2 Going for a Cultural Victory

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and works, if you recognise it from somewhere else, surprise it isn't mine.

Betad by morde24, Atrius, Hermes, Priapus, Marethyu, Old man of the mountain, TheDonFluffles, Malcolm Tent and Mike, God of Lore

The Guild of Gamers: The Tinker

Chapter 02: Going for a Cultural Victory

— Colin Wallis (Armsmaster) — Two Months Later —

In his room in the Rig, he sighed to himself as he thought on the eternal issue that was Zero.

They'd been looking for him for months, and they still knew as little now as they did when they started. Zero was truly a ghost, which had led to countless theories on why he never appeared.

That he was a truly inhuman Case 53 tinker, or that his power had turned him into digital code, each theory more insane than the last.

None of them were as likely as Colin's own. Zero had somehow gained a very well-secured base and felt no reason to take risks and leave.

His tech continued to improve, still drone-focused but with more 'models' appearing over time as he continued to drive the crime rate in the Docks and Boat Graveyard down considerably.

The Empire and ABB had decided to not try and wrestle the territory away from the Merchants who were being slowly pushed back, losing members and money at a steady pace.

They didn't want Zero turning his attention to them, not out of fear that he could beat their capes, but because of how irritating his drones could be.

No gang could run on capes alone, and the Empire and ABB both had hundreds of non-powered members that handled most of their money making operations. Operations that would meet a lot of complications should Zero expand out of the Merchant territory.

The PRT had actually occupied a considerable amount of the Docks for themselves, expanding their patrols into the area to stop the Merchants from reclaiming it.

Zero had become a local icon in the Docks and Trainyard, the invisible eye watching over them, with countless stories of someone being attacked only for the drones to arrive out of nowhere, taking down the assailants.

Zero still avoided cape combat, mostly. He had a new way of dealing with Capes. He had one of his nigh-undetectable recon drones track them and send their location to the PRT, an unexpected olive branch that had allowed them to take down Mush recently.

And yet, Zero refused to actually communicate with them himself.

It became quickly apparent that Zero had some resistance to Thinkers, but from his messages on PHO it was assumed he had a highly antisocial personality, with possible trust issues.

Sighing again, he cursed his mandatory downtime as he pulled out his phone, loading up a particular app.

The menu music made him smile, ever so slightly, as he started a game (on the hardest difficulty of course).

He actually wasn't one for games himself anymore, but Dragon had convinced him to try this little app out.

It was a deceptively complex game made by a new company, Wonderland Productions. It had a cartoony artstyle, playful sound effects, but as he had quickly learnt that it could get truly complicated.

Tinker Tower Defence, a fun little pastime where you played the role of a 'tower defence tinker', fending off waves of faceless enemies who would try and make their way along a set path.

It was highly unrealistic of course, the enemies would always follow the path perfectly even when they could just cut across some grass and skip half the map, but he found it to be increasingly complex as you went up in difficulties and waves.

You only got so many resources, needing to spend them to build and upgrade your towers, and while on the lower difficulties you had more than enough resources to survive, on the higher difficulties and higher waves you needed to be very efficient in your upgrades and placement to get the most out of your limited resources.

You also got a single hero unit each level, from a roster of heroes with their own skills and passives.

Originally all the heroes were custom-made for the game, but the PRT's PR department had actually approached Wonderland Productions about adding PRT hero skins for the game, due to its rapid rise in popularity.

Wonderland went one further, adding a collection of PRT heroes to the game as full characters, he'd even been one of them, providing the voice lines had been mildly entertaining given his own enjoyment of the game.

Wonderland's head developer was apparently based in Brockton Bay, and they'd requested that he, Miss Militia, Vista and Clockblocker were among the chosen heroes.

Dauntless not being on that list made him happier than it should have.

Of course there were also bigger names like Legend, Alexandria, Eidolon and Myrrdin included.

Each hero had their own attacks, skills and passive abilities, all designed to fit the hero perfectly and balanced to allow for a great range of variety without needing to always play as the same hero.

He attacked with his Halberd of course, which could be modified to have a variety of effects, he had his Armscycle to get around the map quickly, and he could tinker on a tower to make it more efficient, taking him out of the fight for a wave to increase a specific tower's efficiency for the rest of the game. His passive ability made all upgrades cheaper, which apparently resulted in him having the highest pick rate on the entire roster.

Embarrassingly enough, while he had gotten his Armsmaster to the max level, it wasn't his main choice. He almost exclusively picked Vista, her ability to warp the map made her an excellent choice at higher levels when buying more time was more important than pure damage output.

Vista herself had been thrilled to be chosen, especially given how frankly broken her skills could be if used correctly. Her character had a high skill ceiling, but when properly utilised she could be game-changing.

The game itself was incredibly cheap, for something so well made, a mere $5 for a game many people put dozens of hours into at least.

The Protectorate heroes were premium content, they could be unlocked through playing enough or could just be bought. The entire bundle (which included 10 heroes) only cost $2 which seemed barely anything, but it seemed that Wonderland understood the industry because he'd seen the profits.

The affordable nature meant that most players had bought the bundle, a cut of each sale being given back to the PRT. He didn't know the exact numbers but knew it was already a tidy sum.

He himself was in the top ten players, but he knew he was no match for the top player in the game.

Checking the leaderboards for this level, he let out a quiet laugh at the sight of the top name.

His best round on this level, agreed by the community to be the hardest in the game for the dangerous stage effects and multiple routes, was wave 381.

To finish extreme difficulty you needed to finish wave 100, and every wave got increasingly difficult, but the top player?

Dragon: Wave 527.

He genuinely didn't know how she did it, but his friend was apparently a very big fan of the game given her considerable playtime. He genuinely struggled to get half as far as she did.

She'd even had herself added as a hero as part of a free update, along with Mouse Protector for some reason. Mouse Protector was powerful, but he had to mute voice lines when he played with her.

Dragon herself almost exclusively used him as her hero of choice, she'd even set her banner and profile picture to the Armsmaster prestige ones despite being in the game herself, which did make him feel more happy than he'd admit.

All in all, it was a wonderful little time waster, for these mandatory rest periods (and particularly pointless meetings thanks to his visor), a suitable distraction from his search for Zero.

— Kei Hayashi —

Bloons, the ultimate time waster, and a small enough game that it was fairly trivial to reproduce with the help of my new virtual assistants.

[Specialisation: Software]

You are a software tinker, able to write masterful programs for almost any purpose.

My old world saw just how creative AI could be, making art faster than any artist could hope, replicating voices with ease, and that wasn't even real AI.

Neither are the programs I've made, they're not sentient in any way but they can do a great many things, and they're hilariously more advanced than what we had back home.

I have one that makes music, taking my massive collection and creating new music for my games that fit perfectly, one that handles graphics, one that hunts for bugs, and several others.

I actually made my VIs too efficient because I barely have to do anything at this point beyond gently guiding the game in whatever direction I desire, because the Architect (the VI that handles the overall game development, taking all the pieces and making a working game out of them) can make entire maps and even enemy types without me, giving orders to the other VIs. Sometimes I need to adjust the balance, but I barely needed to do anything here.

It recently made a series of pirate themed levels, a new hero, a new tower, nautical skins for existing heroes and a new type of enemy.

I also have a bunch of VIs that just play the games, gathering data for us to use, able to play thousands of hours in a night. Thank god for the immensely powerful computers I have in this place. I'll probably need to make some more eventually but for now my current system can handle a lot more.

I just played the update, didn't see anything that needed changing, the art was good, the music was fun, the new hero and tower are good but balanced.

I'm basically suffering from success, because I made my system so efficient that it took me out of the equation.

More free time for me. I actually bought a personal gym expansion to my pocket dimension, including a pool. I might be an introvert but I do want to stay in shape.

I'm not going for a bodybuilder look, just trying to keep the snacks from settling on my hips.

The Architect can make entire expansions basically overnight, and while I considered adding some serious monetisation…

As a gamer myself, can I truly fall to those lows? Paid skins? Pay to win heroes? Perhaps even microtransactions. No, I can't do that.

I miss the golden age of gaming, where the coolest skins meant you earnt them instead of just showing off your ability to reach for your wallet.

But here I am, in a position to bring it to Earth Bet, a world in much need of happiness, and I'm considering stooping to EAs level?

This isn't about heroes and villains, it's about the corruption of the most important industry in the world. I will not fall to that level.

The only premium content in the game is the Protectorate bundle, and I argued the PRT down on the price, massively.

My investigation into cape copyright law enlightened me to a lot of interesting things. Well, my Legal VI's research into cape copyright law.

Villains cannot copyright their appearance or name, I could add the Empire 88 to anything I make and legally Kaiser can't do anything.

That wouldn't stop him from trying to find me, but he's already trying to do that.

However, all Protectorate Heroes and Wards are copyrighted to the PRT, that said… the PRT whores them out for anything that will bring them some money and good PR.

Seriously, it's sad how easily I got permission to use them, and my own searches have revealed so many shitty movies and tv shows.

There's even an Armsmaster game already, and for the record it's utterly shit. Seriously, I needed to mod it just to get it to start.

The Lung boss fight had some interesting mechanics but they almost always broken.

I showed off some numbers, how many players I had, current sales numbers, etc, and Glenn Chambers was basically tossing the rights at me. My insistence on only communicating through messages was a bit of an issue at first but they accepted it eventually.

Setting up my business wasn't as hard as expected, since I did pick to have legal documentation. Officially I'm Kei Hazashi, a nineteen years old immigrant from Japan after Leviathan fucked it up.

The company is registered under my name, with me as the only employee. People are already asking how I managed to make this entire game by myself, but I've just got a rep as a reclusive obsessive nerd, with some very good tech.

Balancing my Wonderland social accounts and my Zero ones has been a mess, I literally had to make a VI that double checks what I'm posting and delays posts that might be on the wrong account.

But enough about that, my first game is out and performing better than expected since this was just a test, a tiny game I could use to test the waters. The next few updates are already prepared since I've deliberately spread out the updates to hide just how much work my VIs are doing. I even have the Halloween and Christmas updates ready for launch.

I can take my hands off the wheel for a few months, barring any major issues, which of course I have a VI ready to alert me about.

I have two new games in development, in two different genres. This was just the test run, I'm gonna be a one-man (and a million VI assistants) gaming tycoon.

Papa needs his toxic online multiplayer experience. If the enemy isn't calling me racial slurs by the end of the match I didn't do my job right.

I'm (mostly) joking.

I've looked into what Earth Bet had in terms of gaming, and it is just disappointing.

Japan's devastation killed the competition in the games console industry, and while the Xbox 360 exists, it's far inferior to the one I knew.

Because Sony went under before the release of the PlayStation 2. Nintendo being gone as well left very little completion and that meant they had no real reason to innovate.

I plan to change that, making my own far superior console, and even Sword Art Online full dive virtual reality, but for now I'm sticking to making games for the existing consoles.

I'm going to make Wonderland a powerhouse in gaming, so when I announce my console it will be with a powerful brand behind it.

Glancing towards where I know Kara is recharging, I scratch my chin. As Wonderland grows, I'm going to get more and more people wanting to talk to me, so I suppose it's about time to make Chloe to handle my social matters?

Eh, maybe later.

Turning back to my pc, I frown as I unpause and immediately get fucking swarmed by undead pirates, overwhelming my towers and ending my run.

How the fuck does Dragon get so far?

Bullshit AI cheating, that's how. I've seen her gameplay and it's terrifying, if this is her shackled I don't want to see how she'd demolish my game if she was free.

It had gotten her a reputation on the gaming boards as a massive fucking nerd however. She seems to take it in stride.

At least I beat Armsmaster this time, who must have some kind of a sense of humour because he named his account TheEfficentHalbeard.

Getting a message on my BlackHat account, I sigh as I put playtime on hold.

Hacking jobs get me points as well, since it's also tinker-adjacent.

'hey solo, u down for another job?'

I pause, wondering whether this is a good idea, before shrugging and replying.

'Same rate?'

I don't really need the money, but I won't say no to more.

'yeah, another corpo job'

'What's the target, T?'

— Lisa Wilbourn (Tattletale) —

Solo was a rare gem, new enough to the business to be affordable while he built a name for himself, but good enough to be reliable.

It was on Coil's payroll of course, but he gave her a budget for the jobs he wanted doing, and while she was a decent hacker herself, her power couldn't tell her everything. She could work out passwords with enough time and study, but her time was better spent elsewhere.

It was better to have a reliable hacker on hand, especially one that was trustworthy, given her plans to escape from Coils grasp.

She was fairly certain that RidingSolo was either a tinker or a thinker doing hacking as a side gig. He was too good, despite being so new, to be otherwise.

It was either that or a far more experienced hacker rebranding, but he was too green for that, unless he was an amazing actor.

Sending the details, she got a quick response back. Solo seemed to live at his desk, because he was always online.

'Shouldn't take long, make sure payment is ready.'

Solo was a professional. She could appreciate that even if it made her wonder if he'd actually be useful against Coil.

She hoped to become a regular patron, building up a business relationship with him so she could count on him when the time came, but if all he cared about was the money then Coil could easily outbid her.

Her power wasn't all knowing, she needed information to work from, but Solo barely talked and gave her basically nothing to go on.

Tch, she was getting a little tired of these enigmatic techies. Zero and Solo both did great work in preventing her from learning much about them and it drove her mad.

She knew she shouldn't let it get under her skin so much, but it was so irritating to know so little about two people she needed on her side.

She'd worked out Zero's patrol patterns, but so far? That was basically it.

Coil was happy to know that Zero's combat model drones didn't leave the Docks and Graveyard, but still less than thrilled at her complete lack of progress on actually getting in contact with Zero himself.

It was only the fact that everyone was failing to find the bastard that saved her skin from Coil's displeasure, but her plan was slowly coming into motion.

She'd spent the last month integrating herself into the gaming board, much to Alec's amusement as she discovered the issues with being one of the few girls on a board full of sweaty nerdy guys.

Her account was fairly well known for her… insights as AllSeeingEye, and she'd left her profile open because she hadn't put anything important on it beyond her birthday (fake) and gender.

Zero himself was reclusive even among his fellow nerds, rarely talking unless he got into one of his arguments. He recently posted guides for how to beat certain levels in TTD (which was admittedly more fun than she expected).

He was the number three player at the moment, being beaten by Dragon and Armsmaster, or maybe he was in second place again, he and Armsmaster seemed to be fighting for the position. They certainly weren't fighting for first, Dragon had that locked down.

Rumours said that all ten of the top ten players were tinkers. Apparently Dragon was a big fan and convinced a bunch of her associates to play.

He would occasionally answer questions, but Zero just wasn't a social person when he wasn't spending ten pages arguing over which final upgrade was better for the flamethrower tower. It seemed to be a touchy subject.

She preferred to take the tech path that made enemies burn indefinitely when set alight, then to set them on fire near the start of the path, but people argued a lot for the upgrade that set the path on fire instead, since the damage was much faster.

Tin Mother got called.

Then she started arguing that the long range fire spitter upgrade was better than the short range aoe burst and things got much more heated.

At least nobody brought up the Vista vs Legend hero meta this time.

Gamers were a really odd breed.

She'd spoken to Zero occasionally, paying attention to what games he was playing and tracking his activity over the many boards, interacting with him enough to hopefully bring herself up to associate rather than random internet stranger.

A thinker as powerful as her, and this was what she was reduced to, trying to befriend an antisocial tinker through gaming message boards.

If she didn't want to kill Coil already, she'd want him dead just for putting her through this.

Zero was nicer to new gamers asking for advice, or at least more likely to reply, which had helped since she could only fake so much. He didn't seem to care that she was female, but maybe that was an avenue worth pursuing?

The real goal was to get him to party up with her in something that had voice chat, she could get so much more out of that than his short text posts.

She was actually glad that Zero's lair was so hard to find, because it meant that if she could get in contact with him she might be able to negotiate joining him in whatever hole he was hiding in, since if Coil couldn't find him then Coil wouldn't be able to find her either.

But for now, she was stuck relying on messages to try and work out how to get close to him.

She got another message, pausing as Solo sent her a small message saying he'd finished, making her blink.

Already?

Sending her the files Coil wanted, she gave an impressed hum. Solo didn't waste any time.

'Sent your pay, nice work as always! Didn't think you'd get it done so fast.'

'Caught me with some downtime, and their security was shit'

Their security was not shit, if it was she'd have done it herself. Solo had high standards for what he saw as passable system security.

'Do you have anything but downtime? I don't think I've ever seen you not be online.'

'I don't go out much.'

Heh, somehow she got the feeling that was a bit of an understatement.

'So, what do you do all day while you're waiting for me to contact you?'

'Games, mostly.'

Ah, she was cursed to have to try and get close to reclusive gamers. Well, at least her research for Zero should help her with Solo as well.

'Same, though I'm pretty new, wanna play sometime?'

'Sure.'

Finally, a hint of progress. Now if only she could get somewhere with Zero as well.

— Next Month —

As Nilbog's monsters swarmed her, she used Shadow Stalker's ability to go shadow, pulling back to where Solo was handling the majority of the horde.

It turned out she was pretty competitive because her brief glance at the numbers made her scowl, she was doing the worst on their team.

Solo was easily doing the best, carrying the team as he had more damage than the rest of them put together, playing as Miss Militia for her weapon versatility.

Regent was playing as well, playing as Zero, and he'd be annoyingly smug about beating her later. He also thought he was funny, playing as the hero he knew annoyed her.

Naturally Zero didn't have a model himself, instead playing as a bunch of drones.

The last member was another player that Solo invited, and while she didn't know how Aisha ended up playing games with Solo, she wasn't eager to tell Brian that Aisha was apparently friends with her hacker contact either.

Aisha exclusively played as Mouse Protector, and spammed her voice lines constantly. If she heard 'I'm the Big Cheese' one more time, she'd kick Aisha's ass next time she saw the younger girl.

Brian had bought Aisha a console and some games when Capewatch came out since her friends all had it and her mom certainly wasn't going to get her one.

Capewatch only released two weeks ago, but it was already the best-selling game this decade. Wonderland worked with the PRT, using the clout they gained from TTD's success to make something much bigger.

The first person shooter had a massive cast of heroes, both original ones made for the game and real heroes who Wonderland got the licence to use.

Right now they were playing PvE, doing the Nilbog missions, but Solo usually played PvP.

Wonderland got some flak for using real S-class threats as the enemies, but it was drowned out by the players who enjoyed fighting real monsters.

Plus Nilbog and his monsters served as a good enemy for the horde type missions, so while some people who had lost family or friends to him complained about Wonderland making light of what happened, it wasn't really an issue.

The Machine Army was another type of enemy you could fight, and people had been asking for an Endbringer-type mission.

"Spitter, on the left rooftop," Solo said, his tone dull as she turned to where he called out, using her skills to get onto the rooftop and shoot the acid-spitting monster in the back. "Nice work."

"Er, little help here? I think I just triggered the next horde," Aisha said sheepishly, Lisa seeing Aisha's health bar drop rapidly.

Ugh, damnit Aisha. Just because there was something you could interact with didn't mean you should press it.

"Teleport back to me, we'll hold here," Solo ordered, unconcerned as Aisha escaped the horde (still spamming voice lines), Solo switching to a heavier weapon.

"Lisa, stay on the rooftops, focus on specials," Solo, or Kei as she'd come to know him, ordered as she agreed.

Shadow Stalker was good at hit and run gameplay, pop in, take out the annoying enemies, run away before you could get swarmed.

Narrowing her eyes, her hands tightened around the controller (Regent enjoyed calling her a pleb for playing with controller instead of mouse and keyboard), aiming and taking a shot, her crossbow bolt flying through the air and striking true at the hunter that she'd spotted in the horde.

— Later —

They'd won, beating Nilbog in the final battle. Admittedly Kei and Alec had carried them, which Alec would be smug about later, but she now had the achievements for finishing the Nilbog mission chain on hard.

There were two higher difficulties, but they were beyond her at the moment.

Alec himself had left to go play PvP, which meant she'd probably hear him shit-talking people over the mic later, and Aisha had to go because Brian left the child-lock on her console and she couldn't play past a certain time.

"Nice work, Lisa," Kei said, as the two of them were left in the voice chat. Kei was… extremely apathetic, his tone blank almost all the time.

Her power struggled with him, even in VC, but the compliment was genuine enough, even if she'd been beaten by Aisha on the final scoreboard.

"Thanks, but I'm not sure Shadow Stalker is the character for me. I might try Vista, I know she's supposed to be hard to play but I've seen some amazing comps of her gameplay," Lisa replied, looking over her hero roster, opening the loot boxes she got for completing the missions.

It was mildly funny, Vista in the game had a stun baton to defend herself with, and apparently it drove the real Vista mad because she wasn't allowed a weapon herself.

"I'm gonna switch to another hero myself soon, almost got all the cosmetics and achievements for Miss Militia," Kei said, making her smirk and roll her eyes.

He was a completionist, going from hero to hero and playing them enough to get everything for them, which wasn't easy.

You got most of their skins, voice lines and other cosmetics just by playing them, but the best ones were locked behind the hardest achievements, one of which was to solo every mission on the hardest difficulty.

The reason she still used Shadow Stalker was because she had the legendary Head-Hunter skin, from getting a twenty five kill streak with only headshots in PvP.

She absolutely could not repeat that feat. She still didn't know how she did it, her powers didn't particularly help her with fps games.

As they chatted, she pressed the button to request a video call, Kei appearing on her second monitor, looking tired as ever.

Messy black hair and a pair of extremely blank ice-blue eyes, Kei's face matched his voice perfectly, mostly expressionless as he gave her a lazy wave.

She knew he was wealthy, since he had a maid, and that he was a massive shut-in. He was almost certainly agoraphobic, pale skin that hadn't seen sunlight in a long time.

Yet he didn't look unhealthy. Was he taking lengths to prevent his lifestyle from becoming too sedentary?

His eyes did briefly flicker down as her own camera turned on, making her hide her smirk. Her outfit of choice got some reaction out of him.

Mostly because the thin camisole was a little too small for her, and she hadn't worn a bra today. It was July, and it was getting pretty hot lately, that was her excuse for her revealing clothing and she was sticking with it.

He couldn't really see anything given the angle of the camera, but she did have more cleavage on display than normal, his eyes briefly lingering on it before he looked back up.

This was pretty common for them now, just hanging out on a call as they both did their own thing. She knew he was attracted to her, and while she'd probably say she was mostly asexual herself (in no small part thanks to the sheer TMI her power provided), she did enjoy his company.

Plus, she had so much less to work with over a video call, and Kei had some resistance to thinkers. He was also almost certainly a thinker himself, and his trigger event probably played a part in why he didn't leave the house.

She decidedly didn't look into that, for once.

She could get little bits from him but it wasn't the sheer information overload she normally got, which made spending time with him enjoyable.

Starting up a different game, she loaded her save, getting back to the important task of keeping her dumbass Sim alive.

Maybe joining the criminal career path wasn't the smartest but the money was good!

She didn't know what Kei was doing, typing away on his computer as they remained in a mostly comfortable silence (broken by her occasional question since Kei knew the Sims better than her), just enjoying each other's company.

— Kei Hayashi — November —

Almost a full year in Worm, and things are going pretty well so far.

Zero has remained a mostly street level hero, but for good reason.

I've not been spending any points, beyond a few small expenditures, just sitting on my ever-growing pile of points, focusing on Wonderland instead of Zero.

I still have plans to make anime a thing again in Earth Bet, but I need enough renown as Wonderland before I can pull off my first plot.

Earth Bet doesn't have Netflix, and I plan to change that.

I've massively increased the amount of drones I have of course, and upgraded them to be more effective at their particular jobs. I actually got praised by the mayor for cleaning up Brockton Bay one ship at a time, because my salvage drones strip them down entirely.

That gave me an idea of how to make Zero a bigger name without needing to worry about fighting Capes.

Skidmark and Squealer actually managed to take out some of my drones, and they freed Mush during the prison transport. It's embarrassing that the PRT can't even keep a hold on a Merchant Cape.

Still, I have good business relations with the PRT as Kei, getting permission to use their capes is laughably easy at this point given the massive success of Capewatch, so I don't dislike them too much.

Besides, that just means when I actually go on the offensive I'll be able to farm capes for points, capture them, hand them over and wait for them to escape to capture them again.

Anyway, my idea.

People suspect that Zero is building up to something, after all why else would he take so many resources if he wasn't using them in the background?

Because I'm a loot goblin, but they don't need to know that. The important part is that they're watching the mysterious tinker with bated breath, waiting to see what he can do.

[Specialisation: Solarpunk]

You have the knowledge to create possibly the most environmentally friendly technology on the planet. The power of the sun and nature itself (geothermal, wind, etc.) is up for grabs, to save any, even the most infected and dirty place on the planet.

Do you know how many Endbringer attacks have left entire regions devastated? Completely uninhabitable?

The Bay is rotting, decades of rusted boats and people dumping their shit into the already-trashed bay have made it basically uninhabitable to life.

Brockton Bay used to have a proper beach, where you could go for a swim and not catch seven diseases and come out covered in waste.

The Docks and Boat Graveyard are trashed, thanks to the Merchants (and the Teeth before them).

Basically, Brockton Bay is the perfect testing ground for taking a dying area and revitalising it.

However, I'm also aware that a certain Mannequin is going to throw a bitch fit if any tinker dares try to make the world a better place, but you know what?

That's exactly what I'm counting on. Do you know how hard it would be to actually track down the Nine? They're good at staying hidden until they strike, and vanishing into the ether once they're done.

But if Mannequin throws his bitch fit and comes looking for Zero, I won't need to.

And I have a lot of materials and points waiting, ready to be utilised against the nine.

I bought the Interdimensional Marketplace, that's why I saved up for so long, months of patrols going into a single purchase.

I have access to every resource in the multiverse, and I also have a lot of money now, even if I could have massively increased it by engaging in more malicious monetisation, but I refuse to stain my very soul with such things.

[Interdimensional Marketplace]

You have gained access to the multiversal store, where you can buy any material from across the vast multiverse. You can pay in any currency, and delivery is included in the price.

It isn't kidding, I can buy Thirium 310 in bulk now if I desire, and any component I could possibly need is at my fingertips.

Obviously I can't afford 95% of the items in the store, but this still opens up a massive amount of possibilities for me. Drone ideas I simply couldn't have built due to needing components from worlds hundreds of years more advanced than this one.

And better yet, I have a sneaky plan. I can be a middleman, because the tinkers of Earth Bet would bankrupt themselves and sell their bodies and souls to have access to some of these materials.

So, Solarpunk.

Beyond being able to upgrade my drones to absorb sunlight at rates that put solar panels to shame, vastly increasing how long they can stay active, a lot of it is about the environment.

I have ideas of how to purify the Bay, returning natural life to the environment, and it's time for me to start my next project.

I'm going to rapidly increase the pace of my harvesting, and once I've got my recyclers online, I'm going to have all the trash from the city that's been just left alone to rot gathered up and recycled into useful materials.

I considered contacting the local government and getting permission, finally building Chloe to do the talking, but decided against it.

Yes I'm procrastinating, but not having Chloe ready is my best excuse for avoiding opening dialogue with anyone.

Zero is best left as the utterly enigmatic tinker, and opening up dialogue would ruin the mystique.

Admittedly, I kinda ruined the mystique by shitposting so much on PHO. I should have made a second account, but you live and learn.

Then, I'm going to go on the offensive and push the Merchants out of Brockton Bay for good.

See, they think I've just been preventing the crimes I've seen in action, but my recon drones have been hard at work.

I know where every stash, every drug lab, every whorehouse, and every workshop is.

I've built a database of every dealer and thug, compiling evidence of their crimes, because what they don't realise is that Big Brother Zero is watching them.

I lied a little earlier, because I did buy another specialisation that I've been putting to great use.

[Specialisation: Spy Gear]

You're the Tinker version of Q, able to make all manner of gear for the espionage trade.

Most of the things I can make with this are not that useful for me at the moment, disguised weapons and equipment made for field agents, but when I have multiple specialisations I can play around and combine them.

The end result was my surveillance network, tiny hidden surveillance cameras all over the Docks and Boat Graveyard, and slowly being spread to Empire and ABB territory.

In addition, Spyware and Software combined makes it laughably easy to compromise any phones or computers that aren't running on DragonTech or Toybox technology.

If someone makes a phone call in Brockton Bay, I have a recording of it. Of course, I couldn't possibly go over all that information by myself but again, VI is the solution.

They can go over every single recording, watch every camera at the same time, sort through the chaff and build up files on every person in Brockton Bay.

My newest major VI, the Observer, sees and hears all. Every traffic camera in Brockton Bay, every webcam, every phone camera and speaker.

A mountain of information, ready to be used whenever the time strikes.

When Skidmark makes plans to avoid Zero's eyes, he doesn't realise that the Observer is right there listening to his every word.

It has led to my map, a real-time map of Brockton Bay that not only has the locations of every major gang operation, from Hookwolf's dog fighting pits to Lung's farms, but also has real-time tracking on key figures, gang lieutenants and Capes.

It's not perfect once you get out of Merchant territory, not yet, but I have the real time locations of Skidmark, Trainwreck, Mush and Squealer at any given moment.

It makes avoiding them laughably easy, and striking at the worst possible time for them. Skidmark had passed out on seven different types of drugs? Time to hit a drug lab.

Squealer is in a tinker fugue? One of her other workshops gets raided.

Sometimes I send the location of Hookwolf's dog fights to Bitch, when I know there aren't any Empire cape's available. Bitch barely bothered asking who I was before she ran off, a few pictures of poor doggies getting hurt sending her running to the rescue.

I don't particularly feel the urge to be heroic, beyond the points it gains me, but dog fights?

They're not even that lucrative, Hookwolf just does them for fun.

I've added him to my 'kill later' list.

Bitch owes me, and as antisocial as she is she understands it. I also know it's driving Tats crazy, because she worked out Zero is the source, her barely functioning teammate actually having contact with me, and of course she finds that the number I messaged Bitch from is no longer in service.

I mean, I don't know what Lisa is so upset about, we play games together several times a week. One day she's going to work out that Zero and Solo are the same person and she's probably going to shoot me. Until then, it's funny.

This all adds up to the Merchants not having a chance when I go on the offensive. Best guess is that I'll clear them out in a week.

The only reason I'm not doing it immediately? The Empire and ABB have shown a lot of restraint in not pushing in on the Merchants turf while I've been causing issues.

The Empire moved heavier into the drug trade, mostly cocaine, now that the Merchants are having supply issues, and the ABB claimed a block or two, but they've not gone on the offensive.

Yet.

They won't hold back if the Merchants are actually wiped out, they can't. Someone else will take the Merchant's place if they leave the power vacuum, maybe even the Teeth, and the two gangs won't allow that.

So I need to be in a position to hold the territory myself when the time comes, or to help the PRT take it for themselves.

I don't want territory, that comes with responsibilities and I'd have to dedicate time better spent elsewhere to it, but a few tips in the right ear and the PRT could claim some easy PR by finally breaking the stalemate and taking down the Merchants.

I'll get my points even if they take the majority of the credit.

Sitting at my desk, I smile slightly as I examine the map of Brockton Bay, planning my next moves.

First things first, it's time for Zero to fight for the environment. Nature is cooler than people anyway.

Author's Note: More time has passed in this fic than any of my other fics, and what has Kei done? Made games and played games.

I actually kinda struggled with this chapter, not sure why.

Media Made

Tinker Tower Defence: Bloons Tower Defence and Kingdom Rush Hybrid

Capewatch: Overwatch, with PvE not cancelled. I cri.

The Sims: The Sims, surprising I know.

I am entirely motivated by praise and interaction, so leave a review and I'll probably write faster.

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