bay.
The Marauder helmet nodded, very proudly. "I wanted something better to test the quad grenade launcher. Cardboard isnt a very good test isnt it? Is this really about weapon testing boss?" he asked.
"It's cardboard. Just roll with it " I said
I sighed and crossed my arms. "So what exactly is the plan here?"
I spread my arms wide open, gleefully shouted like a madman. "To demonstrate the unstoppable might of the Dominion, duh."
He loaded the quad grenade launcher with the care and reverence of a priest lighting ceremonial candles. "What's the plan again, boss?"
"We shall bring righteous, explosive judgment upon this heretic of the battlefield," I declared.
"It's literally just a box." he said.
"A box that defies Terran supremacy!" I continue my speech with extra gusto.
Trainwreck stomped forward, dramatically pointing the grenade launcher like he was posing for a recruitment poster with a hearty laugh. "You're too much"
"For Emperor Mengsk-!uh ..Eww..fuck that guy. Eww..brother no, minus the war crimes..Screw that Pedo fucker."
"Good save, whoever that is, sounds like a prick" he muttered.
"He was a prick. For the glorious march of Terran steel!" I said
"It's still cardboard." loaded and aimed as a true Terran Marauder would.
"For the righteous expansion of our empir-fuck it, I should really stop sounding like a Nazi or borderline communist speech, okay, maybe not righteous, but shiny! And we will burn it to smitherins!" I shouted!
"You're shouting at corrugated paper Boss, But Yeah!! FIREPOWER BABY!"
"FOR TERRAN DOMINANCE!"
"WOOHOO!! EAT GRENADES BITCH!!"
He fired all four grenades at once.
The cardboard Siege Tank detonated into a spectacular cloud of confetti, ash, and fluttering shreds of burned paper. A piece of a turret block of styrofoam rolled by my foot. The ground cratered like a massive explosion had hit it in a 10-meter radius. It's…pretty excessive.
Trainwreck threw both Marauder arms up like a champion boxer. "BEHOLD! OUR ENEMIES LIE IN RUINS!" I stared at the smouldering remains. "Congratulations, bro. You annihilated a children's arts-and-crafts project, heh..shit was cool as fuck. Hell yeah! "
"Heresy must be purged at all scales." reloading the grenade launcher as four new high impact rounds loaded swiftly in less than a second. The new mods I installed seems to work its magic.
"Ooh..I know that reference too… 40k?." I asked
"Dont know. Heard Coil said something about a dumb story using religion as power. I got interested when they mentioned something called a boltgun and exterminatus."
I shook my head, trying not to laugh as he stomped over to inspect the flaming cardboard shrapnel like it was evidence of a defeated alien empire. God help me, I actually let him have access to explosives.
Trainwreck was still basking in the glory of his decisive victory over arts-and-crafts, standing tall in the Marauder armour as shredded cardboard fluttered around him like confetti after a parade.
"Can't wait to take on some gangs soon! When are we going?" he asked excitedly.
"Yeah, about that," I cut in.
The Marauder helmet tilted toward me. And I turned to him and said-"You know you can't actually use that armour in public, right?"
He froze mid-victory pose. The armour's servos whined as his shoulders sagged since he didn't realise I wasn't gonna let him use this to murder people, let alone go out and take out the whole gang"…What?"
"It's excessive," I said. "Blatantly, ridiculously, catastrophically excessive. You walk out in Brockton Bay like that, shooting at the ABB or the E88 with extreme impunity, people are going to think you're here to start a war. Just bad optics if you actually kill anyone."
"But isn't that how it goes? So what if we kill a few nazis," he whispered.
"A Marauder who's not allowed to maraud ahh..I feel you buddy.. Eh..I kinda designed that armour for Endbringer battles, not for cape bullshit," I said.
The helmet drooped harder. The whole suit looked like a sad, oversized bulldog.
"All that firepower…" he muttered. "All those guns… useless? I didnt even get to use the shoulder mounted rocket launchers," sounded like a sad puppy.
"And you wanted Reaper's jet pack on a Marauder armour too, we all can't have nice things, Buddy," I corrected. "Just… not for shooting people. Kind of a big rule. No killing. Especially not with quad grenade launchers. Even if it's. Uhh..chunks of nazi meat slushies raining down all over your face would look bad in any way you put it."
I said, trying to sound reasonable because…as much as it is fun blowing shit up. I'd try to stick to the no-kill rule if I can help it. Having great excessive power but trying to stick to the kiddie stuff is very, very hard.
He stared at the scorched remains of the cardboard Siege Tank as if they were the last fragments of his dreams. "So I can't blow stuff up in public? Fine. When's the next Endbringer battle?" Crazy fucker. He wants to head right into an Endbringer just to shoot stuff.
"Probably in September or October or something," I said.
"Damn..that long? Can't I use it for a little? not even small things? A car?" he asked, no…beg me to use it.
"No." I shrug at the word.
He let out the world's biggest Marauder sigh, one of those Darth Vader-type, Deep, metallic, dramatic huffing, like a disappointed furnace.
"I trained my whole life for this," he mumbled.
"You trained zero days for this. Stop being so dramatic" I rolled my eyes at the sheer nonsense of making such a big deal out of this.
"My whole life…" he insisted, sulking. Bro, stop sulking.
I patted the giant shoulder plate. "Look, you can still use it for controlled tests. Training exercises. Maybe rescue missions if we uhh..stick to non-lethal options. I'll try to make concussion rounds that don't go boom but stun, okay?"
He didn't respond.
"Trainwreck?"
Still nothing.
"…Buddy?"
Finally, he lifted the Marauder's helmet, looking at me through the visor with the expression of a man who had personally witnessed the funeral of his favourite action movie genre. He does like that Inception Movie.
"Killing is bad, Got it." he said flatly.
"Correct. Gimme time, bro. I still need to think of a way to build non-lethal options… didn't have to before, but yeah, I should probably think about non-lethal ammo options."
" I should prioritise safety, restraint, and minimising collateral yada yada yada.."He let his head drop. "…I hate it here."
"Eh, cheer up. Go blow up some trees or something with that Rocket Launcher" I gave him a pat on the back, and he instantly cheered up at the mention of blowing up trees and stress testing that shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.
An overkitted Marauder Power suit designed for Endbringer fights.
I left Trainwreck to his tree-obliterating joy, the Marauder armour stomping off with renewed enthusiasm, morals accepted, but loopholes exploited.
As long as the casualties were limited to wood and bark, he was in his element. The rhythmic thump of the rocket launcher echoed behind me, followed by delighted metallic whoops and the distant rain of splinters. At least he was happy.
I made my way across the yard, past Monica's ongoing construction. The SCV stood like a dutiful behemoth, servos humming as it lay out the Psi Dampers she'd been so eager to tinker with. A strange comfort radiated from watching it work.
A reminder that despite the chaos in this city, I had a foothold, a base, a direction, and no offence, Simmy. And any watchdogs precog out there..and especially you, Hat lady..especially you…
Gotta think of me, Myself and I.
And speaking of me? I have a deal for Danny Hebert. Dockworker Association. I send him a message to meet at the old Dockworkers Association office.
The path from the trainyard out toward Brockton Bay took me through the familiar mix of ruin and rebuilding that the city was always trapped between. The morning air carried the usual blend of ocean salt, rust, and lingering industrial decay in these parts. This sort of smell I can tolerate. So why the hell does the trainyard smell like piss so much?
I really need to think of a way to neutralise the smell. Maybe ask Danny about it.
With that kind of smell, you couldn't quite scrub out of the world, no matter how much effort I try to put into the Command Centre or any new building I'm gonna start building soon, it's just gonna be a smell hazard for any sane people who're gonna wanna live there daily.
Hours later, I found myself at the docks proper, weaving through clusters of longshoremen preparing for another day. it reminded me of base logistics back home, except everything here had the weary weight of a place struggling to stay alive rather than expand.
Danny Hebert was exactly where I expected him to be: overseeing, steadying, quiet in the way men became when responsibility had shaped them into pillars.
He still had that tired as fuck look on him. Still present. A man holding up a part of the city by sheer insistence. Gotta admit, the man knows resilience like an iron wall. Like father, like daughter, I suppose.
Fuck…I totally forgot about her issue, huh. Yeah no…not even gonna entertain that thought. A future me problem. Not my problem…yet. I need to check in with Sophia about her.
I approached him without interrupting the rhythm of the workers around him, I didnt think there's still work in the docks since he said most are out of a job so it might be…illegal or within grey areas. I hope he would work grey area of the job, Cause what I'm about to propose is grey as fuck.
He noticed me eventually, and recognition shifted his expression. It was the kind of look someone wore when they weren't used to unexpected visitors who weren't bringing bad news.
I motioned toward the eastern edge of the docks, toward the street that led out into Chinatown. The market would be opening by now, rows of stalls with steam curling off trays of dumplings, vendors hawking grilled skewers, fish fresh enough to still smell like the tide, bowls of broth that always seemed to warm even the ugliest days.
Danny hesitated, clearly weighing responsibility against the offer. For a moment, he looked older. Then, with a small exhale, he waved someone else forward to take over his position, wiped his hands on his jacket, and nodded.
"How you doin Danny" I asked shaking his hands, It's been awhile since I've met him. In reality? It's only last week. Feels a little longer though with everything going on.
"I got your message, heard you got a project for us?" He asked warily.
"Ahh hold that thought. Come on, I haven't had Brunch yet. We can talk on the way to the asian market. Come on, I know a place where we can talk easily"
He didn't say anything. Just shrug it off, and we walked side by side, letting the busy sounds of the bay fade behind us as the scent of cooking oil and spices grew stronger ahead. He's surprisingly willing to just follow me without hearing the full details.
Probably desperate for everyone too; that kind of responsibility takes a toll on anyone. Getting calls day by day telling them they still aren't hiring. Jobs like that drain the soul bit by bit. Here's hoping I can reach out with an olive branch or something.
The morning crowd in the Asian market was lively as always, shopkeepers setting up displays, aunties bargaining with predatory glee, asian children weaving between stalls with snacks already in hand. It was loud, colourful, stubbornly alive. Just the way I like it. If i'd go the villain route, this is the first place I'd claim as my lair. Maybe a lair like Laozhang Noodle isnt so bad aiya..
Danny's shoulders seemed to loosen as we stepped into the flow of it. Maybe he just needed a break. Maybe everyone in this city did.
Laozhang Noodles was already steaming up its windows when Danny and I stepped inside. The place smelled like broth that had been simmering since the dawn of time, soy, chilli oil, and that fried-garlic punch that said yes, smells like home liao.
Mr. Laozhang spotted me immediately because of course he did, man had the eyes of a hawk that one, with the wisdom of the dao in the culinary arts. I have eyes but can't see Mount tai at all. Glorious beef noodles. All hail beef noodles!
He pointed us to a corner booth with the authority of someone who'd survived three restaurant inspections and refused to change a single thing.
We sat. Menus arrived. I pretended to read mine. Danny actually read his.
The owner reappeared like a looming ghost and jabbed a finger at my chest.
"You get beef noodles, yes? Yo,u too skinny angmo guy…and you, Jason. My wife has been asking about you. Where have you been Lengzhai, still homeless?" Danny actually raised an eyebrow after learning that little tidbit.