15

Summoner - Chapter 15 - SomeoneYouWontRemember - Parahumans Series

Chapter 15

Lisa stared at herself in the mirror.

"Holy shit I look good." She marvelled, completely and utterly surprised by how much she liked the look, how the red-orange tint of her hair contrasted so violently against her bottle glass green eyes, how the freckles outlined them even further.

She didn't know what she expected when Taylor put that blindfold on her and then said something about 'polymorphing' her in a bizarre, high pitched voice, but this was great.

She still couldn't compare to the unimaginably heavy stare that Taylor had that felt like she was staring into a lightless sun that burned her eyes and she had to actively endure to not dodge her gaze…

But her eyes just popped so much like this. It was awesome.

The longer neck was also quite nice, even if it was a bit weird being an inch or two higher all of a sudden.

She glanced down at the sink, the deck of glowing cards that Taylor had given her after a brief summary of what each color card did.

Taylor had business to attend to, and Lisa had to make a mental list of what to teach her.

But first, to try and help a girl that was in a very similar situation to her when Taylor had rescued her, and before she'd invited her into her 'team'.

AKA, homeless, hunted, and desperate.

They fucked up their first pitch. They had fucked it up bad.

Time to find Spitfire again and then drag Taylor over to make a proper pitch, one that wouldn't be ruined by Bitch's dogs being horrific monsters that scared the girl half to death before they could get a word out.

She pocketed the pistol into her waistband, a reliable Glock 17, safety turned on, of course, pocketed the throwing cards, which if Taylor was to be believed, she'd basically given her a dozen and a half small impact grenades and more besides, before finally she took the burner phone Taylor gave her, and put it in her back pocket.

While Taylor did whatever she was doing, she had to figure out how to find a homeless chick that spewed fire and was being hunted by every entity in the Bay for the past month and a half.

She already knew this was going to be a pain in the ass, but the last thing she wanted was that girl being grabbed by the Empire and forced into killing a minority or something so that she'd be a member.

Not that the Merchants would treat her any nicer.

The door clicked shut behind her.

There would definitely be rumours of some kind of Tinker thief prowling The Bay, but honestly, she didn't care, and it would fade once she got some money and didn't have to resort to thievery as Evelynn. The pile of electronics and scrap in her bunker had grown to a good size. Now she just needed to learn modern tools, their names, how to use them, and get to Tinkering as best as she could manage without any Tinkering power.

She was a bit miffed about having to turn into Lulu the Fae Sorceress in the morning just to change Lisa's looks, but it was necessary.

She didn't like turning into that squeaky fae witch creature. She didn't like turning into Yordles in general. They were just these… weird little things, like someone drew a furry artwork then made it a midget, every one of them.

Eugh. Being two feet tall was horrible.

Regardless, today would be busy, because today was Friday. By Monday, she'd be a Ward, and technically be enrolled in Arcadia, even if she had no plans of ever showing up.

So today, she had to do a dozen little things that were important, and a single thing that really mattered.

Legally changing her name.

Because if the teachers called 'Taylor Hebert' when taking absences in Arcadia, it would likely ring a bell for a person eventually. At least by drawing attention with her consistent absences. And by then someone could extrapolate that she was the new Ward, or was at least still in the Bay and got into Arcadia somehow.

Unacceptable, obviously.

The process cost about three hundred dollars, which she simply got by contacting Sile and telling him to get the money from his own savings, meet her at a park, sit on a bench, wait for her to show up, and leave the bag behind as he left.

After getting to the citizen service center, it took a solid two hours to wrangle the bitch at the desk into actually doing it, because she kept trying to talk to her like she was some stupid, rebelling teenager, even if she had brought every single piece of paper and identification she'd need to do this, showing she was prepared and had thought this through.

It wasn't like she needed parental permission to change her name, thankfully.

But eventually, her application had been written and put into the system, so her name would change on all her legal paperwork to Taylor Livson within a few hours.

Yes, she was not very original, and she half stole Lisa's original last name, and it would be annoying to have three separate names, so she only changed her last name, but cut her some slack, world.

Regardless, she moved onto other self-appointed tasks by Teleporting to her bunker.

To start with, she made a second room next to her drug room, and turned into Zyra to fill it with plants that would automatically produce some things and gather them for her.

The woman was still unreasonably hot for a sentient evil plant creature.

Still, she got to work on her first idea, namely, sleeping gas that could probably put an elephant into a short-term coma with a single sniff, which was then loaded into a pressurized gas sack made of leaf-like material. Said gas sack would then be armed by sudden impact making the outer shell harden and the inner gas sacs to start releasing a secondary gas that would start an inner chemical reaction that would fill the grenade with tons of pressure. Then the second impact would break the outer layer, making it explode into a cloud of sleeping gas, like an impact grenade.

Then she started on a rather ambitious project.

In short, she was going to try to make a detachable plant symbiote power armour.

Only a couple hours later, she realized her project was actually not very ambitious at all, and was alarmingly easy. The hardest part was not getting a headache from how much power she expended while making it. She utterly failed on that front, because by the time she was done, she was nursing quite the migraine, but it was worth it.

The suit sat in its biological armour stand, the protective leaves peeled back to reveal it in all its glory like a throne held its king. If said king had been peeled open like a fruit and awaiting for his wearer to step into his folds so he could close in around her.

It was made of the same steel-tough and flexible material that made up Zyra's core, and its overall aesthetic was somewhere between a medieval dark knight in full spiked plate armour and Zyra herself. The color palette was dark grey and luminescent pink-red, giving it an aura of non-vitality. It just wasn't red enough to seem full of life, and it wasn't black enough to seem dark, just something almost half-dead.

Which was funny, in hindsight.

Inside the main body, up to the neck, it was velvet-soft, almost spongy, absorbent, secreting just barely enough lubricants to keep it from getting uncomfortable, not even enough to soak into fabric if she wore any while wearing it. Those same lubricants were essentially hand-crafted to melt body hair and dead skin and even her own sweat, and consume it for added energy through a tiny inner digestion system. The lubricant would be working as a constant exfoliator, meaning that even if she had to go into a days long operation, it would be just as comfortable to wear the first hour as it was the fiftieth, no chafing, no accumulated stink, nothing.

It was built in four interlocking layers.

The first was the inner control sleeve, little more than a gray-green thin fabric-like bodysleeve that would clamp shut around her, dragging the rest of the armor shut with it, and then the complex, interlocking fiber layers that it was made up of would tighten until it was skin tight, but not too tight, because if the microfibers began snapping, it would loosen up in reaction, making it an automatic perfect fit for whoever wore it.

Then, the part that was unpleasant.

A line of injectors would pop out of the back of the sleeve, all along her spine, and pump some local anaesthetic into the flesh. Then the suit would essentially drill its jacks into just under her flesh and before it met her spine, a delicate process that she only felt comfortable using due to stealing that entire system from a particularly efficient species of parasitic control plant that Zyra had used in her war against the world and man.

Of course, she stripped the guiding instincts from it to leave it as a simple symbiote.

The plant's nervous system was essentially using nerves made of cells synthetized by another plant whose diet was consuming the iron left behind by men's weapons in Zyra's killing fields. In simpler terms, it was an organic-grown mix of plant cells and iron, tiny amounts but purer than anything on Earth Bet. This made the nerves superconductive, allowing the electric signals that would fire the nerves to travel almost instantaneously in comparison to the sluggish speed that human nerves had when transferring her body's commands to her limbs.

And said nerves were surrounded by a very effective insulative layer of goop, so electrocution making her suit fry itself and snap her limbs from randomly thrashing around because of a taser was not a possibility.

After about five minutes of the suit's control nerves connecting to her own, it would essentially take the delay between mental command and action, and remove it entirely, activating the contractile fibers of the suit's third layer to tug her limbs around the moment the nerve signals began to travel down the nape of her neck, and then her limbs would add delayed force to whatever motion she was going to do. It wasn't completely perfect, but it was strong, fast, and it was powerful.

She knew from experience how utterly invaluable a proper mind-to-muscle was. She still missed how some Legends' bodies felt. Perfect, mind and body in sync, weightless.

She was one step closer to that.

The second layer was essentially a very thin collection of countless interlocking inner armour plates, almost like woven-together scales, ones that could bend but greatly resisted flexing by having their complex weave pulling in the opposite direction whenever something pulled in one way or another, balancing the force out to remain in a neutral position.

Were the suit a body, this would be the skeleton.

And upon this skeleton, just like in a real body, they provided an anchor for the muscles to connect to and pull.

The third layer was these muscles, connected to each plate and configuring their connections during the initial fitting progress to ensure optimal coverage.

They were nothing but a layer of thick contractile fibers, their collective thickness about a half inch. They were the closest approximation she could make to organic braided muscles, which compared to human muscles, already could exert double the force, without factoring in the fact that the ones she made used the same material Zyra's core vines were made of, a dark gray wood that was only a hair away from steel in its strength and toughness, mixed with a unique plant's structure to allow for nerves to be able to make the fibers contract like tissue.

It was essentially like having a half inch thick layer of metal wire muscle around her, tugging her limbs by force.

It was a lot of fucking force. She didn't need to test it to know it.

The fourth and final layer was about another half inch thick. It was a large collection of dark gray wooden plates, the interlocking braided fibers tight enough for the grain to not even be visible, leaving a relatively smooth, metal-looking surface behind, layered around and within a special shock-absorbing goop that would remain tough as plastic normally, but would immediately soften if outside force tried to deform its structure in a short amount of time.

Providing optimal resistance against both cutting damage, which carried little genuine impact and would keep the goop hard and an obstacle during a slash, and protection to blunt impact by dissipating the force across a wider area with a thinner consistency than her actual outer armour plates.

Said armour plates were actually only about a quarter inch thick on most of her body, but with two to three layers of them connecting around every part of her between the goop like segmented plates of metal, she honestly felt like she could tank a punch from Glory Girl and only come out winded.

The helmet was shaped more like an axe head or a wide wedge, with the upper half being transparent visor and the lower half being a smooth plate.

The helmet was essentially made of the same layers as the rest, barring the muscles but with twice the armour in place of them, with the added difference that it had a biological filter respirator that latched onto her lower face, and a visor that was not unlike someone took an axe head and wedged it open to be a little wider, which pressed into her sockets to isolate her eyes from the rest of the helmet.

The wedge-like visor wasn't made of glass, of course, but it was made of a perfectly transparent tissue used by a single flower in Zyra's arsenal, tightly pressed a hundred times to have the rough consistency of thick plastic and about as clear, and fused into the armour around it. Not perfectly clear like glass, but close enough for it to not matter.

The little extra space there was inside of the helmet was also filled with a liquid that was a mixture between the impact absorbing goop and the cleaning goop.

The final two features she'd put into the armour was a small network of veins to deliver cooling fluid around the muscles and her helmet, and a small amount of redundant muscles she could contract at will to pull armor plates away from her waist and lower legs.

Mostly to pile those armor plates away from her waist and calves and onto her hips and thighs, actually.

She'd only added that when she realized how heavy and war-oriented the armor looked, without a hint of gender or personhood to it, completely hiding any notion of who might be wearing it, which just wouldn't do when and if she eventually came public. Having a more feminine bend to her armour would be good for appearances, even if it made her look more like an amazon than she was.

And the armour's defensive weapons were last.

Namely, Zyra's magical crystal thorns.

Though it would be more accurate to call them blades, seeing as how they could cut as well as stab.

And holy shit could they cut.

The crystal thorns were not unlike what would happen if one took the molecular-sharp nature of obsidian, and made the obsidian significantly harder. Not unbreakable, but… good luck breaking them.

So she'd stuck them all across her armour, pink-red luminescent thorns jutting out of her elbows, her shoulder pads, her knuckles, jutting out of her spine, and finally, on her jaw and across the front of her wedge-shaped helmet, a crown made of thorns that actually made her look like some evil overlord or even Behemoth if one squinted really hard and ignored the visor.

She had debated trying to add more, but one, the migraine, and two, the armour was already jam-packed as much as she could make it without making it uncomfortably bulky or impossible to use without charging it with mana to keep it alive every ten minutes.

Once she made some mana batteries and shoved them into the plant suit, it could last weeks without her intervention, so maybe then. Now, this was more than good enough for Summoner. But as amazing as this suit was, she had it ready for Summoner.

Not Taylor, the Ward.

Which meant she still had another suit to make specifically for the Wards, or else she'd get stuck with something vaguely pink and purple or some crap the PRT's image team would spit out.

And she did not trust them with neither her safety nor her privacy. They might put trackers in the suit or something, she didn't know. Or use to record her conversations on patrol. Not worth the risk.

With the pounding migraine she was nursing from making something this energy-expensive, any more extensive Legend work would have to wait, so the Ward costume would have to wait for late tomorrow. Nothing else to do about it. So she sucked it up, and went for something simple.

She grabbed metal pipes and used Taliyah to wrap stone around their ends, making dumbbells and a bench in the corner.

Running would make her pulse race and likely have her squirming in agony on the floor from the headache, but some casual, slow tempo lifting would allow her to work out without wishing for death.

And lifting weights was relatively mindless so she could take the time to plan and think.

She had forgotten how terrible the shakes were when an untrained body first began going on such a journey. Especially when she went straight for a full body workout.

Really, she knew how to work out perfectly well, every single muscle she had, and she also knew how to not injure herself, but by the time she was done, her entire body felt like it was made of electrified noodles.

Then, she spent a good four hours training her mana and trying to meditate the headache away, which surprisingly did help, just a little bit.

As midday came, she had exhausted herself in every way but mental, so she swapped to the Rune of Domination to activate both 'Ultimate Hunter', which was the tracking effect, and the 'Relentless Hunter' effect, which would give her a good speed boost so long as she was not in active combat.

Then she Teleported to her attic, and checked her texts.

Her minions were reporting well, and Trainwreck had taken Faultline up on her deal. Faultline said she had gotten the information on Canary and would strike tomorrow. Good.

She turned into Evelynn, and went to find Lisa, mildly surprised by how much faster she could fly with 'Relentless Hunter' active. She wasn't sure where exactly she had expected to find her, but it was not under a random depression in the untamed dirt next to the sea, where the gutters would spew out the city's trash, talking to some homeless dude as they sat on the dirt.

She floated closer, and eavesdropped for a minute or two. Lisa was trying to find some girl, apparently. Well, Taylor had been planning on dragging her out to some random field in the train yards so she could teach her how to use a gun, but whatever.

Deciding to leave her to her devices and ask her who she was looking for later, she floated up and away, deciding to use this form to start scouting safehouses, drug dens, and whatever else she might come to use against her enemies, floating above the ABB and generally eavesdropping on people.

She wasted an hour hearing goons talk about nothing interesting, before she decided to go to Lung's club again, curious of the aftermath, and hit the metaphorical jackpot.

Namely, the tense atmosphere up in the second floor, without any poor girl there to be found, was what clued her into going to Lisa's old room, ignoring the blood splatter staining the wall opposite the door.

There she found her.

The Tinker, Bakuda, taking apart the collar down to the bolts with furious fervour, a nervous guard in the room with her and another few outside the room, keeping quiet and sharing glances she couldn't parse the meaning of.

She floated into the room to better hear the frantic muttering.

"How, how the fuck- this shit- no, no this works, this motherfucker works, you didn't betray me either little capacitor, don't worry. So how the fuck did they disable the detonation mechanism for fuck's sake! Did they restart the collar? That doesn't make sense, I'm supposed to do that, nobody else!" Bakuda snarled to herself, low and angry as she pried apart two twined copper coils.

"Lung's going to rake my ass red now like it's my fucking fault he didn't want me putting a bomb in her head, because he doesn't trust me with his precious little Thinker whore. Like what, was he worried I'd fucking click the button just for fun? Makes no goddamn sense. The bitch is probably grinning her ass off about getting out after that little speech I gave her about how useless escaping was. It should have detonated, you should have detonated you little shit, why didn't you blow your load?!" Bakuda whisper-yelled, cracking open a plastic case that had… something in it, eye-hurting and shapeless, and Taylor averted her gaze in discomfort.

"Should have blown the moment you were empty, but you either got restarted, or turned off, but nobody can fucking do that, you shitty worthless stupid fuck, I should turn you into a cockring instead, asshole."

Taylor blankly watched the Tinker berate her own bombs and talk to them like they were people with a sense of growing bewilderment and amusement.

Psychotic maniac that's likely insane or not, Bakuda was entertaining at the very least. And judging from the insight she got when she swapped to the Rune of Inspiration, it would be quite easy to twist her around her finger. And if what PHO had to say about Bakuda was true, she didn't need to worry about morals at all.

Bakuda would be a great addition to her team. She just had to take her in a way that wouldn't kill her personality, because damn it, this was prime entertainment right here and she was eager to see how it would feel to have her own personal Tinker worshipper. Maybe that was a bad idea, honestly, considering the propensity she might have towards megalomania, but fuck it.

Her head was still pounding without any sign of slowing down, but all she had to do now was not let Bakuda out of her sight, and then Master her. She'd take some pain for an opportunity that was this good.

It took another forty mind-numbing minutes for Bakuda to finally go outside, grab her bike and start heading to her base, the back compartment of it filled to the brim with the collar's scraps.

When they finally arrived to her base, she wasn't quite sure what she was expecting, but an old car garage was not it. She expected something a little… grander.

Still, she followed Bakuda in as she slipped in through the back alley which was guarded by a homeless asian man who definitely was neither homeless nor harmless, and as Bakuda began walking through a dreary hallway of aged wallpaper and floor tiles that reminded her of an old bathroom, she scouted around and ahead for prying eyes, finding none.

Eventually, Bakuda walked up to a rusty old hatch in the corner of the half-filled garage, one that was connected to a thick bomb shelter hatch underneath, and descended down the ladder, into the darkness.

Taylor squeezed through before the heavy bomb hatch could close on her. She floated down and looked around, raising her metaphorical brows at the underground floor covered in miles of wire and generators and scrap and all manner of random stuff, as well as long shelves filled to the brim with plastic tubs full of grenades.

She was no Tinker, not a real one, but she could recognize that there were enough Tinker bombs in here to flatten a solid third of Brockton Bay. Probably.

She hurriedly materialized behind Bakuda as the woman touched ground, still invisible, and the moment the woman turned, she let the top half of her head turn visible, lashing out with an invisible hand to wrap around Bakuda's mouth and muffle a surprised cry.

Wide blue eyes met hers.

Her eyes flashed gold as a grin split her face in two.