TheMushroomLord

Reborn in a Fantasy World, This Time I Shall...! (Interest Check)

Also interested.

Parahumans: Earth Drega

All Tandems | Bank
June 19, 2021

---

Tandem was not having a good time. Most of the time having multiple trains of thought was great – planning was so much easier when you had three times the minds to work with and bounce ideas off – but then there were the situations where having three minds was decidedly less fun. Being on the verge of total breakdown, the panic from each mind feeding into and amplifying that of the other two, was definitely fell into the less fun category.

Even so, her panic itself was the last thing on any of Tandem’s minds right now. Even as tears stung her eyes and the force of her hyperventilation made her chest ache, Tandem forced her panic down to the back of her minds. It was just background noise. Something, she couldn’t afford to think about. Right now, she had to focus on the situation at hand, as hard as it might be to do so.

Right, she had plans for this sort of thing, lots and lots of plans. Even when things as minor as keeping her breathing under control felt insurmountable to her, Tandem could always fall back on her plans. Plans meant a degree of safety. As long as she could plan, she had a measure of control, even when things were totally out of control.

What was the first step? Manage her clones – that was always the first step. Letting them just stand around dumbstruck was a bad idea, and teleporting them around randomly wasn’t much better. She needed to keep herselves moving, far enough from each other that they’d be difficult to injure all at once, but not so far apart as to limit her mobility. Done.

What came next? Finding the hostages, they were the priority here.

Rapidly shunting her bodies between floors, Tandem spent only a fraction of a second in any given room, skipping them entirely if they didn’t seem likely to hold the hostages, or she saw signs that the mercenary capes might be present – just enough time to verify that the hostages probably weren’t there, before moving onto the next floor. As fast as she was going, she thought there was a decent chance she’d miss the hostages entirely and have to do a second sweep, but even so, she felt this was the fastest method of searching.

In the end, her concerns about needing to loop back turned out not to be unfounded. On what she figured must have been pretty close to the top floor, she found the hostages, huddled up near the centre of the room. It was obvious Blackburn had been here – hostages aside – from the puddles of liquid metal spread throughout the area. Tandem had seen quite a few of Ironside’s puddles on her way up, but even compared to some of the other areas of the building, this seemed like a lot.

The moment the hostages noticed her they immediately began begging her to leave in hushed whispers, and in an instant what meagre resolve Tandem had managed to build up crumbled as she was thrown back into the place she spent her every moment trying to avoid.

Tandem had thought about hostage situations a lot over the past 5 years, but on some level, the concept still didn’t make much sense to her. If you had a hostage, hurting or killing them would only serve to drive down the value of that hostage and more importantly it would make it far more difficult for people to negotiate with you in the first place. It was seemingly in the villain’s best interest to never hurt a hostage, but at the same time, if you never hurt a hostage then the threat wouldn’t hold any value.

To Tandem, the whole idea of hostage-taking seemed like a poorly thought out plan at best, one that didn’t make any logical sense if you thought it through to its conclusion, but at the same time she knew it worked because people weren’t logical under pressure. People made stupid decisions when they panicked, and so the threat worked. She knew that much all too well.

Before Tandem’s thoughts could spiral any further, she was snapped out of them by a horrible shrieking sound, a sudden surge of adrenaline snapping her back into reality as her three sets of eyes locked onto the massive humanoid construct that she had to assume Kintsugi had created. Tandem hardly had time to register the creature’s arrival, let alone to take stock of its features, before it charged at her, just barely managing to dismiss the clone it targeted before that clone was annihilated.

Though she honestly couldn’t say when, apparently at some point while she’d been out of it, Tandem had thrown up – the half-digested instances of the nutrient smoothies she had to drink, coating the insides of her masks and dripping down the front of her costume. Tandem hardly gave it any thought, only sparing a fraction of a moment to inventory the worst of the mess.

She’d fucked up again. She should have kept her mind on the plan rather than freaking out. Should have searched and secured the area once she’d found the hostages. Instead, she’d spent however long freaking out over nothing, and now she was paying the price for it.

The urgency of the situation the only thing keeping Tandem from slipping back into breakdown mode, she began desperately trying to piece together a plan for dealing with the Kintsugi’s construct. She was almost certain it was physically a lot stronger than her, not to mention more durable, but at least as far as she could tell it didn’t have any good options for attacking all of her bodies at once, not unless she brought her clones together for some reason. As much as she thought the idea of trying to slot powers into generic catchall categories, right now it really seemed as though she was up against a ‘generic brute’ type, at least until she could figure out more about the power that created it.

First thing first, she should try to debilitate the construct from a distance. To start with, Tandem tried conjuring up a sheet of paint directly above the concrete man. While the thing did have a head, it didn’t seem to have a face or any sensory ‘organs’ that Tandem could make out, even so that didn’t necessarily mean it didn’t ‘see’ through its surface or something, and even if it didn’t, it cost her basically nothing to check. At the same time that she was trying to blind the construct, another instance of Tandem set about creating a large puddle of lubricant, stretching the floor between the construct and the third Tandem whom the construct appeared to be targeting.

A moment was all it took for Tandem to determine that neither tactic would be effective against the construct.

Covering the creature in paint did little more than make the thing more colourful. There was still a chance it was detecting its surroundings by something like sound or touch, but in all likelihood, it was using a more esoteric, power-based method, in either case, even if she could find a way to cripple its senses it probably wouldn’t be worth the time it took to figure it out.

As for her attempt to trip the creature up, either it was too heavy for it to be easily slipped or whatever mechanism it used to move its body also prevented it from slipping. Tandem briefly considered giving ball bearings a shot but decided not to for the time being; it might work, but it was a lot harder for her power to clean up and might end up catching her allies or the hostages if they needed to move.

With her initial probing attempts having failed to find an opening, Tandem switched instead to trying to use physical barriers to control its movements, rapidly constructing piles of sandbags, bricks, and other such materials from within her inventory in the creature's path. Unfortunately, this too failed to restrict it to any meaningful degree, the living statue simply ignoring the obstructions at best and at worst creating dangerous showers of shrapnel as it barrelled right through them. Tandem quickly abandoned that idea.

Feeling as though her attempts at restricting the construct weren’t helping, Tandem decided to switch to the offensive. Provided the concrete it appeared to be made of wasn’t reinforced by Kintsugi’s power, she felt pretty sure she could do some damage if she hit it with her manhole cover, but with the way the construct moved around, that was a pretty big if. You’d think a creature that big and literally made of stone would be less agile than it was… What else was there?

…

Immediately after dismissing one of her clones to avoid yet another charge from the monster, Tandem created a replacement clone directly behind it, the new clone reaching out to grab onto the constructs arm. It was hard to tell just by looking at the thing, but depending on how exactly Kintsugi’s power created the constructs it was possible they were made up of multiple smaller parts, in which case she might be able to simply shunt those parts off into her inventory.

The Tandem felt her stomach drop the moment it touched the concrete man, and the other two visibly flinched when their other received the constructs backhand, getting hit hard enough to be flung back several paces by the blow. Tandem had thought she’d gotten used to the experience of being maimed or dying, but it turned out that it was a whole other story when she wasn’t the one inflicting it on herself.

While the injured Tandem writhed in agony, the two watching Tandem’s observed that in a single attack, the construct had almost certainly broken a lot within their counterpart. They almost reflexively dismissed the injured clone, if only to end the pain, but held off – the constructs focus still appeared to be on the crippled Tandem and this was too good of an opportunity to pass up for comfort.

Pushing as much of the pain of the injury onto another Tandem, the injured one forced herself back onto her feet, even as the construct closed what little distance it had created between them. Meanwhile, the final Tandem instance adopted a stance as though she were about to throw a fastball, though she held nothing in her hand. She just needed to hold it still for a second, and then she could end this.

Just as the construct had taken the last step and was about to bare down on the injured Tandem, something that was somehow far larger than it came hurtling through the window, seeming to home in on the construct before in the blink of an eye the newcomer had grabbed and thrown the Kintsugi’s creation out of the newly opened up hole in the wall. The whole thing happening so fast, that even with three pairs of eyes watching it happen, it still took Tandem a second to comprehend what had happened. Bird guy had just taken out in a second the enemy that Tandem had struggled to do exactly nothing to for the better part of a minute.

"I-Is...Is everyone alright...?"

Her teammate's voice snapped Tandem out of her daze. She was not in fact alright, but that didn’t matter right now.

Tandem had been panicking during the fight, but it’d been an almost useful sort of panic, one that left her relatively clearheaded and let her focus on what needed to be done. Now that the adrenaline was beginning to fade, however, Tandem found herself rapidly reverting to a far less controlled sort of panic. She needed something to focus on.

Right, the hostages.

Tandem took a moment to replace her clones, first the badly injured one, followed shortly by the one she’d been using to take on the brunt of the injured one’s pain. The new instances didn’t hesitate before setting about their task, quickly moving to obstruct all entrances and exits to the room, save for the massive hole in the wall, with various materials from her inventory. Only once that was done did Tandem begin running around trying to systematically remove each and every one of the many metallic puddles that filled the room, shunting the stuff into her inventory.

A buzzing in her ear briefly startled Tandem before she realised it was just the comms device she’d been given. It was Keystone on the other end, and Tandem was particularly careful to actually listen to the thinker’s advice. Using containment foam on the waypoints would have been a great idea, if she’d actually had any, and it would have been a game changer against the Kintsugi construct. If only she actually had any.

Tandem recalled back to when she’d requested to receive several gallons of the raw containment foam fluid, and had been offered the grenades instead. She’d rejected the offer at the time, thinking at the time she might be able to strong-arm the Protectorate into giving into her demands if she did, but in hindsight her stubbornness had been really stupid.

Also, on the topic of the comms devices, Decree had contacted her earlier asking to be told if she found the hostages, hadn’t she? Not that it really should have mattered. Tandem should have been in contact with her teammates from the get-go, especially for important things like having found the hostages or putting them in danger, but the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. Yet another way she’d fucked up.

Having left it in her inventory for quite some time, Tandem was able to activate her own comms device with preternatural ease, though it still took her a moment to actually remember the process for doing so.

“Um, this is Tandem. I’ve located the hostages somewhere near the top of the building… Bird guy is also here. I’ve put barricades up in front of the entrances, but I can remove those if anyone needs to get in. There are a lot of Ironside’s puddles in here, but I’m removing them now.”

Tandem couldn’t manage to keep the shaking out of her voice and she spoke fast enough that she would likely be somewhat hard to understand, but right now she couldn’t afford to stress about minor details like that. To an outside observer, Tandem would not appear to be in a good state, while any sign of injury had vanished along with the only injured clone, Tandem somehow managed to appear exhausted even through her mask and costume, her breath uneven and her shirt covered in the now crusting remains of when she threw up on herself, shivering violently in the aftermath of the adrenaline spike.

“Are you able to start flying people down to safety.” Tandem addressed Muninn. She didn’t bother turning off her comms device, it was probably better if their teammates knew what they were doing or at the very least that Keystone was able to point out any bad ideas she had. “Also, to any people not currently being carried down, I need you to watch the puddles and warn me if anything happens… please.”

With that, Tandem turned her full attention back to clearing out Ironside’s waypoints as fast as possible.

Parahumans: Earth Drega

All Tandems | Bridgewater Bank
June 19, 2021

---

It took 10 minutes for the Wards to be loaded up into a van and driven to the bank where the robbery was taking place. Along the way, they were briefed on the details of the robbery and suggestions were made as to how they might handle the situation. Tandem didn’t particularly agree with the suggestions made for her – she could better utilise her power if she operated her clones together, especially if she was going to be putting those bodies at risk, not to mention that she couldn’t separate them by more than 24 feet in the first place.

Despite her disagreements, Tandem didn’t voice her opinion on the matter, they were only suggestions after all, and in any case, she was distracted by something that had been mentioned earlier in the briefing.

There were hostages. It was a hostage situation in a bank.

When that part had first been mentioned in the briefing, anyone paying Tandem any mind at all, or even just looking her way really, would have noticed her clones flickering in and out of existence for a few seconds after the fact. Dismissed and replaced one after the other in a desperate attempt to cut off the inevitable trains of thought before they could take root. It hadn’t worked, and now, whatever excitement she’d felt only minutes earlier at the prospect of engaging with capes in a proper fight, was completely gone, replaced by an all-consuming panic that threatened to overwhelm her.

Tandem was standing outside the bank building. Right. She’d teleported out the moment the van had come to a stop. She had to focus…

It was one of the things she’d thought about a lot since signing up for the Wards, so she knew the first thing she should do was get her hands on a proper weapon. She might have to fight someone, and while she had plenty of things she could use, it’d be a problem if the Protectorate found out she was carrying even a fraction of the stuff she was.

Scanning about, Tandem quickly spotted what she was looking for. Creating a clone over by a manhole, she quickly used its foot to shunt the cover into her inventory. The manhole cover would be far too heavy to throw with her own strength, but she didn’t need to rely on that in order to throw it with her power, and its weight would allow it to do quite a bit of damage to whatever she threw it at.

Normally, the idea of using her power for something like that would get Tandem excited, but somehow the fact that today she might end up actually needing to do it made it distinctly less so. She didn’t want to hurt anyone… An imagining of what the manhole might do to a person if she launched it at them, bubbled to the surface of the clone that’d collected its mind, and she quickly replaced the clone.

No. It was just a precaution. It was fine. She didn’t have time to think about that right now. What she needed to do was plan. Figure out a way to make sure everything stayed okay.

Right. The hostages.

Could they find a way to get the hostages out, or short of that, secure wherever the hostages were being held before they could be executed? That might work, right? Hornet could probably identify where all the hostages were being kept, sorta like they’d talked about before, and Keystone might be able to do something similar with his power. Then it’d just be a matter of getting into the room, which probably wouldn’t be all that hard with two teleporters and a flyer on the team, after which they could work on protecting everyone.

Bang!

Just as a plan started to come together in Tandem’s mind, a loud bang rang out from inside the building, causing all three of Tandem to jump and shattering what little stability she’d managed to regain.

Suddenly whatever plan Tandem had been formulating was gone from her minds, and she found herself having teleported her bodies directly into the bank.

If being outside the bank had been bad, being inside the bank was a nightmare to Tandem. She vaguely registered that Decree had said something in her earpiece, but her attention was elsewhere so she couldn't say what; actually seeing the hostages forced memories Tandem had long since repressed back up to the surface of her mind, and this time there was no just dismissing the offending body. She’d started to hyperventilate at some point, her breaths seeming to get shallower and more rapid with every passing moment.

Tandem felt tears starting to sting at her eyes, and bile rising in one of her throats; she shunted it all into her inventory. Now wasn’t the time to feel sorry for herself, getting to test out her ideas on capes was supposed to be fun, right?

Parahumans: Earth Drega

Tandem 1 | PRT Headquarters, Meeting Room | @Mintz
June 19, 2021

---

Huh. So apparently the birdman hadn’t even known he could change his size. Well, he was a fairly new cape, so that sorta made sense; as much as Tandem thought powers were awesome now, when she’d first gotten hers she’d been terrified of parahumans, it had probably taken her a year or so to finally realise how cool powers were and to start properly figuring out how to use her own.

Tandem figured the size-changing ability must be the sort of power to do its own thing when the bird guy wasn’t focused on it, but she wondered whether it was something he could take conscious control of when he wanted, like breathing was, or if it was always out of his control, like a heartbeat. If it was the latter that’d be somewhat unfortunate, but there would probably still be rules behind when and how it did what it did that could be exploited once bird guy figured it out.

As for the mothman thing, bird guy’s explanation sorta made sense - his feathers and fur were, as he’d pointed out, very dark - although Tandem still thought that people jumping to him being a moth was kinda weird. Even if moths only came out at night, Tandem was pretty sure they didn’t have white eyes, and for that matter, could moths even be black in the first place? Still, being hard to see in the dark was an interesting aspect of his power, especially since he’d already mentioned he could fly silently and see in the dark.

Did Wards do night missions? She’d never seen Wards out after dark, but it wasn’t like cape encounters were all that common in the first place. Thus far it looked like the Wards followed normal people schedules, but it’d make sense if they sometimes had to operate after dark; Tandem knew from personal experience that some criminals were very much active at night.

Before Tandem could continue her questioning of the nervous cape or share her speculations on how his power might work, she was interrupted by a man in a suit entering the room. The newcomer introduced himself as Vice Director Fukuda and addressed the Wards…

Tandem 2 | PRT Headquarters, Meeting Room | @Duoya
June 19, 2021

---

Tandem decided that other than being a bit of a grump, Keystone was actually pretty cool. He’d said that the only reason he didn’t have a gun was because he’d been denied a pistol, which checked out with all the stuff she’d been told she wasn’t allowed to carry. Well in her case her power let her ignore those particular rules, so if the situation called for it she’d be more than happy to hand Keystone a gun or two, though she wouldn’t say so right now - even if she whispered it, it’d be really silly to say she had firearms while standing so close to Axiom.

More importantly, Tandem had picked up some interesting bits and pieces about Keystone's power. For one, Keystone had pretty much confirmed his power could see into her inventory to some extent; if his comment about her having a first aid kit hadn’t been an admission, his request that she not to “set something off” certainly was. More interestingly, Keystone’s power seemed to have given him her name - or her cape name at least, though she reasoned it wasn’t all that unlikely that it had given him both and he just hadn’t used her real one because secret identities were meant to be secret, even when they absolutely weren’t.

He’d said his power was about finding weaknesses; did that mean her name was somehow a weakness then? Or did his power give him extra information along with the weaknesses? A ‘that’s Tandem, you should blow her up’ sort of thing. She’d ask him about that in a bit, but for now, she was interested in the other part of what he’d said, that he wanted to team up on patrol with her.

Of course Tandem really wanted to patrol with Keystone… well she really wanted to patrol with any of her new teammates, except for maybe Ethos, but Keystone’s power was the most interesting of the lot and she was itching to ask him all about her weaknesses and those of her teammates, and then trying to come up with workarounds. Very few powers had the intrinsic capacity to grow, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t improve their use, and thinking about how to do so was always lots and lots of fun.

"Sure, sounds fun.”

Before Tandem could say any more, Vice Director Fukuda entered the room.

Tandem 3 | PRT Headquarters, Meeting Room | @King Cosmos
June 19, 2021

---

Tandem had startled Hornet when she’d teleported in front of her. Oops. In hindsight she probably should have seen that coming, it wasn’t like surprise was an unusual response to having someone teleport in front of you, actually, it was probably the normal response to that happening. Still, it was a lot more convenient than having to walk around everywhere and there were plenty of cases where she needed to dismiss and resummon her selves, so it wasn’t like she could just not do it…

“Um– sorry… would it be better if I appear behind you next time?”

After a moment she had a better idea, or rather thought of a way to apply an idea she’d already had. “Ah! What if I gave you a signal first? Like with coloured paper or something.” Excited to show off her idea, Tandem didn’t bother waiting for an answer before demonstrating her idea by summoning a piece of yellow confetti in the air between the two of them.

Moving on. The ability to sense where she could teleport was awesome, and frankly, it made Tandem a little jealous. There was so much she would be able to do with a power like that.

“You’d be awesome at search and rescue! I tried to go into a burning building once, but my power’s not really good for that so I had to run away… but you’d probably be able to find everyone really quickly and could jump right to them! That’s really, really cool!” Tandem paused for a fraction of a second, thinking, before having another thought. “Does your power only work on people? If it works on animals we could all carry around boxes of rats or bugs or something and then you could teleport all around us… well, I wouldn’t be able to, but the others might.”

Tandem briefly considered pulling a dead mouse out of her inventory to illustrate her idea, but recalled how she'd gotten in trouble when she'd done something similar during official power testing, and decided against the idea. It'd be annoying to lose time getting told off right now.

It was kind of a shame that Hornet didn’t know how potent her invincibility was, though it did make sense as to why they couldn’t safely test that. Tandem supposed she was lucky in that sense - if she ever wanted to try something with her power that might be dangerous she only needed to make sure one of her bodies came out unscathed, which certainly made power testing a lot easier. Still, there had to be ways to safely test Hornet, right?

“Does your power strengthen other things you teleport with you? What if you teleported with a stick or piece of paper or something and then tried to break that?”

Tandem moved to touch the piece of confetti she’d dropped before with her shoe, shunting it back into her inventory. She was about to suggest the two of them try training together at some point, especially since their respective mover powers seemed like they’d synergise really, really, well with one another, but before she could get the words out, Vice Director Fukuda arrived.

All Tandems | PRT Headquarters, Meeting Room
June 19, 2021

---

Two of Tandem’s three heads whipped around to observe the vice director as he addressed the room, the third instead looked to Axiom and her new teammates to gauge their reactions to whatever was said.

They’d be dealing with a bank robbery? Tandem had never really understood why someone would try to rob a bank or steal money at all for that matter. Wasn’t it easier to just take the thing you wanted the money to buy in the first place? Whatever, that detail wasn’t the important one, what mattered was that the robbers were mercenaries. Cape mercenaries.

A knot of anxiety bloomed in Tandem's chests. She’d gotten by all this time by avoiding any head-to-head conflict with other capes, generally satisfying herself with observing them and at most heckling them a little, but it looked like today she’d finally be getting into a proper fight. Tandem could feel her hearts pounding as her minds rushed with countless possibilities for ways this could go wrong, yet despite her anxiety, she couldn’t help but also start to grin beneath her masks. The option to avoid intergang conflicts had been lost the moment she’d decided to join the Wards, and scary as it was, getting to finally try out some of the ideas she’d been sitting on was really, really exciting.

From the looks of things, bird guy was also excited, judging by how large he’d suddenly grown.

Parahumans: Earth Drega

All Tandems | PRT Headquarters
June 19, 2021, 9:08

---

Any questions? Of course she had questions, so many questions! Not about their schedules though. That wasn’t all that interesting and the other's could deal with sorting that out if they cared.

Faith had been the first person to introduce herself after Tandem. Her power was cool but Tandem had already had the chance to discuss it with her extensively, so that didn’t interest her as much as the others. Although Tandem still thought it was a little odd how careful Faith was about not using her power, avoiding accidents made sense with a power like that, but surely no one would care about little slip-ups. Not using her power at all must really suck big time, Faith was too nice for her own good.

As one of the people who’d accepted her offer of candy, Tandem decided she liked the bird person. Their power was as they put it, a bit self-explanatory. They were a big bird creature and could do big bird creature things. Being silent and having enhanced senses was pretty cool though; Tandem bet they’d be awesome at scouting things out in the dark. She briefly wondered if they were strong enough to carry people around – well they did mention their claws being quite sharp, but maybe someone could ride on them like a horse? Also, she’d seen them do a size-changing thing when they took the candy? Was an aspect of their power that could be used?

Keystone had gone next in his explanation he seemed to be a bit grumpy, but Tandem could deal with grumpy and it sounded like that was a result of his power anyway, which made it the extra cool kind of grumpy. For that matter, of all her teammates, his power was probably the one that interested Tandem the most and she definitely wanted to probe him for information, both on her own weaknesses and those of her teammates – as well as just to find out where exactly the limits to his power lay. It helped a bit that Tandem figured that with a power like that on their side the chances of there being a secret double agent on the team seemed significantly slimmer, not when calling out someone's secret allegiances probably counted as a weakness… unless his power didn’t work like that, but it probably did, he’d been able to pick out that she was carrying a first aid kit in her inventory after all – several actually – so he should probably also be able to do that. She should ask.

Where Decree was the kind of master Tandem could get along with Ethos was anything but. Tandem immediately decided Ethos was the one cape in the room who she didn’t like one bit – and the only cape whose power she wouldn’t want to touch with a 10-foot pole.

Hornet’s power was also interesting, even if she decided to leave all the important details out. A teleportation ability that granted short-lived super strength and invulnerability? It sounded as though Hornet’s teleportation targets were a little more restrictive than Tandem’s own since she said she apparently had to teleport next to people, but depending on her range that might still be better and she wouldn’t have to worry about ‘clone weaving’ so she would probably be able to pull off teleports in quicker succession. How did her invulnerability work and how long does it last? Also if she could teleport to people could she sense them with her power as well, or did she have to know they were there first?

Richter was second to last to speak. He didn’t really explain his power so much as to demonstrate it by disintegrating a coin. He also warned the group that he couldn’t turn off his power, which put him in a similar boat to Tandem, though more inconvenient in his case. Some part of Tandem wondered if getting disintegrated would hurt or not – on the one hand if it did she definitely didn’t want to try it, but on the other, a not insignificant part of her wanted to poke him to find out.

Since the tinker girl didn’t speak up, that just left Shattercrash. Tandem still didn’t like her very much – she was too loud and intimidating – but at least her power looked cool and she was still quite a bit better than Ethos personality wise. Annoyingly Tandem wasn’t able to get a whole lot from Shattercrash’s explanation of her power. What the hell was kinetic energy? She’d almost asked but decided not to, that was probably the sort of thing that everyone was meant to already know.

Seeing as it was question time, Tandem decided she should ask some of her own. Debating it amongst herselves for a moment, Tandem's curiosity finally won out over her paranoia and she reluctantly shuffled her clones around so they were all in the room.

Tandem 1 | PRT Headquarters, Meeting Room | @Mintz, @Silver Carrot
June 19, 2021, 9:08

---

Popping into existence behind Decree and the bird guy Tandem immediately set about trying the get the changer’s attention.

“Psst. Hey bird guy. What was that thing you did with the size change earlier? How does it work?” Tandem’s whisper could barely be called a whisper for how loud it was. “Also I think some of my friends were calling you mothman before, but you don’t really look much like a moth. Maybe you should fly around during the day so people can see you're not a moth.”

Tandem 2 | PRT Headquarters, Meeting Room | @Duoya
June 19, 2021, 9:08

---

The second Tandem approached the thinker where he was asking Axiom questions, waiting for a moment to slip in and speak to the guy. While there were a whole lot of questions she had to ask the guy regarding her own weaknesses and the weaknesses, the weaknesses of her various plans, and the weaknesses of her teammates, not to mention the guy’s power in general, first she had a more pressing issue to get out of the way.

“Hey Keystone. If your power hypothetically maybe at some point tells you that I’ve got something in my inventory that I could get in trouble for could you keep it a secret?”, unlike her counterpart this Tandem spoke in a voice that was actually deserving of being called a whisper. “I promise it’s not to hurt anyone, just for emergencies and stuff like that. You seem like you get being prepared, right?”

Tandem 3 | PRT Headquarters, Meeting Room | @King Cosmos
June 19, 2021, 9:08

---

The final Tandem popped up next to the Hornet girl, not hesitating any longer than it took her to take a deep breath before immediately diving into her questions.

“Hey, you said you were Hornet right? You said your power lets you teleport to people, how does that work? Do you need to see your target or does your power let you know where people are? What’s the range and is there a limit on how quickly you can use it? If you can teleport to me, maybe we can practise coordinating our powers? Also, you said you gain invulnerability? How does that work? Can you still be thrown around or do you become super heavy or something?” Tandem’s excited stream of words continued without pause until the very last of her breath had been exhausted and she’d needed to wheeze out the final words.

We Aren't The Hero's Party - Fanrasy Anime RP (Cancelled)

Definitely interested if you've still got the room.

Parahumans: Earth Drega

All Tandems | PRT Headquarters
June 19, 2021, 9:02

---

Tandem was surprised to see Axiom unmask herself so readily…


Tandem 3 | PRT Headquarters, Hallway
June 19, 2021, 9:03

---

… Was that a sign that they’d done some more in-depth background checks on her and her teammates? Axiom probably wouldn’t have unmasked to them so readily if there was any chance they might secretly be gang members, or mastered, or something like that, right?

Or maybe Axiom was just an idiot? Probably not, she seemed smart and could tinkers even be idiots in the first place? If their powers taught them the principles behind their technology, surely a certain level of intelligence would be needed in order to actually apply that knowledge… or maybe tinker powers worked more like some thinker powers and just sort of gave a recipe for tinkertech without requiring any sort of understanding? Tandem’s own thinker ability was a bit like that – if she chucked a book into her inventory for a couple of hours, she’d be able to recite its contents word for word, assuming she knew the language at least, but she wouldn’t gain any deeper understanding of its contents no matter how long she let it sit in there.

She decided to ask someone about it later, probably either Axiom or Wattson…


Tandem 2 | PRT Headquarters, Meeting Room
June 19, 2021, 9:03

---

… Argue as she might as to the necessity of having one of her own, Tandem did understand why it was important for most capes to have a secret identity. News hadn’t exactly been easy to come by while she’d been homeless – at least not the kind that concerned anything outside of her immediate environment and things that might affect that environment – but capes were pretty much Tandem’s favourite topic, and she’d talked about it enough to have at least some idea of the sorts of things that could happen when a cape’s identity got exposed. Not to mention that PR kept on drilling the concept into her. She wished they’d stop.

For capes, secret identities were a safeguard against other capes – the kinds of monsters that might decide that rather than risk going after another parahuman, it would be easier to just target their civilian friends or family… Which was why it seemed like kind of a big deal that Axiom would willingly unmask herself so soon. That was a major display of trust when literally every person in the know represented another liability, another avenue by which a loved one might be hurt.

Tandem felt a familiar pressure on her mind, her other selves pressing on her – trying to derail her from her current train of thought…

Of course, the risks of having a public identity only applied to most capes, and Tandem was lucky enough to be one of the ones who couldn’t really be targeted like that.

Most of her current friends were the kinds of people who had long since figured out how to lay low and fend for themselves; and even if they weren’t they’d already told her they weren’t the sorts of people anyone would bother with tracking down in order to get at her. And if she made new friends in her team they would have powers so that wouldn’t count.

… and it wasn’t she had any fam-

The instance was terminated and replaced.


All Tandems | PRT Headquarters
June 19, 2021, 9:05

---

Oops, she’d been getting distracted. There was so much to do and she was meant to be doing literally anything else. For starters, she’d stopped paying as much attention to her surroundings. That needed to be resolved. She also had to grab that tinkertech. And after she’d done that maybe she should go and introduce herself to her teammates in the end – right now seemed like a very good time to do something like that.

Collecting the earpiece, Tandem quickly duplicated it twice, making sure to keep at least one of her clones in the hallway at all times. Only once there were three copies of the tinker tech, did Tandem move to equip any of them, hesitating only slightly before curiosity got the better of her and she slipped the devices onto two of her three clones, the third copy being stowed into her inventory by the clone in the hallway.

Tinkertech acquired, Tandem turned her attention to her teammates and considered the best way to approach introducing herself. Maybe she should just come out and ask them how their powers worked? That was what she wanted to talk about, and what she assumed everyone else would also want to talk about. Who didn’t love power talk?

"What powers do we all have around here?"

Before Tandem could begin to question her teammates, Shatercrash beat her to the punchline; not that she would complain this made things far easier for her. Tandem jittered on the balls of her feet, the lingering shock and panic from earlier, rapidly giving way to excitement in anticipation of the power talk. When no one immediately spoke up, Tandem took that as her opportunity to do so.

"I can store stuff I touch and then put it back anywhere within a certain distance of one of my bodies," Tandem chirped, demonstrating the ability by briefly storing her mask before making it reappear in the air a foot or so in front of her head, deftly catching it before reaffixing it to her face. She hadn’t bothered to give herself any sort of introduction, not even thinking to, and instead jumping straight into the long-awaited power talk. "I also have another power that makes there always be two or three of me, and I can move them around, and they’re all me, so it doesn’t really matter if they get stabbed or something as long as one of me is okay. Oh, and I get good at using things that I have stored for a while. And…"

As reluctant as she’d been to speak before, now that she’d gotten started she struggled to stop. Nonetheless, Tandem cut herself off. There were so many things to explain about her power set and she was itching to tell them all, but that would take a while, and she could recognise that she was kinda butchering her explications right now, so she could at least wait until she was calm enough to do it properly. In any case, even more than she wanted to explain her powers, she really, really, wanted to hear about her team teammates'.

"Um, there’s lots and lots of things I can do with my powers but it will take a long time to explain them all…"

Tandem had intended to leave it at that, but was struck by a brilliant idea.

She dismissed and reconjured the clone she was using to interact with her teammates, repositioning it such that its back was pointed towards the adults. Then leaning in conspiratorially, Tandem created a fold in her poncho reaching into it as though she were the world's most conspicuous drug dealer reaching into their coat. She conjured several bags of confectioneries to her hand.

"Anyone want some candy?"

Tandem stored a bag to replace it with another, cycling through to show off her impressive collection. Technically speaking all of it was stolen, but that probably didn’t matter; it wasn’t like she could return it now or would even if she could for that matter.

Parahumans: Earth Drega

Tandems | PRT Headquarters, 8:46AM
June 19, 2021

---

Upon arriving outside the meeting room, Ashley briefly contemplated using her power to conjure a clone directly into the room. A moment’s consideration later and she'd scrapped the idea; while she was pretty confident the stunt would make for a good first impression if she could pull it off, that was easier said than done. Without a decent level of familiarity with the layout of the room in question – not to mention the locations of the people inside it – there was a substantial risk she'd end up teleporting somewhere awkward, which would make for a decidedly less good first impression. Oh well, there would be opportunities to show off her powers, and more importantly, to see her teammates’ powers, soon enough.

If anything, despite already being a bit late, the moment Ashley spent loitering outside the room, was somewhat of a blessing in disguise. It gave her the chance to check everything was in order, and in doing so, realise she'd forgotten to put her mask on when she'd left the dorms. She was absolutely going to get chewed out for that later – no doubt dozens of people had seen her blinking down the halls completely unmasked, not to mention the guy whose office she’d accidentally teleported into while trying to shortcut across floors – but getting yelled at could wait until later. Besides, as far as Ashley was concerned, it really shouldn’t have mattered in the first place whether or not she wore it, the veneer of plausible deniability that had been built up around her identity was so thin it was probably transparent, though PR emphatically refused to listen to reason on that point.

Slipping on her mask Tandem copied herself twice over, dismissing her remaining unmasked self in the process, and then stepped into the meeting room. She was quick to recognise the three Protectorate capes present; Axiom – the local Protectorate branch’s resident tinker and the hero that had inducted Tandem into the Wards – Nightstalker – Bridgewater’s preeminent monster cape – and Grandmaster – quite possibly the strongest cape in the city and the leader of the Bridgewater Protectorate. Tandem had seen all three of the older capes in action at one point or another over her own five years as a cape, multiple times even, but that didn’t change how cool it was to be in the same room as so many interesting people.

Speaking of interesting people…

Tandem turned her attentions towards her fellow Wards, excitement building up between her copies.

One of her selves quickly locked on to the tinker looking cape, currently engaged in conversation with Axiom – a tinker conversation perhaps. She promptly identified the Ward as most likely being Wattson. Her thing was making stuff that let her turn invisible, right? Or at least that was the obvious and/or PR approved aspect of her creations – as far as Tandem understood it, Tinker's were rarely so limited in scope, though what additional range of technology the Ward might be able to employ she could only guess at. Tandem wondered if her own thinker ability would help her use or understand the other Ward's technology; she’d never gotten the opportunity to inventory tinker tech before and was eager to find out. Even if she couldn't it'd definitely be worth asking Wattson about it – despite the maximum size of objects Tandem could store being fairly limited, she imagined there'd still be plenty of devices that her inventory could store which would otherwise be too cumbersome to bring into the field, and more importantly, she really wanted to see what her power made of the tech, even if it couldn’t help her use it.

While one instance of Tandem was observing Wattson, another Tandem’s interest had immediately been drawn to the large bird(?) creature. Right… She'd heard there was a bird monster on the team, not to mention having followed the rumoured sightings of the cape when he'd first showed up. Moonnin of something, whatever that meant. In any case, hearing a drunk vagrant ranting about Bridgewater’s Mothman was entirely different from actually seeing the guy in person. He had to be like 20 feet tall! Actually, was she even sure it was a guy? She’d kind of assumed it was but she wasn’t sure. Shifting her gaze downwards failed to provide Tandem with any insights – not that she knew what bird person genitals were supposed to look like in the first place – should she just ask them?

The third Tandem split her attention between two other Wards, whom she mentally labelled Hood 1 and Hood 2, based on the shared design element between their costumes. Did PR like hoods? Should she get one as well? Tandem was pretty certain that one of the hooded capes was Richter – one of the other live-in Wards who she hadn’t really interacted with much – and since the remaining hooded cape didn’t particularly look like a bee she figured they were probably either Ethos or Keystone. Why did everyone have to make things difficult for her by choosing really obscure names for themselves?

The Tandem examining the Muninn shifted its attention to the girl that was speaking to him. It was Faith she realised – or rather Decree while she was in costume – another one of the live-in Wards and for the time being Tandem’s only cape friend, though she hoped for that last part to change shortly. Faith was probably the least interesting cape in the room right now, if only because Tandem already knew what her power was and had had several opportunities to train with her, but still she was nice and the presence of a familiar face was somewhat comforting if anything.

Her scan of the room's occupants completed Tandem wondered if she should go up and introduce herself to some of her teammates. Already dozens of questions for her fellow Ward’s had begun to bubble up within Tandem’s shared minds.

Still, would it really be a good idea to just approach an unknown parahuman? One of the ways she’d kept herself alive and out of any gangs until recently was by being cautious – a process that absolutely didn’t include approaching several parahumans, who’s powers she didn’t know, in a setting within which she couldn’t easily run. Tandem supposed it might be okay since they were all meant to be teammates and heroes, but she also knew they were letting former villains onto the team – it was perfectly plausible that one or more of the new Wards was still secretly a member of some other gang, and was planning on bombing the room or using a shaker power to eliminate the new Wards team and cripple the local Protectorate. Or maybe one of them had been mastered or was just a master projection. Or any number of other horrifying prospects for that matter.

One of Tandem’s clones blinked out to be promptly replaced by a new one in one of the rooms far corners, a moment later she repeated the action with a different clone on the other side of the room. She was about to repeat the manoeuvre with her third clone when she thought of a better idea and instead shunted it to the floor below. The new clone ended up appearing in a relatively quiet hallway where it promptly took a seat near the edge of her range; that got it a few odd looks, but it wasn’t like she wasn’t also where she was supposed to be, and bomb threats were serious business so Tandem ignored the stares.

Thinking about it, she had introduced herself to Decree, which had gone fine, but no, that in itself was probably appropriate caution given the scenario – that was a parahuman living in close proximity to her, for all she’d known Decree could have had the power to slowly give you cancer or master you by spending enough time near you, actually that second one was pretty close to her actual power…

Shaking one of her heads, Tandem unanimously decided that now probably wasn’t the time to introduce herself to her fellow Wards, even if at the same time she really, really wanted to do so. No, she’d at least wait until she had a better idea of what she was dealing with, which would hopefully be very soon.

And if things broke down before then she’d make a beeline between floors until she was out of the building and then lay low until things cooled off. Tandem briefly contemplated slicking the floor with lubricant and ball bearings and blocking barricading the door with sandbags in the event that her escape became necessary, but quickly realised that unless everyone in the room turned out to have been mastered or to be part of a gang, that was off the table. And if it did turn out that everyone was secretly her enemy, then she should probably just drop a bomb before running… wait no it’d be wrong to do that to someone that’d been mastered and there were plenty of ways good people could be forced into gangs, not to mention the probably innocent civilians in the surrounding rooms.

Tandem settled herself in, fidgeting impatiently, her several pairs of eyes looking out for threats while she continued to ponder escape plans and waited for the meeting to actually get started. Perhaps if it were only one enemy she could throw a bowling ball at their head? Maybe not, she wasn’t meant to have those, maybe a manhole cover or one of the weights she’d stolen from the gym then…

Tandem was still pondering the matter several minutes later, when something interesting finally happened. Axiom producing a tinker tech cube, which she quickly demonstrated to be a storage device of some kind. Tandem wondered if it worked similarly to her own ability… some tinkers took inspiration from other capes right? So it was entirely possible Axiom had based the design off- the Tandem in the hallway shuddered as she pushed any thoughts of her cluster mate from their minds.

The things that’d been stored in the cube turned out to be more tinker tech, devices to protect against master effects according to Axiom. Did they work against all master effect? Would they mess with her ability to coordinate herselves? What would her thinker power make of it?

Tandem briefly wondered if she’d be able to spin things in order to get her hands on three of the devices since she had the bodies, but somewhat dejectedly realised she’d pretty thoroughly explained how her instances worked – why had she done that!? In any case she’d be able to create three instances of the device at least, so she should be able to keep on in storage for her power to analyse, provided she was willing to leave on of her clones unprotected that was, which if anything might be the right play – at least until she could be certain they weren’t secretly tinker tech bombs or mastering devices or something like that. Tandem felt pretty confident that Axiom was trustworthy and probably wasn’t secretly part of a gang, but caution was the name of the game.

Before Tandem could get her hands on the tinker tech and Axiom could finish explaining the function of its casing they were interrupted by a loud bang as the door was kicked open. Both Tandem’s in the room startled at the sound, and the instance that had still been fixated on security very almost tried to drop several litres of paint on the newcomer before initiating its escape plan, only barely being stopped by the Tandem in the hallway who’d been spared the brunt of the panic by virtue of separation.

As the hallway instance mentally offloaded some of her other selves’ anxiety onto herself, those in the meeting space identified the newcomer as the remaining live-in Ward, Shattercrash, even as the girl announced as much herself. Tandem couldn’t say she knew much about the girl other than having a vague idea of her power and that she was kind of intimidating. She’d tried to question the girl a couple of times previously, but not wanting to cause team friction, ended up retreating each time when she’d gotten the distinct impression she was about to get glassed.

Tentatively Tandem returned to what she was doing, one of her clones vanishing to be replaced by a new, far calmer copy, in proximity of Axiom, while her other instance returned to scanning for threats, its efforts only enhanced by the lingering panic.

Parahumans: Earth Drega

'Tandem'

Tandem

---

---

Name: Ashley Witt

Cape Codename: Tandem (formerly Duplicate)

Age: 13

Appearance: Ashley possesses a scrawny build believed to be the result of nutritional deficiencies brought on by an interaction with her parahuman abilities (see Tandem Diet). As of June 10, 2021, Ashley is 148 cm tall and weighs 31kg (up from 28kg at the time of joining the Wards program).

Out of costume Ashley primarily dresses in standard issue live-in ward attire, showing little by way of individuality or personal style through her clothing. Ashley’s stated priority when dressing herself is practicality, however, this practicality to Ashley seems primarily to refer to comfort and ease of access and she has indicated pockets being useless to her on account of her power set.

Ashley has also been noted to wear her costume outside of fieldwork, either partially or in entirety. She has been instructed to stop doing this.

PR Note: I get that her identity isn't exactly the easiest thing to keep secret, with her power and history, but does this kid just not understand the concept of a secret identity?

Costume

PR Note: Kid really screwed us on this one. Apparently, when we told her as a Ward she’d be need to wear a costume, she took that to mean she should make her own and then reveal it and along with her new alias, in a very public manner all without informing any of us. I suppose it isn’t the biggest disaster amongst this new lot of Wards, or even with the kid herself, but still, could she have not just make this one thing easy on us? We'd already gotten the first draft of her costume done.

Parahuman Abilities

Power Classification: Cluster Trigger; Master 2/Mover 3 | Striker 2/Shaker 2/Thinker 1

Consistent with other members of her cluster (see Bank Cluster) Ashley expresses a primary ability (see Instancing) alongside a secondary ability bearing aspects of her cluster mates primary abilities (see Inventory). As with 'Simulacrum' – and in all likelihood 'Collateral', Ashley is a Noctis Cape.

Primary Ability: 'Instancing'

'Tandem’s' primary power involves the creation of clones which are identical to the instance of her from which they were copied at the moment of creation, but which may diverge from there. Clones have been observed to share proprioception and awareness of each other’s thoughts and have not demonstrated notable difficulty with coordinating with one another.

'Tandem' may freely create or dismiss her clones anywhere within 24 ft. of an existing clone, up to a maximum of 3 or down to a minimum of 2. If a clone ends up further than 24 ft. from all other existing clones, it is dismissed, in the case where multiple clones would end up too far apart a random clone is dismissed. If dismissal of a clone would result in 'Tandem’s' number of active clones dropping to 1, a new clone is instantly created in a random unoccupied space within 12 ft. of 'Tandem'.

Objects weighing up to 68kg, that 'Tandem' is wearing or holding at the time she creates a clone may be duplicated with that clone – the new instance of the object is considered tied to the new clone, while the original becomes tied to the clone that was used as a template. When a clone is dismissed, objects tied to that clone disappear with them, unless that object is the last remaining instance of itself in which case it is considered 'the original' and remains. (Note: Do not have an instance of 'Tandem' consume something and then dismiss itself without first creating another clone).

It is of note that this ability is significantly morbidity limited, though unable to affect living matter other than 'Tandem' herself. In particular, 'Tandem’s' ability to clone herself, does not replicate her microbiome causing several Gastrointestinal issues unless specific dietary protocols are maintained (see Tandem Diet).

Secondary Ability: 'Inventory'

'Tandem’s' secondary power involves the storage and retrieval of objects fitting within a 2.3ft radius sphere. Storage of objects requires 'Tandem' to be in physical contact with the object, however once stored an object can be returned to any location within 14 ft and in any configuration that the object in question may freely assume. Objects stored do not seem to observe the passage of time.

Objects exiting 'Tandem’s' power must be tied to the momentum of some part of 'Tandem' herself, though she is freely able to determine at which point along her body this occurs. 'Tandem’s' most notable use of this feature seems to be in “throwing” objects that would otherwise be too heavy for her to lift at relatively high speeds. In light of this ability, requests from 'Tandem' for “2-foot wide metal spheres” or other objects with potentially similar destructive capabilities are to be denied.

'Tandem' passively builds up an idea of how to use objects she has stored over time. This thinker aspect of the power relates solely to the potential uses and manipulations of objects stored in a purely physical sense, irrespective of their intended uses or functionality. For example, Tandem could learn how to pick a lock or operate a phone by storing the relevant items in her 'Inventory' but by storing something like a chess set, she’d learn how to effectively throw chess pieces, but not how to play chess. 'Tandem’s' power does account for her own powers as manipulations, and in fact, many of 'Tandem’s' favoured strategies involve placing items beneath the feet of her opponent or dropping them directly upon them.

It is also worth noting, that while 'Tandem' can attempt to retrieve items via vague parameters, she possesses no intrinsic knowledge as to the objects she is storing, making it possible for her to lose items should she forget she has stored them or to believe she has access to materials she does not.

While the exact method/location by which 'Tandem' stores matter remains unidentified, it has been confirmed that 'Tandem’s' storage is shared across her various instances without duplication. Objects stored by 'Tandem’ do not seem to be notably affected by the passage of time. While this ability is morbidity-limited, it does not seem to have as stringent limitations as 'Tandem’s' primary ability – objects stored by 'Tandem' appear to maintain their microbiomes.

Cross Power Interactions

Both of 'Tandem’s' abilities deal with the intersection of objects by instantaneously displacing the less massive object into the nearest available space; if this would cause a new intersection the same effect occurs, which may result in a cascading effect, though this effect always resolves to place Tandem within range of her other clones and move the least amount of matter possible.

While 'Tandem’s' Instancing and Inventory abilities bear a superficial resemblance to one another and in fact bear a number of similarities in the mechanics underlying their use, it should be noted that based on current speculation – corroborated by both tinker and thinker observation – it is believed that both powers utilise entirely different physics in their operation – believed to be matter replication and dimensional spaces respectively.

Power Notes

Note 1: As 'Tandem’s' power results in her constantly possessing multiple bodies in close proximity to one another, attempts to develop a civilian identity for the Ward have proven largely unsuccessful, even ignoring the continuing online circulation of images of 'Tandem' out of costume.

Note 2: When questioned as to the potential presence of unauthorised materials in her 'inventory' 'Tandem' routinely dodges the question or else claims that most items can be used as weapons, only denying accusations when pressed on the matter. It is subsequently, believed that 'Tandem' is carrying several deadly weapons in direct violation of her probation – potentially including IEDs and firearms, based on past interactions. As no evidence currently exists to prove 'Tandem’s' guilt and she has shown no intentions of using any such devices, the matter has been designated a low-priority issue.

Note 3: Ashley has indicated that her instancing ability can be used to perform chemistry that would not be possible within conventional physics (see Instanced Chemistry). Ashley has been instructed not to experiment with this ability without professional oversight. Investigation into the utility of this interaction is pending.

Psychological Evaluation

Personality: Ashley at a glance is brash and impulsive, typically seeming to act without too much prior thought. Digging a little deeper, one will find that Ashley is not quite as impulsive as she might first appear, and is in fact paranoid and cautious to a frankly concerning degree, constantly analysing and planning for the worst possible scenarios she can imagine.

Ashley holds little regard for social convention or systems of authority; though she can effectively be reasoned with, she consistently disregards decisions she perceives as being made on authority alone. She seems to possess a strong desire to help people, though apparently does not extend this desire to larger institutions or systems.

Ashley is generally curious and seems to have developed a strong fixation on Parahuman abilities as is common among very young triggers. While at the time of writing, Ashley’s fixation seems to be largely sated by access to her fellow Wards and PRT casefiles, it is worth keeping in mind that it was this fixation that fuelled the majority of her Parahuman interactions as 'Duplicate' and caution should be taken when letting her interact with outside Parahuman’s in the field.

Ashley appears to have a very strong Kiss/Kill derived hatred for her cluster mates, including the now deceased Ward 'Simulacrum'.

Strengths:

Experienced: Ashley has far more experience as a cape than is common for a ward. While Ashley has only been a parahuman for 5 years, the nature of her ability and lack of a civilian identity, have resulted in her gaining far more experience in that time than would be usual.

Power Application: Ashley has demonstrated somewhat of an obsession with the mechanics and application of parahuman abilities. In particular, Ashley has shown herself to be skilled at figuring out ways powers could theoretically be used and applying such techniques.

Weaknesses:

Disregard for Authority: Ashley has demonstrated a strong distaste for being told what to do by authority figures and has a tendency to disregard orders outright. Tends to respond more favourably when included in planning or after having orders explained, though this risks reinforcing negative behaviours and should be avoided unless compliance is paramount.

Paranoia: Ashley has displayed a somewhat concerning degree of paranoia. By her own admission, she is near constantly trying to identify potential obstacles or threats and develop means to counteract them. Ashley has been observed brainstorming hazards.

As similar 'Simulacrum' was documented to exhibit similar behavioural patterns, this behaviour may be the result of personality bleed from their shared trigger or a side effect of the thinker aspect of their secondary abilities. Furthermore, based on 'Simulacrum’s' psychological profile, it is possible that Ashley fundamentally lacks the capacity to feel safe.

Disrupted Education: Did failed to attend school during the 5 years between her trigger event and joining the wards program. Ashley has significant educational deficits.

Ashley seems to have somewhat of a complex against being perceived as stupid and tends to avoid situations where such scenarios might arise.

Power Reliance: Ashley has developed somewhat of a reliance on using her powers. Solutions Ashley employs almost always involve applying her Parahuman abilities, even when mundane means would be standard or superior.

History

July 11, 2016, 2:15pm: A mass hostage situation broke out during a failed bank robbery orchestrated by MSM gang members (see Main Street Maniacs). At 4:02pm, after a protracted standoff with PRT officers, civilians Adam Witt, Alice Witt, and ███████████ were murdered by the villain 'Migraine' (see Migraine), resulting in three simultaneous civilian trigger events (see Bank Cluster). Following the trigger events, PRT troopers were able to move in and arrest the MSM capes without suffering further civilian casualties.

July 13, 2016: A recently triggered parahuman approached PRT looking for help. Parahuman was successfully inducted as a Ward and given the codename 'Simulacrum' (see Simulacrum). Later confirmed to be a member of the Bank Cluster.

July 15, 2016: PRT agents were called in to deal with a homeless parahuman child attempting to pull off a string of petty thefts. The suspect identified themselves as 'Duplicate' (see Tandem) and displayed obvious parahuman abilities but made no attempt to hide their identity. Comparison with surveillance footage confirmed 'Duplicate’s' identity as the second member of the Bank Cluster, having triggered after her parents were murdered. 'Duplicate' seemed initially receptive to the idea of joining the wards but declined when informed one of her cluster mates had joined. As her crimes have consisted solely of petty misdemeanours and she has shown an aversion to violent crime, 'Duplicate' has been assessed as a low threat and recruitment is to be prioritised.

August 2, 2016: An as-of-yet unknown villain attacked a PRT transport vehicle transporting the villains 'Jackle Lantern' (see Jackle Lantern) and 'Migraine', resulting in the deaths of both captured villains and the transporting staff onboard. The attacking villain later identified themself as 'Collateral' (see Collateral), during a string of violent crimes. Strongly suspected to be the third member of the Bank Cluster. No attempt at recruitment made.

March 3, 2017, 1:30pm: An altercation broke out between parahumans 'Simulacrum', 'Collateral', and 'Duplicate'. The fight is believed to have been orchestrated by 'Collateral' and incurred significant damage to civilian infrastructure and resulted in the death of Ward 'Simulacrum' at the hands of 'Duplicate'. Following the incident 'Collateral' is confirmed to have fled the city, while 'Duplicate' is believed to have gone into hiding. (See Rook Street Incident)

Confessor Incident (2020): 'Duplicate' noted to have taken an active role in assisting civilians during and after the Confessor Incident.

April 26, 2021: 'Duplicate' approached 'Axom' with intentions of joining the Wards program, apparently concerned by increasing pressure from other villains to join a gang. In light of her role in assisting during the Collateral Incident, and due to her relatively clean criminal record – barring the Rook Street Incident, which has been determined to have been complicated by Kiss/Kill dynamic between involved capes.

May 1, 2021: 'Duplicate' was officially brought on as a probationary member of the Bridgewater Wards. Following this, 'Duplicate' has been provided with a costume and rebranded as 'Tandem' and reintroduced to the public.

Parahumans: Earth Drega

PRT HQ Ward Quarters, 8:42AM
June 19, 2021

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The lock body shifted slightly under the sudden change in weight, its core suddenly appearing next to it – shunted there in an instant as its former location was occupied by a small tungsten cylinder. A moment later with nothing to hold it in place, the cylinder too slid out of the lock body.

Ashley – the Ashley that had just used her power to dismantle a lock – gave a self-satisfied nod towards her handiwork, even as another instance of herself branched off from her, briefly popping into existence within arm’s reach of the lock parts to collect them and the conjured cylinder, before popping back out of reality as fast as she’d come. She’d been getting more accurate with that trick, faster too, which in Ashley's mind was as good a reason as any to get excited, even if she didn’t think it was likely this particular trick would ever come in handy – she already had plenty of ways to bypass locks after all, ways that were both quicker and easier, and the need to quickly dismantle a lock from range didn’t seem all that likely to come up.

In any case, it could never hurt to have more tricks up her sleeve. Something being unlikely to happen was different from something being unable to happen, and for all she knew, something about this one trick could save her arse someday. Besides, it wasn’t like she wasn’t working on other things; annoying restrictions aside, if there was one advantage to having joined the Wards, it was the access to resources she now enjoyed. Ball bearings, caltrops, lubricants, ropes, collapsible spike strips, the list went on.

It wasn’t perfect, they were dragging their feet on Ashley’s requests for containment foam, and they’d flat-out rejected her requests for cannonballs and explosives, even after she’d told them she didn’t plan to use them – were the heroes incapable of understanding the concept of preparedness? What if another threat like Confessor showed up, or there was an Endbringer attack, or Collateral returned to Bridgewater?

The only reason Ashley wasn’t working on one of the more useful new possibilities that had opened up to her right now, was that the Protectorate got weird about it whenever she tried to use the training facilities without supervision or had to wake someone up to watch her, and they got really weird about it whenever she suggested she just go practice outside if the training facilities were off limits. Speaking of…

Across the room, another instance of Ashley glanced down to look at the mobile phone that had appeared in her hand. 12:59… that didn’t seem right. Pointlessly she shook the phone, and a moment later the display updated itself to read 8:44 as the phone managed to reconnect to the internet, and a coming through just a second later, apparently to remind her of the impending Wards meeting. Right, she wasn’t supposed to put this thing in her inventory, was she? Honestly, managing the device seemed like more of a pain than it was worth, even if access to the internet was nice.

Whatever, the phone wasn't important right now. What was important was that she was cutting it really fine to make it to that meeting on time! Not that Ashley particularly cared about being punctual as a rule of thumb – at least not in cases where the circumstances weren't time-sensitive – but she really really really wanted to meet her fellow Wards! And now she might be late!

Familiar enough with the layout of the building after a month of exploring and living in the place, Ashley didn’t bother with the door, instead simply shunting the phone back into her inventory and creating another instance of herself on the other side of the wall. A moment later both the clones in the room were gone and second Ashley had appeared outside, immediately setting off with its twin towards the meeting room.